THE DEGRADING OF THE PEOPLE 21 



the estate-holder's farm paid no taxes, whilst the rest 

 of the land, the land in the hands of the peasant 

 farmers, bore this burden. In early days the taxation, 

 if any, appears to have been slight, the king relying 

 on his tribute : but the people undoubtedly suffered 

 after the appearance of the Dane Geld, a tax im- 

 posed at the end of the Xth century for the purpose 

 of buying off the Danes, and continued from time to 

 time, at first as a war tax, and later as an ordinary 

 king's tax. 



The conditions of life during the reign of Edward 

 the Confessor can be pictured with the help of Domes- 

 day Book. Everywhere, or almost every- 

 Conditions in , , /. 



Edward the where, were to be found the estate- owners, 



confessor's holding in many districts well-defined pro- 

 perties, including, as a rule, a home farm 

 with its great barns for storing a tribute of food, and in 

 some places a hall of residence. Below the estate- 

 holders, within the village community itself, the 

 classes described in the last chapter were still to be 

 found, though their relative positions were slightly 

 different. There were two distinct sections of culti- 

 vators : (i) the farmers of the upper class, who appear 

 to have belonged, as a rule, to the military families. 

 These men were called * geneats/ ' drengs,' ' radmen,' 

 and * socmen ' ; they seem to have had a good position, 

 holding perhaps 100 acres in the open arable fields, with 

 a share of meadowland and rights over the commons. 

 Such men were almost always attached to some 

 superior, and they usually paid some definite rent or 

 rendered military, or agricultural services for their land : 

 if these services were agricultural, they were clearly 

 defined and not excessive in amount. Moreover, they 



