Page:VCH Warwickshire 1.djvu/327

 THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 1 farmed ' together. The evidence of Domesday that in this county, as in the adjoining one of Worcestershire, royal manors were ' farmed ' as a group is of very great importance as bearing on that system of the ' firma comitatus ' which plays so large a part in early administration and finance. 1 But the special and indeed unique value of the Warwickshire evidence is that it carries back the system to days before the Conquest and thereby flatly contradicts the Dialogus de Scaccario.* In view of the extreme importance of these Warwickshire entries one cannot too closely scan their exact wording. The royal revenue from a county, apart from taxes, was derived normally from three sources, (i) the king's lands ; (2) his rights in the county town ; (3) his profits from jurisdiction (known as the pleas of the shire). There is no question that under the Conqueror this last item was among the sources of the farm * ; but I am of opinion that it was so also under Edward the Con- fessor. For if the passage (in the footnote) be carefully read it will be found to enumerate distinctly three sources of revenue : (i) the vice- comitatus; (2) the burgus ; (3) the regalia maneria. Now in the adjoining county of Worcestershire (fo. 172)* we find similarly enumerated three sources : (i) the comitatus ; (2) the civitas ; (3) the dominica maneria regis 5 ; and here, luckily, Domesday explains that comitatus stands for the profits of the pleas in the courts of the county and the hundreds.' This then I believe to be also the meaning of vicecomitatus among the sources of revenue in Warwickshire under Edward the Confessor. But the Worcestershire evidence helps us further in our study of the Warwickshire payments. In both counties we find precisely the same sums, 10 f r a hawk, jTi for a sumpter horse, and 5 to the queen, and the Worcestershire evidence shows that they were paid in respect of the profits of jurisdiction. 7 In Warwickshire, however, there is a further payment of 23 'pro consuetudine canum,' for a parallel to which we must turn to the adjoining county of Oxfordshire, which paid precisely the same sum ' pro canibus,' in addition to the other payments, while Northamptonshire, also adjoining, paid 4.2 ' ad canes.' In Bedfordshire again 13 icxr. in all was paid by three royal manors ' de consuetudine canum,' but this, as in the case of some Gloucestershire manors, is distinct from the payment of such a due in respect of the whole county. Recapitulating the evidence, we find that in 1086 the farm of the royal manors and the pleas of the county brought in jointly (i) 145 pounds of weighed silver, (2) the above 23 f r the hounds, (3) the i See Tie Ctmmtme tfLmdon and ttier Studies, pp. 71-3. ' Tempore regis E. ricecomitatus de Warwic cum burgo et cum regalibns maneriis reddebat IXY libras, etc.' Compare Diabgts Je Scaccaria, ed. 1902, p. 36. Pipe Rolls' (tad-) See r.C.H. ITtrt. L reddit cniii lib. et iiii sol ad pensum. De comitatu rero reddit xrii lib. ad pensum, et adhnc reddit z lib. denariomm de xx in ora aut accipitrem norresc, et adhnc c solidos regime ad nnmernm, et xx" >oL de xr in ora pro snmmario.'
 * ' The latter &rm included " pleas of the county," and thus is strictly parallel with the farm* on the
 * ' Reddit ricecomes rriii lib. et r. sol ad pensum de cmtate, et de dominicis manerro regis
 * ' Hz xrii librae ad pensum et xri lib. ad nnmerum snnt de placitis comitatus et Hundreds.'
 * See preceding note.