Now these figures, together with the 3866 acres of Plympton proper, make a total of 84931. The margin, therefore, is but 1700 acres; and as no account was taken of land that was unproductive or covered with water, or occupied by roads or buildings, we have the whole of Plympton parish fully accounted for, without Elintona, making any reasonable allowance for casual variation of boundaries.

But we may carry this enquiry further. In Plymstock we can identify the manors of Plemestock (Plymstock), 510 acres; Ho (Hooe), 245; Gosewelle (Gooswell), 242; Stotescome (Staddiscombe), 280; Statdone (Staddon), 265; Wederidge (Withy Hedge), 68. These account for 1610 acres of the present 3650, and there is no doubt that all the manors within this parish are not known. There is specially Elburton. This may be the Queen's manor of Aisbertone, held by Judhel, which was on an estuary, having two fisheries and a saltwork (Saltram?). It covered 1964 acres. In Brixton, the next adjoining parish, we know the two Brisestones (Brixton) each of 241 acres; Chichelesberie (Chittleburn), 250; two Harestanes (Hearston and Higher Hearston)the one 242 and the other 300; Hagwile (Halwell), 244; Sireford (Sherford), 363; Spredelestone (Spriddlestone), 251; and Uluevetone (Woolaton), 250. The total here is 2382 acres out of a modern acreage of 2999, which is quite as near as we can expect to get. Passing on to Cornwood we find that Cornehode itself is estimated in Domesday at 2760 acres; while Ferdendel (Fardel) has 730-making 3490. The parish contains 10,680; but of these 6000 acres are part of Dartmoor, which finds no mention in the Survey; and there are unquestionably other manors unidentified. Shaugh is in much the same position; but the known manors here account for 2092 of its 8707 acres; and as the greater portion of Shaugh is still waste and unenclosed, and part is appendant to the manor of Bickleigh, this is evidently a close approximation to the ancient valuation. There are: two Scages (Shaugh and Nether Shaugh), 845 acres; Coltrestan (Callisham), 438; Brictricestone (Brixton), 372; Fernehelle (Fernhill), 191; Pidehel (Pithill), 145.

It is perfectly clear therefore that Elintone cannot be in either of these parishes, and if it is in the locality at all, there is only one place left. We turn then to Yealmpton, and find that the 2683 acres of the Domesday manor may well be represented, by the 3537 of the modern parish, especially as there is reason to believe that a further identification can be made. The name Yealmpton does not appear

in Domesday, and if Elintona be not Yealmpton, then there is no name capable of representing it. The "n" stands for the modern "m" equally in Plintona; and in Domesday “E” with or without the aspirate, and "A" with it, are the common forms representing the modern "Y." The "y" in fact stands for a vowel sound = long "e" or "a," at the beginning of a syllable instead of at the end. Thus Hernescoma in Domesday is now Yarnescombe, and Erticoma, Yartecombe. One form of the Domesday Elintona is Alentona. The "p," both in Plympton and Yealmpton, is of later insertion. We know nothing, it is true, of any dedication to St. Mary at Yealmpton; but there is nothing to militate against its existence. (The dedication of the church of Newton Ferrers, which parish extends to the Yealm at Yealmpton village, is to the Virgin.) On the other hand the dedication at Plintona was to St. Peter, and St. Mary is not heard of until much later. Moreover, two distinct bodies of clergy were hardly likely to be planted in the same little community at this early date.

However, it is perfectly clear that whether Elintone be Yealmpton or not, it can be no part of Plympton, the point which most concerns us here.

Some interesting details as to the condition of the parish eight hundred years ago may be gathered from the entries of the Survey. The bulk of the arable land lay in the low ground in and about Plympton proper, over 3000 acres ; while wood extended for a mile and a half along the slopes still indicated by the name Underwood. At Higher Woodford and Baccamoor there was a long stretch of upland pasture, Lower Woodford only having wood-thirty acres. The greatest area of meadow, also thirty acres, was in the valley of the Torry at Loughtor. The total areas under different heads in the parish were-arable, 5940 acres; pasture, 1648; meadow, 78; wood, 789; coppice, 38. Little patches of wood or coppice were attached to every manor except the land held by the canons, which was exclusively arable. It is evident that the bulk of the lower land was under cultivation, with parcels of meadow in the bottoms by the streams; that the hill slopes were clothed or dotted with trees; and that the hills generally were open pasture. The picture drawn is, however, that of exceptional civilisation and utilization of natural resources.

