GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 69 



twenty freeholders, some the owners of very small parcels. 

 The amount indeed contained in a virgate is very variously 

 comported. It has been said to be twenty-five acres only, and 

 rated in other calculations at forty. Both are probably below 

 the mark. Some of the Ibstone freeholders hold by base 

 services, as harvest -work and carriage to Henley, others by 

 military tenure, some by rents only, these rents being money, 

 stock, horse-shoe nails, and spices. One would wish to know 

 what was the success with which these parcels were cultivated. 

 Some of the tenants had, no doubt, other occupations than those 

 of agriculture. If we can believe the names to be significant, 

 two of the Ibstone tenants are a smith and a cooper. It is 

 likely that some of the others hired themselves, either perma- 

 nently as shepherds and ploughmen, or temporarily during the 

 hay and corn harvest, to the lord's bailiff. The land occupied 

 by these tenants was probably all arable, their cattle being in 

 great part maintained on the waste or common land of the 

 manor. If the present limits of these two parishes coincide 

 with those in the thirteenth century, Cuxham contained 487, 

 Ibstone 1113 statute acres, but it is certain that in the case of 

 Cuxham the limits of the ancient manor were larger than that 

 of the modern parish, since the former contained knights' fees 

 in Chalgrove. 



In a rank below these free tenants were the nativi or 

 villains, and the coterelli or cotarii, holding their tenancies 

 at agricultural services. The lot of these persons may have 

 been degraded, but in the period before me, at least, it was 

 not so grievous as the expressions used about their condition 

 suggest, or inquirers into the social state of our forefathers 

 have concluded. 



It is held (and the language of the earlier law books seems 

 to warrant such an inference), that since these nativi had no 

 rights against their lord, and were, so to speak, some special 

 injuries excepted, themselves and their families in a state of 

 slavery, their possessions were not only precarious, but that 

 they might be sold with their chattels at the lord's discretion. 



