smiths, goldsmiths, farriers, potters, ditchers, launders, armorers,
fishermen, millers, bakers, salters, tailors, and barbers. We have
mariners, moneyers, minstrels, and watchmen. Of rural occupations we
have the beekeepers, ploughmen, shepherds, neatherds, goatherds, and
swineherds. Here is a population in which there is a large division of
labor. The freemen, tenants, villeins, slaves, are laboring and deriving
sustenance from arable land, meadow, common pasture, wood, and water.
The grain-growing land is, of course, carefully registered as to its
extent and value, and so the meadow and pasture. An equal exactness is
bestowed upon the woods. It was not that the timber was of great
commercial value, in a country which possessed such insufficient means
of transport; but that the acorns and beech-mast, upon which great herds
of swine subsisted, were of essential importance to keep up the supply
of food. We constantly find such entries as "a wood for pannage of fifty
hogs." There are woods described which will feed a hundred, two hundred,
three hundred hogs; and on the Bishop of London's demesne at Fulham a
thousand hogs could fatten. The value of a tree was determined by the
number of hogs that could lie under it, in the Saxon time; and in this
survey of the Norman period, we find entries of useless woods, and woods
without pannage, which to some extent were considered identical. In some
of the woods there were patches of cultivated ground, as the entries
show, where the tenant had cleared the dense undergrowth and had his
corn land and his meadows. Even the fen lands were of value, for their
rents were paid in eels.
There is only mention of five forests in this record, Windsor,
Gravelings (Wiltshire), Winburn, Whichwood, and the New Forest.
Undoubtedly there were many more, but being no objects of assessment
they are passed over. It would be difficult not to associate the memory
of the Conqueror with the New Forest, and not to believe that his
unbridled will was here the cause of great misery and devastation.
Ordericus Vitalis says, speaking of the death of William's second son,
Richard: "Learn now, my reader, why the forest in which the young prince
was slain received the name of the New Forest. That part of the country
was extremely populous from early times, and full of well-inhabited
hamlets and farms. A numerous population cultivated Hampshire with
unceasing industry, so that the southern part of the district
plentifully supplied Winchester with the products of the land. When
William I ascended the throne of Albion, being a great lover of forests,
he laid waste more than sixty parishes, compelling the inhabitants to
emigrate to other places, and substituted beasts of the chase for human
beings, that he might satisfy his ardor for hunting." There is probably
some exaggeration in the statement of the country being "extremely
populous from early times." This was an old woody district, called
Ytene. No forest was artificially planted, as Voltaire has imagined; but
the chases were opened through the ancient thickets, and hamlets and
solitary cottages were demolished.
It is a curious fact that some woodland spots in the New Forest have
still names with the terminations of _ham_ and _ton_. There are many
evidences of the former existence of human abodes in places now
solitary; yet we doubt whether this part of the district plentifully
supplied Winchester with food, as Ordericus relates; for it is a sterile
district, in most places, fitted for little else than the growth of
timber. The lower lands are marsh, and the upper are sand. The
Conqueror, says the _Saxon Chronicle_, "so much loved the high deer as
if he had been their father." The first of the Norman kings, and his
immediate successors, would not be very scrupulous about the
depopulation of a district if the presence of men interfered with their
pleasures. But Thierry thinks that the extreme severity of the Forest
Laws was chiefly enforced to prevent the assemblage of Saxons in those
vast wooded spaces which were now included in the royal demesnes.
All these extensive tracts were, more or less, retreats for the
dispossessed and the discontented. The Normans, under pretence of
preserving the stag and the hare, could tyrannize with a pretended
legality over the dwellers in these secluded places; and thus William
might have driven the Saxon people of Ytene to emigrate, and have
destroyed their cottages, as much from a possible fear of their
association as from his own love of "the high deer." Whatever was the
motive, there were devastation and misery. _Domesday_ shows that in the
district of the New Forest certain manors were afforested after the
Conquest; cultivated portions, in which the Sabbath bell was heard.
