i 2 An Elizabethan Surrey and Domesday Book. [CH. 



and rendered only three plowings yearly and a few other light 

 labour services. 



The customers were not numerous. Week-work seems to have 

 been charged upon only 2\\, later upon 25, out of some 135 bond 

 tenements 1 . It seems highly probable that these few customers were 

 the successors of the villeins and bordiers 20 in number who held 



ctly of Bigod, and whose representatives T.R.E. belonged to 

 Colman's and to Olf's manors. And it seems equally probable that 

 the bond sokcmen represent the bordiers and villeins who were under 

 some tenant freeman or sokeman, to whom they probably owed food- 

 rents, or other dues, though in some cases their immediate overlord 

 seems to have had no demesne land on which they could have 

 been employed. But they pertained to the manor of Forncett, 

 tln-ir land could be conveyed only with the license of the lord of 

 Forncett, and they owed the lord of Forncett a few days' plowing 

 yearly*. 



About the year 1086 there seems to have been a tendency toward 

 the bringing together of many estates into one lordship and the 

 consequent growth of large manors ; while later the process of 

 subinfeudation worked opposite results. These tendencies are illus- 

 trated in the history of Forncett manor. After 1086 the manor of 

 Clavers in Forncett was carved out of land that had previously 

 formed part of the manor of Forncett 3 , and the manors of Aslacton 

 Park's and Aslacton Priory out of Aslacton, a berewic to Forncett 

 manor 4 ; while among the holdings of Bigod's freemen were estates 

 that seem to have developed into the manors of Moulton and of 

 Shdtoo 9 . 



In Depwadc Hundred in 1086 we count 24 manors and 4 

 here-. ome of the manors are very small and cannot be 



identified with later mar. 



1 Sec below, pp. 67, 68. 



1 The number of bond sokemen in the later period cannot be determined ; for among the 

 holders of the 135 twnd tenements t apparently not only customers and bond 



sokemen but also some free sokemen ami the tenement, of the two classes of sokemen cannot 

 be distinguished from one another. I M evidence .f this sct . below, p. S;,fT. Since many 

 Domesday entries prove that there were in 1086 sokemen and even freemen who could not sell 

 their Und 'sine lict-nt i.i.l. -mi..r (Koun.l. /-en.lal Entfa nd, jS /,/.////, and Maitland, Aw/, 



;uX strange that free so 1 . ,ild be found among the holders of ' terra nativa.' 



Uke the bond sokemen th< ;( -n apj>car to have rendered light labour .services to the 



lord of Forncett. It ecim probable that the free -.kenun represented 'sochemanni ' of lo.So, 

 who COttld not Withdraw fp r,,l \vilh,u: ;,, their lord. Of course, oilier 



of the Forncett 'sochemanm ' of ioS6 may li.vve U-un represented at a later period by 'liberc 



':-.' 



9 Btomefield, op. < Blomeheld, v. , 77 . i;lo m ef.eld, v. 2o. 4 



