Page:VCH Berkshire 1.djvu/398

 A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE brigge ' and one eyot called Bridge-eyot, 1 and inter alia a half virgate of land which had been held by Bernard the miller of Sheffield, with two tenant fisheries I shall speak below. Without discussing further this interesting charter, one may mention that it also grants pannage for eighteen swine in the lord's wood. Domesday assigns to Sheffield ' silva de x porcis,' so that we have here useful evidence that this formula did not (as is sometimes supposed) record the number of swine for which the wood afforded pannage, but of these received in respect of it by the lord. Burghfield mill, which stood on the Kennet below that of Sheffield, affords a useful hint for Domesday's interpretation. Burgh- field was one of the Berkshire manors that were divided into equal parts, each of its halves being entered as one and a half hides, and six plough lands, with woodland affording fifteen swine, and a ' fishery ' worth 55. 8d. Their values also, past and present, were identical. To each of these moieties Domesday assigns a mill, valued at 5/. lod. But in Ralf de Mortemer's moiety the word ' dimid ' is interlined above it, showing that the (profits of the) mill had also been equally divided, and that when Domesday enters a mill as appurtenant to the manor it may only mean a share of a mill. But in the case of Coleshill where the manor was divided into three parts, Domesday enters care- fully under each ' the third part of a mill,' i.e. of its profits. The so called c fisheries ' (piscarie) of Domesday are, in Berkshire, of exceptional importance, not only from its geographical position with its long frontage to the Thames and the Isis, but also from the Domes- day entries of their value in pounds, shillings and pence. Eels, apparently, were the chief produce sought from a ' fishery ' at this time, for when Domesday enters their render, it is normally in terms of eels, either caught by weirs composed of eelpots in the rivers or contributed by the mill from its pool, as a portion of its rent. Thus the three 'fisheries ' at Wargrave produced 3,000 eels a year, while Whistley (in Hurst) was good for 3,000 from the 'fishery' and 250 from the mill (pool), and Shinfield, above it on the Loddon stream, for 550 from five 'fisheries' and 150 from the mill (pool). Remenham, again, below Henley, contributed 1,000 eels as part of the render from its mill. So well recognized, indeed, was the eel as the fisherman's prey that eels, under Henry II, were what the fishermen of Abingdon Abbey brought to it for Lent.' Thirty years after the survey we find the abbey care- fully recording the cheese and the eels due to it, the latter being num- bered by sticks (sticce) of 25 each. 3 Of these it appears there were nearly a hundred, which would represent 2,500 eels. When we turn to the estimated values in money, not in eels, we see how greatly a fishery could increase the wealth of a manor. Domes- ' una insula que appellatur Briggheit.' 1 ' xiii piscatores quando portabant anguillas in Capite Jejunii ' (Cbron. Ab. ii. 243). Ibid. ii. 149. 3<>4
 * gorz ' and fisheries and waters hereto belonging. Of these appur-