William of Jumièges, the Conqueror's own chaplain, says, speaking of the
deaths of Richard and Rufus: "There were many who held that the two sons
of William the King perished by the judgment of God in these woods,
since for the _extension_ of the forest he had destroyed many inhabited
_places (villas) and churches within its circuit_." It appears that in
the time of Edward the Confessor about seventeen thousand acres of this
district had been afforested; but that the cultivated parts remaining
had then an estimated value of three hundred and sixty-three pounds.
After the afforestation by the Conqueror, the cultivated parts yielded
only one hundred and twenty-nine pounds.
The grants of land to huntsmen (_venatores_) are common in Hampshire, as
in other parts of England; and it appears to have been the duty of an
especial officer to stall the deer--that is, to drive them with his
troop of followers from all parts to the centre of a circle, gradually
contracting, where they were to stand for the onslaught of the hunters.
In the survey many parks are enumerated. The word hay (_haia_), which is
still found in some of our counties, meant an enclosed part of a wood to
which the deer were driven.
In the seventeenth century this mode of hunting upon a large scale, by
stalling the deer--this mimic war--was common in Scotland. Taylor,
called the "Water Poet," was present at such a gathering, and has
described the scene with a minuteness which may help us to form a
picture of the Norman hunters: "Five or six hundred men do rise early in
the morning, and they do disperse themselves divers ways; and seven,
eight, or ten miles' compass, they do bring or chase in the deer in many
herds--two, three, or four hundred in a herd--to such a place as the
noblemen shall appoint them; then, when the day is come, the lords and
gentlemen of their companies do ride or go to the said places, sometimes
wading up to the middle through bourns and rivers; and then they being
come to the place, do lie down on the ground till those foresaid scouts,
which are called the 'tinkhelt,' do bring down the deer. Then, after we
had stayed there three hours or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer
appear on the hills round about us--their heads making a show like a
wood--which being followed close by the tinkhelt, are chased down into
the valley where we lay; then all the valley on each side being waylaid
with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are let loose as
occasion serves upon the herd of deer, that with dogs, guns, arrows,
dirks, and daggers, in the space of two hours fourscore fat deer were
slain."
_Domesday_ affords indubitable proof of the culture of the vine in
England. There are thirty-eight entries of vineyards in the southern and
eastern counties. Many gardens are enumerated. Mills are registered with
great distinctness; for they were invariably the property of the lords
of the manors, lay or ecclesiastical; and the tenants could only grind
at the lord's mill. Wherever we find a mill specified in _Domesday_,
there we generally find a mill now. At Arundel, for example, we see what
rent was paid by a mill; and there still stands at Arundel an old mill
whose foundations might have been laid before the Conquest. Salt works
are repeatedly mentioned. They were either works upon the coast for
procuring marine salt by evaporation, or were established in the
localities of inland salt springs. The salt works of Cheshire were the
most numerous, and were called "wiches." Hence the names of some places,
such as Middlewich and Nantwich. The revenue from mines offers some
curious facts. No mention of tin is to be found in Cornwall. The ravages
of Saxon and Dane, and the constant state of hostility between races,
had destroyed much of that mineral industry which existed in the Roman
times. A century and a half after the Conquest had elapsed before the
Norman kings had a revenue from the Cornish iron mines. Iron forges were
registered, and lumps of hammered iron are stated to have been paid as
rent. Lead works are found only upon the king's demesne in Derbyshire.
Fisheries are important sources of rent. Payments of eels are enumerated
by hundreds and thousands. Herrings appear to have been consumed in vast
numbers in the monasteries. Sandwich yielded forty thousand annually to
Christ Church in Canterbury. Kent, Sussex, and Norfolk appear to have
been the great seats of this fishery. The Severn and the Wye had their
salmon fisheries, whose produce king, bishop, and lord were glad to
receive as rent. There was a weir for Thames fish at Mortlake. The
religious houses had their _piscinae_ and _vivaria_--their stews and
fish-pools.
