52 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



Dorset were called " manors," and yet had never paid geld ; 

 e.g. Bridetone and Wimbourne. 1 And there are many in- 

 stances in the geld inquests for the south-western counties, 

 where the collectors could not collect the geld in 1084, as the 

 villans retained it 



Possibly some little inquiry will show us some other cha- 

 racteristics of the manor. In the counties of Derby, Notting- 

 ham, York, and Lincoln, the Commissioners draw a distinction 

 between a manor and its sokelands. Sometimes we find that 

 after the particulars of a tenement called a " manor " is a line, 

 " Soke of this manor," followed by particulars relating to a 

 number of other tenements. Sometimes the distinction be- 

 tween a manor and its sokelands is indicated by an " M " or 

 " S," in the left-hand margin. Examination will show that 

 the composition of a manor differed considerably from that 

 of its sokelands, and that, as a general rule, the sokelands 

 were not valued separately. 



The sokelands appear to be the simplest organisms, and 

 should therefore be examined first. Turn over page after page 

 of the statistics relating to these four counties, and it will be 

 found to be almost the invariable rule that these sokelands con- 

 tain no demesne, and that they are inhabited by persons called 

 sokemen, either with or without other persons called villans and 

 bordars. By way of example, take two consecutive entries 



" S. In Screveton there is one carucate of land [assessed] to 

 geld. Land for 3 teams. There 3 sokemen, and 2 villans and i 

 bordar have one team and a half. 



" S. In Colston are 4 bovates and 4 acres of land [assessed] to geld. 

 Land for one team. There 5 sokemen have a team and a half." 2 



Occasionally one finds that the only recorded inhabitant of 

 a tenement to which a marginal " S " is prefixed is called a 

 villan, but such occurrences are very rare. On fol. 281 are 

 thirty-eight tenements to which the marginal " S " is prefixed. 

 Some of these are waste. Not one contains demesne, and there 

 1 D. B., I. 75 a 2. 2 id., I. 281 b 2. 



