274 Broughton Gifford. 
(first fruits, a year’s or half a year’s rent); fines for license to 
alienate the property; aids, to ransom the King when a prisoner, 
to furnish a marriage portion for his eldest daughter, or to make 
his eldest son a knight. Of these conditions under which he was to 
hold his property Humphrey had no shadow of right to complain; 
but such holders as Saward and Rainburgis naturally felt them- 
selves much aggrieved, for they were in a worse position than 
before. Under the Saxon Kings they were allodial proprietors, 
proud of their independence, and of patrimonial rights in their 
lands, which contrasted favourably with the temporary grants of 
the crown. But under the Normans independence was isolation, 
and isolation was perilous. The conquering strangers insulted and 
injured, knowing that the King was with them, and that the law 
was powerless. The only hope of security for the ancient free- 
holder was to make a compromise with oppression. He must 
himself enter the feudal military system, and sacrifice his indepen- 
dence to his safety. If he did service to a lord, he could in return 
claim that lord’s protection. However disposed he might be to 
acquiesce in the revolution, he was compelled to change his allodial 
into a feudal tenure, his paternal acres for a royal grant. Still, 
Saward and Rainburgis were the King’s thanes, (a continuation 
of their Saxon title), they acknowledged no superior but the King, 
they held their lands by the honourable tenure of military 
service, their lives were valued, in the money compensation for 
their murder (the standard measure of rank in those days), at just 
double what the lesser thanes (those holding under a mesne lord) 
were worth. 
There are other classes of men here mentioned, villains, bords- 
men, and serfs. I am not going to puzzle the reader with any 
fruitless endeavours accurately to determine the gradations of 
society given in Domesday. After the lapse of so many cen- 
turies, after changes of social condition so obliterating, and 
with such confusion of nomenclature in the original record, any 
attempt of the kind must be vain. Still, it is safe to say that there 
was then a grand distinction between freemen and non-freemen (I 
will not call them slaves), and to the latter class villains, bordsmen, 
