NOTES ON SLIPS CONNECTED WITH DEVONSHIRE.

PART VIII.

BY W. PENGELLY, F.R.S., F.G.S., ETC.

(Read at Seaton, July, 1885.)

THIS small batch of Slips has presented itself in the course of the last twelve months.

I. CLOVELLY: The "English Illustrated Magazine" on.

The English Illustrated Magazine for December 1884 (No. 15) contains a very interesting and charmingly illustrated article entitled Clovelly (II. 151-163), in which a couple of passages prompt me to call in question the statements they contain.

The first deals with a matter of fact in the geology of the district, and will be Noted elsewhere; while on the secondconcerned with what may be called the Inferential or Hypothetical Early History of Clovelly-a few remarks may be offered here.

This "second passage" is as follows :—

Clovelly and Domesday Book.

"The village" [Clovelly] “just fills up the hollow in the cliff, and further space could be won for building only by costly and difficult engineering. Therefore, as we know that Clovelly was there eight centuries ago, we may guess that even then it was not new, and that its general aspect was never very different from what it is at this day. When the name of Clovelly was enrolled in Domesday, the fishermen doubtless went forth in the autumn evenings much as they do now; and the build and rig of their boats, though not unchanged by time, have varied but little as compared with the revolutions of shipbuilding on a larger scale."

1[Foot note]. "Little more than the name is to be found in Domesday or the Hundred Rolls, but the name is there" (p. 157).

It will be seen that in the passage under notice the author of the Article is writing of the Village of Clovelly-not of Clovelly Manor or Clovelly Court; and it can scarcely be doubted that the ordinary reader would infer from the words I have italicised

1. That "we know that" the village of "Clovelly was there," ie. in the hollow in the cliff, "eight centuries ago." 2. That "the name of" the village of "Clovelly was enrolled in Domesday."

3. That in the eleventh century Clovelly "fishermen doubtless went forth in the autumn"-to catch herrings-"much as they do now."

4. That the mention of Clovelly in Domesday was unusually slight-"little more than the name being to be found” there.

When the author says "We know that Clovelly was there eight centuries ago," i.e. in the eleventh century, he of course has in view the undoubted fact stated in the second italicised sentence; i.e. that "the name of Clovelly was enrolled in Domesday," which was begun in 1080 and finished in 1086. (Ency. Brit. 8th ed. viii. 98.)

The Domesday record alluded to, being translated, is as follows:

Clovellie, in the time of King Edward, paid geld for three hides. There is land for twelve ploughs. In demesne are five ploughs, and ten serfs, and sixteen villeins, and eleven bordars, with seven ploughs. There are thirty acres of meadow, and forty acres of wood. Pasture one leuga in length and half a leuga in breadth. It renders twelve pounds by tale. Formerly it rendered six pounds." (The Devonshire Domesday, issued by the Devonshire Association, Part I. p. 81, 1884.)

It is evident that this record is of a Manor, and that it is utterly silent about the existence of the Village or of any Village. The village may have existed for anything we know to the contrary, but it seems extremely hazardous to say We know that it was there eight centuries ago. At most its existence is inferential only; and the evidence before us seems by no means sufficient to warrant any such inference.

I have assumed that the Domesday spoken of by the author is the Exchequer Domesday, not that known as the Exeter Domesday, in which the Clovelly record, about twice the length, is as follows:

The King has a manor called Clouelia, which Brihtric held on the day on which king Edward was alive and dead, and it rendered geld for three hides. These can be ploughed

by twelve ploughs. Of them the king has one hide, and five ploughs in demesne, and the villeins have two hides and seven ploughs. There the king has sixteen villeins, and eleven bordars, and ten serfs, and forty-five head of cattle, and fifteen swine, and one hundred sheep, and eighteen goats, and forty acres of wood, and thirty acres of meadow, and of pasture one leuga in length, and half a leuga in breath. This manor renders twelve pounds by tale. Goscelm holds this manor to ferm, and it rendered six pounds when he received it." (Ibid. p. 80.)

This record, though fuller than that previously quoted, is equally silent about the existence of any village, unless, indeed, such existence is implied in the word Villanus.

A learned friend, a close student of Domesday, writes me that "The word Villanus, incorrectly rendered Villein, is derived from Villa-Township. It means a Vill-man or Township-man; i.e. one who is free of the Vill. The lands held by the Villani are called the Villenagium, as the lord's lands are called Dominium. A Villanus is one who has a complete aliquot-part interest in the Vill, one who is entitled to his aliquot share in every part; i.e. a common-holder or common cultivator. . . . Villani does not necessarily imply that there is now a village where Villani were aforetime. But it does imply that there was a community holding lands in common when Domesday was written."

So far, however, as I have been able to ascertain, the Villani may have lived in what we should now call a Village, or they may have lived in detached dwellings scattered over their Villenagium.

