

BOLDON BOOK 



recalled to the reader's memory. There were some vills on the other hand 

 that seem to have been dependent on no demesne at all. We have seen this 

 in the case of the vills containing farmers only, which we conjectured had 

 developed out of settlements on the bishop's demesne lands, but it is true also 

 of some of the vills that were farmed to the villeins, such as South Biddick. 

 At Ryton on the other hand it is expressly stated that the villeins farmed the 

 demesne as well as the vill. 1 



With regard to the 'terra servilis,' we have no reason to believe that the 

 distribution of the arable among the villeins in equal heritable holdings in the 

 open-fields differed in any essential from the now familiar system that obtained 

 throughout the greater part of England during the Middle Ages. As in other 

 northern documents the terms 'carucate' and 'bovate' replace the 'hide' and' 

 'virgate' of the southern counties, but the virgate also occurs. Boldon Book 

 affords only one or two direct notices of the open-fields. At Norton and Hert- 

 burn the cottiers hold beside their tofts and crofts certain acres 'in campis." 

 With regard to size, the normal villein holding was the yardland or virgate, 

 containing commonly 30 acres. In Boldon Book this is generally expressed 

 in terms of bovates or oxgangs, containing as a rule 1 5 acres each. But within 

 moderate limits the content of the bovate varied considerably, and the number 

 of acres is generally expressed in the record. Thus at Lanchester the bovate 

 contained 8 acres, at Morton 1 2, and at Whitworth 20, but at Boldon, where 

 we may look for the normal holding, every villein had 2 bovates of 15 acres 

 each. Pursuing our inquiry further, we discover that the rule which assigns 

 to every villein a symmetrical holding is by no means without exception. At 

 New Ricknall the bovate contained but 10 acres, and the villeins had only 

 one apiece, but even then an equality might be preserved among themselves. 

 At Lanchester, however, there were 41 bovates held by 10 villeins; as the 

 bovate there contained but 8 acres, four apiece would give the villeins the 

 normal holding of 30 acres and a trifle over. How, we may ask, was the 

 remaining acre disposed of? The question could not have arisen at the 

 time of the survey, for a good part of the vill was waste, but at some earlier 

 or later time it must have presented itself. 8 At Norton the villeins held 

 2 1 bovates ; at Stockton, and here we have a clue to the difficulty, there were 

 1 6 villeins holding 33 bovates. Now this might have been written another 

 way ; there are 33 bovates which the villeins hold, and they work and render 

 on such and such wise, a form which actually occurs at Great Haughton, 

 while at Whessoe we merely learn that there are 14 bovates, and each bovate 

 renders, etc., and at Wolsingham there are 300 acres which the villeins hold 

 and they render, etc. It is clear then that the bovate is less an actual area of 



1 This is particularly interesting in connexion with Professor Maitland's reading of a passage in Dam. 

 Bit., \. i, 2~b, cited in Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 119; villeins farmed the manor of Wellesdone from the 

 Canons of St. Paul's, in dominio nil habetur.' In view of what has been shown in the text we shall infer 

 that the last clause was added to note an exception, the manor had no demesne at all, and we shall hesitate to 

 assume, as Professor Maitland seems to do, that there is no demesne became the manor is farmed by the 

 villeins. The case of a north-country manor without demesne in the thirteenth century has recently attracted 

 Professor Maitland's attention ; cf. Engl. Hist. Rev., xviii. 780, xix. 297. 



* But see a very interesting description (A.D. 1392) of a tenement at New Suinton giving the location 

 and boundary of every acre, fend., 164 ft'. 



* Perhaps it was Most.' There is a case of this kind in the Domesday of St. PauFi, 1 1, cited by 

 Vinogradoff, Villainage, 233, and the thing occurred in the bishopric at a later time (1307), when the Receipt 

 Roll contains this rubric, ' Defectus redditus terrarum relictarum et quz non possunt invcniri, de quibu* 

 redditus levari non potcst,' Boldon Bk. (Surtees Soc.), App. p. xxxvii. 



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