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The tenants of bond lands were generally \ illiens anil bordars. Villiens — 

 in spite of their ill-sounding name — corieoponded in the mam with our ow n 

 tenant farmers, though they held their farms on what would now be thought 

 harsh terms. They occupied their own part of the manor as distinct from the 

 lord's demesne. Each had his yardland, amounting to about 30 acres of the 

 common fields, and was employed also upon any agricultural work which his 

 lord might set him. As the old saying went, they knew not in the evening 

 what would be the labours of the morning. The classes below them were the 

 bordars and cottars, who occupied smaller holdings, assisted the \dlliens in hus- 

 bandry and were not often possessors of ploughs and oxen. Lowest of all in 

 the scale came the slaves, male and female — serri et aiiciUa> — about whose con- 

 dition we will only say that— pace Mr. Arch— it differed very greatly from 

 that of the agricultural labourers of the 10th century. But besides these 

 distinct classes we meet occasionally in Domesday with other persfins who 

 were engaged in rural occupations but were not necessarily occupiers of land. 

 Thus we have hovarii or neat herd. These were often free men and had charge 

 of the cattle which then, as now, were among the chief products of Hereford- 

 shire. I scarcely know whether we should be justified in estimating the condition 

 of a manor (from a farmer's point of view) from the number of bovarii employed 

 on it ; but if it 6e a fair criterion, then we must conclude that Pembridge, 

 which now, I believe, is the chief prize-taking parish at the agricultural shows, 

 was inferior to the little parish of Sarnesfield. In the latter three neatherds 

 found occupation, in the former none, the reason probably being that, as 

 Domesday mentions, the woodland in Pembridge was very extensive, and gave 

 sustenance to 160 pigs. Swineherds (porcariij were rather important people 

 in those days. They ranked not as servants of the lord but as villiens or mem- 

 bers of the farming class, and paid 10 pigs per cent, for privilege of feeding their 

 charge in the lord's wood. This payment was called pannage, and was some 

 times made the subject of a free grant. Often, however, the lord reserved his 

 wood for i:)uri)oses of chase, surrounding it with a hav — hedge or fence — a term 

 which survives not only in the town of Hay, but also in the sense we have first 

 used it — in the two Haywood For sts, which are familiar to Woolhopians. 

 Trevil Forest (of which Haywood, near Hereford, was an enclosed portion) is 

 mentioned in Domesday under the head of Kingston, in the following terms : — 

 " There is a wood there called Treveline, which renders no customary due 

 besides the chase. The villiens being there in the time of Edward the Con- 

 fessor used to carry the venison to Hereford, and performed no other service. " 

 Perhaps I may here be allowed to direct special attention to one of these 

 Haies or game coverts which I have failed to identify. The entry runs thus 

 when translated : — 



"The same Hugh {i.e., Hugh the ass) holds Bernoldune : Turchil held it. 

 There are two hides of land. The forest there is large, but how large is not 

 recorded. There also is a hay, in which he takes all he can catch. The rest 

 of the land is waste." 



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