EE ee se eS 
ee = eee 
By the Rev. J. Wiikinson. bk - 
these non-free classes some (as the serfs) had been so under the 
Saxons, and they were doubtless the native British: but of the vil- 
lains and bordsmen many were Saxons. Their condition was 
considerably improved by the Normans, who introduced no new 
forms of slavery, and who mitigated the old. Indeed they were 
gradually admitted within the pale of the feudal system, which, 
while it involved the vassal in services and taxation, yet entitled 
him to protection from the lord and relieved him from personal 
degradation. The rigour of the Anglo-Saxon tenures was miti- 
gated, servitude was commuted for fixed labour or money fines, 
and the hereditary descent of holdings was more allowed.! 
Here then we have in Broughton at the time of Domesday, 
Humfridus the Norman lord, Saward and Rainburgis Royal thanes 
and Saxons, twenty-three villains, five bordsmen, and seven serfs, of 
whom some were Saxons and some Britons. How many of these 
were heads of families, it is impossible to say, and therefore any 
computation of the population must be fallacious. What did the 
community do? When not occupied in their military duties, Sa- 
ward and Rainburgis probably spent their time in hunting, the 
only occupation fit for gentlemen and knights, a state of physical, 
and I will add mental activity, for which they lived, the best nurse 
of arms, most able to call forth powers of observation and en- 
durance. They could at least plead the example of William, who 
loved the “great game,” the Saxon chronicle tells us, as if he had 
been their father,? and the then wood of Broughton afforded them 
an excellent locality. The employment of the rest was purely 
agricultural: they cultivated their own lands and their lord’s. 
to the shearers all the time of harvest. The slowest shearer always had the 
drone behind him.’ And in the Kingdom of Whidah, on the African Slave 
Coast, the people are bound to cut and carry the King’s corn, but are attended 
by music during all the time of their labour. 
* Acts of enfranchisement of the 14th century have this preamble. ‘‘As God 
in the beginning made all men free by nature, and afterwards human laws 
placed certain men under the yoke of servitude, we hold it to be a pious and 
meritorious thing in the eyes of God to deliver such persons as are subject to us 
in villenage, and to enfranchise them entirely from such services. Know there- 
fore that we have emancipated so and so our natives of such a manor, themselves, 
their children, born or to be born.” 
2 So also Matthew Paris, ‘‘ erus feras amabat, quasi Pater ferarum.” 
