THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



them, between 1066 and 1086, together with an increase in the total 

 number of the three peasant classes. We occasionally meet with an 

 increase either in the villeins or the serfs, or again with a decrease in the 

 total number of the peasantry, but the one persistent feature is that the 

 bordars either show a marked increase or appear in 1086 in places where 

 there had been none twenty years before. Four more types may here, 

 perhaps, be in point. 



CLARET (HALL) LITTLE YELDHAM 



V. B. S. Total V. B. S. Total 



(1066) 7 o 10 = 17 (1066) 8 o 8 = 16 



(1086) 4 12 4 = 20 (1086) 6 8 6 = 20 



LEEBURY (IN ELMDON) QUICKBURV (IN SHEERING) 



V. B. S. Total V. B. S. Total 



(1066) 5 i 4 = 10 (1066) 7 o 5 = 12 



(1086) 5 8 o = 13 (1086) 6 6 2 = 14 



Without dwelling at greater length on this remarkable change one 

 may note the form it took at Hassingbrooke, where 14 bordars make 

 their appearance, though none had been there before (fo. 23) ; for 

 this was an estate which had been held by * 16 free men.' 1 The 

 typical holding of the bordar was perhaps half that of the villein, 

 that is to say, half a virgate, 1 though it was often less ; and it is note- 

 worthy that when we emerge into daylight with the Domesday of 

 St. Paul's (1222) we find half a virgate the normal holding of the peasant 

 who owed service to the lord's demesne. 



The ' cottar ' class, intermediate between the bordar and the serf, 

 is found in Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex, but is not 

 mentioned in Essex. The serfs, of whose remarkable diminution evi- 

 dence has already been given, require some notice, for I am able to 

 throw fresh light on their special work and position. The ' bovarii ' of 

 the west of England, as I have elsewhere shown, 8 were the men in 

 charge of the oxen attached to the lord's plough ; and to each plough- 

 team there were two. Now these men belonged essentially to a servile 

 class,* and it is my contention that the ' servi ' of Essex and other counties 

 correspond to the ' bovarii ' of the west. Dealing with the ' servi ' of 

 Domesday Professor Maitland takes a Surrey and a Hertfordshire manor, 

 on the former of which there were 5 plough-teams in the lord's 

 demesne and 10 'servi,' and on the latter 6 such teams and 12 

 'servi ';' but these suggestive figures do not seem to have struck him. 

 Yet they are the clue to follow. In Essex, it is true, the proportion is 

 by no means constant, but a careful investigation of the survey of the 

 whole county proves that it is general enough to point to its existence 



1 Equally significant is the entry, under Abberton (fo. 46 ) : 'Tune I liber homo. Modo I 

 bordarius.' 



* The evidence is almost confined to the survey of Middlesex. 



Victoria History of fforcesttrsAire, i. 2746. 



4 Compare Mr. Seebohm on the jrthfing of a century before Domesday (EngKih Village Community, 

 pp. 165-6). 6 Domeidaj Book and Beyond, p. 26. 



I 361 46 