_Domesday_ affords us many curious glimpses of the condition of the
people in cities and burghs. For the most part they seem to have
preserved their ancient customs. London, Winchester, and several other
important places are not mentioned in the record. We shall very briefly
notice a few indications of the state of society. Dover was an important
place, for it supplied the king with twenty ships for fifteen days in a
year, each vessel having twenty-one men on board. Dover could therefore
command the service of four hundred and twenty mariners. Every burgess
in Lewes compounded for a payment of twenty shillings when the king
fitted out a fleet to keep the sea.
At Oxford the king could command the services of twenty burgesses
whenever he went on an expedition; or they might compound for their
services by a payment of twenty pounds. Oxford was a considerable place
at this period. It contained upward of seven hundred houses; but four
hundred and seventy-eight were so desolated that they could pay no dues.
Hereford was the king's demesne; and the honor of being his immediate
tenants appears to have been qualified by considerable exactions. When
he went to war, and when he went to hunt, men were to be ready for his
service. If the wife of a burgher brewed his ale, he paid tenpence. The
smith who kept a forge had to make nails from the king's iron. In
Hereford, as in other cities, there were moneyers, or coiners. There
were seven at Hereford, who were bound to coin as much of the king's
silver into pence as he demanded. At Cambridge the burgesses were
compelled to lend the sheriff their ploughs. Leicester was bound to find
the king a hawk or to pay ten pounds; while a sumpter or baggage-horse
was compounded for at one pound.
At Warwick there were two hundred and twenty-five houses on which the
king and his barons claimed tax; and nineteen houses belonged to free
burgesses. The dues were paid in honey and corn. In Shrewsbury there
were two hundred and fifty-two houses belonging to burgesses; but the
burgesses complained that they were called upon to pay as much tax as in
the time of the Confessor, although Earl Roger had taken possession of
extensive lands for building his castle. Chester was a port in which the
king had his dues upon every cargo, and where he had fines whenever a
trader was detected in using a false measure. The fraudulent female
brewer of adulterated beer was placed in the cucking-stool, a
degradation afterward reserved for scolds.
This city has a more particular notice as to laws and customs in the
time of the Confessor than any other place in the survey. Particular
care seems to have been taken against fire. The owner of a house on fire
not only paid a fine to the king, but forfeited two shillings to his
nearest neighbor. Marten skins appear to have been a great article of
trade in this city. No stranger could cart goods within a particular
part of the city without being subjected to a forfeiture of four
shillings or two oxen to the bishop. We find, as might be expected, no
mention of that peculiar architecture of Chester called the "Rows,"
which has so puzzled antiquarian writers. The probability is that in a
place so exposed to the attacks of the Welsh they were intended for
defence. The low streets in which the Rows are situated have the road
considerably beneath them, like the cutting of a railway; and from the
covered way of the Rows an enemy in the road beneath might be assailed
with great advantage.
In the civil wars of Charles I the possession of the Rows by the
Royalists, or Parliamentary troops, was fiercely contested. Of their
antiquity there is no doubt. They probably belong to the same period as
the Castle. The wall of Chester and the bridge were kept in repair,
according to the survey, by the service of one laborer for every hide of
land in the county. It is to be remarked that in all the cities and
burghs the inhabitants are described as belonging to the king or a
bishop or a baron. Many, even in the most privileged places, were
attached to particular manors.
The _Domesday_ survey shows that in some towns there was an admixture of
Norman and English burgesses; and it is clear that they were so settled
after the Conquest, for a distinction is made between the old customary
dues of the place and those the foreigner should pay. The foreigner had
to bear a small addition to the ancient charge. No doubt the Norman
clung to many of the habits of his own land; and the Saxon unwillingly
parted with those of the locality in which his fathers had lived. But
their manners were gradually assimilated. The Normans grew fond of the
English beer, and the English adopted the Norman dress.
