THE DOMESDAY SURVEY The subjects on which Domesday Book contains, in Essex, informa- tion of most interest and value are the distribution of estates before and after the Conquest ; the various classes represented among the small holders and peasantry, with the indications that these classes were passing through a period of change ; the rise and fall in value of land ; the rela- tion of the Hundred to the ' vill ' or to the parish of to-day ; the extent and distribution of the woodland and of the live stock kept upon the demesne, that is, roughly speaking, on the home farm of the manor. Of the industries and sources of wealth Domesday can tell us little, for these at the date of the great Survey were primitive and few. Here as elsewhere the place of honour is assigned by Domesday to the plough, with its all-important team of oxen, reckoned as eight in number. The streams watered the meadows which provided hay for the oxen, and turned the wheels of the ancient mills where the men of the manor, to the lord's profit, brought their corn to be ground. The woodland pro- vided the kings with sport, and supplied timber and fuel for the local lords and their men, but was valued mostly for the feed it afforded for vast herds of swine. The rural economy of Essex in all these respects differed nowise from that which the Survey shows us in other counties ; but one great feature appears to be peculiar to itself. For I hope to show that the frequent entries of manors containing ' pasture for sheep ' possess a special meaning, and refer, although the fact has been hitherto un- suspected, to the famous marshes of Essex. They reveal, it will be found, the existence of an old-world industry, of which the tradition lingers in the ' wicks ' of the Essex coast, and they help to explain the strange detached fragments of parishes which form a very mosaic down among the sludgy creeks. Down by the sea also were the saltpans, especially in the north-east of the county, providing by primitive methods a then precious commodity. In a few places, chiefly near the seats of Norman barons, vineyards had been lately planted, while the beehives, of which the Survey so carefully records the number, produced not only honey, and wax for the candles of the time, but also what our forefathers quaintly termed ' that salutary and delicious species of wine called metheglin or mead. 1 Of trade there was then little or none ; not a single market appears in Essex, although they are found on its northern border at Haverhill, Sudbury and Clare. Colchester, already a town of importance, described apart and at some length at the close of the county survey, was peopled of course by
- burgesses,' and there is mention of ' burgesses ' at Maldon ; but there
are few traces of trade at either, even at a later date. In addition to the points I have now enumerated there are as usual incidental statements rich in unexpected information, and affording glimpses of lawless aggres- sion, of questions referred to the sworn men of the Hundred or the county acres; Felsted, where a hide is found to consist of 3 virgatcs pha virgatc ; Rettendon, where i6J hides flu I hide and 30 acres//*/ ^ hides and 30 acres = 20 hides. Nor do these entries stand alone. 1 See Young's Agriculture of Eisex (1807), citing (ii. 363) Howlctt, who found the labourer still regaling himself with the pleasant cooling beverage obtained from the last droppings of the combs.' 335
