Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/373

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IN CHARTERS, RENTALS, ACCOUNTS, &c.
277

nal establishment, this ignorance is not surprising. We have seen that the freehokl tenants of the bishop of Exeter owed sheep rents as well as other agricultural services and dues in the time of Henry III., and, with respect to the duchy manors, it is certain that the berbiage or, as they are now called, barbage rents, have been paid free, as well as by freehold, tenants, as far back as any record of their payment can be traced. It is remarkable that, as we are able to trace back the payment of sheep rents in money or kind to a period of nearly 200 years before they are noticed in the Domesday survey, so we can bring down the innnemorial payment of barbage money to the present day. The commissioners, who sat under an act passed in 1844, (7 and 8 Vict. c. 105,) commuted and merged it, with other dues, in one entire rent-charge, payable out of each of the different tenements subject to it[1].

There is, of course, no ground for supposing that a rent payable in, or in respect of, sheep, is locally confined to Devon and Cornwall, although the Norman designation of it has not been noticed in the records of other English counties. The Welsh rentals contain like payments. Thus in an extent of the possessions of the See of St. David's, A.D. 1326, (Penton's Pembrokeshire, App. p. 38,) the jurors say, " Quod omnes (tenentes) praedicti dabunt collectam ovium quolibet 3tio anno in Kal. JNlaii;" and in another entry in the same work, (p. 4,) we find a " coUectio de tenentibus, vid.t, de qufdibet carucata terrae Anglicana ununi bidentem pretii 12d, vel in pecnnia 12d solvenda ad fest. S. Mich."[2] I have little doubt that an equivalent rent under some name or other will be easily detected in other counties.

Blestaria—In a deed of the 12th century, executed by Odo Fitzwalter, lord of Treverbin, in favor of the monks of Tywardreath, mention is made of blestarise in the lands granted or reserved. We there find a "blestaria ad molendinum pertinens;" also an exception of blestariæ and pasture in Rostadec (probably Roscradoc.) Over other land rights of common are granted, with the exclusion of certain meadows, from the 1st of April to the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and of blestarias from the same day to the feast of St. Peter ad Vin-

  1. ↑ Their award finds that the tenants paid Auxiliary, Barbage, Head Silver, and some other dues of which the meaning; had long perished. They were no other than the auxilia, berbingium, and capitagum of the early rentals,
  2. ↑ This triennial collectio or cymmorth is the exact counterpart of the "tributum ex ovibuis" mentioned hy Ducange, voc. Berbiagium.
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