Page:VCH Essex 1.djvu/491

 THE DOMESDAY SURVEY Hamo ' dapifer ' had 6 acres, St. Peter's Church 1 2 acres, and the Bishop of London 6 acres. Thus, with the king's ' to acres,' there were 85^ acres, to which must be added, it seems, 48 acres at Green- stead. Under Stanway, also, Lexden is credited with 1 8 acres. The king's demesne included ' 240 acres' of pasture and scrub (inter pasturam e t fructe fam), but we find no definite mention of ' the King's Wood ' to the north of the town, now known as ' the high woods.' This wood is subsequently found included in the ' ferm ' of the borough, which was reduced accordingly by forty shillings when the king took the wood into his own hands. 1 At the close of the entry on the king's demesne we are given the important information that it is all included among the sources of the king's ferm, 2 which at once proves that a firma burgi was already paid to the Crown for Colchester in the days of the Conqueror. When we look at the entries which follow we see how clearly the survey distinguishes the payments which are com- pounded for in the firma from those which are not. 3 The tenure of this ' firma ' is as obscure as it is important. From the earliest pipe roll (1130) Colchester appears as farmed separately from the rest of the county ; and I gather from the incidental reference in the Domesday Survey to Waleran that he had been the * fermor ' at some period during the Conqueror's reign. Another incidental refer- ence leads me to think that he had at one time ' farmed ' Norwich with disastrous results to its burgesses. 4 At the time of the Survey he had been succeeded in Essex, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk by his son ; but during his tenure of the fief he had given to the Abbey of St. Stephen of Caen his * little manor ' of Panfield and the church of Bures St. Mary. 5 He was charged with depriving the monks of St. Ouen of their house in Colchester and with certain encroachments at Aveley, Henny, Halstead and Lawford ; but in this respect he was no worse than other Normans, if so bad. I have come to the conclusion that the 'fermor' in 1086 was Walchelin Bishop of Winchester. The words 'ten' Walchelin' ep'c ' are no doubt obscure, but that Bishop Walchelin was the person meant seems beyond dispute. There is evidence, as I have elsewhere shown, that he exacted extortionate rents from the tenants of his see in Hamp- shire ; 8 and in Berks, Wilts and Somerset there are traces of his similar action. 7 I believe therefore that at Colchester also he was trying to 1 This was shortly before 1 169, when we read : ' Et in defalta bosci de Kingeswuda, qui solebat essc in firma burgi, vi li. de tribus annis ' (Pipe Roll, 1 5 Hen. II. p. 48). So also when Stephen made over to the hospital of St. Magdalen 1 8 acres of the Crown demesne here, he reduced the firma burp by 3/. ^d. in consideration thereof. This firma was the sum for which the king's dues were ' farmed ' out. ' Hoc totum jacet ad firmam regis.' ' Et hoc pertinet ad firmam regis. . . et hoc non est ad firmam.' ' Vastati. . . partim per Walerannum ' (fo. 1 1 ~jb). See my Calendar of Documents preserved in France, and compare p. 342 above. Victoria History of Hampshire, i. 414-5. at Downton, a suspicious rise from 60 to 103, and equally significant, in Somerset, is the rise on his great manor of Taunton from 50 to 154. 419
 * One of his Berkshire manors is entered in Domesday as rented above its value ; in Wilts there is,