Village Commiinitij and Serfdoin in England. 139 



ceorles mancipium (the slave of a ceorl). Sections 11 and 35 are peculiarly 

 significant, as tliey aim to protect the ceorl and his wife against personal 

 violence; showing that, wliile they were still free in law, they were never- 

 theless on the road to serfdom, and were especially subject to abuse by the 

 powerful. 



We have thus followed the word ceorl, and the class which it designates 

 (the peasants) from the earhest times down to the time of Alfred, exactly 

 the point of time which Mr. Seebohm reached, from the opposite direction. 

 As he traced the manorial organization and a servile ijeasantry step by 

 step from the time of Edward I. back to that of Alfred; so we have traced 

 a class of free peasants from the time of the original conquest down to the 

 reign of Alfred, and have found it gradually subjected to restrictions and 

 obligations wliich have converted it into a servile or semi-servile class. 

 Mr. Seebohm's serfs were known as villani; the free peasants of the early 

 period were known as ceorls; and there is the most indisputable evidence 

 that these are the Latin and the Anglo-Saxon names respectively for the 

 same class; tliis class was the peasantry, who, by this evidence, appear to 

 have been at first freemen and afterwards serfs. 



Undoubtedly there were manorial estates, with serfdom, in the earliest 

 times, existing by the side of the townshij)s of free peasants, and following 

 the same system of oj)en-field husbandry. On the other hand it appears 

 clearly that the entire class of peasants or ceorls was not reduced to servi- 

 tude. We could not be surprised if no free villani or free townships (villce) 

 were met with in. the records, for it w"as only the proprietory townships, or 

 manors (especially those belonging to ecclesiastical proprietors), which had 

 a sufliciently systematic administration, and exercised sufficient care in 

 the preservation of documents, to afford adequate evidence as to their ex- 

 istence and condition. But as a matter of fact there is clear evidence of 

 free peasants and even of free townships in the feudal period. For example; 

 Alvarstoke in Hampshire, at the time of Domesday Brook (i. 41, b.) was 

 held by its own villani (ceorls), tenants of the convent of St. Swithin, of 

 Winchester. The number of villani was forty-eight, and there were no 

 slaves, or tenants of a lower grade (bordarii). Two hundi'ed years later 

 their charter was confirmed by the prior of Winchester, to the effect " that 

 they and then- posterity (sequela) should be forever free and quit from 

 tallages, salt-rent, cherset of hens and eggs and ijannage of hogs; should 

 be at liberty to make wills and dispose of their children and avers [averia= 

 beasts] ; ... all pleas except pleas of the crown should, by consent of 

 both parties, be pleaded and tried without delay in the court of Alwarstoke, 

 in the presence of the prior and his seneschal, according to the law and 

 customs of England, and the usage of the free tenants of the county." 

 This document is fortified by the seal of the community, given by Sir 

 Frederic Madden in the Winchester volume of tlie Archasological Proceed- 

 ings as: Sitjill: eoimine: liominum: prioris: Sci Swithnni: de Alicarestoke. 

 In 18-11 an inquisition declares "that there are no traders in Alverstoke, 



