Now, this is precisely what is described in the Domesday Survey of Gwent.
The clusters of villas under a præpositus paying food-rent.
There are four groups of thirteen or fourteen 'villas' or trevs, each group under a 'præpositus' or maer; and these four groups, which were in fact Gwentian 'maenols,' rendered as gwestva a food-rent amounting to 47 sextars of honey, 40 pigs, 41 cows, and 28 shillings for hawks.
In the district of Archenfield the clusters of trevs do not appear, but the food-rents were similar—honey being a marked item throughout.
Honey rents.
In the Welsh gwestva, also, honey was an important element. It is mentioned as such in the Welsh codes, and it is conspicuous also in the Domesday Survey both of Gwent and Archenfield.
Importance of honey.
Its importance is shown by the fact that in the Gwentian Code a separate section was devoted to 'The Law of Bees.' It begins as follows:—'The origin of bees is from Paradise, and on account of the sin of man they came from thence, and they were blessed by God, and, therefore, the mass cannot be without the wax.' [262]
The price of a swarm of bees in August was equal to the price of an ox ready for the yoke, i.e. ten or fifteen times its present value, in proportion to the ox.
Honey had, in fact, two uses, besides its being the [p208] substitute for the modern sugar—one for the making of mead, which was three times the price of beer; the other for the wax for candles used in the chief's household, and on the altar of the mass.[263] The lord of a taeog had the right of buying up all his honey;[264] and in North Wales, according to the Venedotian Code, all the honey of the king's aillts or taeogs was reserved for the court.[265] The mead brewer was also an important royal officer in all the three divisions of Wales.