THE DOMESDAY SURVEY conclude, therefore, that by 'the borough' Domesday means that ' third penny ' of the borough dues which was normally the earl's portion. Another item helped to swell the 'income he received from ' Cotes ; ' a hundred bordars paid him fifty shillings a year in respect of their gardens ' outside Warwick.' Gardening on this extensive scale is probably unique in Domesday. 1 The realm described by Domesday is a realm in which the plough is king. To the ordinary reader there is something irksome in the dry, endless figures relating to the plough-land and the plough, and even the expert has to confess that he does not fully apprehend their significance or their intention. But whether or not the Conqueror and his ministers proposed to revise the system of land taxation, it is clear that they attached great importance to obtaining a record of the arable land and of the ploughs at work on it. In Warwickshire the feature that seems to call for special notice is the occurrence at certain places of a number of plough-teams in excess of that for which the land was reckoned to afford employment. At Bishop's Hampton, with land for twenty-two ploughs, there were two, we find, on the demesne and twenty-four outside it. Sowe, with its five plough-lands, had six plough-teams, and at Radway, with its six, there were six and a half. Charlecote had land for five ploughs, but on the demesne were two, and five outside it. That such excess was not due to mere scribal error, but was recognized by the com- missioners is shown by the case of Wolfhamcote, where there were two plough-lands, ' and yet,' they add, ' there are there three ploughs.' The same formula is used at Ladbroke, at Newton and at Holme, at each of which there was one for half a ploughland, at Walcote also, which for its one plough-land had two and a half ploughs, and at Lillington, where the discrepancy was so great that for only half a plough-land there were two ploughs. The value of a manor varied mainly with the amount of stock on it and especially of plough-oxen. When all the plough-oxen were gone, the manor was described as ' waste," for the land could not be worked. Of this ' waste ' land there was not much in Warwickshire. A ' hide ' at ' Rincele ' is so described ; a hide and a half at Kington, a hide at one of the Marstons, and a virgate and a half at Weston appear to complete the list, save for i hides at Harbury which are specially entered as laid
- waste by the king's army.'
Among the sources of rural wealth in addition to the ploughed land were the woodland, which was very extensive, the pasture for the stock, the watermills, and the meadows in the river-valleys. Although in War- wickshire the woodland is reckoned by rough estimates of its area, and not, as in certain other counties, by the number of swine it could feed, 1 its chief value as affording mast is implied by such entries as those at 1 But it mentions twenty-three men with gardens at Holywell, a suburb of Oxford. " At Stoneleigh, however, the information is added that it could feed 2,000 swine, and at Cough- ton there was reckoned to be pasture for 50 swine. At Kington by Claverdon it it reckoned in yet another way, as worth ten shillings a year. 291
