224 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



ent values given to it, ranging from eighteen to eighty acres^ 

 but almost without exception the same is all estates of the 

 same manor. The customary tenants hold either a virgate 

 apiece, or half a virgate apiece, or a virgate in common be- 

 tween two. For this they render a very great variety of ser- 

 vices, prescribed with the greatest minuteness, hardly varying 

 at all in the same manor, and not varying much in different 

 manors. The enumeration of these occupies in each case from 

 a page to a page and a half in the book ; and when they have 

 been enumerated for one tenant, the Eegister goes on merely 

 to give a list of the names of those holding the same estate, 

 adding to each etfacit in omnibus sicut praedictus Rohertus, or- 

 whatever the name may be. 



The consuetudinarii are the one class, besides the free tenants, 

 who are found in every manor ; the classes that follow are 

 quite variable. The FerendelU come next, when they are men- 

 tioned at all, and their tenures and services are precisely anal- 

 ogous to those of the Consuetudinarii, and are given in the same 

 uniform style. Their estate is always one-fourth of the vir- 

 gate, that is twelve acres where the virgate is forty-eight, six- 

 teen acres where the virgate is sixty-four. The Ferendellus is- 

 the latinized form o^ferding, a form equivalent to farthing, and 

 meaning a fourth part. As the farthing is one-fourth of the 

 penny, the ferdmg is one-fourth of the virgate. The name 

 ferdingi occurs in some documents of the twelfth century.' In 

 one manor ^ we find this estate called quarterium, and the ten- 

 ants have no special name. The services also vary in about 

 the same proportion to those of the virgatarii, as the holders of 

 a full virgate are sometimes called. It is clear that the Fer- 

 endelli are properly classed with the Consuetudiniarii, as hold- 

 ing one-fourth of a virgate ; indeed, sometimes they are enu- 

 merated under the same head with them,' just as the holders 

 of a half-virgate are regularly. 



' Leges Henrici Primi, XXIX. 

 *Extenta de Berthona Regis, p. 69. 

 3 c. g. Manor of Bertonestret, p. 160. 



