The Origin of the Freeholders. 23 



ments of the required character. When we begin to meet with 

 rent-rolls and other records of the manors, the freeholders are al- 

 ready a large and recognized class. There are, nevertheless, a 

 few statistics which appear fully to prove the point in question. 



The manor of Beauchamp, in Essex:, was the property of th.e 

 Chapter of St. Paul. At the time of the Exchequer Domesday 

 (1086) it contatned twenty-four villani, ten hordarii and five servi] 

 no freeholders. In 1222, in the document known as the Domes- 

 day of St. Paul, there were thirty-four libere tenenies. This class, 

 therefore, had come into existence in this interval. Now it so 

 happens that for this manor we have the fragment of a record, 

 of the year 1181, known as the Domesday of Ealph of Diceto. 

 Its importance can be judged from the fact that this is the only 

 manor I have been able to find, of which there is a rent-roll in ex- 

 istence at two different periods; by means of this we are able to 

 compare the condition of the manor at an interval of forty-one 

 years. Unfortunately the list of the operarii (as the customary 

 tenr.nts are here called) is incomplete; the libere ienentes are eighteen 

 in number. Prom this it appears that the class of freeholders was 

 not merely a new class, originating in the century after the Kor- 

 man Conquest, but that it was a class that was steadily added to, 

 having more than doubled its numbers in less than fifty years. 

 Nor was this wholly by dividing the estates ; for the lands held by 

 them were, during this period, increased from 667 acres to 744. 



The continuousness of the tenures is shown very clearly by 

 these lists ; more than half of the estates of both classes can be 

 traced from father to son, or other relative, even after the long 

 space of forty-one years. In only one case is the same tenant found. 

 Eobert, son of Wlurun, a customary tenant, held, in 1181, an en- 

 tire virgate of land. In 1222, he appears as holding only a half 

 virgate of customary land ; but his name stands also in the list of 

 new freeholders, as holding another half virgate. Evidently be- 

 ing one of the richest and most prominent of the serfs, he had 

 been converted into a freeman and a freeholder by being enfeoffed 

 with half of his customary estate, the other half remaining in 

 villenage. Lambert Grross, in 1181, held two half virgates of cus- 

 tomary land. In 1222, his widow, Alice, held one half virgate by 



