down among the Normans, and tells us that
brine-springs of a weaker quality in several
parts of Worcestershire being stopped up to
prevent the excessive consumption of wood,
and the inhabitants only allowed to draw
brine from this town, it came to be
distinguished by the adjunct Droit, legal or
allowed.

The information collected by Nash and
other county historians respecting the salt
springs at Droitwich, is in many respects
very curious. It has been traced through a
period of eight centuries and a half. The
redoubtable Kenulph, king of the Mercians,
iu the year eight hundred and sixteen, gave
to the Church of Worcester, ten houses at
Wick, with salt furnaces; and about a
century and a half afterwards, King Edwy
endowed the same church with five more salt
furnaces. There seems to be some doubt as
to the meaning which the old chroniclers
attached to the names salt-furnaces, scales,
and saliinae; but at any rate, the old Saxon
kings gave to the Church at Worcester an
interest in the Droitwich salt-springs, and
this is enough for our present purpose. At
the time of Domesday survey, shares in these
springs were annexed to many estates in the
county, although the estates were, in some
instances, several miles distant. Under what
condition the right to the brine became thus
curiously held, does not clearly appear; but,
each of these landowners had a share of brine
apportioned to him, proportionate to the
timber which his estate afforded. The fuel
used in the evaporating houses, was wood;
and it is probable that, when the neighbourhood
of Droitwich became stripped of its wood
to feed these fires, a right to some of the brine
was awarded to the more distant landowners
on condition of their furnishing wood for fuel.
Other landowners sold their wood to the
salt-makers, being paid in money or in salt.
In those days there appears to have been
five wells of brine in and near Droitwich.
Edward the Confessor and Earl Edwin had
possessed about a hundred and fifty salinae;
at these wells, all of which passed over to
William the Conqueror. Whether a salina
meant a definite quantity of brine, or a vessel
in which the brine was boiled, is a point
whereupon learned doctors differ. The royal
property in the Droitwich brine was held
until the time of King John, who leased it
for ever to the burgesses, at a fee-farm, rent
of one hundred pounds per annum. The
crown had to interfere, in the time of Henry
the Third, to see that the salt-works were
not allowed to become dilapidated. In the
time of Leland there were about four hundred
scales, or brine-vessels at Droitwich; and
wood for fuel had become so scarce, that it
had to be brought from Worcester, Bromsgrove,
and Alcester. Leland "asked a saulter
howe much would he suppose yearly to be
spent at the fournaces, and he answered that
by estimation there was spent six thousand
loads yearly. It is yonge pole wood, easy to
be cloven."

In those days, every share in the brine as
a property, was called a phat; and as for the
manner of distributing the brine, it became
almost necessary to have as many boiling-
vessels as there were shares, one to each; there
is at least a possibility, if not a probability,
that share, phat, seale, salina, and furnace,
were often used as convertible, or practically
equivalent terms: sometimes implying a salt-
making vessel, and at other times such a
quantity of brine as that vessel could contain.
The vessels, made of lead, were about six feet
in length, four in breadth, and one in depth.
It was the forest of Feckenham, stripped to
supply Droitwich with fuel, that Drayton
addressed thus as a dishevelled nymph:

Fond nymph, thy twisted curls on which were all my
care,
Thou lettest the furnace waste; that miserable bare
I hope to see thee left, which so dost me despise;
Whose beauties many a morn have blest my longing
eyes;
And till the weary sun sunk down into the west,
Thou still my object wast, thou once my only best.
The time shall quickly come, thy groves and pleasant
springs,
Where to the mirthful merle the warbling mavis sings,
The painful labourer's hand shall stack the roots to
burn;
The branch and body spent, yet could not serve his
turn!

About two centuries and a half ago, the
brine-ownership at Droitwich was thus
regulated. There were about four hundred
phats or shares. Each phat was represented
by two hundred and sixteen large vessels full
of brine; and in order that no person should
have stronger brine than his neighbour,
service officers called ties-men were appointed to
manage the distribution. Each shareholder
gave notice to the ties-men of the number of
shares held by him. All the holders made
their salt about the same time: and the ties-men
meted out an equal measure for the top,
the bottom, and the middle of the well, to
each shareholder, that all might share equally
in the strongest brine. They gave out six
vessels full for the top, six for the middle,
and six for the bottom; these eighteen
constituted one wicken brine; there were twelve
of these wickens served out in about half-a-year,
at intervals of fourteen or fifteen days
each; and the total, making a quantity of
two hundred and sixteen large vessels full,
was the brine received in respect to each
share in one year. The salt-making was
confined to the latter half of each year.

That every man should like his own cakes
and ale is well enough; but, unfortunately,
man looks too often with an eager eye to the
cakes and ale of his neighbours. There was
something in the brine-spring system which
led almost of necessity to monopoly. Each
phat, or share, was a definite quantity; and
if the number of shares became also definite,