Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/373

 IN CHARTERS, RENTALS, ACCOUNTS, &C. 277 nal establishment, this ignorance is not surprising. We have seen that the freehokl tenants of the bishop of Exeter owed sheep rents as well as other agricultural services and dues in the time of Henry III., and, with respect to the duchy manors, it is cer- tain that the berbiage or, as they are now called, harhcuje rents, have been paid y^ free, as well as hy freehold, tenants, as far back as any record of their payment can be traced. It is re- markable that, as we are able to trace back the payment of sheep rents in money or kind to a period of nearly 200 years before they are noticed in the Domesday survey, so we can bring down the innnemorial payment of barbage money to the present day. The commissioners, who sat under an act passed in 1844, (7 and 8 Vict. c. 105,) commuted and merged it, with other dues, in one entire rent-charge, payable out of each of the different tenements subject to it"". There is, of course, no ground for supposing that a rent payable in, or in respect of, sheep, is locally confined to Devon and Cornwall, although the Norman designation of it has not been noticed in the records of other English counties. The Welsh rentals contain like payments. Thus in an extent of the possessions of the See of St. David's, A.D. 1326, (Pen- ton's Pembrokeshire, App. p. 38,) the jurors say, " Quod om- nes (tenentes) praedicti dabunt collectam ovium quolibet 3''° anno in Kal. JNlaii;" and in another entry in the same work, (p. 4,) we find a " coUectio de tenentibus, vid.t, de qufdibet carucata terrae Anglicana ununi bidentem pretii 12*^, vel in pecnnia 12'' solvenda ad fest. S. Mich."' I have little doubt that an equivalent rent under some name or other Avill be easily detected in other counties. Blestakia — In a deed of the 12 th century, executed by Odo Fitzwalter, lord of Treverbin, in fa'oiu" of the monks of Ty- wardreath, mention is made of blestarise in the lands granted or reserved. We there find a "blestaria ad molendinum })ertinens ;" also an exception of blestaria:' and pasture in Rostadec (probably Roscradoc.) Over other land rights of com- mon are granted, with the exclusion of certain meadows, from the 1st of April to the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and ■of blestarias from the same day to the feast of St. Peter ad Vin- '' Their award finds that tlie tenants tiien the early rentals, paid /hij-iliari/, Jiarba^i', Head Silver, and ' Tliis triennial collectio or ci/mmorth is sonie other dues of which the meaning; had the exact counterpart of the " trihutuni ex long perished. They were no other than ovihiis" mentioned hy Ducange, voc. Ber- the auxilia, herbingtiim, and capitagiiim of biagium. VOL. V. ^ " O O