the burgher class, consequent on the general progress of civilization, tended further to mitigate the severity of feudalism, by diverting industry into new channels. As regards the revolutionary element in English history, it is sufficient to say that its annals deserve a completer elucidation than they have yet received; and the result of further inquiries would, we think, establish the constitutional character of many popular risings that have hitherto been classed among anarchical outbreaks.

The territorial divisions of the country have not materially altered since the era of Domesday: the shires now bear the same names, and are nearly of the same extent as then; ridings, wapentakes, hundreds, and rapes, are still recognized, though their original significance is forgotten. The riding is properly treding, or trithing, the third part of a county. The wapentake has its name from weapon-touching, the ordinary mode of voting at the Saxon public assemblies. The hundred is variously explained to mean the extent of a hundred hides of land, a hundred villages, or a hundred persons. Rape signifies a district, probably of military jurisdiction. The Last, a term confined in the survey to Kent, is still preserved in the Lath-Court regularly held for the government of Romney Marsh.

Of the cities and boroughs returned in Domesday, about forty are surveyed with great minuteness: these are the cases, already mentioned, where peculiar privileges existed which had been confirmed to the citizens by William. Some of the customs are curious, but want of space forbids our specifying them. Most, if not all, the boroughs were market towns; though the franchise of a market was often appurtenant to a rural manor by special charter. Few towns appear to have been walled at this period, and still fewer moated. The ravages of war had been severely felt; York, Derby, Winchester, and other places, being reduced to little more than half their former size. As many as fifty castles are enumerated in various parts of the kingdom, about half the number having been recently erected.

The characteristic features of the manor (which was the typical form of territorial division under the feudal system) were the demesnes, cultivated by the lord's bondmen for his benefit, and the lands apportioned by him to his free tenants. The term "vill" is sometimes applied in Domesday to a manor or lordship, in a kindred sense to which we retain it. A hamlet or member of a manor was often called a "berwick " (literally, corn-farm); to this probably answered the grange of a monastic house, the name of which is still attached to old buildings in some parts of the country. The lord's chief residence or mansion-house is termed in Domesday his "hall" or "court," both familiar titles to us. It was usual for him to entrust the management of his estate to a bailiff or reeve: this functionary collected and distrained for his master's rents, kept the peace, prevented trespasses within the manor, and presided on occasion at the manorial court; his underling was styled "bedel,” a name under various spellings still extant. The average extent of civil

and criminal jurisdiction enjoyed by a feudal lord was embraced in the four franchises known by the Saxon terms of "sac," "soc," "theam," and "infangthefe." The first was the power of hearing and determining disputes among the tenants; the second was the precinct within which such power was exercised; the third was the right of possessing and governing hereditary villans and their progeny; and the fourth was the privilege of seizing and judging any thief within the fee: the franchise of a gallows was generally appurtenant to the last-named privilege.

Passing to the physical characteristics of England, as disclosed in the returns of the several manors, we find five denominations of land"Terra," uniformly applied to arable land; "silva," or "nemus," woodland; "pastura," cattle pasture; "pratum," meadow land for hay; "mariscus," marsh land. The arable land in each return takes the prominence due to its value. Its extent is generally given in hides and carucates, measures of uncertain amount, but both having reference to the quantity which one plough was sufficient to cultivate; the actual number of ploughs is then returned, and, where this is unequal to the capability of the soil, an estimate of the deficit is generally added. Oxen were the ordinary, if not the only, animals employed in ploughing, and wheat seems to have been the grain chiefly grown. Woodland is an item of much importance in Domesday, less for its value in respect of timber, than for its yield of acorns and mast, termed pannage, upon which the countless herds of swine then kept in England wholly subsisted: payments by tenants for licence to depasture swine in the lord's woed formed a considerable share of his revenue. Wood, however, as available for building and other purposes, is often enumerated in the survey; the oak, the beech, the elm, the ash, the alder, and the willow being particularly mentioned. Under the term "assart" is designated woodland "grubbed up" for the purpose of cultivation.

