A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



consists of ' firmarii ' only. Their duties are less onerous than those of the 

 typical villeins on the bishop's estate, as may easily be seen by comparing the 

 Wardon entry with that, for example, of Boldon. Again, among the 'firmarii' 

 there seems to be no co-operative work. The services and the renders are 

 reckoned on the individual tenement, a pair of bovates, and even the plough- 

 ing is determined in the same way. Note also that this work is done by 

 a pair of horses, not by the usual team of oxen. There would be no question 

 then of the heavy village plough drawn by the full team of eight oxen — in 

 short, no co-aration. 



Vills of this sort, moreover, seem to escape certain communal obligations. 

 Thus the bishop's manor of Houghton was composed, with two exceptions, 

 of vills rendering cornage and a milch cow. These exceptions were Wardon 

 and Morton, where there were no villeins, but only ' firmarii,' and this will be 

 found true of the other vills of this type described in Boldon Book. 



Thus far we have been dealing with the case of a vill composed 

 of ' firmarii ' only, but these tenants occur also in connexion with the 

 regular community of villeins. Sedgefield, for example, is a vill of the Boldon 

 type containing twenty villeins who hold two bovates apiece and work and 

 render as they of Boldon : ' moreover there are in the same vill twenty 

 " firmarii," every one of whom holds three bovates and renders 5J-.' Then 

 follows a list of their services, which do not differ essentially from those of the 

 Wardon ' firmarii.' This case recurs at Norton, Stockton, Darlington, Black- 

 well and Cockerton. 



The status of the ' firmarii ' may also be illustrated from Boldon Book. 

 The Carlton entry is instructive on the point. There are twenty-three 

 ' firmarii ' whose tenements, renders, and services are enumerated, but one of 

 these, Gerobod, is singled out by name as being in the bishop's employ. He 

 holds four bovates and renders 20s. and is relieved from works as long as he 

 is in the bishop's service, but when he leaves that service ' operabitur sicut 

 praedicti firmarii in misericordia Domini Episcopi.' Nothing is said in the 

 Carlton or other entries in regard to the ' firmarii ' about their status, and 

 this would appear to be a bit of gratuitous information recording something 

 that was or should have been a matter of common knowledge. The ' firmarii,' 

 then, were ' in the bishop's mercy,' they were unfree, and this conclusion is 

 confirmed by comparing the testimony of Boldon Book with that of Hatfield's 

 Survey. Four of the five vills which the earlier survey describes as held by 

 'firmarii' reappear in the later document,' which, in describing three' of 

 these four, uses instead of the term ' firmarii ' the phrase ' terrae bondorum.' 

 But a comparison of the holdings and services in question shows that the two 

 terms are intended to be equated. If we turn, however, to those vills where 

 Boldon Book shows us a villein community beside or above the 'firmarii,' 

 we shall find that Hatfield's Survey equates ' firmarius ' not with ' bondus,' 

 but with ' malmannus.' Then at Sedgefield we have ' malmen,' at Norton 

 ' malmanni sivc firmarii,' and at Stockton simply ' firmarii,' and all of these 

 represent the 'firmarii ' of Boldon Book. Now the malmen (molmen) of the 

 English records have been made the subject of a good deal of special study 

 and some controversy. We learn that the term was 'commonly used in the 

 feudal period for villeins who had been released from most of their services 



' South Slicrburn is omitlcJ Iroiii 1 l.aficld's Survey. ' Warilon, Morton, and Carlton. 



280 



