28 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



virgate. 1 There is one ploughland in the home farm, 

 on which work 6 cotters and 2 slaves. In the time 

 of King Edward, the king's tribute had been computed 

 and was paid at the rate of 4 a year ; the estate is 

 now worth but 3 a year and yet the king draws 4 

 from it. 



(3) Here (in Herefordshire) in the midst of the 

 woodlands, and outside the district of any hundred, 

 lives a solitary farmer. He owns a plough team of 

 eight oxen and has his own plough. Two serfs help 

 him to cultivate the hundred or so acres that he has 

 reclaimed. He pays no taxes and is the vassal of 

 no man. There is also a Welshman living here, 

 with a little holding for which he pays three shillings 

 a year. 



Domesday Book does not deal with the whole of 

 England ; a few counties in the North, Northumber- 

 land, Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire, and 

 Monmouth on the Welsh border, are not included, but 

 within the area of inquiry the information is fairly 

 ample. 



Authorities report that the total population recorded 

 in Domesday approximately consists of: 



(1) 9,300 tenants in chief and under-tenants, that is 

 to say nobles, ecclesiastics and others holding large 

 and small estates on feudal tenure. 



(2) 35,000 socmen and other freemen, almost all of 

 whom are found in the north-east of the area 

 dealt with. 



(3) 108,500 peasant farmers, here called villeins, 

 distributed fairly evenly throughout the area. 



(4) 89,000 cotters similarly distributed ; and 



1 The virgate is the Norman name for the Anglo-Saxon 

 yardland. 



