Part 4

These figures are so emphatic that they may cause us for a moment to doubt their value, and on details we must lay no stress. But we have materials which enable us to check the general effect. In 1297 Edward I. levied a lay subsidy of a ninth[56]. The sums borne by our three groups of counties were these:--

£ South-Western Group: 4,038 Mid-Western Group: 3,514 Eastern Group: 7,329

There is a curious resemblance between these two sets of figures. Then in 1377 and 1381 returns were made for a poll-tax[57]. The number of polls returned in our three groups were these:--

1377 1381 South-Western Group: 183,842 106,086 Mid-Western Group: 158,245 115,679 Eastern Group: 255,498 182,830

No doubt all inferences drawn from medieval statistics are exceedingly precarious; but, unless a good many figures have conspired to deceive us, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk were at the time of the Conquest and for three centuries afterwards vastly richer and more populous than any tract of equal area in the West.

[Manorial and non-manorial vills.]

Another distinction between the eastern counties and the rest of England is apparent. In many shires we shall find that the name of each vill is mentioned once and no more. This is so because the land of each vill belongs in its entirety to some one tenant in chief. We may go further: we may say, though at present in an untechnical sense, that each vill is a manor. Such is the general rule, though there will be exceptions to it. On the other hand, in the eastern counties this rule will become the exception. For example, of the fourteen vills in the Armingford hundred of Cambridgeshire there is but one of which it is true that the whole of its land is held by a single tenant in chief. In this county it is common to find that three or four Norman lords hold land in the same vill. This seems true not only of Cambridgeshire but also of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, and some parts of Yorkshire. Even in other districts of England the rule that each vill has a single lord is by no means unbroken in the Conqueror's day and we can see that there were many exceptions to it in the Confessor's. A careful examination of all England vill by vill would perhaps show that the contrast which we are noting is neither so sharp nor so ancient as at first sight it seems to be: nevertheless it exists.

[The distribution of free men and serfs.]

A better known contrast there is. The eastern counties are the home of liberty[58]. We may divide the tillers of the soil into five great classes; these in order of dignity and freedom are (1) _liberi homines_, (2) _sochemanni_, (3) _villani_, (4) _bordarii_, _cotarii_ etc., (5) _servi_. The two first of these classes are to be found in large numbers only in Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. We shall hereafter see that Cambridgeshire also has been full of sokemen, though since the Conquest they have fallen from their high estate. On the other hand, the number of _servi_ increases pretty steadily as we cross the country from east to west. It reaches its maximum in Cornwall and Gloucestershire; it is very low in Norfolk, Suffolk, Derby, Leicester, Middlesex, Sussex; it descends to zero in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. This descent to zero may fairly warn us that the terms with which we are dealing may not bear precisely the same meaning in all parts of England, or that a small class is apt to be reckoned as forming part of a larger class. But still it is clear enough that some of these terms are used with care and express real and important distinctions.

[The classification of men.]

Of this we are assured by a document which seems to reproduce the wording of the instructions which defined the duty of at least one party of royal commissioners[59]. We are about to speak of the mode in which the occupants of the soil are classified by Domesday Book, and therefore this document deserves our best attention. It runs thus:--The King's barons inquired by the oath of the sheriff of the shire and of all the barons and of their Frenchmen and of the whole hundred, the priest, reeve and six _villani_ of every vill, how the mansion (_mansio_) is called, who held it in the time of King Edward, who holds it now, how many hides, how many plough-teams on the demesne, how many plough-teams of the men, how many _villani_, how many _cotarii_, how many _servi_, how many _liberi homines_, how many _sochemanni_, how much wood, how much meadow, how much pasture, how many mills, how many fisheries, how much has been taken away therefrom, how much added thereto, and how much there is now, how much each _liber homo_ and _sochemannus_ had and has:--All this thrice over, to wit as regards the time of King Edward, the time when King William gave it, and the present time, and whether more can be had thence than is had now[60].

