BOLDON BOOK 



by the lord on condition of paying certain rents.' 1 It has even been suggested 

 that the malmen should be assimilated to the class of humbler free-holders 

 competent to act as doomsmen in the county court.' The term occurs in the 

 bishopric as early as 1130, when the malmen are grouped for purposes of 

 taxation with the thegns and drengs, 8 an association which would raise a 

 presumption of their personal freedom, particularly as we find that in 1 197, 

 when the king tallaged the manors of the bishopric, the share paid by the 

 drengs and * firmarii ' is entered separately.* Malmen appear once in the 

 Boldon Book, at Newton by Boldon, where they are the sole tenants of the vill 

 on terms that scarcely differ from those obtaining at Warden, a vill where 

 there were only ' firmarii.' And yet these men worked c in misericordia 

 Episcopi ' and could be described as bondmen : how are we to reconcile the 

 contradiction ? Two passages in Hatfield's Survey offer us a possible way out 

 of the difficulty. At Norton, under the rubric ' Tenentes vocati Malmen 

 sive Firmarii,' it is recorded that the tenants, who are rendering unmistakably 

 the same rents and services as the Boldon Book ' firmarii,' hold one messuage 

 and four bovates of land, * quondam terras dominicae.' Then, * de viii. bov. 

 terrae de eadem tenura, ut patet in libro de Boldon, qui ostendit quod 

 quondam fuerunt xx. firmarii qui tenuerunt inter se xl. bov. terrae, sunt in 

 manu liberorum tenentium pred., videlicet,' * etc. Again, at Darlington the 

 ' firmarii ' of Boldon Book have disappeared, but under the rubric * Terrae 

 Dominicae,' we have a list of rent-paying tenants, 6 of one of whom it is said 

 that he holds his land * sine operibus,' and it will be remembered that the 

 Darlington * firmarii ' of Boldon Book held their land free of services, and we 

 may regard them as represented, then, by these rent-paying tenants on the 

 demesne in the later survey. Then a further passage under the same rubric 

 lets us see that the demesne land held in this way could be contrasted with 

 the land of the free tenant, * Simon Acrys ten. i. bov. terras praeter ii. bov. 

 infra liberos tenentes, red. p. a. 2os.' Now, finally, it should be remarked that 

 in connexion with those vills where were ' firmarii ' only, Boldon Book 

 records no demesne. 



It is clear, then, that the * firmarii,' like the villeins, were unfree, or at 

 least had begun by being unfree. But unlike the villeins, and by some special 

 arrangement, they were settled on the lord's demesne. From this fact, indeed, 

 and by analogy with the individual ' firmarius,' they may well have got their 

 name, being regarded as the demesne farmers instead of the demesne farmer. 

 Then the special terms, just now mentioned, consisted of pretty extensive 

 money compositions for villein service. Now, as we know that the twelfth 

 century was a period in which much new land was taken under cultivation to 

 meet the needs of an increasing population, we might fairly regard the 

 phenomenon before us as a phase or part of that general movement. Then in 

 the case of vills composed of farmers only we should see relatively new 

 communities allowed or encouraged by the bishop to grow up on his 



1 VinogradofF, of. cit. 183 ff. and the literature there cited. The passage quoted in the text is on 

 p. 184. With regard to the continental ' malmanni,' see Waitz, Deutsche yerfajtttngsgeichichte, ed. 1874, v. *86. 

 Pollock and Maitland, Hut. ofEngl. Late, i. ed. i. 533. 

 Pipe R. 3 1 Hen. I. in Boldon Book (Surtees Soc.), App. p. ii. 

 Pipe R. 8 Ric. I. (Surtees Soc.) in Boldon Book, App. p. vii. 

 Hatfielfi Surv. (Surtees Soc.), 175, 177. 

 Ibid. 3, 4. 



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