The survey of 1085 affords the most complete evidence of the extent to
which the Normans had possessed themselves of the landed property of the
country. The ancient demesnes of the crown consisted of fourteen hundred
and twenty-two manors. But the king had confiscated the properties of
Godwin, Harold, Algar, Edwin, Morcar, and other great Saxon earls; and
his revenues thus became enormous. Ordericus Vitalis states, with a
minuteness that seems to imply the possession of official information,
that "the king himself received daily one-and-sixty pounds thirty
thousand pence and three farthings sterling money from his regular
revenues in England alone, independently of presents, fines for
offences, and many other matters which constantly enrich a royal
treasury." The numbers of manors held by the favorites of the Conqueror
would appear incredible, if we did not know that these great nobles were
grasping and unscrupulous; indulging the grossest sensuality with a
pretence of refinement; limited in their perpetration of injustice only
by the extent of their power; and so blinded by their pride as to call
their plunder their inheritance. Ten Norman chiefs who held under the
crown are enumerated in the survey as possessing two thousand eight
hundred and twenty manors.
This enormous transfer of property did not take place without the most
formidable resistance, but when a period of tranquillity arrived came
the era of castle-building. The Saxons had their rude fortresses and
intrenched earthworks. But solid walls of stone, for defence and
residence, were to become the local seats of regal and baronial
domination. _Domesday_ contains notices of forty-nine castles; but only
one is mentioned as having existed in the time of Edward the Confessor.
Some which the Conqueror is known to have built are not noticed in the
survey. Among these is the White Tower of London. The site of Rochester
Castle is mentioned. These two buildings are associated by our old
antiquaries as being erected by the same architect. Stow says: "I find
in a fair register-book of the acts of the bishops of Rochester, set
down by Edmund of Hadenham, that William I, surnamed Conqueror, builded
the Tower of London, to wit, the great white and square tower there,
about the year of Christ 1078, appointing Gundulph, then Bishop of
Rochester, to be principal surveyor and overseer of that work, who was
for that time lodged in the house of Edmere, a burghess of London." The
chapel in the White Tower is a remarkable specimen of early Norman
architecture.
The keep of Rochester Castle, so picturesquely situated on the Medway,
was not a mere fortress without domestic convenience. Here we still look
upon the remains of sculptured columns and arches. We see where there
were spacious fireplaces in the walls, and how each of four floors was
served with water by a well. The third story contains the most
ornamental portions of the building. In the _Domesday_ enumeration of
castles, we have repeated mention of houses destroyed and lands wasted,
for their erection. At Cambridge twenty-seven houses are recorded to
have been thus demolished. This was the fortress to overawe the fen
districts. At Lincoln a hundred and sixty-six mansions were destroyed,
"on account of the castle."
In the ruins of all these castles we may trace their general plan. There
were an outer court, an inner court, and a keep. Round the whole area
was a wall, with parapets and loopholes. The entrance was defended by an
outwork or barbacan. The prodigious strength of the keep is the most
remarkable characteristic of these fortresses; and thus many of these
towers remain, stripped of every interior fitting by time, but as
untouched in their solid construction as the mounts upon which they
stand. We ascend the steep steps which lead to the ruined keep of
Carisbrook, with all our historical associations directed to the
confinement of Charles I in this castle. But this fortress was
registered in _Domesday Book_. Five centuries and a half had elapsed
between William I and James I. The Norman keep was out of harmony with
the principles of the seventeenth century, as much as the feudal
prerogatives to which Charles unhappily clung.
We have thus enumerated some of the more prominent statistics of this
ancient survey, which are truly as much matter of history as the events
of this beginning of the Norman period. There is one more feature of
this _Domesday Book_ which we cannot pass over. The number of parish
churches in England in the eleventh century will, in some degree,
furnish an indication of the amount of religious instruction. By some
most extraordinary exaggeration, the number of these churches has been
stated to be above forty-five thousand. In _Domesday_ the number
enumerated is a little above seventeen hundred. No doubt this
enumeration is extremely imperfect. Very nearly half of all the churches
put down are found in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk. The
_Register_, in some cases, gives the amount of land with which the
church was endowed. Bosham, in Sussex, the estate of Harold, had, in the
time of King Edward, a hundred and twelve hides of land. At the date of
the survey it had sixty-five hides. This was an enormous endowment. Some
churches had five acres only; some fifty; some a hundred. Some are
without land altogether. But, whether the endowment be large or small,
here is the evidence of a church planted upon the same foundation as the
monarchy, that of territorial possessions.
