The English Cotiager-s of the Middle Ages. 5 



the cottagers. We must look to the slaves as well as to the land- 

 less freemen, for their source. 



For assistance in this enquiry we must have recourse chiefly to 

 two documents of the 11th Cent; the Reciiiudines Sing-ularumper- 

 sonarzim, which gives the obligations of three classes of free peas- 

 ants shortly before the Norman Conquest ; and the great or Ex- 

 chequer Domesday Book, which gives the numbers, on every estate) 

 of two principal classes, only in a few cases stating the extent of 

 their tenure and their obligations. Both documents mention 

 also slaves; but it must be undestood that the " slave " of this period 

 was rather a serf than a chattel slave. It will be noted that the 

 passage from Fleta, just cited, uses the word servussit a time (about 

 A. D. 1300) when chattel slavery had been long abolished. 



Our three principal documents therefore give us the following 

 classification : the Reditudines singidarum per sonar um^ three classes, 

 Geneai, Coisetel, and Gehur ; Domesday Book, two classes, Yillani 

 and Bordarii: the Extenia Manerii, three classes again, Libere 

 ienentes, Casiumarii and CoterelU. Our problem is to reconcile 

 these differences. 



In the first place, it should be remarked that the Libere tenentse 

 or freeholders, having come into existence since the time of Dom- 

 esday Book, do not correspond to any one of the earlier classes, 

 and may therefore be left out of account. In the next place, it 

 is perfectly well established that the Oeneat of the Reditudines, the 

 Villani of Domesday Book, and the Custumarii of the Extenia 

 Manerii, are the same class. We have therefore only to determine 

 the relation of the CoterelU \o the others of these earlier classes; 

 and especially to explain how it is that Domesday Book has only 

 one principal class, the Bordarii, where a few years earlier there 

 were two, the Cotsetel and the Geburs. 



Here I must call to mind the fact to which I directed attention 

 a short time ago, that the class of CoterelU had its origin in two 

 sources — the slaves and the landless freemen. The slaves, there- 

 fore, of the eleventh century were certainly one source of the cot- 

 tagers of the thirteenth century ; and so, in all probability, were 

 a part at least of the classes intermediate between the slaves and 

 the Villani — that is, the Bordarii of .Domesday Book and the 



