xxx INTRODUCTION 



there was the class of the serfs or slaves (theowas), who might be 

 either born slaves or freemen who had forfeited their liberty by 

 their crimes, or whom poverty or the fortune of war had brought 

 into this position. They served as agricultural labourers on their 

 masters' estates, and though they were mere chattels, as absolutely 

 the property of their master as his cattle, their lot does not appear 

 to have been very uncomfortable. They were frequently manu- 

 mitted by the will of their master at his death, and were also allowed 

 to accumulate savings of their own, so as to be able to purchase 

 their freedom or that of their children. ,* 



Norman rule was marked by the introduction of the continental 

 feudal system into England and caused a complete change in the 

 mode of tenure of land. From Domesday Book, compiled by 

 order of William the Conqueror, we learn that the whole territory 

 of the kingdom was divided into 60,215 fiefs, the half which were 

 granted to civil superiors, while the other half were reserved for 

 the Crown and the Church. These estates, along with all the build- 

 ings erected upon them, all the revenues to be derived from them 

 and with a population corresponding to the size of the estate, 

 either totally enslaved or only partially free, pledged to the pay- 

 ment of certain sums for protection, or in the way of taxes, and 

 to the performance of certain services for their masters, were 

 granted under the condition that they should return to the crown 

 or the liege lord of the feudal tenant on the death of the latter 

 without any heirs enjoying the right of feudal succession (escheat), 

 or in case he were guilty of felony (forfeiture). About 1,400 of the 

 largest fiefs were granted to Crown vassals, and as the possessions 

 of these " great barons," as they were called, were often very large, 

 it became a common practice both among secular and ecclesiastical 

 tenants to subdivide their fiefs into smaller ones. All the three 

 grades of vassals, the great barons, the small barons, and the vassals 

 of the great barons, were bound together by the common obligation 

 of military service to the Crown. This last grade consisted chiefly 

 of proprietors of middle rank, who formed the gentry or inferior 

 thanes among the Anglo-Saxons. The greater thanes had mostly 

 been expelled from their holdings by the Norman invaders. In 

 addition to these three classes, the Domesday Book also makes 

 mention of two other classes liable to military service, the freemen 

 (liberi), and the sokemans (district liberi), men enjoying freedom in 

 a given soke (district), but out of it slaves, the former of whom 

 amounted to about 12,000 and the latter to 23,072. The " free- 

 men " were for the most part composed of the old " ceorls," 

 or free peasant proprietors, who at one time formed the main 

 strength of the Anglo-Saxon population. Although called free 

 they were not really so, and still less entitled to that name were 

 the sokemans, as upon both classes it was imperative that they 

 should perform certain services to the lords of the land in which 



