2 6o THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



usually one of the geburs. But nothing is said as to the 

 status of the other servants, and, from the arrangements made 

 as to their remuneration, it would appear that they performed 

 their services voluntarily, and not because they were obliged 

 to do so by custom. Possibly some of them were the sons 

 and daughters of the geburs or villans, or even the villans 

 themselves, who performed the customary duties due from 

 their land by deputy, and for such purpose made use of their 

 grown-up sons. We must remember that in Oxfordshire the 

 Domesday Commissioners draw no distinction between soke- 

 men and villans, between geneats and geburs, and therefore 

 it is possible that some of the inhabitants of Islip who are 

 classed as villans were really sokemen, and worked on the 

 demesne only at specially busy times. 



The houses occupied by the tenants were poor and mean, 

 built of wattle-and-daub, on a wooden frame, with no windows 

 and no chimneys : a hole in the roof let out the smoke and 

 let in the light. In none would there be more than one room, 

 unless perchance there was a loft under the thatched roof, in 

 which a few of the family could sleep. In all cases the bare 

 earth formed the floor, and a hob of clay in the centre of 

 the house was the only hearth. Domesday Book gives an 

 amusing proof that our description of the tenants' houses is 

 practically correct : Hugh the Steerman had a quarrel with 

 his tenants at Ebrige, and transported the hall and the 

 houses and the stock into another manor ; evidently neither 

 the hall nor the other houses were built of stone. 



The details of the stock on the demesne farm at Islip in 

 1086 have not come down to us ; but a reference to the table 

 on page 264 will show the number of animals kept on farms 

 of a similar area in other counties. The average of that table 

 shows that on a farm employing three teams the stock would 

 be about four horses, ten non-ploughing oxen, thirty-one pigs, 

 and 237 sheep. 



Turning from the tenants to the lord, we find ourselves 