[Basis of classification.]

Five classes of men are mentioned and they are mentioned in an order that is extremely curious:--_villani_, _cotarii_, _servi_, _liberi homines_, _sochemanni_. It descends three steps, then it leaps from the very bottom of the scale to the very top and thence it descends one step. A parody of it might speak of the rural population of modern England as consisting of large farmers, small farmers, cottagers, great landlords, small landlords. But a little consideration will convince us that beneath this apparent caprice there lies some legal principle. We shall observe that these five species of tenants are grouped into two genera. The king wants to know how much each _liber homo_, how much each _sochemannus_ holds; he does not want to know how much each _villanus_, each _cotarius_, each _servus_ holds. Connecting this with the main object of the whole survey, we shall probably be brought to the guess that between the sokeman and the villein there is some broad distinction which concerns the king as the recipient of geld. May it not be this:--the villein's lord is answerable for the geld due from the land that the villein holds, the sokeman's lord is not answerable, at least he is not answerable as principal debtor for the geld due from the land that the sokeman holds? If this be so, the order in which the five classes of men are mentioned will not seem unnatural. It proceeds outwards from the lord and his _mansio_. First it mentions the persons seated on land for the geld of which he is responsible, and them it arranges in an 'order of merit.' Then it turns to persons who, though in some way or another connected with the lord and his _mansio_, are themselves tax-payers, and concerning them the commissioners are to inquire how much each of them holds. Of course we can not say that this theory is proved by the statement that lies before us; but it is suggested by that statement and may for a while serve us as a working hypothesis. If this theory be sound, then we have here a distinction of the utmost importance. For one mighty purpose, the purpose that is uppermost in King William's mind, the _villanus_ is not a landowner, his lord is the landowner; on the other hand the _sochemannus_ is a landowner, and is taxed as such. We are not saying that this is a purely fiscal distinction. In legal logic the lord's liability for the geld that is apportioned on the land occupied by his villeins may be rather an effect than a cause. A lawyer might argue that the lord must pay because the occupier is his _villanus_, not that the occupier is a _villanus_ because the lord pays. And yet, as we may often see in legal history, there will be action and reaction between cause and effect. The geld is no trifle. Levied at that rate of six shillings on the hide at which King William has just now levied it, it is a momentous force capable of depressing and displacing whole classes of men. In 1086 this tax is so much in everybody's mind that any distinction as to its incidence will cut deeply into the body of the law.

[Our course.]

Now this classification of men we will take as the starting point for our enterprise. If we could define the _liber homo_, _sochemannus_, _villanus_, _cotarius_, _servus_, we should have solved some of the great legal problems of Domesday Book, for by the way we should have had to define two other difficult terms, namely _manerium_ and _soca_. It would then remain that we should say something of the higher strata of society, of earls and sheriffs, of barons, knights, thegns and their tenures, of such terms as _alodium_ and _feudum_, of the general theory of landownership or landholdership. We will begin with the lowest order of men, with the _servi_, and thence work our way upwards. But our course can not be straightforward. There are so many terms to be explained that sometimes we shall be compelled to leave a question but

## partially answered while we are endeavouring to find a partial answer

for some yet more difficult question.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] D. B. ii. 109 b: 'Hundret de Grenehou 14 letis.' Ib. 212 b: 'Hundret et Dim. de Clakelosa de 10 leitis.' Round, Feudal England, 101.

[23] Some of them are mentioned by Ellis, Introduction, i. 34-9.

[24] D. B. i. 184 b: 'Haec terra non geldat nec consuetudinem dat nec in aliquo hundredo iacet'; i. 157 'Haec terra nunquam geldavit nec alicui hundredo pertinet nec pertinuit'; i. 357 b 'Hae duae carucatae non sunt in numero alicuius hundredi neque habent pares in Lincolescyra.'