The repeated mention of pasture in the survey attests the immemorial reputation of England as the paradise of graziers; the Southdowns, dear to mutton-lovers, are not without a record here. "At Sunburne, in Hampshire, the king's bailiff claimed for the manor a virgate of land, et pascuam quam vocant Dunam."-(Ellis, p. xxxii.) Meadow, where named without qualification, must be taken to mean hay-fields; where associated with oxen, the quantity of pasture set apart for their use is intended. Marsh land occurs chiefly in the returns from the Eastern counties; and the rents seem to have been paid in eels, as the main source of profit.

Only seven forests are enumerated in Domesday, though it is probable that the whole number then existing was very large: the omission of so many was, no doubt, due to the difficulty of assessing their value, which arose not from timber, or pannage, but "vert and venison." The New Forest, as the Conqueror's recent creation, is returned in fullest detail; and the reference made to several ancient manors within its precincts, corroborates the testimony of contemporary chroniclers to William's unscru

pulous seizure of his subjects' property. Though forests were held to belong to the crown, parks, with the liberty of sporting therein, were frequently enjoyed by the greater barons, among whose retainers huntsmen are commonly enumerated. In the Western Counties, "haia," or haws, are sometimes mentioned; these were hedged enclosures used for the capture of game. Domesday describes vineyards of considerable extent in various counties, some of which seem to have been highly productive. A large monastery was rarely without a vineyard on its demesne: a fact which fairly leads to the inference that wine of English growth was by no means of despicable quality.

The mill, which now forms such a leading feature in our landscapes, was scarcely less familiar to an observer in the eleventh century: it was invariably appurtenant to a manor, the tenants being forbidden to grind their corn out of the precincts. The produce of a manorial mill was often large, being derived both from the payments in money or grain made by the tenants, and from the fishery of the mill-stream; water was the only motive power then employed. The earliest mention of a windmill in this island is said to be of the date of Richard the First, a century after Domesday.

Next to the mill, the fishery was the most important item of produce in a manor. The herring-fisheries of the Eastern counties were as famous then as now; and the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, found their herring-fishery of Sandwich a very comfortable source of sustenance for the inner man upon fast days: its annual yield to the refectory was not less than 40,000. The ecclesiastics of St. Peter's, Winchester, obtained nearly the same number from their manor of Lewes, Sussex; and the villans of the little village of "Bristelmestune," which it is hard to recognize in the modern Brighton, paid a yearly rent of 4,000 to their lord. Salmon, lampreys, and eels, were also fish largely in repute at this time; the Severn and the Wye being then, as now, famed for the former. Private fish-ponds, called "vivaries," were usually formed in the demesnes of religious houses.

Of the mineral products of the country, iron and lead are returned in Domesday; the former in several counties, the latter in Derbyshire only. Sir H. Ellis explains the silence of the survey touching the tin-mines of Cornwall (which were in full work before the Roman conquest), by the fact that the county was laid waste by the Danes in 997, and again by the sons of Harold in 1068. A century after Domesday we find the mines once more profitable. Salt works are frequently returned: those on the sea-coast were no doubt pans for the evaporation of sea-water; those inland, refineries of salt-springs. "At the time of forming the survey, rock or fossil salt was not known in England. The first pits of it were accidentally discovered in Cheshire-on the very spot where Domesday mentions brine-springs-as late as the year 1670."

Touching the ecclesiastical condition of England, Domesday is a less valuable exponent than we have in other respects found it. Reference is

only made to about 1,700 churches, although the existence of a much larger number is certain from contemporary evidence: but it formed no part of the duty of the commissioners to make inquiries on this subject. From incidental allusions, we are able to learn that the church of the eleventh century was usually a manorial appurtenance, founded in many cases by the lord, and endowed at his pleasure with tithes. More than a century elapsed before Pope Innocent III. decreed the absolute consecration of parochial tithes to the parish churches of England. The humble position of the secular clergy at the date of the survey is shown by the frequent enumeration of priests among the villans of a manor. That the priesthood belonged to the lowest ranks of society at least as late as the fourteenth century, is indeed certain: thus Chaucer correctly represents the " personne of a toun" and the "plowman" as brothers.

