SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



South Durham they were liable to merchet, heriot, and tallage. In historic 

 times drengs, or land in drengage, occur in connexion with Herrington, Red- 

 worth, Middridge, West Auckland, Easington, Hulam, Norton, and Carlton. 

 Probably the tenure was found in early times in the prior's vills, but dis- 

 appeared together with most extraordinary tenures before the existing Halmote 

 Books begin. As the dreng had to pay a fee to the steward of the halmote 

 -court for licence to alienate or enter upon his lands, and was bound to * do to 

 the lord and neighbours the things incumbent,' his lands probably lay in the 

 town fields. They were certainly under the obligation of mill-suit, and in 

 general possessed no special point of difference from the ordinary town lands, 

 save that the dreng was not personally unfree. 1 



When we come to the wholly unfree tenants the question becomes very 

 difficult. The mediaeval lawyers could talk of the ' villein en gros ' and the 

 * villein regardant,' for the former term described the fast diminishing race of 

 personally unfree serfs and the latter the more numerous personally free cul- 

 tivators of holdings for which they owed or had commuted personal services. 

 Unfortunately, Boldon Book is by no means as explicit as Domesday upon the 

 matter of serfdom, and the few references it does give to serfs are evidently 

 from the context later interpolations. The original text of Boldon Book 

 describes the holdings of a vill in such vague terms as ' In Boldon are 22 vil- 

 leins each of whom holds 2 oxgangs of 30 acres etc.' It does not give the 

 names of the tenants as do Hatfield's and Langley's Surveys, except where 

 the tenant is a freeman and holds upon special terms.* In Hatfield's Survey 

 some personally unfree tenants are distinctly styled natrvus and the inference 

 is that all not so designated are free. Such an interpretation at least is the 

 only one consistent with the various transactions recorded in the Halmote 

 Rolls. 



The probability is that the villeins and perhaps the cotters of Boldon 

 Book represent the original personally unfree tenants of the bishop, whose 

 status was for a time legally debased at the Norman Conquest, although the 

 servile incidents may have become attached to the land. Exactly how far 

 the pre-Conquest bishops had secured a control over the persons as opposed 

 to the lands of the peasants cannot now be determined. They would cer- 

 tainly succeed to the legal rights of the lords in the various lands they 

 acquired by purchase or gift, but the county was too unsettled immediately 

 before and after the Conquest to allow of the legal rights being pressed too 

 hardly. All we can say, therefore, is that some of the villeins in Boldon 

 Book probably were personally unfree, but that the class steadily grew 

 smaller. However, with very few exceptions all the tenures in the vills, at 

 least so far as the village community was concerned, were unfree, and the 

 holders, so long as they remained on the land, were liable to the servile 

 incidents and duties. It is significant that throughout the later Middle 

 Ages the land in the town fields was called ' bond-land ' and the personally 

 unfree natfaus was called a ' bondman.' 



Upon the lands of the bishop we find a number of tenants whose 

 holdings, though servile, differ from those of the ordinary villein. The 



1 The entries in Boldon Book under Herrington and especially Sheraton leave a strong impression that the 

 dreng was, before the Conquest, the lord of the village under the bishop. 



' e.g. under Boldon we find ' Robert holds two oxgangs of 37 acres and renders half a mark.' 



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