The figures given for the population point in the same direction. There are enumerated in all 13 serfs, 57 villeins, and 30 bordars or cottagers-exactly 100. To this, of course,

the free population has to be added. Again, the stock on the different manors is correspondingly significant, and finally we find the total annual value of the enumerated properties no less a sum than £21.

The Saxon owners of the parochial manors were the King, Alebric, Algar, Alwin, Elouf, Elmer, Seric; the Norman-the King, Count of Mortain, Judhel of Totnes, and Robert Bastard, Alebric coming next to Edward, and Judhel to William. The canons were tenants to each, and other Norman tenants were Ralph and Drogo, the former holding under Judhel.

VENVILLE RIGHTS ON DARTMOOR.

BY W. F. COLLIER.

(Read at Plympton, July, 1887.)

THE word venville takes one back to a time before legal memory extends, which mental phenomenon begins to run its imposing course from the reign of Richard I. Venville is doubtless derived from fines villarum, or the fines of the vils; and to understand venville rights it is necessary to know something of the vil.

To have any idea of a benighted time before legal memory lighted up the darkness of the land, it is needful to use that dangerous compound-the imagination. It is necessary to imagine Devonshire owned and occupied by English settlers, who in groups of small communities farmed in their own fashion those parts of the land that suited their purpose best, leaving the remainder waste. These English had

driven out the Celts or Welsh, and they governed themselves according to their own customs and laws. They lived in villages or homesteads, ploughed and cultivated a part of their land, grazed cattle on the rest, and fed their swine on the acorns and mast outside the boundaries of the settlement that they claimed as their own. The most fertile and best lands of Devonshire were held by these communities in common as amongst the members of each community, but separately as between one community and another.

In these modern days-the whole of Devonshire being thickly populated, though it has not been so for a century as yet-it is not easy to realize a state of things when large portions of this beautiful hilly county were waste and thicket, and the richest valleys only were occupied by communities living on the produce of the land on which they had settled. But as Dartmoor is the part of Devonshire on which venville rights are claimed, there cannot be a doubt

that in the time of these communities, all around Dartmoor there were vast wastes with wood and dense thickets, or what our colonists would now call "bush." I have avoided the word forest up to this time, for reasons which I will presently give.

Such communities owning their land in common, known as village communities, still flourish in India and Russia. Before the Conquest they were probably known by their English name-wic; and after the Conquest they are known to legal memory by the Norman name of vil. The Normans of course, as conquerors, imposed their laws on the English, and the vils have disappeared altogether under their rule. Even legal memory is not good enough to say whether the manors or the parishes are the modern survivors of the vils; but there is evidence in favour of the manor, the vils having been granted by the crown to lords of the manor; and the parishes, though now partaking much more of the character of the vil, were instituted by the church, probably at a more recent date than that when the manors were granted to the lords.

Dartmoor goes by the name of a forest; but it is a chace, and not a forest. It is a very common mistake to suppose that a forest must necessarily consist of trees, whereas the word forest has but little to do with trees. It has the same derivation as the word foreign, and means land away from home unappropriated for cultivation, on which wild beasts are hunted, and therefore belonging to the crown. Nearly all forest land being covered with trees, except on the very much exposed parts and the marshes, it has not unnaturally followed that some confusion between forests and trees has arisen. All land belongs to the crown, but some of it has been granted to tenants holding of the crown, practically for ever. Land therefore which is not held by any tenant, unused for purposes of cultivation, but over which the king hunts, is forest. A forest granted to a subject for sporting purposes is a chace. Dartmoor forest, therefore, granted to the Black Prince as Duke of Cornwall, and held by the Princes of Wales as Dukes of Cornwall from that time, is a chace. Long custom however makes it necessary still to call it Dartmoor forest, and it is on this so-called forest that the venville rights are claimed and exercised, and have been exercised for a length of time, that it is hardly an abuse of words to call for ever.

The tenants in venville are said to have the right to take anything off Dartmoor that may do them good except green