[25] D. B. i. 207 b: 'Jacet in Bedefordscira set geldum dat in Huntedonscire'; i. 61 b 'Jacet et appreciata est in Gratentun quod est in Oxenefordscire et tamen dat scotum in Berchescire'; i. 132 b, the manor of Weston 'lies in' Hitchin which is in Hertfordshire, but its _wara_ 'lies in' Bedfordshire, i.e. it pays geld, it 'defends itself' in the latter county; i. 189 b, the _wara_ of a certain hide 'lies in' Hinxton which is in Cambridgeshire, but the land belongs to the manor of Chesterford and therefore is valued in Essex. D. B. i. 178; five hides 'geld and plead' in Worcestershire, but pay their farm in Herefordshire.

[26] D. B. i. 157 b: 'Has [terras in Oxenefordscire] coniunxit terrae suae in Glowecestrescire'; i. 209 b 'foris misit de hundredo ubi se defendebat T. R. E.'; i. 50 'et misit foras comitatum et misit in Wiltesire.' See also Ellis, i. 36.

[27] See Round, Feudal England, p. 118. Mr Round seems to think that the commissioners made a circuit through the hundreds. I doubt they did more than their successors the justices in eyre were wont to do, that is, they held in the shire-town a moot which was attended by (1) the magnates of the shire who spoke for the shire, (2) a jury from every hundred, (3) a deputation of _villani_ from every township. See the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire _Clamores_ (i. 375) where we may find successive entries beginning with (_a_) _Scyra testatur_, (_b_) _Westreding testatur_, (_c_) _Testatur wapentac_. Strikingly similar entries are found on the eyre rolls. As Sir F. Pollock (Eng. Hist. Rev. xi. 213) remarks, it is misleading to speak of the Domesday 'survey'; Domesday Inquest would be better.

[28] See Round, Feudal England, p. 44.

[29] Inquis. Com. Cantab. 60.

[30] See the table in Round, Feudal England, p. 50. I had already selected this beautiful specimen before Mr Round's book appeared. He has given several others that are quite as neat.

[31] Of course we take no account of urban parishes.

[32] Eyton's laborious studies have made this plain as regards some counties widely removed from each other; still, _e.g._ in his book on Somerset, he has now and again to note that names which appear in D. B. are obsolete.

[33] Inq. Com. Cant. 60-1.

[34] D. B. i. 31.

[35] D. B. i. 41. We shall return to this matter hereafter.

[36] A good many cases will be found in Essex and Suffolk.

[37] Inq. Com. Cantab. 51, 53.

[38] Ibid. 47.

[39] Ibid. 29.

[40] Maitland, Surnames of English Villages, Archaeological Review, iv. 233.

[41] We do not mean to imply that there were not wide stretches of waste land which were regarded as being 'extra-villar,' or common to several vills.

[42] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 547.

[43] This of course would not be true of cases in which the lands of various villages were intermixed in one large tract of common field. As to these 'discrete vills,' see Hist. Eng. Law, i. 549.

[44] This name-giving cluster will usually contain the parish church and so will enjoy a certain preeminence. But we are to speak of a time when parish churches were novelties.

[45] See Meitzen, Siedelung und Agrarwesen der Germanen, especially ii. 119 ff.

[46] When the hamlets bear names with such ancient suffixes as -_ton_, -_ham_, -_by_, _-worth_, _-wick_, _-thorpe_, this of course is in favour of their antiquity. On the other hand, if they are known merely by family names such as _Styles's_, _Nokes's_, _Johnson's_ or the like, this, though not conclusive evidence of, is compatible with their modernity. Meitzen thinks that in Kent and along the southern shore the German invaders founded but few villages. The map does not convince me that this inference is correct.

[47] When more than five-and-twenty team-lands or thereabouts are ascribed to a single place, we shall generally find reason to believe that what is being described is not a single vill. See above, p. 13.

[48] Inq. Com. Cant. 51 fol. In a few cases our figures will involve a small element of conjecture.

[49] D. B. i. 248. We have tried to avoid vills in which it is certain or probable that some other tenant in chief had an estate.