The illustration of contemporary manners furnished in Domesday, though scanty, is not without interest. In several leading features we find the rudimentary Englishman of the eleventh century resembling his developed descendant of the nineteenth. Gifted with firm will, warm passions, and strong muscles, which, owing to a profound ignorance of natural laws, he was unable to direct aright, no wonder that he often erred into violent and profligate excesses. Yet the sentiments of justice and order, of devotion and charity, if too weak to leaven, were powerful enough to tinge his political system and daily habit of life. Thus, for example, the custom of trying by ordeal a prisoner accused of crime was founded upon an honest though superstitious persuasion that God would thereby declare the right. The sanctity of marriage is recognized in several passages of the survey; and allusion is once made to the forfeiture of an estate, incurred by a widow who married within a year after her husband's death. The perpetual references to grants of land made to the Church in free alms, attest the devotion of the laity quite as strongly as the rapacity of the clergy; and the practice of ratifying the seisin of land by presenting a gift to the altar, is an instance of the infusion of a religious element into secular business. Finally, the Englishman of 1085 proclaimed his paternity to us by evincing the same love of field-sports and good-fellowship which it is our boast to cherish. Hunting and hawking were then the recreations of the upper classes, the Church and the nobility. A brachet (the ordinary term for a hound) was held so valuable as to be intrusted to the special custody of a tenant who enjoyed his land by the service of rearing its litters. Aeries of hawks are mentioned in various places, and a hawk is sometimes estimated at not less than 10%., a sum equal to nearly 2001. of our present money. With horse, hound, and hawk, our forefathers took such vigorous exercise as well entitled them to the good cheer of beef, mutton, and pork, bread, butter, and cheese, wine, ale, and mead, that we find them enjoying. We cannot more fitly conclude this epitome of Domesday Book than by a reference to the kindly custom then prevalent, and not yet obsolete, of drinking the "poculum charitatis" at the close of a banquet.

613

Unctuous Memories.

I MUST not be understood as habitually indifferent to the eatables and drinkables which, with periodical punctuality, appeal to my appetite: far from it.! Those intensely ethereal nature's who express indifference to flavours, are no friends of mine. They receive no homage at my hands. As Charles Lamb wittily says: "I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am not indifferent to the kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels of deer's flesh were not made to be received with dispassionate services. I hate a man who swallows it affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters.”

Let us, therefore, understand each other. I enjoy my food, and am not to be caught blushing at the avowal; a good dinner, a good luncheon, nay, when moved to a reckless disregard of the morrow by stimulated social sensibilities, even a good supper holds out charms which I pretend not to resist. But it is nevertheless a fact-which Philosophy may explain if she can, and if she can't, may pronounce to be a first truththat with this ready disposition towards enjoyment, and with what, superficially viewed, may seem ample means for gratifying it, there are few meals which are thoroughly enjoyed as meals. I do not speak of humdrum occasions, dinners which appear with a mild recurrent mediocrity, enough to satisfy the periodical cravings, but without any appeals to higher enthusiasm. I speak of meals ostentatiously above the line; set occasions; premeditated efforts. These, when successful-and they are not always saved from failure-draw their success from accessory and quite extraneous sources. The meal has become a banquet. The pleasure is drawn from the geniality of the guests, or the splendours of the table, not from the unadulterated relish of food as food. It is this gusto of the meal as a solitary and isolated pleasure, equally apart from the mere vulgar vigour of appetite, and the visionary glamour of geniality or splendour, which I find to be so rare.

In travelling backwards along the confused tracks of memory, my mind pauses at certain places, and at each pause a sense of remembered enjoyment steals deliciously over me. Certain festal occasions are singled out when meals were emphatically "enjoyed :" but they are few. They were not festal in the ordinary sense; for, as just hinted, the simplicity of the meal as a meal must not be perplexed by extraneous enjoyments. Although I have dined with many people, and in many lands; with very considerable persons, and with persons of no consideration; with gourmets, and with. lavish entertainers; not one of these dinners is recalled as a meal. It is not at the Café de Paris, nor at Greenwich, that memory lingers lovingly.