METHODS OF STUDY 23 



these institutions and classes of society as they existed in the 

 years 1066 and 1086. Some reference to their history must 

 occasionally be made ; but, as a general rule, that history will 

 be disregarded, and left to those writers whose aim is to 

 discuss the dynamics of society. 



To-day, when a Government Department asks for a sheet 

 of statistics, it sends with its demand a paper of instructions, 

 defining the technical terms employed. Every clerk to a 

 Board of Guardians has every half-year to furnish to the Local 

 Government Board statistics of the amount expended by his 

 union in in-maintenance and out-relief; but notes appended 

 to the returns explain these terms. To persons who are 

 ignorant of their precise meaning, these returns are very mis- 

 leading. The ordinary man would consider that under the 

 heading " in-maintenance " would be included all the expenses 

 of the workhouse the cost of the food and fuel, the cost of 

 buildings, repairs, and stationery, and the salaries of the staff; 

 but for the purposes of this return the term is confined to the 

 cost of provisions, and the necessary materials for cleaning, 

 lighting, and warming the institution charges which vary from 

 one-half to two-thirds of the entire expense of the workhouse. 



No one will, for an instant, suggest that similar papers 

 of instructions were given to the Domesday Commissioners ; 

 but it is only reasonable to think that they had some sort 

 of an understanding between themselves as to the nature of 

 the institution they were to describe as a manor, and as to the 

 lines of distinction between the various classes of men. True, 

 the Commissioners themselves were strangers in a strange 

 land ; but they were assisted by jurors, half of whom were 

 Englishmen, who could therefore be trusted to draw no dis- 

 tinctions that were not justified by English social ideas. 



Hence, when the Commissioners drew a verbal distinction, 

 some essential distinction must have existed ; for instance, 

 there must have been some distinction between a manor 

 and a sokeland, a villan and a sokeman, or a sokeman and a 



