64 The Tenants and their Land. 1272 1306. [CH. 



Sokemen are frequently and consistently distinguished from free 

 tenants on the one hand, and from customary tenants on the other 

 hand. Unlike the free tenants, the bond sokemen paid a money 

 equivalent for such labour dues as they did not perform. Unlike the 

 customary tenants, the sokemen did not perform week-work, at least 

 throughout the year. Like the customary tenants, the sokemen 

 assisted in ploughing the demesne. But while each of the teams of 

 the customary tenants, which during this period numbered from four- 

 and-a-half to two, ploughed once every week from Purification to 

 Pentecost, the sokemen's teams, numbering from twenty-three to 

 fourteen, made but three ploughings each during the year. The 

 ploughings of the customary tenants were simply that form of 

 labour by which, in the spring, a part of their regular week-work 

 was discharged ; so that the reeve, in making his annual account, 

 'allowed* to the tenants a number of week-works corresponding to 

 the number of customary ploughings performed. But the reeve 

 made no such allowance for the ploughings of the sokemen ; so that 

 either the ploughings of the sokemen were additional to the week- 

 work rendered by them, or else the sokemen were not burdened 

 with winter week-work. The latter explanation is doubtless the 

 true one, for the number of tenements rendering week-work was 

 so small 1 that, at most, week-work could have been charged upon 

 only a very small proportion of the tenements of the sokemen. 

 It would seem, therefore, that the sokemen were not burdened 

 with week-work, at least during the greater part of the year, and that 

 in just this fact lay a principal line of demarcation between them and 

 the customary tenants. Besides the ploughings, the sokemen per- 

 formed carrying services (averagid) ; three was the number of these 

 usually charged upon a tenement. At an earlier period than 

 that now under consideration they took part in the autumn 

 precariae*. But from 1272 to 1306 the autumn precariae were not 

 demanded, but were ' sold ' to the tenants. With the exception 

 of autumn cartings, the other forms of labour-rents are registered 

 as due from the customary tenants. The light labour-rents of the 

 sokemen were not complemented by heavy payments in money 

 or in kind. Yet for one privilege they paid more highly than 

 the customary tenants ; for, while the sokemen paid id. for every 

 cow and for every five sheep not sent to lie in the lord's fold, 

 the customary tenants paid only half as much for the privilege 

 of folding their own beasts. 



1 Cf. table, p. 67. 2 Min. Acct's, 935/2. 