But waiving for the present the question of the existence of the village, the statement that "the fishermen doubtless went forth in the autumn evenings much as they do now" is utterly unsupported by anything in either of the Domesdays. At any rate the lord of the manor does not appear to have had any claim on the proceeds of the hypothetical autumn fishery as a source of income for himself. The utter silence of each of the Domesdays about a fishery in connection with the manor of Clovelly is scarcely what we should expect had anything of the kind existed there at that time. Devonshire contained upwards of seventy Royal manors, of which Clovelly was one; and fisheries are recorded in connection with three of them in the Exchequer Domesday. Thus, in the case of Axeminstre, it is written, "There is a fishery rendering twenty shillings." In the case of Bedeford we are told,

"To this manor was annexed in the time of King Edward a fishery rendering twenty-five shillings." Finally, in the case of Aisbertone we have the compact statement, "There are two fisheries." (Ibid. pp. 7, 81, 95.) It may be added that all these statements are confirmed by the Exeter Domesday. (Ibid. pp. 8, 80, 94.)

It should be stated that the author of the Article in the English Illustrated Magazine has directed attention to one of these fisheries, as, in a Foot-note on page 157, he remarks that "In Domesday there is mention of a fishery at Bideford, doubtless a salmon fishery in the river." His suggestion is certainly not improbable, and applies apparently with equal force to the Axeministre and Aisebertone fisheries.

When the author states that "little more than the name of Clovelly "is to be found in Domesday," those unacquainted with the facts are not unlikely to think of some such mention as that of "Tanebrige" (= Teignbridge), which occurs it is believed only in the following sentence:-"To the manor of Mortone pertains the third penny of Tanebrige hundred." (Ibid. p. 65.)

As a matter of fact, however, all the Domesday entries are brief, even when written with the full extensions. Confining ourselves to the Devonshire Royal manors, the longest entry is that of Alseministre, which occupies 22-5 lines. Besides this there are but five which occupy 10 or more lines. The average length of the whole is about 6.5 lines each. Clovelly and five others occupy 5.5 lines each. There are twenty-five -i.e. about one-third of the whole-still shorter entries, and there are five occupying no more than 4 lines each.

Instead of "little more than the name," the Clovelly entry states for how much land the manor paid geld in the time of the Confessor; how many ploughs were required for the whole land, and how many for the land held in demesne; the numbers of the serfs, of the villeins, and of the bordars; the acreages of the meadow land, of the wood land, and the length and breadth of the pastures; the sum it rendered to the lord before the Conquest, and the fact that it had been doubled after that event; finally, that the payment was by tale," that is, not "by weight," or "by weight and assay," or "in the ore.'

The Exeter Domesday states, in addition, the name of him who held the land when the Confessor died, the numbers of cattle, of swine, of sheep, and of goats on the land, and the name of him who held the "manor to ferm" after the Conquest.

II. THE RIVER DART NAMED THE ENGLISH RHINE: The Torquay Directory on.

The Torquay Directory for 3rd June, 1885 (p. 5, col. 3), contains the following paragraph:

"Mr. J. A. Blaikie has been writing in the Magazine of Art that which Dartmouth people will consider rank heresy. 'It' [the river Dart] has been christened,' says the writer referred to, as "the English Rhine," a term as opposite' [sic] 'as "the English Beresina!" This strange similitude was possibly discovered by an admirer who despaired of doing justice to the Devonshire river, or more probably it originated in the infirm and reckless extravagance of a very young tourist.' Mr. Blaikie is evidently not aware of the fact that the title of 'The English Rhine' was conferred upon the river Dart by her gracious Majesty, who in her Journal, describing her visit to the ancient port in 1846, states that the river reminded her of the Rhine."

Believing that the newspaper critic had slipped when he stated that the title of 'The English Rhine' was conferred upon the river Dart by her gracious Majesty," I did myself the pleasure of reading the paragraph in The Magazine of Art as well as that in the Queen's Journal. They are as follow:

The Magazine of Art, June, 1885:-"The Dart is, in a certain sense, a recent discovery. The popular love of comparison has subjected it to most unhappy criticism. It has been christened the English Rhine,' a term as apposite" [not "opposite "]" as 'the English Beresina.' This strange similitude was possibly discovered by an admirer who despaired of doing justice to the Devonshire river, or more probably it originated in the infirm and reckless extravagance of a very young tourist. The phrase is absurd and unjust. It implies that the Dart is a mere replica of the greater river, or it denies the strong and peculiar individuality of the English stream. Only in the castled entrance to Dartmouth harbour may a fond fancy detect anything Rhine-like." (pp. 320-321.)

(Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands, &c. 1868.)

"On Board the Victoria and Albert, Dartmouth, Thursday, August 20, 1846.

"The sea looked so stormy and the weather became so thick that it was thought best to give up Plymouth (for the