The English Village Community / Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)

But the same person was often the lord of many manors.

1,422 manors were in the ancient demesne of the Crown at the date of the Survey,107 and most of them had also been Crown manors in the time of Edward the Confessor. Thus, for centuries after the Conquest, the Domesday book was constantly appealed to as evidence that this manor or that was of 'ancient demesne,' i.e. that it was a royal manor in the time of Edward the Confessor; because the tenants of these manors claimed certain privileges and immunities which other tenants did not enjoy. [p083]

The monasteries also at the time of Edward the Confessor were holders of many manors, often in various counties, and the Survey shows that they were generally permitted to retain them after the Conquest.

Earls and powerful thanes were also at the time of Edward the Confessor possessors of many manors, and so were their Norman successors at the date of the Survey. The resident lord of a manor was often the mesne tenant of one of these greater lords. However this might be, every manor had its lord, resident, or represented by a steward or reeve (villicus).

Sometimes the Survey shows that a village or township, once probably under a single lord, had become divided between two or more manors; and sometimes again, by what was called subinfeudation, lesser and dependent manors, as in the Hitchin example, had been carved out of the original manor, once embracing directly the whole village or township.

But these variations do not interfere with the general fact that there were manors everywhere, and that the typical manor was a manorial lord's estate, with a village or township upon it, under his jurisdiction, and in villenage.

Further, this was clearly the case both after the Conquest at the date of the Survey, and also before the Conquest in the time of Edward the Confessor.

What land was extra-manorial or belonged to no township was probably royal forest or waste. At the date of the Survey this unappropriated forest, as well as the numerous royal manors already alluded to, was included in the royal demesne. Whatever belonged to the latter was excluded from the jurisdiction [p084] of the courts of the hundreds. It acknowledged no lordship but that of the king, and was described in the Survey as terra regis.

II. THE DIVISION OF THE MANOR INTO LORD'S DEMESNE AND LAND IN VILLENAGE.

Not only were there manors everywhere, but throughout the Domesday Survey the division of the land of the manor into lord's demesne and land in villenage was all but universal, both in the time of Edward the Confessor and at the later date. It was so equally in the case of manors both in royal and in private hands.

The record generally begins with the number of hides or carucates at which the whole manor was rated according to ancient assessment. Generally, except in the Danish district of England (where the carucate only is used), the word hide (though often originally meaning, as already mentioned, the same thing as a carucate, viz. the land of one plough) was used in the Survey exclusively as the ancient unit of assessment, while the actual extent of the manor was described in carucates, and thus the number of hides often fell far short of the number of carucates.

In the Inquisitio Eliensis the Huntingdonshire manors of the abbey are described as containing so many hides 'ad geldum,' and so many carucates 'ad arandum,' thus exactly explaining the use of the terms.

In Kent the ancient assessment was, consistently with later records, given by the number of [p085] solins—sulung being an old word used both long before and afterwards, as we have seen, in the south-east of England for 'plough land.'

Generally, whatever the terms made use of, the basis of the assessment seems to have been the number of plough teams at the time it was made, and (except in the west of England) this probably had been the case also as regards the ancient one quoted in the Survey. The actual circumstances of the manors had at the date of the Survey wandered far away from those at the date of the ancient assessment, and therefore it was needful to state the present actual number of carucates (carucatæ) or plough teams (carucæ).108 The devastations of the Norman Conquest had not been wholly repaired at the date of the Survey, and therefore after the number of actual plough teams in demesne and in villenage it is often stated that so many more might be added.

The total number of plough teams being given, information is almost always added how many of them were in demesne and how many belonged to the villeins. And it is to be noticed that the plough teams of the villeins were smaller than the typical manorial plough team of 8 oxen, just as was the case on the Peterborough manors, according to the Liber Niger.

There were on an average in most counties about half as many ploughs in villenage as there were villeins; so that, roughly speaking, two villeins, as in [p086] the Peterborough manors, seem to have joined at each villein plough, which thus can hardly have possessed more than 4 oxen in its team.

III. THE FREE TENANTS ON THE LORD'S DEMESNE.

In the Domesday Survey for the greater part of England there is no mention of free tenants, whether 'liberi homines' or 'libere tenentes.'

