Page:VCH Essex 1.djvu/490

 A HISTORY OF ESSEX were liable to these dues, but paid only that portion which was due from them personally as a poll-tax (de suis capitibus). This poll-tax is alluded to in two other places in the survey of Colchester, and receives illustration from that of Ipswich, where we read of a hundred poor bur- gesses who can only contribute to the king's geld a penny each on their polls. 1 We also read of 20 bordars belonging to Roger Bigot in Thetford that this poll-tax was all they could pay. 2 Of the houses belonging to manors in the neighbourhood some- thing has been said above (p. 385), but among those enumerated in the second portion of this list I would call attention to the two in which ' William nephew of the bishop ' had succeeded Thurkil. For the latter's name is, in Essex, not a common one, and when we find that at Peldon, to the south of Colchester, a ' Turchil ' had been suc- ceeded by ' William the deacon,' it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the two Williams are the same and represent a nephew and name- sake of William, Bishop of London. If so, Peldon may be added to the list of those manors, such as Wigborough and West Mersea adjoining it, which had houses in Colchester. It is singular, in this connection, that in the charter of confirmation granted to Bishop Maurice by King William the lands held by ' William the deacon and Ralf his brother ' are included, 3 and that Peldon was thenceforth held of the Bishops of London. The most difficult portion of this survey remains. At the close of the long list of the holders of houses and land we have an entry of which the subject is ' the king's demesne.' This ' demesne ' corresponds roughly with the portion of a manor so described, and I did not hesi- tate to identify it with the land which was attached from time imme- morial to the possession of the royal castle.* Its most interesting portion is the i o acres of meadow, for I claim these as identical with the ' ten acres in king's meadow ' mentioned in the will of Charles Gray, M.P. (1781), who was owner of Colchester Castle and the lands which descended with it. These ' ten acres ' consist of three detached portions lying in the ancient meadow on the left bank of the river facing the castle, which is of the normal ' dole ' type, divided into strips. 6 In addition to this important meadow, which still remains divided into ' doles,' 8 the extent of meadow recorded in the survey of Colchester is large. We have already heard of the burgesses having 5 1 acres ; 7 1 ' C pauperes burgenses qui non possunt reddere ad geltum regis nisi unum denarium de suis capitibus ' (fo. 290). * ' De supradictis bordariis habebat rex scotum de suo capite tantum ' (fo. 117). 8 Dugdale's History of St. Paul's, p. 304. The charter is in Old English. 6 In actual area these ' acres ' vary, as I pointed out, from -J to of the modern statute acre. I subsequently found it stated in Mr. Palmer's Ancient Tenures of Land in the Marches of North Wales that ' the normal doles of the old common meadows ' in his district are represented by an area of ' a little over three statute roods,' and that they were really ' day's maths,' a form which still survives. I am disposed therefore to treat these meadow acres at Colchester, not as geld acres, but as actual day's maths (Domesday Studies, pp. 2189). 6 There were ' King's Meads ' at Oxford and at Canterbury, and the latter appears to be alluded to in Domesday. 7 p. 417 above. This may be compared with the well-known Port Meadow at Oxford. 418
 * Antiquary, vi. 8-9, 95.