THEIR CONDITION IN 1086 155 



only are they coupled with the villans and bordars ; usually 

 in Hampshire they are coupled with the slaves. Whatever 

 their position, they were a very small class, as Sir Henry 

 Ellis counts only 858 coliberts and 62 boors as compared 

 with 108,456 villans. The Continental colibert occupied an 

 intermediate position between the freeman and the slave ; if 

 he left his lord, he could be recaptured. 1 



Our proposal to see in the villan of 1086 the representative 

 of the gebur of 1025 must be modified in those counties where 

 no distinction is drawn between villans and freemen or soke- 

 men. Here the exalted position of the Commissioners pre- 

 vented their seeing any distinction between the gebur and 

 the geneat ; both lived side by side in the same vill, and both 

 rendered services on the demesne ; but the services of the 

 gebur were rendered every week, while those of the geneat 

 were rendered only at special seasons. 



On the whole, the distinction between the five classes 

 enumerated in the questions put to the Cambridgeshire jurors 

 appears to be economic rather than legal. The slaves were 

 maintained by their lords ; the bordars occupied small areas 

 of land, and worked one day a week on their lord's demesne ; 

 the villans occupied larger areas, which they cultivated by the 

 plough, and for which they worked two or three days a week 

 on their lord's demesne, and rendered team-labour. The 

 sokemen differed from the villans in that their services were 

 merely occasional, and not regular; and the freeholders 

 differed from the sokemen only in owing services to the King 

 alone, or to some grantee of the King. 



In addition to these five classes, the Commissioners 

 enumerated a number of persons who may be collected into a 

 miscellaneous class. Some were distinguished by the part 

 they played in the economy of the manor. At Leominster 

 there were eight prepositi, or reeves, and eight bedells. The 

 duties of the reeve are well set out in the document discovered 



1 D. B. and B., 37. 