Nor, considering the extreme completeness of the Survey, is it easy to explain their absence on any other hypothesis than that of their non-existence.109 A glance at the map will show that throughout those [p087] counties of England most completely under Danish influence there were plenty of liberi homines and of the allied class of sochmanni, but nowhere else. And that these two classes were distinctly and exceptionally Danish there is evidence in a passage in the laws of Edward the Confessor, in which the 'Manbote in Danelaga' is given separately and as different from that of the rest of England, viz. 'de vilano et socheman xii. oras: de liberis hominibus iii. marcas.' 110

That the existence of these classes in a manor was local and quite exceptional is also confirmed by the place in which they are mentioned in the list of classes of tenants, the numbers of whom were to be recorded. They are placed last of all, even after the 'servi.' Inquiry was to be made, 'quot villani, quot cottarii, quot servi, quot liberi homines, quot sochemanni.' These were the words used in the statement of the inquiry to be made in the manors of the monks of Ely, [p088] which manors lay in the Danish district; and the two last-mentioned classes were added out of order at the end of a common form, to meet its special needs.111

It is remarkable, however, that by common law (which generally represents very ancient custom) the existence of free tenants was essential to the Court Baron of a manor. Without some freemen, according to the old law books, it could not be held.112 And there is a curious instance, in the Survey, of three sochmanni being lent by one lord to another, so that he might hold his court.113

This being so, it is curious and important to notice that the survey of the manors of the monks of Ely was to be taken upon the oaths of the sheriff of the county, and of all the barons and of their Norman associates (eorum Francigenarum), and of the whole hundred (tocius centuriatus), the priests, præpositi, and six villani of each manor (villa).114

The sochmanni and liberi homines must here be included either among the 'Norman associates' or the 'whole hundred.'

It may be concluded, therefore, that the liberi homines and sochmanni were of Danish or Norman origin, as also probably was the Court Baron itself; whilst in those districts of England not so much under Danish or Norman influence, the demesne lands were not let out until a later period to permanent freeholding tenants. Upon the lord's demesne, and perhaps [p089] in the manorial hall, may have been the 'Francigenæ eorum' belonging to the 'Comitatus,' not necessarily holders of land, but more or less dependants of the lord of the manor. Out of the Danish district nearly all the population on the manor seems clearly to have been tenants in villenage or slaves.

IV. THE CLASSES OF TENANTS IN VILLENAGE.

We turn now to the tenants in villenage, who formed the bulk of the population, and with whom this inquiry has most to do.

The terms of the writ ordering the survey to be made on the Ely manors show clearly what classes of tenants in villenage were expected to be found on the manors. The jury were to inquire—

• (1) Quot villani.
• (2) Quot cotarii.
• (3) Quot servi.

The three classes of tenants in villenage actually mentioned in the Survey are almost universally the—

As regards the servi, the map will show that whilst only embracing nine per cent. of the whole population of England, they were most numerous towards the south-west of England, less and less numerous as the Danish districts were approached, and absent [p090] altogether from Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and bordering districts.

Even when most numerous they were hardly tenants in villenage. They seem to have held no land, and often to have been rather household thralls of the lord of the manor than tenants in any ordinary sense of the word.115

Thus the real tenants in villenage were confined mainly to the two classes of villani and bordarii, or cottiers.

Taking the bordarii or cottage tenants first, the map will show how evenly they were scattered over the whole country. They embraced 32 per cent.—roughly one-third—of the whole population in their number, and in no county were there less than 12 per cent. of them.

But the villani were evidently at the date of the Survey, and at the earlier date of Edward the Confessor, as they were afterwards, by far the most important and typical tenants in villenage.

They were at the date of the Survey even more numerous than the cottier class below them. They embraced 38 per cent. of the whole population, and, except where partially displaced by the sochmanni of the Danish district, were pretty evenly dispersed all over England. Except in Norfolk and Suffolk, they were seldom less than one-third of the population. And if at the time of the Survey they were holders of virgates and half-virgates, as their successors were afterwards, then it follows that they held by far the largest proportion of the land of England [p091] in their holdings. But before we assume this, some proof may fairly be required that it was so. In the meantime it is clear that the classes of tenants in villenage bore the same names at the time of the Survey as they did afterwards. The presumption evidently is that they held similar holdings.

V. THE VILLANI WERE HOLDERS OF VIRGATES, ETC.

The compilers of the Survey were not in the habit of describing in detail the character of the holdings of the villani. Whilst recording how many villani there were in a manor, the Domesday Survey does not, like the Hundred Rolls, usually go on to state how many of them held a virgate and how many a half-virgate each.

