NOTE The reader should bear in mind throughout that the date of the Domesday Survey is 1086 ; that ' the time of King Edward,' to which it refers, normally means the date of his death (Jan. 5, 1066) ; and that the intermediate date, which is sometimes spoken of as ' afterwards ' and sometimes as ' when received,' is that at which the estate passed into the hands of the new holder. When the word 'semper' is used it means that the figures were the same in 1086 as in 1066. The Domesday ' hide ' was a unit of assessment divided into four quarters called ' virgates,' each of which was reckoned to contain 30 acres ; but these were merely fiscal, not areal measures. In Essex the word 'virgate' is of somewhat rare occurrence, '30 acres' being used instead. ' Demesne,' in the Essex survey, is used in two senses : manors held ' in demesne ' were those which the tenant-in-chief (who held directly of the Crown) retained in his own hands, instead of en- feoffing under-tenants therein ; but when ' the demesne ' of a manor is spoken of, the term denotes that portion which the holder (whether a tenant-in-chief or only an under-tenant) worked as a home farm with the help of labour due from the peasants who held the rest from him. Of the peasantry the three classes are styled, in descending order, vil- leins, bordars and serfs ; above them were the ' free men ' and sokemen, survivals from before the Conquest, who are discussed in the introduc- tion. The essential element of the plough (' caruca ') was its team of oxen, always reckoned in Domesday as eight in number. Apart from the plough-oxen the live stock on the lord's demesne is generally, though not regularly, entered in the Essex survey, a feature which adds greatly to its length, and is peculiar to the three eastern counties. It comprises horses (usually ' rounceys,' a term familiar to readers of Chaucer), asses and mules, cows, ' beasts,' sheep, swine, goats and hives of bees. Thus the ' astonishing attention to details ' spoken of as characterizing the agricultural division of the latest census of the United States, where all these are similarly enumerated even to the swarms of bees, was actually anticipated in Domesday, when the native chronicler bitterly complained that the king's questions were so searching that not ' an ox nor a cow nor a swine was left that was not set down in his writ.' It must be remembered that when Domesday speaks of a place as held by a certain tenant, it does not follow that the whole of it is meant. It may have comprised other manors, which form the subject of separate entries. Although a new translation has been made of the whole text for this work, it is but justice to say that that which was issued by the late Mr. Chisenhale-Marsh in 1864 was of remarkable excellence for its date, and that its occasional criticism of Morant's identifications was in the main sound, though a far more sweeping revision has now proved necessary. 426
