i6o THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



ad malam, were villans who had commuted their week-works 

 for money payments a theory for which the Hundred Rolls 

 give ample support. But in his later work, The Growth of 

 the Manor, 1 he appears to suggest that the Domesday Com- 

 missioners included both geburs and geneats in the same 

 category of villans. We have seen reason to object to this 

 theory in the counties where Domesday Book draws a 

 distinction between villans and sokemen ; but Staffordshire 

 is one of the counties where no such distinction is drawn, 

 and these Burton extents would appear to show a large 

 number of sokemen or geneats included among the villans 

 of Staffordshire especially when it is remembered that one, 

 at least, of the censarii at Stratton was enfeoffed by charter. 2 

 But Mr. Baring advances strong arguments in favour of his 

 contention that the rent-paying tenants on these estates were 

 omitted from Domesday Book. 3 



To trace the history of these five classes of men from 

 the time of Domesday Book to the Black Death is far too 

 large a task to be attempted in these pages ; but there are 

 two or three points that must be noticed, if only to emphasize 

 the changes brought about by the Conquest. 



In the Hundred Rolls of 1279 we have a detailed account 

 of portions of the counties of Oxford, Berks., Beds., Hunts., 

 and Cambridge, on which Mr. Seebohm has drawn largely 

 for his description of the thirteenth-century manor. These 

 Hundred Rolls show us estates of lords, containing demesne 

 which was cultivated by the tenurial labour of the villans 

 and cottagers living in the village. The first point of differ- 

 ence that confronts us is the entire disappearance of the class 

 of landless slaves, who were maintained by their owner ; the 

 word " servus " often occurs in the Rolls, but it is invariably 

 applied to the tenant of a certain area of land, and is often 

 equated with "villain." But if the slaves have disappeared, 



1 Page 342. 2 Collections for Hist, of Staffs., 31. 



3 E. H. R., 1896, p. 98. 



