SOCIAL AND 

 ECONOMIC HISTORY 



UNTIL it was flooded by the suburban expansion of London 

 Middlesex was an exclusively agricultural county, the near 

 neighbourhood of the cities of London and Westminster pre- 

 venting any great development of urban life or urban manu- 

 facture. There was no incorporate town in the county, and no trade but 

 agriculture attained any degree of importance. But, containing as it did, 

 some of the best arable land in the kingdom, within such easy reach of the 

 London market ; having also a sufficiency of good pasture and meadow 

 land, and in the northern parts some valuable woodland, Middlesex, in 

 the fourteenth century, was the second richest county in the kingdom. 1 

 When the wool tax of 1341 (15 Edward III) was levied, Middle- 

 sex 3 was assessed at 236 sacks, or one sack to 760 acres. The assessment 

 of the richest county Norfolk was one to 610, and the counties which 

 were the immediate neighbours of Middlesex were assessed at : Hert- 

 fordshire, one to 1,200 acres ; Buckinghamshire, one to 1,260 acres ; 

 Essex, one to 1,580 acres ; Surrey, one to 1,250 acres. 



The Domesday Survey of Middlesex distinguishes three categories 

 of servile tenants : villeins, bordars, and cottars. Of slaves proper there 

 are only 104 in the whole county, and they make no further appearance 

 in its history. Nor do we hear any more of the ' bordarii,' unless we 

 may regard as their successors the holders of ' Bordlond ' at Twicken- 

 ham. Of the 2,132 tenants who are enumerated on the several 

 manors in the six hundreds of the county, 1,936 are villeins (1,133), 

 bordars (342), and cottars (461). The only free tenants mentioned in 

 the survey are : 1 3 knights, i francus, 1 2 priests, i o foreigners (fran- 

 cigenae], and 46 burgenses at Staines, nothing being said as to the status 

 of 23 homines at St. Pancras who rendered 30^. a year. In the later 

 records, on the contrary, from the time of Henry I onwards, free as well 

 as servile tenants are mentioned on nearly all the manors of which we 

 have any account. Already in the reign of Henry I there were at Har- 

 mondsworth free and custumary tenants and cottars. 8 At Kensington in 

 12634 the rents of the free tenants amounted to 4 i5/., so that there 

 must have been a certain number of them. The villein tenants held 



1 Prof. Thorold Rogers, Hist, of Jgric. and Prices, i, 107 ; Rot. Par!. (Rec. Com.), ii, 131. 

 ' Exclusive of London. * P.R.O. Rentals and Surv. ptfo. 1 1, No. zo. 



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