Page:VCH Essex 1.djvu/438

 )2 A HISTORY OF ESSEX Domesday. At one of the Layers the plough-teams had increased from 1 1 to 2, the rounceys from i to 2, the beasts from 3 to 5, and the sheep from 38 to 146, and there was a mill where there had been none. Yet the value had gone down from 4 to 3. If the Norman lords laid hands on more than belonged to them, they had often the merit of stocking their manors well. Even on those of Ralf son of Turold of Rochester l we find cases in point. At Vange he had increased the flock of sheep from 67 to 270, at Barstable Hall from 36 to 80, at Ingrave from 40 to 76, and at Hanningfield from 117 to 8 10. As his horses and beasts were almost stationary in number, while his swine increased only from 84 to 1 18, we are led to believe that sheep-farming must have offered special inducements. On four other of his manors, it is true, the increase is more general, the beasts increasing from 20 to 59, the swine from 35 to 101, and the sheep from 163 to 399. As the earlier figures refer to the eve of the Conquest, we cannot account for their smallness by the devastation that may have followed. Thorold Rogers, in his Agriculture and Prices^ speaks of cheese and butter as ' these exceedingly important articles of agricultural economy. For these and for milk, at the time of Domesday, reliance was placed not only on the cow, but also on the sheep and the goat. All three are mentioned throughout the Essex survey, and I have already given reasons for believing that cows were more plentiful than might at first sight be supposed. But the quantity of cheese consumed was great ; its value as food was fully realized, especially by the lower orders, and the Pipe Rolls of the twelfth century show us how large a part it played in the provisioning of castles. In the middle ages The manufacture of cheese generally commenced at Christmas and was continued till Michaelmas. Two cows, according to Walter of Henley's calculations, would produce a wey of cheese within this time besides half a gallon of butter each week. Ewe milk, though less rarely taken and manipulated, was, however, occasionally employed for the same purpose. The writer quoted above seems to reckon ten ewes as equal in productiveness to one cow. It is possible, when ewe milk was used, that it was mixed with that of the cow. Goats' milk was very rarely, if ever, employed, goats having been very seldom kept in England or even in South Wales. 3 We are now dealing with a period earlier than that described by Thorold Rogers, and the goats, we shall find the she-goats were still a recog- nized part of the live stock, though by no means, like the swine and the sheep, an essential part. The goat-herd, in days before the Conquest, ' was allowed the herd's milk after Martinmas,. . . and during the summer his share of the whey,' with one kid from the flock's increase yearly. 4 It is possible that the absence of the goat on many Essex was reckoned that the proper stock for Chingford was 100 sheep, 100 she-goats, 15 cows, I bull, IO sows and I boar, apart from the horses and the plough-oxen (Domesday of St. Paul's, p. 144). 1 See p. 342 above. 2 Ed. 1866, i. 403. 3 Ibid. p. 404. The period described is 1259-1400. 4 Andrews, The Old English Manor, p. 221, citing the Rectitudines. It must be remembered that the young kids were then and for centuries afterwards killed for food. Their skins also were made use of, for Domesday records that ten goat skins (pellet caprinas) formed part of the annual render due from Ipswich under the Confessor (fo. 119). For goats as live stock in the twelfth century, at Wickham St. Paul's and at Chingford, see p. 367 above. 368