Domesday Book. 163 



" Lowy "), synouymous with the term demesne, was an un- 

 known area round an abbey, castle, or manor, in which the 

 possessor had peculiar privileges. 



Of terms referring to capacity measure we are not left in 

 quite such doubt, for the thrave of Doomsday still contains 

 twenty-four sheaves, or four shocks of straw ; the timber was 

 known to contain forty skins ; and through our knowledge of 

 the weight of corn in a bushel we are not materially incom- 

 moded by our ignorance about the sextary and vasculum. The 

 solius is said to have contained between 216 acres and 180 

 acres of land, though, as in the case of the carucate and hide, 

 much depended upon whether it was used by Saxon or Norman 

 surveyors. 



Almost as confusing are the numerous terms applied in the 

 Survey to the various classes which at that time represented 

 the Landed Interest, and under that head is virtually included 

 the whole population of the kingdom. The necessity for so 

 much nomenclature at a time when two class distinctions, the 

 noble and the slave, seemed quite sufficient, surprises the care- 

 less inquirer. But when we recall the exclusiveness and pride 

 of the Norman patrician, the importance attached by his 

 heraldry to precedence, and by his chivalry to honourable de- 

 scent, surprise vanishes. It is noticeable, too, that the ramifi- 

 cation of distinctive titles is greater below the social surface of 

 nobility than above it ; possibly because the lower class, utterly 

 cut off by impassable barriers from the upper, would have sunk 

 into the depths of apathy had not each individual's social ad- 

 vancement been provided for by a host of petty grades and 

 well-nigh meaningless distinctions. Later on in Tudor times, 

 the ambitious youth of the villeinage found the cowl of the 

 monk and the fiat cap of the trade apprentice a more suitable 

 covering for scheming brains ; but these gateways of egress 

 out of a despised condition of life, always jealously watched, 

 were rarely if at all accessible in Conquest times. 



The various classes were entered in the Survey as follows : — 

 1,400 tenants in capite. 7,000 cotarii. 

 7,871 subfeudarii. 110,000 villanni. 



82,000 bordarii. 25,000 servi. 



