DOMESDAY SURVEY period, usually accompanied by a rally in the third, bringing the last value up to or beyond the first. Of course there are many instances of values maintained, or even steadily rising, but as a rule the value immediately after the Conquest is less than it had been just previously. This is indeed what would be expected ; but, as far as western Sussex is concerned, it does not seem possible to draw any definite conclusions from the figures : adjacent lands suffered in very different degrees, and the personality of the Saxon tenant seems to have had no influence on the depreciation — contrary to what we find in some counties where the manors of Earl Godwin appear to have been ravaged and those of the queen spared. But in eastern Sussex we are able to see something of the desolating effect of the passage of an army through the country. The values for the second period are lacking in the case of the hundred of Pevensey, where William landed, but the fifty-two burgesses of Pevensey diminished to twenty-seven, and the manors of Bexhill, Wilting, and Filsham lying between Pevensey and Hastings are all returned as having been 'waste' in 1066, as were also Guestling and ' Ivet,' east of Hastings and probably ravaged while the troops were lying in the town, or in the expedition against the men of Romney. The southern portions of Herstmonceux and Hooe probably suffered during this march as their values had fallen respectively from jC^ ^^ jC^ and from ^^25 to ^6 ; Wartling in some unaccountable way escaped all injury, and neither ' Bohnton ' nor HoUington were much affected. On their way to the field of battle the Normans passed through Crow- hurst and left it waste, while of six manors within Netherfield Hundred where the battle took place three became waste, one was at the time of the survey valueless, another had fallen from 100 shillings to 20 shillings, and Mountfield had come off lightly with a fall from ^3 ^'^ 20J. Ashburnham, Ninfield and Catsfield all suffered considerably, and 'waste ' is written against them and against part of Saddlescombe, Salehurst and the neighbourhood of Ticehurst, but whether these more northern lands were desolated by Harold's army or William's, or by both, it would be rash to decide. Of the varying depreciation of values throughout the county some explanation might be sought in the different warmth with which the tenants responded to Harold's call for levies, and in the losses sustained by the several contingents, but speculation is an unsatisfactory substitute for knowledge, and more than has already been stated cannot safely be deduced from our figures. Although the immediate effects of the Conquest were thus disastrous to Sussex, the injury was but tempor- ary, and by 1086 almost all the wasted manors had recovered, and many had surpassed their original values.' Besides money rents there are three instances in the survey of the » Mr. Round has shown that Prof. Freeman in writing on ' William's ravages in Sussex ' has erred strangely in asserting that ' the lasting nature of the destruction wrought at this time is shown by the large number of places round about Hastings, which are returned in Domesday as waste,' and in speaking of ' the lasting damage which is impUed in the lands being returned as " waste " twenty years after ' {Nor- man Conquest [ed. 2], iii. 741) ; for Domesday on the contrary shows the recovery of the manors then laid waste. 363