The politic ruler of England had, in the completion of _Domesday Book_,
possessed himself of the most perfect instrument for the profitable
administration of his government. He was no longer working in the dark,
whether he called out soldiers or levied taxes. He had carried through a
great measure, rapidly, and with a minuteness which puts to shame some
of our clumsy modern statistics. But the Conqueror did not want his
books for the gratification of official curiosity. He went to work when
he knew how many tenants-in-chief he could command, and how many men
they could bring into the field. He instituted the great feudal
principle of knight-service. His ordinance is in these words: "We
command that all earls, barons, knights, sergeants, and freemen be
always provided with horses and arms as they ought, and that they be
always ready to perform to us their whole service, in manner as they owe
it to us of right for their fees and tenements, and as we have appointed
to them by the common council of our whole kingdom, and as we have
granted to them in fee with right of inheritance."
These words, "in fee, with right of inheritance," leave no doubt that
the great vassals of the crown were absolute proprietors, and that all
their subvassals had the same right of holding in perpetuity. The
estate, however, reverted to the crown if the race of the original
feoffee became extinct, and in cases, also, of felony and treason. When
Alain of Bretagne, who commanded the rear of the army at the battle of
Hastings, and who had received four hundred and forty-two manors, bowed
before the King at Salisbury, at the great council in 1085, and swore to
be true to him against all manner of men, he also brought with him his
principal _land-sittende_ men (land-owners), who also bowed before the
King and became his men. They had previously taken the oath of fealty to
Alain of Bretagne, and engaged to perform all the customs and services
due to him for their lands and tenements. Alain, and his men, were
proprietors, but with very unequal rights. Alain, by his tenure, was
bound to provide for the King as many armed horsemen as the vast extent
of his estates demanded. But all those whom he had enfeoffed, or made
proprietors, upon his four hundred and forty-two manors, were each bound
to contribute a proportionate number. When the free service of forty
days was to be enforced, the great earl had only to send round to his
vassals, and the men were at his command.
By this organization, which was universal throughout the kingdom, sixty
thousand cavalry could, with little delay, be called into the field.
Those who held by this military service had their allotments divided
into so many knights' fees, and each knight's fee was to furnish one
mounted and armed soldier. The great vassals retained a portion of their
land as their demesnes, having tenants who paid rents and performed
services not military. But, under any circumstances, the vassal of the
crown was bound to perform his whole free service with men and horses
and arms. It is perfectly clear that this wonderful organization
rendered the whole system of government one great confederacy, in which
the small proprietors, tenants, and villeins had not a chance of
independence; and that their condition could only be ameliorated by
those gradual changes which result from a long intercourse between the
strong and the weak, in which power relaxes its severity and becomes
protection.
In the ordinance in which the King commanded "free service" he also
says, "we will that all the freemen of the kingdom possess their lands
in peace, free from all tallage and unjust exaction." This, unhappily
for the freemen, was little more than a theory under the Norman kings.
There were various modes of making legal exaction the source of the
grossest injustice. When the heir of an estate entered into possession
he had to pay a "relief," or _heriot_, to the lord. This soon became a
source of oppression in the crown; and enormous sums were exacted from
the great vassals. The lord was not more sparing of his men. He had
another mode of extortion. He demanded "aid" on many occasions, such as
the marriage of his eldest daughter, or when he made his eldest son a
knight. The estate of inheritance, which looks so generous and equitable
an arrangement, was a perpetual grievance; for the possessor could
neither transmit his property by will nor transfer it by sale. The heir,
however remote in blood, was the only legitimate successor.