Domesday Statistics 13 



able out of Norfolk and Suffolk ; Seebohm assesses Libert 

 their holdings at 42 acres ; sokemen and liberi homines - 

 homines may occasionally have been interchange- 

 able terms, at the same time noting that the latter 

 is used also for the whole class of superior tenantry, 

 viz., tenants in chief, mesne lords, liberi homines, 

 and presumably radknights and drenghs as dis- 

 tinguishing them from tenants in villenage. 



The radknights, comprising the radchenistri and 

 radmanni, were as peculiar to the W. Midlands as 

 the sokemen and liberi homines to the E. shires ; 

 they amount to 2 % of the recorded population, 

 and may possibly be regarded as the antecessors of 

 tenants by serjeantry. 



The tenants in chief (about -J % of the popula- nts in 

 tion) held their lands directly of the King (sine 

 me did) and the mesne lords (some 2|- % of popula- 

 tion) held of the former, or of other vassals holding 

 of the King's tenants. 



For the rest, it must suffice that the coliberti* 

 seem to have equated the buri,* and to have ranked 



co.) on the same theory ; as the lords and others could 

 scarcely have owned less than ^ of the teams in either county 

 it seems clear that freemen and sokemen are indeterminable 

 both as to numbers and extent of holding. The application 

 of the 4 ox per plough theory as in D. B. (Seebohm) is 

 strikingly refuted here : the evidence for the rest of England 

 (excepting Lines., Norf., and Suff.) demonstrates the average 

 villan could not have had less than 2 oxen. 



* Prof. Maitland (p. 37, "D. B. and Beyond") endeavours These do 

 to equate this class with the A.S. gebttri, in order to appreciate not corre- 

 the villani; whilst admiring his sympathetic leanings to the 

 latter, such are scarcely the results of studies in Domesday 

 Book. The geburs occur in the Laws of Ine ; as servile 

 tenants of Tiddenham (loth cent.), and in a like condition 



