A HISTORY OF ESSEX extort from the burgesses a sum unduly large. But Colchester, after all, was not alone in its grievance. Then, as in much later days, towns complained of the excessive ' ferm ' exacted from them by the Crown or its agents ; but in 1086 there was reason for such complaint. Ipswich, like Colchester, appears to have paid, under Edward the Confessor, rather over 15 a year ; Roger Bigot, the sheriff of Suffolk, farmed it out under William for 40, but was compelled to reduce the amount to 37, as the money could not be paid. Thetford, which had suffered heavily by the Conquest, was nevertheless compelled to pay nearly /^Se- as against 30 before the Normans came. Norwich, which had also suffered heavily, had to submit to a similar increase, about 100 a year being exacted from it in 1086. Again, in Essex, there were rural manors, especially on the king's demesne, which were farmed out for exorbitant sums at the time of the Survey. 1 These examples help us to understand the figures given for Colchester, although, if they are accurately given, its case was eminently hard. Under the Confessor it had paid only, as a commutation for the king's dues, 15 $s. ^d. a year, out of which the moneyers provided 4. At the time of the Survey it was paying 80, besides some minor payments, which will be dis- cussed below ; and what made the grievance worse was that the local mint no longer contributed to the payment, but was now separately farmed at an exorbitant rent. The reader must again be warned that the text is somewhat corrupt, and that, even allowing for Norman exaction, the figures are strangely high in view of the fact that in the next century the town's firma was 40, which included, as under the Confessor, the payment for the mint. The minor payments spoken of above as exacted in addition to the 80 were in the first place 6 sestiers of honey, 2 an archaic due common in towns. Ipswich and Norwich had both been liable to provide the same amount, and Thetford had provided 4 sestiers. Oxford and Warwick had each to supply 6 sestiers a year, and the entry under Warwick that the sestier was valued at 1 5 pence leads us to view with some suspicion the statement in the Colchester survey that 40 shillings was the commutation for the 6 sestiers. Moreover, an unintelligible ' iiii ' follows this estimate, which may either refer to the obscure consuetudines mellis spoken of at Ipswich and elsewhere, or may be simply a corruption. The next addition to the 80 is the curious payment ' for feeding the prebendaries,' which appears to be peculiar to the towns of the three eastern counties. At Colchester it is IQJ. 8</., at Ipswich 8j., at Thet- ford i6j. and at Norwich 2 is. d. No significance may at first sight be suggested by these figures, but it will be found that they are based upon a unit of 32 pence, of which units Ipswich pays three, Colchester four, Thetford six and Norwich eight. And this unit represents 2 ounces (orce) at 1 6 pence (instead of 20 pence) to the ounce. 3 1 See p. 363 above. 8 See, for honey, p. 383 above. 3 Compare Inyuisitio comitatus CatitaMgiemis, p. 41, and p. 386 above with p. 432 note 9 below. 420
