A TYPICAL VILLAGE 259 



As only seventeen families are recorded in Domesday Book, 

 the population at the end of the eleventh century must have 

 been about one hundred. Of these, two families were slaves, 

 and were housed in the curtilage of the manor-house, and 

 received their provisions from the lady of the manor. Five 

 families were bordars, or cottagers, occupying separate houses 

 with a few acres perhaps five attached to each, and possibly 

 working for wages on the demesne farm during part of the 

 week. It is obvious that two slaves could not do all the work 

 on the demesne where three teams were engaged ; assistance 

 must be procured, if only to drive one of the ploughs. The 

 other ten families were villans, who together owned twenty- 

 four plough oxen, and could between them furnish three 

 teams for the cultivation of the demesne. Of these ten, eight 

 held i virgate each, and found two oxen each for the demesne 

 plough. Each of the others had 2 virgates, and found four 

 oxen. During part of the week these villans would be work- 

 ing with their united teams, or at other work on the demesne ; 

 but the rest of the week they would be employed with their 

 smaller teams of two or four oxen on the land in their own 

 occupation. 



If the picture drawn in the Rectitudines Singularum 

 Personarum of the typical estate in the reign of Ethelred II. 

 can be relied on, it shows that, while much of the ploughing 

 and harvesting would be done by the geburs, the villans, as 

 a consideration for the land they occupied, there was of 

 necessity a staff of labourers employed on the demesne. 

 That document sets forth the duties of the swineherd, the 

 sower, the oxherd, the shepherd, the cowherd, the goatherd, 

 and the cheese-worker, and others. All of these were subject 

 to the bedell, who "ought for his service to be freer from 

 work than the other men, because he is more frequently 

 hindered." The possibility of the swineherd and the bee- 

 keeper being slaves is foreseen, and it is clear that the bedell 

 would often be a man who owed other services, and he was 



