A HISTORY OF SUSSEX and end of the return of that hundred, never paid geld (fo. 19) ; and also the mention — unique in Domesday — of ' herdigelt,' which is said to be paid by all the estate of Beeding (fo. 28). Turning from the problem of the geld assessment to that of monetary values, we are met by the much debated question of the exact significance of the Domesday ' valet.' Here again the whole difficulty arises from the endeavour to restrict the scribe to a definite and unvary- ing use of the term, and yet it is sufficiently obvious that no article of the survey would be less likely to be consistent than this of the ' valet.' The ' value ' of an estate as declared by its landlord, its tenant, a land valuer, and the local oracle will be found to vary considerably and may even fluctuate in the opinion of its owner according as he is appealing against an assessment or for compensation. Where we are told that an estate 'has always been worth 100 shillings,' or that it 'was worth 15 shilHngs and now 30 shillings,' we suspect a rough estimate by the jurors of the hundred, but when the value is given as being £6 lis. 8^., or we are told that the manor ' was worth i 3 shillings and is now worth 63 pence,' it is clear that the reference is to the actual rents and other issues received. The identity of the ' valet ' and issues is also evident in cases where, besides the value in money we hear of rents in kind — so many eels from the mills, so many thousand herrings, or so much honey — while in a number of cases on the other hand the two are carefully contrasted. Thus the value of Steyning is_^ioo, but ' it is on lease {ad Jirmam) for jTiaa ' ; in Bosham the bishop's share was worth ^b loj. ' et tamen habet de firma 20 solidos plus,' and Mauger whose share was worth ^b js. had 5 ox. more. In the case of Earl Roger's manor of Singleton we are told that ' it is now valued {apprecia- tur) at £()7, and i mark of gold, and yet it pays £120 and i mark of gold.' In all these instances it is clear that the hundred court considered that the sums obtained from the manors by the chief or mesne lords could only be wrung from the peasantry by extortion and grinding oppression, excessive even to the unsentimental mind of men used to the hard servile tenures of the time. And indeed in several instances we find that the grasping landlord had overreached himself and had been obliged to reduce his demands ; thus Shoreham, which was worth at most £1^, had been leased at £$0, 'but that could not be borne,' and the same words are used of Patching, a manor of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was a great off^ender in this respect, as the jurors noted that his manor of Pagham which was worth ^60 was paying jTSo — ' sed nimis grave est,' and his manor of Wooton which was worth only £j. had for a while paid £6, ' sed non potuit perdurare ' ; the Bishop of Chichester also had tried to make £2^ out of his manor of Preston ' but it could not pay so much.' The valuation of a manor is given for three periods — the time of King Edward, the time when it passed into the hands of its present possessor, and the time of the survey. Speaking generally the most noticeable feature of these three valuations is a fall during the second