[50] D. B. i. 88. We have tried to make sure that no tenant in chief save the bishop had land in any of these vills, and this we think fairly certain, except as regards Harptree and Norton. There are now two Harptrees, East and West, and four or more Nortons.

[51] We take the figures from Ellis, Introduction, ii. 417 ff.

[52] Very possibly this figure is too low. There is reason to think that some of the free men and sokemen of these counties get counted twice or thrice over because they hold land under several different lords. On the other hand Ellis (Introduction, ii. 491) would argue that the figure is too high. But the words _Alii ibi tenent_ which occur at the end of numerous entries mean, we believe, not that there are in this vill other unenumerated tillers of the soil, but that the vill is divided between several tenants in chief.

[53] D. B. i. 162 b.

[54] Ellis's figures are: England 283,242: the three counties 72,883.

[55] We take these figures from Ellis.

[56] Lay Subsidy, 25 Edw. I. (Yorkshire Archaeological Society), pp. xxxi-xxxv. Fractions of a pound are neglected.

[57] Powell, The Rising in East Anglia, 120-3. The great decrease between 1377 and 1381 in the number of persons taxed, we must not try to explain.

[58] See the serviceable maps in Seebohm, Village Community, 86. But they seem to treat Yorkshire unfairly. It has 5·5 per cent. of sokemen.

[59] This is found at the beginning of the Inquisitio Eliensis; D. B. iv. 497; Hamilton, Inquisitio, 97. See Round, Feudal England, 133 ff.

[60] We must not hastily draw the inference that every party of commissioners received the same set of instructions. Perhaps, for example, carucates, not hides, were mentioned in the instructions given to those commissioners who were to visit the carucated counties. Perhaps the non-appearance of _servi_ in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire may be due to no deeper cause.

§ 2. _The Serfs._

[The serfs in Domesday Book.]

The existence of some 25,000 serfs is recorded. In the thirteenth century _servus_ and _villanus_ are, at least among lawyers, equivalent words. The only unfree man is the 'serf-villein' and the lawyers are trying to subject him to the curious principle that he is the lord's chattel but a free man in relation to all but his lord[61]. It is far otherwise in Domesday Book. In entry after entry and county after county the _servi_ are kept well apart from the _villani_, _bordarii_, _cotarii_. Often they are mentioned in quite another context to that in which the _villani_ are enumerated. As an instance we may take a manor in Surrey[62]:--'In demesne there are 5 teams and there are 25 _villani_ and 6 _bordarii_ with 14 teams. There is one mill of 2 shillings and one fishery and one church and 4 acres of meadow, and wood for 150 pannage pigs, and 2 stone-quarries of 2 shillings and 2 nests of hawks in the wood and 10 _servi_.' Often enough the _servi_ are placed between two other sources of wealth, the church and the mill. In some counties they seem to take precedence over the _villani_; the common formula is 'In dominio sunt _a_ carucae et _b_ servi et _c_ villani et _d_ bordarii cum _e_ carucis.' But this is delusive; the formula is bringing the _servi_ into connexion with the demesne teams and separating them from the teams of the tenants. We must render it thus--'On the demesne there are _a_ teams and _b_ servi; and there are _c_ villani and _d_ bordarii with _e_ teams.' Still we seem to see a gently graduated scale of social classes, _villani_, _bordarii_, _cotarii_, _servi_, and while the jurors of one county will arrange them in one fashion, the jurors of another county may adopt a different scheme. Thus in their classification of mankind the jurors will sometimes lay great stress on the possession of plough oxen. In Hertfordshire we read:--'There are 6 teams in demesne and 41 _villani_ and 17 _bordarii_ have 20 teams ... there are 22 _cotarii_ and 12 _servi_[63].'--'The priest, 13 _villani_ and 4 _bordarii_ have 6 teams ... there are two _cotarii_ and 4 _servi_[64].'--'The priest and 24 _villani_ have 13 teams ... there are 12 _bordarii_, 16 _cotarii_ and 11 _servi_[65].' A division is in this instance made between the people who have oxen and the people who have none; _villani_ have oxen, _cotarii_ and _servi_ have none; sometimes the _bordarii_ stand above this line, sometimes below it.

