8 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



3. Villeins. 



4. Bordarii, cotarii, buri or coliberti. 



5. Slaves. 



The two first of these classes were to be found in large num- 

 bers in Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, 

 Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire. It is not easy to draw 

 the line between them, but the chief distinction lay in the latter 

 being more burdened with service and customary dues and 

 more especially subject to the jurisdictional authority of the 

 lord.^ They were both free, but both rendered services to the 

 lord for their land. Both the freemen and the slaves by 1086 

 were rapidly decreasing in number. 



The most numerous class '^ on the manors was the third, 

 that of the villeins or non-free tenants, who held their 

 land by payment of services to the lord. The position of 

 the villein under the feudal system is most complicated. He 

 both was and was not a freeman. He was absolutely at the 

 disposal of the lord, who could sell himwith his tenement, and 

 he could not leave his land without his lord's permission. He 

 laboured under many disabilities, such as the merchet or fine 

 for marrying his daughter, and fines for selling horse or ox. 

 On the other hand, he was free against every one but his 

 lord, and even against the lord was protected from the for- 

 feiture of his ' wainage ' or instruments of labour and from 

 injury to life and Hmb.^ 



His usual holding was a virgate of 30 acres of arable, 

 though the virgate differed in size even in the same manors ; 

 but in addition to this he would have his meadow land and his 

 share in the common pasture and wood, altogether about 100 

 acres of land. For this he rendered the following services to 

 the lord of the manor : 



I . Week work, or labour on the lord's demesne for two or 



* Vinogradoff, op. cit. p. 433. 



* In Domesday they number 108,500. Maitland, Domesday Book, p. 38. 

 ^ Maitland, op. cit. p. 43. 



