24 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



peasantry, living on good terms with himself and with 

 the Norman lords, and able to provide a strong body 

 of fighting men. Nevertheless, whatever the king's in- 

 tention, the Norman Conquest came to the English 

 peasantry as an overwhelming misfortune. In a large 

 number of cases, the old Anglo-Saxon or Danish squire 

 or other holder of the estate, belonging to the peasants' 

 own race, with a knowledge of and respect for their 

 customs, disappeared. He was replaced by a Norman, a 

 man of foreign origin, who was not likely to be deterred 

 by Saxon or Danish customs from obtaining from the 

 peasantry sufficient tribute in food, in labour and in 

 money to give him the wealth he required for his 

 position. As a fact, the Norman lords proceeded to 

 crush down the varied population living in the villages, 

 reducing their rights and increasing their obligations. 

 As a result many of the freemen were depressed into 

 the position of the peasant farmers, and the peasant 

 farmers and cotters were burdened with heavier tasks 

 of labour. One simple example can be taken, to 

 illustrate this point, from the record of Domesday 

 Book. At Meldreth, a Cambridgeshire village border- 

 ing the upper Cam, there dwelt in the time of King 

 Edward the Confessor 15 socmen, freemen, possibly 

 of Danish origin ; 10 of these men were vassals of the 

 Abbey of Ely and seem to have had between them 

 some 300 acres of land, probably the fertile land 

 that lies by the river, whilst the others, holding 

 between them about half that area, were the men 

 of a Saxon Eorl Aelfgar. After the Conquest a 

 Norman lord took over the Meldreth estate and created 

 out of it a manor for himself. He appropriated some 

 land for his home farm, and for that he must have 

 needed labour. He could have given little considera- 



