第 7 页

sochemanni 213 villani 1902 bordarii 1428 cotarii 736 servi 548

But we also learn that the Cambridgeshire of the Confessor's day had contained at the very least 900 instead of 200 sokemen.(126*) This is an enormous and a significant change. Let us look at a single village. In Meldreth there is a manor; it is now a manor of the most ordinary kind; it is rated at 3 hides and 1 virgate, but contains 5 team-lands; in demesne are half a hide and one team, and 15 bordarii and 3 cotarii have 4 teams, and there is one servus. But before the Conquest this land was held by 15 sokemen; 10 of them were under the soke of the Abbey of Ely and held 2 hides and half a virgate; the other 5 held 1 hide and half a virgate and were the men of Earl AElfgar.(127*) What has become of these fifteen sokemen? They are now represented by fifteen bordiers and five cottiers; and the demesne land of the manor is a new thing. The sokemen have fallen, and their fall has brought with it the consolidation of manorial husbandry and seignorial power. At Orwell Earl Roger has now a small estate; a third of it is in demesne, while the residue is held by 2 villeins and 3 bordiers, and there is a serf there. This land had belonged to six sokemen, and those six had been under no less than five different lords; two belonged to Edith the Fair, one to Archbishop Stigand, one to Robert Wimarc's son, one to the king, and one to Earl Aelfgar.(128*) Displacements such as this we may see in village after village. No one can read the survey of Cambridgeshire without seeing that the freer sorts of the peasantry have been thrust out, or rather thrust down. Evidence so cogent as this we shall hardly find in any part of the record save that which relates to Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire. But great movements of the kind that we are examining will hardly confine themselves within the boundaries of a county. A little variation in the formula which tells us who held the land in 1066 may hide from us the true state of the case. We cannot expect that men will be very accurate in stating the legal relationships that existed twenty years ago. Since the day when King Edward was alive and dead many things have happened, many new words and new forms of thought have become familiar. But taking the verdicts as we find them, there is still no lack of evidence. In Essex we may see the liberi homines disappearing.(129*) But we need not look only to the eastern counties. At Bromley, in Surrey, Bishop Odo has a manor of 32 hides, 4 of which had belonged to 'free men' who could go where they pleased, but now there are only villeins, cottiers, and serfs.(130*) We turn the page and find Odo holding 10 hides which had belonged to 'the alodiaries of the vill.'(131*) In Kent Hugh de Port is holding land that was held by 6 free men who could go whither they would; there are now 6 villeins and 14 bordiers there, with one team between them.(132*) Students of Domesday were too apt to treat the antecessores of the Norman lords as being in all cases lords of manors. Lords of manors, or rather holders of manors, they often were, but as we shall see more fully hereafter, when we are examining the term manerium, such phrases are likely to deceive us. Often enough they were very small people with very little land. For example these six free men whom Hugh de Port represents had only two and a half team-lands. We pass by a few pages and find Hugh de Montfort with a holding which comprises but one team-land and a half; he has 4 villeins and 2 bordiers there. His antecessores were three free men, who could go whither they would.(133*) They had need for but 12 oxen; they had no more land than they could easily till, at all events with the help of two or three cottages or slaves. To all appearance they were no better than peasants. They or their sons may still be tilling the land as Hugh's villeins. When we look for such instances we very easily find them. The case is not altered by the fact that the term 'manor' is given to the holdings of these antecessores. In Sussex an under-tenant of Earl Roger has an estate with four villeins upon it. His antecessores were two free men who held the land as two manors. And how much land was there to be divided between the two? There was one team-land. Such holders of maneria were tillers of the soil, peasants, at best yeomen.(134*) If they were of thegnly rank, this again does not alter the case. When in the survey of Dorset we read how four thegns held two team-lands, how six thegns held two team-lands, eight thegns two team-lands, nine thegns four team-lands, eleven thegns four team-lands,(135*) we cannot of course be certain that each of these groups of co-tenants had but one holding; but thegnly rank is inherited, and if a thegn will have nine or ten sons there will soon be tillers of the soil with the wergild of twelve hundred shillings. Now if these things are being done in the middling strata of society, if the sokemen are being suppressed or depressed in Cambridgeshire, the alodiaries in Sussex, what is likely to be the fate of the poor? They will have to till their lord's demesne graviter et miserabiliter. He can afford to dispense with serfs, for he has villeins. A last argument must be added. What we see in the thirteenth century of the ancient demesne of the crown(136*) might lead us to expect that in Domesday Book 'the manors of St Edward' would stand out in bold relief. Instead of a population mainly consisting of villeins, shall we not find upon them large numbers of sokemen, the ancesters of the men who in after days will be protected by the little writ of right and the Monstraverunt? Nothing of the kind. The royal manor differs in no such mode as this from any other manor. If it lies in a county in which other manors have sokemen, then it may or may not have sokemen. If it lies in a county in which other manors have no sokemen, it will have none. Cambridgeshire is a county in which there are some, and have been many, sokemen; there is hardly a sokeman upon the ancient demesne. In after days the men of Chesterton, for example, will have all the peculiar rights attributed by lawyers to the sokemen of St Edward. But St Edward, if we trust Domesday Book, had never a sokeman there; he had two villeins and a number of bordiers and cottiers.(137*) It seems fairly clear that from an early time, if not from the first days of the Conquest onwards, the king was the best of landlords. The tenants of those manors that were conceived as annexed to the crown, those tenants one and all, save the class of slaves which was disappearing, got a better, a more regular justice than that which the villeins of other lords could hope for. It was the king's justice, and therefore -- for the king's public and private capacities were hardly to be distinguished -- it was public justice, and so became formal justice, defined by writs, administered in the last resort by the highest court, the ablest lawyers. And so sokemen disappear from private manors. Some of them as tenants in free socage may maintain their position; many fall down into the class of tenants in villeinage. On the ancient demesne the sokemen multiply; they appear where Domesday knew them not; for those who are protected by royal justice can hardly (now that villeinage implies a precarious tenure) be called villeins, they must be 'villein sokemen' at the least. Whether or no we trust the tradition which ascribes.to the Conqueror a law in favour of the tillers of the soil, we can hardly doubt that the villani and bordarii whom Domesday Book shows us on the royal manors are treated as having legal rights in their holdings. And if this be true of them, it should be true of their peers upon other manors. Yes, it should be true; the manorial courts that are arising should do impartial justice even between lord and villeins; but who is to make it true?

