SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



to the plough which he shared with three other tenants of similar status. 

 Coupled with the ' bordars,' a class of small holders also bound to contribute, 

 though in a lesser degree, to a common team, the villani formed more 

 than half the population of Gloucestershire in IO86. 1 Similarly, in the 

 thirteenth-century extents, more than half of the customary, or villein, land 

 was held in virgates, or clear fractions of virgates. The temptation to see 

 in the thirteenth-century virgatarius or ' yerdling ' (i.e. holder of a virgate, 

 or ' yardland ') the direct descendant of the eleventh century * villanus ' is 

 almost irresistible, and in some instances the coincidence works out very 

 neatly. For instance, in Ledene (Upleadon) there were in 1086 eight 

 yerdlings and one bordar ; in 1266 there were eight and a quarter yard- 

 lands, which gives one yardland to each villein and one quarter to the 

 bordar. If we accept a difference in the size of the yardland 1 at the two 

 periods, the majority of cases show very little change in the status of the 

 population. 



Upon the lands of Cirencester Abbey during the same period, for which 

 we have one or two records in the Abbey Register,* only a slight advance 

 towards freedom is evident. In an extent taken, probably, about the middle 

 of Stephen's reign, 1 the thirteen serfs of Domesday re-appear in twelve men 

 who * were wont to labour ' and one who ' used to hold his land by labour, 

 ~but now by keeping a plough ' ' tenet quadrantem terrae, quae fuit operaria, 

 tenendo carucam.' In Domesday there were thirty-one villeins and ten 

 bordars ; in the extent there appear twenty-seven villeins, who perform 

 services of ploughing, carrying, and haymaking ; the remaining four must 

 either be accounted for by an accumulation of several holdings into the hands 

 of one tenant, or they may be found among eighteen tenants of the twelfth 

 century, who 'pay a penny.' Possibly the descendants of the bordars, whose 

 services can never have been very heavy, may also be found among these last. 

 Two freemen are mentioned in both documents. In a still later inquisition 

 of the same lands* which gives the tenures of 1187, these re-appear as 

 two tenants by grand sergeanty. 7 At the same time, the number of 

 customary tenants had fallen from fifty-two to thirty-six ; but this change, 

 again, probably indicates a tendency to consolidate holdings rather than any 

 diminution of the proportion of villeins to freemen. 



Villeinage being thus the typical condition of the Gloucestershire 

 peasant in the thirteenth century, as well as in the eleventh, it may be well 

 to define that condition as closely as possible. By strict legal theory a 

 villein was without rights, or, at any rate, his rights were not such as could 

 be asserted at common law. His land, his person, and his property were all, 



1 C. S. Taylor, op. cit. * i.e. 486 out of 903 tenancies. 



' The difference in size was sometimes 100 per cent, as may be seen from the following table : 



Clifford Froceiter Churcham Nortblcich 



Domesday villani .... 14 8 7 23 



Domesday bordarii .... 7 2 1 6 



Thirteenth-century virgates . 28 17} 14$ 46 



Acres of thirteenth-century virgate .36 48 48 68 



Consequent acres of Domesday virgate 72 96 96 136 



F. Baring, Eng. Hist. Review, xii, 285-290. 



' Quoted, E. A. Fuller, ' Tenures of land in Cirencester,' Briit. and GIouc. Arch. Sac. Trans, ii. 



'Cir. Abb. Reg. Ai3. Ibid. A 88*. 



' i.e. personal service of some honourable kind ; in this case it was acting as huntsman. 



2 129 17 