[Legal position of the serf.]

Of the legal position of the _servus_ Domesday Book tells us little or nothing; but earlier and later documents oblige us to think of him as a slave, one who in the main has no legal rights. He is the _theów_ of the Anglo-Saxon dooms, the _servus_ of the ecclesiastical canons. But though we do right in calling him a slave, still we might well be mistaken were we to think of the line which divides him from other men as being as sharp as the line which a mature jurisprudence will draw between thing and person. We may well doubt whether this principle--'The slave is a thing, not a person'--can be fully understood by a grossly barbarous age. It implies the idea of a person, and in the world of sense we find not persons but men.

[Degrees of serfdom.]

Thus degrees of servility are possible. A class may stand, as it were, half-way between the class of slaves and the class of free men. The Kentish law of the seventh century as it appears in the dooms of Æthelbert[66], like many of its continental sisters, knows a class of men who perhaps are not free men and yet are not slaves; it knows the _læt_ as well as the _theów_. From what race the Kentish _læt_ has sprung, and how, when it comes to details, the law will treat him--these are obscure questions, and the latter of them can not be answered unless we apply to him what is written about the _laeti_, _liti_ and _lidi_ of the continent. He is thus far a person that he has a small wergild but possibly he is bound to the soil. Only in Æthelbert's dooms do we read of him. From later days, until Domesday Book breaks the silence, we do not obtain any definite evidence of the existence of any class of men who are not slaves but none the less are tied to the land. Of men who are bound to do heavy labour services for their lords we do hear, but we do not hear that if they run away they can be captured and brought back. As we shall see by and by, Domesday Book bears witness to the existence of a class of _buri_, _burs_, _coliberti_, who seem to be distinctly superior to the _servi_, but distinctly inferior to the villeins, bordiers and cottiers. It is by no means impossible that they, without being slaves, are in a very proper and intelligible sense unfree men, that they have civil rights which they can assert in courts of law, but that they are tied to the soil. The gulf between the seventh and the eleventh centuries is too wide to allow of our connecting them with the _læt_ of Æthelbert's laws, but still our documents are not exhaustive enough to justify us in denying that all along there has been a class (though it can hardly have been a large class) of men who could not quit their tenements and yet were no slaves. As we shall see hereafter, liberty was in certain contexts reckoned a matter of degree; even the _villanus_, even the _sochemannus_ was not for every purpose _liber homo_. When this is so, the _theów_ or _servus_ is like to appear as the unfreest of persons rather than as no person but a thing.

[Prædial element in serfage.]

In the second place, we may guess that from a remote time there has been in the condition of the _theów_ a certain element of praediality. The slaves have not been worked in gangs nor housed in barracks[67]. The _servus_ has often been a _servus casatus_, he has had a cottage or even a manse and yardland which _de facto_ he might call his own. There is here no legal limitation of his master's power. Some slave trade there has been; but on the whole it seems probable that the _theów_ has been usually treated as annexed to a tenement. The duties exacted of him from year to year have remained constant. The consequence is that a free man in return for a plot of land may well agree to do all that a _theów_ usually does and see in this no descent into slavery. Thus the slave gets a chance of acquiring what will be as a matter of fact a _peculium_. In the seventh century the church tried to turn this matter of fact into matter of law. 'Non licet homini,' says Theodore's Penitential, 'a servo tollere pecuniam, quam ipse labore suo adquesierit[68].' We have no reason for thinking that this effort was very strenuous or very successful, or that the law of the eleventh century allowed the _servus_ any proprietary rights; and yet he might often be the occupier of land and of chattels with which, so long as he did his customary services, his lord would seldom meddle.

[The serf in criminal law.]