Still, notwithstanding this general silence of the Survey on this point, treating the matter manor by manor, and taking for example the Peterborough manors, it might be inferred almost with certainty that as the villani of the Liber Niger in 1125 were holders of virgates and half-virgates, so their fathers and grandfathers before them must also have held virgates and half-virgates at the time of the Domesday Survey and of Edward the Confessor. And such an inference would be strengthened by the occasional use in the Survey of the terms integri villani116 and villani dimidii,117 answering no doubt to the same terms, and to the pleni virgarii and semi-virgarii of the Liber Niger and the Battle Abbey records. [p092]

That the land was really held at the date of the Survey in hides and virgates may also be gathered from the well-known statement of the Saxon Chronicle that 'næs an ælpig hide ne an gyrde landes' was omitted from the Survey—a statement which does not mean that not a hide nor a yard of land was omitted, but not a hide or a yard-land, i.e. a virgate.118 So that it might fairly be inferred from this passage that the virgate was the normal or typical holding of the villanus, and this inference might well cover the whole area of the Survey.

But there is more direct evidence than these general inferences. It so happens that there are a few local exceptions to the general silence of the Survey as regards the holdings of the villani.

The most remarkable exception to the general reticence occurs in the survey for Middlesex, the compilers of which go out of their way fortunately to give precisely the desired information. And wherever they do so the holdings are found to be in the now familiar grades of hides, half-hides, virgates, and half-virgates.

The following are a few examples:—

As might be expected, most of the villani held virgates and half-virgates, but there are a sufficient number of cases of hides and half-hides to show conclusively the relation to each other of the four grades in the regular hierarchy of villenage.

Another local and solitary exception occurs in the record for Sawbridgeworth, in Hertfordshire. The holdings in this case were as follows:—

A few other exceptional cases occur in the [p094] Liber Eliensis. The abbey had three manors in Hertfordshire, and in these the holdings were as follows:

The monks of Ely also had several manors in the Fen country, but the holdings in this district seem to have been peculiar. Instead of being 'each of a virgate,' or 'each of a half-virgate,' they are 'each of so many acres,' as was also found to be the case in some districts of Cambridgeshire in the Hundred Rolls. The Fen district seems to have had its own local peculiarities, both in the eleventh and in the fourteenth centuries, just as Kent also had. But here was no exception to the rule that the villani were classed in grades, each grade with equal holdings.

These accidental instances in the Domesday Survey in which the required information is given are numerous enough to make it clear that at the date of the Survey the holdings of the villani were generally hides, half-hides, virgates, and half-virgates. The virgate or yard-land was the normal holding, as it was afterwards. And this being so, it may reasonably be [p095] concluded also that the virgates and half-virgates were themselves what they were afterwards—bundles of strips scattered over the open fields, and having some connexion not yet fully explained, but clearly indicated, with the number of oxen allotted to their holders or contributed by them to the manorial plough team of eight oxen.

VI. THE HOLDINGS OF THE BORDARII OR COTTIERS.

It has already been noticed that in the Inquisitio Eliensis the particulars to be recorded as regards the tenants were—

• 1. Quot villani.
• 2. Quot cottarii.
• 3. Quot servi, &c.

And that with few exceptions throughout the Survey the three classes actually found in the Survey were—

• 1. Villani.
• 2. Bordarii.
• 3. Servi.

From this fact alone it would not be wrong to conclude that to a great extent the words bordarii and cottarii were interchangeable.

This inference gains much weight from the fact that a great many bordarii as well as cottarii are found even in the Inquisitio Eliensis itself. The facts, however, when collected together are somewhat [p096] curious, as a reference to the note below will show.119

In a few cases there are both bordarii and cottarii mentioned, which would lead to the conclusion that they were distinct classes. But in most cases there are either one or the other of the two classes mentioned, but not both. Examining their holdings there seems to be no difference between them.

There are bordarii holding so many acres each, generally five, but varying sometimes from one to ten. There are cottarii with all these variations of holdings. There are 'bordarii with their gardens,' and there are likewise 'cottarii with their gardens.' There are both bordarii and cottarii who, as their holdings are not described at all, may, for anything we know, have held cottages only, and no land or gardens.

Comparing these Cambridgeshire examples with those in Hertfordshire, and others in the Domesday Survey for Middlesex, we may conclude that for all [p097] practical purposes the bordarius was a cottier—sometimes with no land, sometimes with a garden, sometimes with one solitary acre strip in the open fields, sometimes with more, even up to 10 acres, but that the typical bordarius was a cottager who held, in addition to his cottage, 5 acres in the open fields. His was, therefore, a subordinate position to that of the villanus proper in the village hierarchy, and he differed from the villanus probably most clearly in this, that he put no oxen into the village plough teams, and took no part in the common ploughing.

