THE MANOR OF CASTLE COMBE 43 



more tenants, who paid a fixed annual rent for the whole, and then 

 sub-let portions of the land. 1 



Two examples of this gradual transformation of the manorial 

 system may be quoted. In the first instance that of Castle Combe 2 

 in Wiltshire the neighbourhood of a clothmaking industry may 

 have made the process of change exceptionally rapid, even for the 

 south of England. At the Domesday Survey the manor contained 

 1200 acres under the plough. Of this arable land, 480 acres were 

 in the lord's demesne, cultivated by 13 serfs and the team and 

 manual labour of the manorial tenants. The remainder of the 

 arable area (720 acres) was occupied by 5 villeins, 7 bordars, and 

 5 cottagers. There was a wood of a mile and half in length by 

 three quarters of a mile in breadth. There were also three water 

 mills. The whole population consisted of bondmen : none were, 

 in the eye of the law, free. In 1340 the tenemental land had 

 increased to nearly 1000 acres. There were ten freemen, holding 

 between them 247 acres of arable land. Of these freemen, one of 

 the three millers held an estate of inheritance to himself and his 

 heirs, at a fixed quit-rent, subject to a heriot and attendance at 

 the manorial courts. The nine remaining freemen, among whom 

 were the other two millers, held their land at will at fixed money 

 rents and similar services. The rest of the inhabitants were still 

 bondmen. Fifteen customary tenants occupied for the term of 

 two lives 540 arable acres, in holdings of from 60 to 30 acres, partly 

 by money rents, partly by labour services. Eleven others held 

 15 acres each (165 acres) for two lives, paying their rent only by 

 labour on the demesne ; but in addition nine of them also held 

 crofts, for which they paid annual money rents. All these 

 classes, in virtue of their holdings, were protected against caprices 

 of the lord's will by manorial customs. Many of them remained 

 bondmen in status, but the condition of their tenure was raised. 

 Eight " Monday-men " held cottages and crofts or curtilages by 

 labour services only. These thirty-four bondmen, at the will of 



1 Thus the land of the manor of Hawstcd in Suffolk was let in 1410 by 

 Sir William Clopton to Walter Bone, Sir William reserving the manor-house 

 and the fines and other legal rights of a manor (History of Hawsted, pp. 

 193-5). 



* History of the Manor, etc. of Castle Combe, by G. Poulett Scrope (1852). 

 The areas are calculated on the assumption that the local " carucate " con- 

 tained 120 acres. Whatever the actual acreage may have been, the pro- 

 portions remain the same. 



