STRAY NOTES, PREHISTORIC, SAXON, AND NORMAN. 233
Thus, when we reckon the number of villeins, bordarii, serfs, etc.,
who would be gathered around these fifteen Cassata, we must con-
clude that there was for that time a large and influential population
in the place, and we cannot suppose either that the Dean and
Chapter in the times of King William's predecessors, or that the
state of the times, would have allowed such population to remain
without the ministrations of religion. Thus the presence of a
presbiter, with what appears to have been an endowment of 90 acres
of land, during the period when the property had been taken away
and unjustly retained from the Dean and Chapter, goes far to prove
that such presbiter was not the first of his order to be found in
Navestock, and that he was but the successor of those who had
occupied his cure when the Dean and Chapter first held the property.
Moreover, the fact of the endowment, already alluded to, justifies
the supposition that as England began to be divided into parishes as
early as the seventh century, the presbiter in question was already
provided with a church.
No evidences, it is true, as to the erection of such a building are
forthcoming, but when we read of the existence of such a church, as
we do in 1181, as a building referred to as a matter of course, and
with no shade of novelty about it—together with the fact that the
same endowment of 90 acres of land is referred to as the income of
the sacerdos, whom we now find in place of the former presbiter—
we have strong proof in favour of the supposition that a church had
existed here for a lengthened period, and, as such, was founded in
Saxon times.
As to the condition of Navestock prior to its re-bestowal on the
Dean and Chapter by the Conqueror, we gain some interesting par-
ticulars from the Domesday Survey. The land at that time was
reckoned as containing 3 manors, occupied by Howard, Ulsi, and
Turstinus Ruffus; 2 hides, occupied by seven freemen—liberi
homines ; and half a hide and 20 acres by the presbiter. The two
manors, held more or less jointly by Howard and Ulsi, contained
5 hides less 20 acres, and we shall find that these two manors did
not become merged into one until after 1152, and probably under
the Firmarius Richard Ruffus.
The population of Navestock in the days of Edward the Con-
fessor, as described in Domesday, consisted, beside Howard and
Ulsi, Turstinus Ruffus, the seven liberi homines, and the presbiter,
of 12 villeins, 17 bordarii, and 4 servi, in all 44 persons who with
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