THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



to hold their land freely, and were only commended to the abbot of 

 Ely ' (fo. 25). In all these cases the line is clearly drawn between a 

 man's personal ' commendation ' of himself, for security, to a lord and 

 the giving to that lord of rights over his land. 



In Essex, as in other counties, we find great importance attached 

 to the power of the former holder to ' give," ' assign,' or ' sell ' his land, 

 or to betake himself elsewhere l without having to obtain leave. At 

 Hanningfield (fo. 25) 14 hides were held by 22 free men, 'who could 

 withdraw themselves (recedere) without the leave of the lord of that 

 manor ' (ipsius mansionis) ; at Sutton (fo. 96) there belonged to the manor 

 a free man, holding half a hide, ' who could withdraw himself (abire) 

 without the leave of the lord of that manor.' It is probable that the 

 complication of tenures which had grown up under the English system 

 was almost as obscure to the newcomers as it is to ourselves ; but if 

 they set themselves to cut the knot, if their rough and ready methods 

 led to the infliction of much hardship upon those small holders whose 

 tenure was affected for the worse, or who even lost their lands, yet the 

 classes below them, it might be thought, would remain much as they 

 were ; the organization of the peasantry would not be affected by the 

 change. This assumption, however, would be wrong. Professor Mail- 

 land has selected Essex as a county in which the Conquest had a marked 

 effect on the figures of the peasant classes. 



Let us look, for example, at the changes that take place in some Essex villages 

 during the twenty years that precede the Domesday Inquest. The following table 

 shows them : * 



Villeins Bordars Serfs Lord's Men's 



teams teams 



Theydon (Mount) T.R.E. [1066] . . 5 3 4 2 4 



T.R.W. [1086] . . i 17 o 3 3 



These are but specimens of the obscure little revolutions that are being accom- 

 plished in the Essex villages. In general there has been a marked increase in the 

 number of bordarii at the expense of the villeins on the one part and the serfs on 

 the other, and this, whatever else it may represent, must tell us of a redistribution, of 

 tenements, perhaps of a process that substitutes the half-virgate for the virgate as the 

 average holding of an Essex peasant. The jar of conquest has made such revolutions 

 easy.* 



The notable increase of the * bordars ' at the cost of the classes 

 above and below them is a constantly recurring feature throughout the 

 Essex survey, and one to which, as the Professor observes, I was the 

 first to call attention. At the same time it has to be observed that this 

 process was by no means uniform ; there are cases not only of the three 

 classes remaining unchanged in their numbers, but even of the serfs 

 exhibiting, not a decrease, but an increase. The learned Professor writes 

 thus : 



On manor after manor the number of villeins and bordiers, if of them we make 

 one class, has increased, while the number of servi has fallen. We take 100 entries 



1 On the equivalence of these phrases see Feudal England, pp. 

 ' I only give the first out of five in Professor Maitland's table. 

 * Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 363. 



359 



