36 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST. 



Commissioners give the cultivated areas, not only in terms of 

 teams, but also in terms of hides and virgates. One of the best 

 examples is at Laleham 1 



" Robert Blund holds in Laleham eight hides of the King, and 

 Estrild, a monk, holds of him. There is land for five teams. In 

 demesne are four hides and one team. The villans have four teams. 

 There is one villan of i virgate, 7 villans each of half a hide, and 3 

 bordars of i virgate, and 3 cottars." 



Now, iV + 3JH + iV = 4.H, which is, according to Mr. 

 Seebohm's theory, the area that ought to provide four teams 

 of eight oxen each. But it should be added that the Middle- 

 sex instances of the villans' teams being equal in number to 

 the villans' hides, are in great minority ; but in treating 

 these hides as representing real agricultural arrangements, we 

 are following such scholars as Professors Maitland 2 and 

 Vinogradoff. 3 



What we have learnt of agricultural co-operation will 

 guard us against thinking that on an estate where the lord's 

 teams were equal in number to the tenants' teams, the area in 

 demesne was equal to the area occupied by the tenants. 

 Supposing there was one team in demesne, and another 

 belonging to the tenants, the area of the demesne would be 

 1 20 acres plus an unknown quantity cultivated by the plough- 

 ing services of the tenants' teams, while the land in the 

 occupation of the tenants would be 120 acres. To estimate 

 this unknown quantity we must know the amount of plough- 

 ing that was required of the tenants. The Ramsey Chartulary 

 gives many examples of this feature ; for instance, it says of 

 Broughton (Hunts) that the demesne could be cultivated by 

 four teams of its own, by two boon works, and by the 

 customary services of the vill, which latter were equivalent to 

 two and a half teams. 4 In other words, the ploughing services 

 performed by the tenants, who ploughed once a week on the 



1 D. B., 130 b I. 2 D. JB. andB., 478. 



3 G.M., 253. Ramsey Chart., i. 331. 



