A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE bishop of Salisbury, and one of his own officers to investigate the matter. Called upon to explain the trouble, the abbot replied that the great increase of the brethren under his rule had made ^thelwold's allowance of a wey of cheese every ten days insufficient. He offered to increase it to a wey every five days, and the prelates, accepting this, solemnly excommunicated, with candles lighted, all who should challenge this settlement. 1 At the same time a record was made of the abbey's ' wicks ' and of the weys due from each. 2 At their head is that of Shellingford pro- ducing thirty weys. Now we saw that Domesday valued ' the dues of cheese ' from Shellingford at 4 i6j. 8*/., which practically represented just thirty weys. 3 Then we have East Lockinge, producing ten weys ; and after it three names of peculiar interest, 4 for they are still represented by Thrupp Wick (adjoining Abingdon) and by Goosey Wick and Charney Wick, adjoining one another in the heart of the White Horse Vale. When towards the close of Henry II's reign, Thomas de Husseburne had charge of the abbey's revenues, he declared at the Exchequer that ' all Berkshire was insufficient to provide milk and cheese for the monks ' ; but the brethren replied that ' wicks ' (ivikae) were provided from the time of St. ^Ethelwold to supply the said milk and cheese. 6 This would seem to carry back the dairy farms of the Vale to the middle of the tenth century at least. Other wicks surviving in the Vale, such as Fyfield Wick and Ardington Wick, have the same origin for their name, and the Abingdon evidence supplies us with a private ' wick ' at Wantage, where Gilbert Basset gave the abbey a wey a year from his ' wick ' with the tithe of fleeces and lambs.' This raises the interesting question whether some at least of the cheese produced in the Vale in the Norman period was not made from ewes' milk. Another entry relating to this gift suggests that it was so, 7 and I have shown that on the Essex coast it was so not only at the time of Domesday but even as late as the days of Elizabeth, when Norden speaks of its ' wickes or dayries.' 8 At Sparsholt, however, as we have seen, Domesday enables us to say that the dairy contained cows. Bread and cheese, pulse and pork, probably formed in the Norman 1 They asked him what provision he had made for the abbot's table, and he replied that he had assigned to it 46 weys a year, that is, probably, a wey a week except for the six weeks of Lent. 2 ' Istas sunt wikse quae tot pisas invenire debent.' 3 For the ten from Buckland were valued at i I2s. ^d.
- ' De Lakinges, decem pondera. De Tropa iiii pondera. De duabus wikis de Goseie, xxviii.
pondera. De wika de Cerneia, xvi pondera' (Cbron. Ab. ii. 149). And see similar list, ii. 287 : ' Hae sunt wikas quae invenerunt caseum in refectorio.' 5 Ibid. ii. 243~4-
- ' unum pensum casei de sua wicha, et decimam vellerum et agnorum ' (ii. 145-6).
- ' de wica Theosi quae respicit ad ipsum dominium [Gilleberti Basset], id est pondera casei in
festo Sancti Michaelis [29 Sept.] et xii agnos, et xii vellera, quum tonduntur oves. Et si forte, morbo ingruente, minores fuerint agni et oves, supplebit wicarius ... Si autem in die sancti Michaelis de caseo pretendit inopiam, satisfaciet predictus wikarius in denariis . . . non minus quam v solidis ' (ii. 333). So also an early grant of tithe by Sewal of Ilsley is defined as ' caseorum scilicet, et vellerum suarum ovium ' (ii. 32). 8 V.C.H. Essex, i. 371-3. 306