His services were no less servile than those of the villanus, but of a more trivial kind. He was above the servus, or slave, but his was the class which most easily would slide into that of the modern labourer, and in which the servus himself in his turn might most easily merge. The word 'bordarius' was noticed in the Liber Niger of Peterborough, but though so universal in the Domesday Survey it soon slipped out of use; and as 'bord' gave place to 'cottage' in the common speech, so the whole class below the villani came to be known as cottagers.

VII. THE DOMESDAY SURVEY OF THE VILLA OF WESTMINSTER.

It may be worth while to test the value of the key which the results of this inquiry have put into our hand by applying it to the Domesday description of a particular manor.

For this purpose the survey of the manor of [p098] Westminster may be chosen as one of great national and historical interest. It is as follows:120—

• In the villa where is situated the church of St. Peter [i.e. the abbey] the abbot of the same place holds 1312 hides [i.e. land rated at so much]. There is land for 11 plough teams.
• To the demesne belong 9 hides and 1 virgate, and there are 4 plough teams.
• The villeins have 6 plough teams, and one more might be made.
• There are 9 villani with a virgate each.
  •  1 villanus with a hide.
  •  9 villani with a half-virgate each.
  •  1 cottier with 5 acres.
  • 41 cottiers rendering a shilling each yearly for their gardens.
• There is meadow for 11 plough teams,
  • Pasture for the cattle of the village,
  • Wood for 100 pigs.
• There are 25 houses of the abbot's soldiers and of other men, who render 8s. per annum or 10l. in all; when he received them, the same; in the time of King Edward, 12l.
• This manor was and is in the demesne of the Church of St. Peter of Westminster.
• In the same villa Bainiardus holds 3 hides of the abbot. There is land for 2 plough teams, and they are there, in demesne, and one cottier. Wood for 100 pigs. Pasture for cattle. Four arpents of vineyard newly planted. All these are worth 60s.; when he received them, 20s.; in the time of King Edward, 6l. This land belonged, and belongs, to the Church of St. Peter.

It is clear from this description that the village which nestled round the new minster just completed by Edward the Confessor, was on a manor of the abbot. It consisted of 25 houses of the abbot's immediate followers, 19 homesteads of villani, 42 cottages with their little gardens, and one of them with 5 acres of land. There was also the larger homestead of the sub-manor of the abbot's under-tenant, with a single cottage and a vineyard of 4 half-acres newly planted. There was meadow enough by the river side to make hay for the herd of oxen [p099] belonging to the dozen plough teams of the village, and pasture for them and other cattle. Further round the village in open fields were about 1,000 acres of arable land mostly in the acre strips, lying no doubt in their shots or furlongs, and divided by green turf balks and field-ways. Lastly, surrounding the whole on the land side were the woods where the swineherd found mast for the 200 pigs of the place. On every one of these points we have the certain evidence of sworn eye-witnesses.

And so with little variation must have been the condition of things in all material points twenty years earlier,121 when King Edward lay on his death-bed and wandered in his mind, and saw in his delirium two holy monks whom he remembered in Normandy, who foretold to him the coming disasters to the realm, which should only be ended when 'the green tree, after severance from its trunk and removal for the space of three acres (trium jugerum spatio), should return to its parent stem, and again bear leaf and fruit and flower.' It may be that the delirious king as 'he sat up in bed' dreamily gazed through the window of his chamber upon the open fields, and the turf balks dividing the acres. The green tree may have been suggested to his mind by an actual tree growing out of one of the balks. The uneven glass of his window-panes would be just as likely as not as he rose in his bed to sever the stem from the root to his eye, moving it apparently three acres' breadth higher up the open field, restoring it again to its root as he sank back on his pillow. The very delirium of [p100] the dying king thus becomes the most natural thing in the world when we know that all round were the open fields, and balks, and acres. Without this knowledge even the learned and graphic historian of the Norman Conquest can make nothing of the 'trium jugerum spatio,' and casts about for other renderings instead of the perfectly intelligible right one.122