NOTES:

1. D. B. i. 38, Coseham: '8 burs i. coliberti.' Ib. 38 b Dene: 'et coliberti [vel bures interlined].'

2. D. B. i. 65, Wintreburne.

3. D. B. i. 75, Bridetone et Bere.

4. D. B. i. 239 b, Etone.

5. Gu閞ard, Cartulaire de L'Abbaye de S. P鑢e de Chartres, vol. i. p. xlii.

6. The position of the coliberti is discussed by Gu閞ard, loc. cit and by Lamprecht, Geschichte des Franz鰏ischen Wirthschaftslebens (in Schmoller's Forschungen, Bd i.), p. 81. Gu閞ard says, 'Les coliberts peuvent se placer ?peu pr鑣 indiff閞emment ou au dernier des hommes libres, ou ?la t阾e des hommes engag閟 dans des liens de la servitudei'

7. Schmid. App. iii. c. 4.

8. Rectitudines, c. 3.

9. Occasionally the coliberti of D. B. are put before us as paying rents in money or in kind. Thus D. B. i. 38, Hants: 'In Coseham sunt 4 hidae quae pertinent huic manerio ubi T. R. E. erant 8 burs i. coliberti cum 4 carucis reddentes 50 sol. 8 den. minus.' D. B. i. 179 b. Heref.: 'Villani dant de consuetudine 13 sol. et 4 den. et [sex] coliberti reddunt 3 sextarios frumenti et ordei et 2 oves et dimidiam cum agnis et 2 den. et unum obolum.' D. B. i. 165: 'et in Glouucestre 1 burgensis reddens 5 den. et 2 coliberti reddentes 34 den.' In a charter coming from Bishop Denewulf (K. 1079) we read of three wite-the體men who were boor-born and three who were the體-born.

10. Ellis, Introduction, ii. 511-14.

11. For examples see D. B. iv. 211 and the following pages.

12. Leg. Hen. 81, sect. 3 'Quidam villani qui sunt eiusmodi leierwitam et blodwitam et huiusmodi minora forisfacta emerunt a dominis suis, vel quomodo meruerunt de suis et in suos, quorum letgefoth vel overseunessa est 30 den.; cothseti 15 den.; servi 6 den.'

13. D. B. i. 71, Haseberie: '5 villani et 13 coscez et 2 cotarii.' Ibid 80 b: Chinestanestone: '18 villani et 14 coscez et 4 cotarii.'

14. Worcester Register, 59 b (Sedgebarrow): four cotmanni, each of whom pays 20d. or works one day a week and two in autumn; two cottarii, each whom pays 12d. or works one day a week. Ibid. 69 b (Shipston): two cotmanni, each of whom pays 3s. or works like a virgater; two cottarii, each of whom pays 13d. Ibid. 76 a (Cropthorn): two cotmanni, each of whom pays 2s. or works like a cottarius; two cottarii, each of whom pays 18d. or works one day a week.

