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THE DOMESDAY SURVEY Apart from the main Domesday classes at which we have glanced above, we have a miscellaneous group comprising the swineherds (fo. i8oi^), with the ' rustici porcarii ' at Oldberrow, the cowherd at Bushley, the foresters, of whom we have already heard, and the dairymaid {daia), who is found at Bushley and Queenhill. The very irregular mention of such classes as these suggests the need for caution in accepting the number given/ Indeed the omissions must be so serious that it would be a futile task to estimate the population of the county on the basis of the Domesday figures. Droitwich, probably, had many salt- workers, though only three or four are mentioned, and the eight burgesses, which is all that Ellis allows to Worcester, is a total obviously absurd. The swine, again, must have needed herds in more than the two or three places where we find them mentioned, and the ' newly- planted vineyard ' at Hampton by Evesham must have had its vineyard man.^ On agricultural services, the information in Domesday requires to be largely supplemented by the surveys of the monks of Worcester's manors in Archdeacon Hale's Registrum, and those of the Evesham manors in the cartularies of that abbey. There is an interesting entry in Domesday (fo. 1761^) of burgesses of Droitwich owing reaping service at Wichbold ; and although on the Westminster Abbey manors there is mention of some substantial landholders being required to mow for a day yearly in the meadows of their lord, it must be remembered that the labour was due from the land, not from its holder himself. Even villeins could find substitutes, for at Blackwell, in Tredington, the villeins as a body could send six men to mow, at Worcester, the meadow of their lord the Prior.^ In discussing the affairs of the local monasteries and their disputes with the new settlers and with one another, we have seen something of the questions raised concerning the title to land. Worcestershire affords numerous illustrations of the risk incurred by leasing church lands to laymen, as was usual, for three lives. Of this practice bishop Oswald had set a dangerous example, and we gather from Heming's Cartulary that another bishop, Brihtheah, had done his best to follow it. It is to this practice that we owe the curious record of a nuncupative will found in the Worcestershire Domesday (fo. 177), the predecessor in possession of William Fitz Ansculf being there alleged to have thus obtained a church manor, and to have exhorted his friends, on his death- bed, to see that the church regained it after his widow's death. Another curious story, which may have escaped notice, is that which accounts ^ The surveys, for instance, of Hanley Castle, on fos. 163^, i8oi, do not tally in details ; and the '6 swineherds' of the latter entry are wholly omitted in the former. The I2th cen- tury survey also of the Evesham manors in Cott. MS. Vesp. B. XXIV., strongly suggests the omission of many villagers in Domesday. ^ The population also must have been increased by the inmates and dependants of the monasteries. A good idea of the officers and servants in the pay of a monastery may be formed from a list of those of the monks of Worcester in Hale's Registrum (pp. 119-20). 3 Hale, p. 65*. 279