THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



different Hundreds, we obtain the names of the jurors for each. 1 We 

 have eight jurors apiece for the Hundreds of Edwinstree and Odsey, 

 and sixteen for the double Hundred of Broadwater. I have elsewhere 

 shown that the number named was eight for each Hundred, of whom 

 four were evidently natives and four were new settlers. 8 In these three 

 Hertfordshire Hundreds one can identify several of the jurors, and it is 

 interesting to find the Normans and the English making their return 

 jointly. In one case an actual tenant-in-chief, namely Goisbert de 

 Beauvais, is found among the sworn men ; and in the same Hundred, 

 that of Broadwater, two of Robert Gernon's tenants, William of Latch- 

 worth (a Norman) and .^Elfward of Mardley (an Englishman), are found 

 as jurors together. Two tenants of Geoffrey de Mandeville can be recog- 

 nized among the names namely Thorkill, a native, who is named, from 

 his holding only, ' of Digswell,' which estate he had held before the 

 Conquest of Geoffrey's predecessor ; and Germund, who held of him 

 two estates in Broadwater Hundred, but retains his Norman name as 

 Germund de St. Ouen. This mention of his surname, which is not 

 found in Domesday, is an interesting piece of information, for earl 

 Geoffrey de Mandeville's return in 1166 records that a ' Germund de 

 St. Ouen ' had held of him four knights' fees. 3 The English jurors are 

 harder to identify, being probably of lower status, at least in Norman 

 eyes. But of one of these we shall hear again, for Godwine 'de Hore- 

 mere' was the English tenant who held at Hormead of no less a man 

 than Eadgar the ^Etheling himself. 



Returning now to Domesday Book, we may say that its Hertford- 

 shire portion presents three features of special interest. Of these the 

 first is the occurrence under Edward the Confessor of the class of small 

 holders known as sochemanni, and its almost total disappearance under 

 William the Conqueror. The second is the peculiar, if not unique, 

 development of the great manor of Hitchin. And the third is found in 

 the personality of the chief landowners, English and Norman, and the 

 devolution of their lands. In addition to these leading features, the rela- 

 tion of assessment to value, the state of cultivation in the county, and its 

 density of population will all deserve attention ; and there are as usual 

 many entries of miscellaneous interest. 



It is frequently stated that the Norman Conquest affected only the 

 English thegns the 'landed gentry' as we should now say by the con- 

 fiscations it involved ; but Professor Maitland's researches have shown 

 that, at least in the east of England, it involved the sharp depression of 

 that class of socbemanni, whom he speaks of as 'very small people with 

 very little land . . . peasants, at best yeomen.' 4 The occurrence of this 

 interesting class is geographical in character ; it is virtually restricted to 

 a certain district. Roughly speaking, we find sochemanni spreading like 

 a fan, of which the handle is the Wash, and penetrating south into Hert- 



1 Domesday Book (as above), iii. 498 ; and Hamilton's Injuisitio, p. 100. 



* feudal England, -pp. 118-23. * Red Book of the Exchequer, p. 345. 



* Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 64. 



265 



