Domesday and Feudal Statistics 



permanent property in land exists (26), but in its products 

 (26), and in servi, household goods, farm stock, armour and 

 horses (5, 12, 18, 32). That the latter (12, 18, 32) were 

 used in Husbandry is not made apparent ; oxen (boves, 18) ; 

 herds (armenta, 5, 15, 21); flocks* (pecora, 12, 21, 25), 

 and of course cowsf [tho' indirectly (23)] are named : the 

 food of the gentes includes fresh meat (23), cheese or an 

 approach to it (23), and grain stuffs (15, 16), the common 

 drink is beer or its antecessor (23), and those tribes nearest 

 the Rhine buy vinum (23). Of crops, Tacitus distinctly 

 mentions wheat (J rumen 'turn, 23, 25, 45), barley (hordeum, 

 23), and, I think, uninclosed meadow {pratum, 26), noting 

 an appreciation of the winter, spring, and summer seasons 

 (26) : as horses are used in warfare, cattle for consumption, 

 oxen for the plough (iuncti boves, 18), cows for breeding and 

 milk (23), the Roman writer scarcely needed to inform the 

 readers of his day that oats and hay were known to the 

 Germani, perhaps also rye. In the commentary on Tacitus^ 

 in the excellent Const. Hist. (i. 18), wheat is cited as the 

 only corn crop, a statement having of intrinsic probability 

 little enough ; reference to sections 2 (asperam ccelo) ; 

 5 (satis ferax) ; 1 5 (frugutn) ; 1 6 (receptaculum frugibus] ; 

 23 (ex hordeo aut frumento) ; 26 (seges) ; 26 (hieins et ver) ; 

 and 45 (frumenta ceterosque fructus] will demonstrate it to 

 be opposed to the witness of the Roman writer, whose 

 work should always be used to test the interpretations of his 

 exponents. The servi are pourtrayed rather as coloni (25) 

 than domestics, paying their lords a tribute in wheat, live 

 stock, or raiment, their position being somewhat akin to 

 that of our villani (i2 th to 14 th cent.), though the lord of a 

 Manor would not usually have been able to kill, or strike 

 his villein with impunity (25) : the land occupied by the 

 servus would presumably be regarded as the property (for 

 the time) of the dominus, as a kind of rent is paid there- 

 from, the slave in a certain sense worked for his lord, even 

 supposing he never cultivated the fields more particularly 



* Pecora, not necessarily flocks, but (21) armentorum ac pecorum 

 seems to require some meaning other than herds. 



t Lac concretum ; even, if not the produce of cows, boves and armenta 

 compel their existence. 