15. Vinogradoff, Villainage, 149, gives a few instances of its occurrence; but it seems to be very rare.

16. D. B. i. 127 b, Fuleham: 'Ibi 5 villani quisque 1 hidam.' There are a good many other instances.

17. D. B. i. 130, Hamtone; 'et 4 bordarii quisque de dimidia virga.'

18. D. B. i. 127, Herges: 'et 2 cotarii de 13 acris.'

19. D. B. i. 127b, Fuleham: 'et 22 cotarii de dimidia hida et 8 cotarii de suis hortis.'

20. D. B. ii. 75 b: 'et 5 bordarii super aquam qui non tenent terram.'

21. D. B. i. 163 b, Turneberie: 'et 42 villani et 18 radchenistre cum 21 carucis et 23 bordarii et 15 servi et 4 coliberti.' Ibid 164, Hechanestede: 'et 5 villani et 8 bordarii cum 6 carucis; ibi 6 servi.'

22. D. B. iv. 21 5-223; on p. 223 there are two villani with one ox.

23. D. B. i. 164, Tedeneham: 'Ibi erant 38 villani habentes 38 carucas.' Ibid. 164 b, Nortune, '15 villani cum 15 carucis; Stanwelle, 5 villani cum 5 carucis.'

24. Malden, Domesday Survey of Surrey (Domesday Studies, ii.) 469, says that in Surrey 'bordarii and cotarii only occur once together upon the same manor, and very seldom in the same hundred.... There are three hundreds, Godalming, Wallington and Elmbridge, where the cotarii are nearly universal to the exclusion of bordarii. In the others the bordarii are nearly or quite universal, to the exclusion of the cotarii.'

25. Thorpe, Diplomatarium, 623, King Eadwig declares that a certain churchward of Exeter is 'free and fare-worth.

26. Hist. Eng. Law, i, 541 ff.

27. Hist. Eng. Law, i, 354-5.

28. Liebermann, Instituta Cnuti, Transact. Roy. Hist. Soc. vii. 93.

29. Leg. Will. Conq. 1. 8: 'La were del thein 20 lib. in Merchenelahe, 25 lib. in Westsexenelahe. La were del vilain 100 sol. en Merchenelahe e ensement en Westsexene.' Leg. Henr. 70, 1: 'In Westsexa quae caput regni est et legum, twyhindi, i.e. villagi, wera est 4 lib.; twelfhindi, i.e. thaigi, 25 lib.' Ibid. 76, section 2: 'Omnis autem wera liberorum est aut servorum... liberi alii twyhindi, alii syxhindi, alii twelfhindi'; section 6, twihindus = cyrliscus = villanus. As to the 100 shillings in the first of these passages, see Schmid, p. 676. There is some other evidence that the equation, 1 Norman shilling = 2 English shillings, was occasionally treated as correct enough. As to the six-hynde man, see Schmid, p. 653; we may doubt whether he existed in the eleventh century, but according to the Instituta Cnuti the radchenistres of the west may have been six-hynde. We must got draw from Alfred's treaty with the Dages (Schmid, p. 107) the inference that the normal ceorl was seated on gafol-land. This international instrument is settling an exceptionally high tariff for the maintenance of the peace. Every man, whatever his rank, is to enjoy the handsome wergild of 8 half-marks of pure gold, except the Danish lysing and the English eeorl who is seated on gafol-land; these are to have but the common wer of 200 shillings. The parallel passage in AEthelred's treaty (Schmid, p. 207) sets ?0 on every free man if he is killed by a man of the other race. See Schmid, p. 676.

30. Ine, 55: a sheep with a lamb until a fortnight after Easter is worth 1 shilling. AEethelstan, vi. 6: a horse 120 pence, an ox 30 pence, a cow 20, a sheep 1 shilling (5 pence). Ibid. 8, sect. 5: an ox 30 pence. Schmid, App. 1. c. 7: a horse 30 shillings, a mare 20 shillings, an ox 30 pence, a cow 24 pence, a swine 8 pence, a sheep 1 shilling, a goat 2 pence, a man (i.e. a slave) 1 pound. Schmid, App. iii. c. 9: a sheep or 3 pence. D. B. i. 117 b.: an ox or 30 pence. D. B. i. 26: Tolls at Lewes; for a mag 4 pence, an ox a halfpenny. This preserves the equation that we have already seen, namely, 1 slave = 8 oxen. Thus the full team is worth one pound. On the twelfth-century Pipe Rolls the ox often costs 3 shillings (= 36 pence) or even more.

31. In Leg. Will. Conq. 1. 16, we hear of the forisfacturae (probably the 'insult fines') due to archbishops, bishops, counts, barons and sokemen; the baron has 10 shillings, the sokeman 40 pence. In the same document, e. 20, section 2, we read of the reliefs of counts, barons, vavassors and villeins. Leg. Edw. Conf. 12, section 4, speaks of the manb髏 due in the Danelaw. on the death of a villanus or a socheman 12 ores are paid, on the death of a liber homo 3 marks.

32. D. B. i. 167 b, Heile: 'ibi erant 12 servi quos Willelmus liberos fecit.'

33. D. B. i 263: 'Si quis liber homo facit opera in die feriato inde episcopus habet 8 solidos. De servo autem vel ancilla feriatum diem infringente, habet episcopus 4 solidos.' Compare Cnut, ii. 45.