Page:VCH Sussex 1.djvu/435

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DOMESDAY SURVEY The existence of ploughteams implies the existence of pasture, and of this a certain amount was always secured by the well-known three- field system of agriculture, but when much live stock, was maintained this pasture would be insufficient, and we accordingly find considerable value set on the water-meadows,' of which the holdings varied from two or three acres in the wooded districts of east Sussex to one or two hundred acres in the neighbourhood of Lewes. There are also frequent entries of payments made by men of the manor for the use of the pasture, such payments being usually made in swine, of which large herds were kept and which formed practically the only meat of the poorer classes. The pig occurs very prominently in connection with the woodland. Sussex, for its size, has always been one of the most thickly wooded counties in England, and was especially so at the time of Domesday, and the quantity of woodland in each manor was expressed by the rent paid to the lord of the manor by the villeins for pannage, the right of pasturing their herds of swine in the woods, and this rent was almost invariably paid in swine." Three diffisrent phrases are employed to describe payments due in swine ; one of these, ' porci de gablo,' which is found at Deeding and at Plumpton, occurs, it would seem, nowhere else in Domesday ; another is ' de herbagio x porci,' and the third is, as at Washington, ' de pasnagio silvs Ix porc(i),' or, as in the entries preceding and succeed- ing, ' silva x porcorum ' . . . ' silva de x porcis.' It is to be observed that Plumpton and Beeding have respectively ' silva de xx porcis ' and ' silva Ixx porcorum ' in addition to their gafol-swine, this proving that the two dues were quite distinct in character. Again under Mailing, the archbishop's manor, we read of ' silva ccc porcorum de pasnagio ' as well as of ' ccclv porci ' as part payment ' de herbagio,' which proves that the dues for ' mast ' and for pasture were similarly distinct. Lastly an important entry found under the archbishop's manor of Pagham records that every villein who has seven swine must give one of them ' de herbagio,' ' while a marginal note adds : ' Similiter per totum Sudsex.'* This last provision reminds one of the dues from a gebur at Tidenham (Glouc.) in earlier days : ' If he has seven swine he pays three, and so forth at that rate, and nevertheless gives mast-dues if there be mast.'* > Mr. Round considers that the ' pratum ' of Domesday affords a rough indication of rivers or streams, and he points out that the 7 acres at Brighton, 15 acres at Preston, and 84 at Patcham might be accounted for by the stream which once flowed down the London Road valley to the Steyne at Brighton. Also that the rich meadows of the Ouse valley, glorious in summer with green and gold, can be clearly dis- cerned in Domesday, where we trace them through Southease (130 acres) and Rodmell (140) to Iford (208), Tarring Neville also having 50 and Bishopstone 40. At' Lewes itself South Mailing had 195 acres, and Hamsey above it 200. 2 In the edition of the survey pubUshed by the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1886 the trans- lator fell into the unfortunate error of reading silva de x -porcis as ' wood for x swine,' and in order to be consistent, translated herha^ de vij -porcis unum as ' herbage for one of 7 hogs.' 3 So also, under Ferring, ' silva iiii porcorum et pro herbagio unus porcus de vii.' So also at Elsted and Woolavington. « A similar provision is found in Surrey at Maiden (' De herbagio unus porcus de vii porcis ') and Titsey ('pro pastura septimus porcus villanorum '), while at Battersea and Streatham the tenth pig was due. V.C.H. Surrey, i. 29 (J. H. R.) = Seebohm, English Village Community, p. 155. 365