HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE [i. 



ownership of land which, in many cases, had taken 

 place during the interval of twenty years between 

 the Conquest and the completion of Domesday. 



The properties mentioned in Domesday are gene- 

 rally styled villoe or maneria, and had usually, before 

 the Conquest, been the property of Saxon nobles, or 

 were then, and still remained, the property of eccle- 

 siastics, or of the Crown ; and "almost invariably 

 attached to the villa are a certain number of villani. 

 Now the word villanus occurs in the Latin text of the 

 Rectitudines as the equivalent of the Saxon geneat. 

 In Domesday it probably included the gebur also, the 

 distinction between the two in the Rectitudincs not 

 being very apparent. 



The villani, afterwards called the villeins by the 

 Norman lawyers, were men allowed, like the geburs 

 of the Rectitudines, to occupy small allotments, or 

 " yards," of land for the support of themselves and 

 their families, and who, in return, were required to 

 plough, sow, and reap the land which their lord 

 kept in his own hands his demesne, as it was 

 called. 