Once more; the contemporary biographer of Edward the Confessor, with the accuracy of one to whom Westminster was no doubt familiar, tells us that 'the devout king destined to God that place, both for that it was near unto the famous and wealthy city of London, and also had a pleasant situation amongst fruitful fields lying round about it, with the principal river running hard by, bringing in from all parts of the world great variety of wares and merchandise of all sorts to the city adjoining; but chiefly for the love of the apostle, whom he reverenced with a special and singular affection.' 123 Even the delicate historical insight of the late historian of the abbey, to whom all its picturesque surroundings were so dear, failed to catch the full meaning of this passage. Whilst referred to in a note it becomes paraphrased thus in the text:—'By this time also the wilderness of Thorney was cleared; and the crowded river with its green meadows, and the sunny aspect of the island, may have had a charm for the king whose choice had hitherto lain in the rustic fields of Islip and Windsor.' 124 Yes, 'meadows of Thorney' there were, [p101] on which the oxen of a dozen plough teams were grazing, but the contemporary writer's 'fruitful fields lying round about the place' were the 1,000 acres of corn land of which Dean Stanley was unconscious. No blame to him, for what economic student had sufficiently understood the Domesday Survey to tell him that every virgate of the villani of the 'villa ubi sedet Æcclesia Sancti Petri' was a bundle of strips of arable land scattered all over the three great fields stretching away from the village, and the river, and the 'meadows of Thorney' for a mile or two round?

VIII. THE EXTENT OF THE CULTIVATED LAND OF ENGLAND, AND HOW MUCH WAS INCLUDED IN THE YARD-LANDS OF THE VILLANI.

Knowing now that the virgate or yard-land was the normal holding of the villanus, though some villani held hides and half-hides, i.e. more virgates than one, and others half-virgates; and knowing that the normal holding of the villanus, whether called a yard-land or a husband-land, or by any other name, was a bundle of scattered strips, containing normally thirty acres; and knowing also the number of villani in the several counties embraced in the Survey, it becomes perfectly possible to estimate, roughly no doubt, but with remarkable certainty, the total area contained in their holdings.

The total number of villani in these counties was 108,407.125 If each villanus held a yard-land or virgate of 30 acres, then about 3,250,000 acres were [p102] contained in their holdings. The number of villani holding half-virgates was, however, probably greater than the number holding half-hides and hides; so that the average holding would perhaps hardly be equal in acreage to the normal holding of 30 acres. Taking the average holding at 20 acres instead of 30, we should probably under-estimate the acreage. It would even then amount to 2,168,000. We shall be safe if we say that the villani held in their bundles of strips 214 millions of acres.126

We must add the holdings of the 82,000 bordarii and of the 6,000 or 7,000 cottier tenants.127 If these lesser holdings averaged three acres each, we must add another quarter of a million acres for them. The total of two and a half millions of acres can thus hardly be an over-estimate of the acreage of the arable strips in the open fields held by the villani and bordarii in villenage. What proportion did this bear to the whole cultivated area of these counties?

To include the total acreage under the plough, the holdings of the sochmanni and liberi homines of the Danish district must be added, and also the arable land (ploughed mainly by the villani) on the lord's demesne. The 23,000 sochmanni128 can hardly have held as little as a similar number of villani—say half a million acres. The 12,000 liberi homines may have held another half-million. And one or two million acres can hardly be an excessive estimate for the arable portion of the lord's demesne.

Putting all these figures together, the evidence of the Domesday Survey seems therefore to show that [p103] at its date about five million acres were under the plough, i.e. from one-third to one-half of the acreage now in arable cultivation in the same counties of England.129

This is not mere conjecture. It rests upon facts recorded in detail in the Survey for each manor upon the oath of the villani themselves; with no chance of exaggeration, because upon the result was to be founded a tax; with little chance of omission, because the men of the hundred, who also were sworn, would take care in their own interests that one place was not assessed more lightly than others. The general opinion was that 'not a single hide or yard-land was omitted.'

The acreage under arable cultivation at the time of the Survey, and twenty years earlier in the time of Edward the Confessor, was thus really very large. And the villani in their yard-lands held nearly half of it, and together with the bordarii fully half of it, in villenage. It must be borne in mind also that by their services they tilled the greater part of the rest.

This was the economic condition in which England was left by the Saxons as the result of the 500 years of their rule. The agriculture of England, as they left it, was carried on under the open field system by village communities in villenage. It was under the system of Saxon serfdom, with some little help from the actual slaves on the lord's demesne, that the land was tilled throughout all those counties which the Saxons had thoroughly conquered, with some partial exception [p104] as regards the Danish districts, where the sochmanni and liberi homines were settled.

This is the solid foundation of fact firmly vouched for by the Domesday Survey, read in the light of the evidence leading up to it.

From this firm basis the inquiry must proceed, carefully following the same lines as before—working still from the known to the unknown—tracing the open field system, its villani, and their yard-lands still farther back into the earlier periods of Saxon rule.

The question to be answered is, how far back into the earlier Saxon times the open field system and its yard-lands can be followed, and whether the serfdom connected with them was more or was less complete and servile in its character in the earlier than in the later period.