STRAY NOTES, PREHISTORIC, SAXON, AND NORMAN. 235
2 bordarii now 5. Then I team now none, but there might be one there. Wood
for 50 swine, 2 acres of meadow. It was then worth 12s., and when he got
possession 8s., now 15s."
Should Mr. Marsh's surmise be correct that Astoca in this place
represents Navestock (and the fact that Ralph de Marci belonged to
both adds strength to his theory) we gain further information con-
cerning the population of this parish in Saxon times in the name of
Gotil and the presence of two more bordarii, together with the
additional land and stock just described.
In 1043, the time approximately of which I am speaking, wheat
was sold at 60 pence the quarter, but 80 years later, owing to a
scarcity, it fetched 20s., and then fell again to 4s. in the following
century. I am not prepared to give you a quotation as to the value
of live stock in these days, but you may in some measure estimate
such value from the prices fetched early in the next century, e.g.,
horses, 3s. to 10s. ; oxen, 2s. 4d. to 3s. ; goats, 4d. ; sheep, 4d. to
6d.; pigs, 4d. to 1s. ; a sow with 9 pigs, 19d.
IV. NAVESTOCK IN NORMAN TIMES.
The chief feature in the change experienced by Navestock after
the conquest is to be found in the return of the Dean and Chapter
to their possessions as Lords of the Manor.
As they could only occupy that position by deputy they at a
very early date let out their property on lease to a duly qualified
tenant termed the Firmarius, who, as Archdeacon Hale tells us,
exercising all the duties of the Chapter as the Lord of the Manor,
took to his own use all the profits of such manor which were over
and above the firms, which it was his due to render and which con-
sisted of certain fixed money payments and so many quarters of
wheat, oats, and barley. The Firmarius thus held a beneficial lease.
The Anglo-Saxon noun feorme is not a farm but food, and the verb
feormian is not to farm or cultivate, but to supply with food, and
the Firmarius was so termed not because he cultivated the land but
because he was bound to furnish feorme or food of a certain amount
for the supply of the Cathedral body.18 Thus we find that in about
noo Navestock was called upon to supply firmae for S. Paul's for
three weeks and three and a half days in the course of the year to be
made in three instalments, viz., the first on the 10th Sunday after
the Feast of S. Faith, October 6th, the second on the 22nd, and the
18 Hale's S. P. D. p. xxxviii.