A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 300 cartloads, which produced 300 ' mits ' of salt. This was probably the usual proportion, for a ' salina ' of the Bishop is entered as producing '100 "mits" of salt for 100 cartloads of wood ' (fo. 173^). The monks of Westminster also obtained 100 ' mits,' and sent 100 cartloads of wood from (Martin) Hussingtree (fo. 174^). Three measures seem to have been used for the salt produced, namely the horse-load {sutnma), the ' sestier ' [sextarium), and the ' mit ' (jnitta). The meaning of the last, a local word, has been, fortunately, preserved for us by Habington in a passage which explains several of the words used by Domesday in this connection : The saltwater drawne out of the wells is in a singular proportion of Justyce con- veyghed into seates called anciently Salina . . . wheare after it is boyled in leaden pans and converted to salt, it is dryed in barowes made of twigs and sally, somewhat open, so as the moysture may run from the salt. Foure of these barowes, conteygninge about towe bushells of Salt are named a Mit} The Worcestershire woodlands were of value for more than as a source of fuel for the saltworks. Their uses are suggestively described in the cases of two of the Bishop's manors. At Fladbury, besides the wood for Droitwich, he had the hunting and the honey (as he also had at Bredon) ; in Malvern chase he used to have, in the woods belonging to his manors of Ripple and Upton, the hunting and the honey, and still had ' the pannage and (wood for) firing and for repairs.' In another of his manors it is mentioned that his tenant at Whittington had ' only woodland (sufficient) for firing' (fo. 173). Pannage was a source of substantial profit when great herds of swine were kept to provide the pork of which such large quantities were then salted for food. Stretch- ing back from Hanley (Castle) were woods from which six swineherds brought to their lord the king sixty swine a year (fo. i^ob). On the other side of the county, at Inkberrow, the bishop of Hereford received a hundred from a broad stretch of woodland (fo. 174). Crowle, in the heart of the county, had 'woodland for a hundred swine' (fo. ij6b). Honey was a product of more importance in those days than now. The great royal manor of Pershore, under Edward the Confessor, had supplied 50 sestiers of honey, in addition to its money-rent. A rent of one sestier of honey was still paid at the time of Domesday by a mill at Cleeve (Priors), by a priestly tenant at Witley, and by each of three ' coliberts ' at Powick, while a freeman at Wolverley paid two sestiers as his rent. Nor was the honey that of wild bees only ; at Suckley (fo. i%ob) we find a bee-master [castas apium) with twelve hives.^ Mr. Seebohm has ^ Habyngton's Survey, II. 297. In Halli well's Dictionary of Archaic fVords, he cites Kennett (MS. Lansd. 1,033) ^'^ ^^ effect that 'At Nantwich and Droitwich, the conical baskets wherein they put the salt to let the water drain from it are called barrows. A barrow contained about six pecks.' This would make the ' Mit ' about six bushels — a very different reckoning. It should be added that a ' Mit ' was considered equivalent to a horse-load according to Hale's Registrum (34(7), ' invenient singulis annis equos diebus Dominicis ad portandum sal de Wich apud Wigorniam . . . quilibet equus portabit unam mittam.' ^ This was the old English ' beo-ceorl,' on whom see the valuable remarks in Andrews' Old English Manor, pp. 205-8. 270
