A HISTORY OF DORSET 



T.R.E. In this manor, too, Ernulf does not seem to have had any demesne, and it was 

 occupied by 7 villani with a plough. It is tempting to see here small, impoverished 

 thegns, seeking the protection of a Norman lord, and being classified by the Domesday 

 commissioners on the basis of their small holdings and not that of their wergild or 

 social status/-^ 



The Domesday survey of Middlesex gives details of the land held by the peasants, +4 

 but the Dorset survey is not so informative. Exon. Domesday, however, supplies a little 

 information. At Winterborne Houghton (nos. 275 and bcxxv) a certain villaniis, whom 

 the Exchequer text does not mention, held \ virgate, and at Tarente (nos. 400 and 

 cxxxiii) a villarnis qui niauet held a virgate and 1 plough. At Burcombe (nos. 115 and Ixii) 

 there were 2 villani qui tenent illam terram, assessed at \ hide. Tenements of a virgate 

 and \ virgate were common on the estates of Shaftesbury Abbey in the 1 2th century, 

 and on the estates of Peterborough Abbey at the same period villani with a virgate were 

 called pleni villani and villani with \ virgate dimidii villani or semi villani y^ At Swanage 

 (nos. 515 and xxxviii), belonging to the Countess of Boulogne, a single villaniis appears 

 to have held the whole manor, assessed at i hide and ^ virgate, with a plough. The 

 countess had no demesne in this manor in 1086.+^ Neither Exon. Domesday nor the 

 Exchequer text has anything to say about such services as weekwork or ploughing. 

 Villani paving money are mentioned only once, at Wraxall (nos. 328 and c) belonging 

 to Roger Arundel. William held 3 hides at Wraxall of Roger Arundel which, according 

 to Exon. Domesday, were held by 4 villani for £t, degablo.*'^ In view of the large amount 

 of money involved it seems possible that the villani were holding the land at farm. 

 Although this circumstance is rare, four cases are definitelj' recorded in Domesday, 

 including two in the neighbouring county of Devon, at Herstanhaia and Lympstone.*^ 

 In addition to these instances in Devon, two manors in Hampshire, Alverstoke and 

 Millbrook, belonging to the abbey of Winchester, were held by the villani and may have 

 been at farm, and in Surrey, Clandon, belonging to Chertsey Abbey, was held by the 

 villani for a money rent.-*^ 



Information about the ploughs held by the villani is even scantier than that about 

 their land. It is not certain whether the men's ploughs were held by the villani alone, 

 or whether they were shared among all the peasants. The evidence on this point is 

 vague and contradictors'. The formula emploved by Exon. Domesday would at first 

 sight imply that only the villani had ploughs. A typical entry, for Abbotsbur}' (nos. 109 

 and Iviii), runs: habet abbas viii hidas et v carrucas in dotninio et villani xxiii hidas et xvi 

 carrucas. Ibi habet abbas xxxii villanos et xvi bordarios et xiiii servos. This language 

 seems to exclude the bordars from a share in the land and ploughs. But from other 

 entries in Exon. it appears that the term villani was employed in two ways, both to 

 designate the villani themselves, and to mean the whole group of peasants as opposed 

 to the lord. At Cruxton (nos. 279 and Ixxxix) villani (habent) i hidam . . . et i carriicam, 

 but there were no villani, only 9 bordars and a servus. In this case it is obvious that 

 villani means simply the men, and this is probably the meaning throughout. =° The 



*> On the likelihood that some such process had taken ■** Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), iv. 371, 425. The other cases 



place, see F. M. Stenton. 'Eng. Families and the Norman are Oare (Kent) and Willesden (Mdx.): ibid, i, ff. 10, 



Conquest', Trans. R. H. S., 4th ser., xxvi. 7-8. 127b. For a full discussion of the question, see R. S. Hoyt, 



" See ]'.C.H. Mdx. i. q2. 'The Farm of the Manor and the Community of the Vill", 



■"5 B. M. Harl. MS. 61, ff. 37-89 (Shaftesbun.) ; Citron. Speculum, xxx. 147-69; cf. R. Lennard, Rural Eng. 153-4. 



Petroburgense (Camd. Soc. xlvii), 157-83 (Peterborough). " Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), i, f. 41b; I'.C.H. Hants, i. 



*^ Count Eustace was credited with 1 hide and J virgate 442; V.C.H. Suss. i. 367-8; V.C.H. Surr. i. 290-1. 



in demesne in Ailetestcode hundred which must refer to so According to Maitland (Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 38-39) 



Swanage, but in 1086 it is simply stated that King William 'the term villanus may be used to cover the whole genus as 



never had geld from the manor: see pp. 136, 137. well as to designate one of its three species'. Exon. once 



■"■ The Exchequer text says merely that the land was uses the word rustic! in this general sense and once uses rus- 



worth £3 and that there were 4 villani. ticus where it would normally use lillanus : see pp. 76, 106. 



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