Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original maps.
See 43255-h.htm or 43255-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/43255/pg43255-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43255/43255-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See
http://archive.org/details/domesdaybook00maituoft
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face or other
blackletter font (=bold=).
The abbreviation of 'Saint' with a superscripted "t" is
left simply as "St.".
The marginal paragraph descriptions are placed preceding
each paragraph, and delimited using square brackets:
[Paragraph Description]. On occasion, there are more than
one for a single paragraph.
The copious footnotes have been renumbered, consecutively,
and gathered at the end of each chapter. Internal references
to those notes in the original have been modified to refer
to the new numbers.
DOMESDAY BOOK AND BEYOND
Three Essays in the Early History of England.
* * * * * *
Cambridge University Press Warehouse,
C. F. Clay, Manager.
=London=: Fetter Lane, E.C.
=Glasgow=: 50, Wellington Street.
[Illustration]
Also
=London=: Stevens and Sons, Ltd., 119 and 120, Chancery Lane.
=Leipzig=: P. A. Brockhaus.
=Bombay and Calcutta=: Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
[All rights reserved.]
* * * * * *
PREFACE.
The greater part of what is in this book was written in order that it
might be included in the _History of English Law before the Time of
Edward I._ which was published by Sir Frederick Pollock and me in the
year 1895. Divers reasons dictated a change of plan. Of one only need I
speak. I knew that Mr Round was on the eve of giving to the world his
_Feudal England_, and that thereby he would teach me and others many new
lessons about the scheme and meaning of Domesday Book. That I was well
advised in waiting will be evident to everyone who has studied his work.
In its light I have suppressed, corrected, added much. The delay has
also enabled me to profit by Dr Meitzen's _Siedelung und Agrarwesen der
Germanen_[1], a book which will assuredly leave a deep mark upon all our
theories of old English history.
The title under which I here collect my three Essays is chosen for the
purpose of indicating that I have followed that retrogressive method
'from the known to the unknown,' of which Mr Seebohm is the apostle.
Domesday Book appears to me, not indeed as the known, but as the
knowable. The Beyond is still very dark: but the way to it lies through
the Norman record. A result is given to us: the problem is to find cause
and process. That in some sort I have been endeavouring to answer Mr
Seebohm, I can not conceal from myself or from others. A hearty
admiration of his _English Village Community_ is one main source of
this book. That the task of disputing his conclusions might have fallen
to stronger hands than mine I well know. I had hoped that by this time
Prof. Vinogradoff's _Villainage in England_ would have had a sequel.
When that sequel comes (and may it come soon) my provisional answer can
be forgotten. One who by a few strokes of his pen has deprived the
English nation of its land, its folk-land, owes us some reparation. I
have been trying to show how we can best bear the loss, and abandon as
little as may be of what we learnt from Dr Konrad von Maurer and Dr
Stubbs.
For my hastily compiled Domesday Statistics I have apologized in the
proper place. Here I will only add that I had but one long vacation to
give to a piece of work that would have been better performed had it
been spread over many years. Mr Corbett, of King's College, has already
shown me how by a little more patience and ingenuity I might have
obtained some rounder and therefore more significant figures. But of
this it is for him to speak.
Among the friends whom I wish to thank for their advice and assistance I
am more especially grateful to Mr Herbert Fisher, of New College, who
has borne the tedious labour of reading all my sheets, and to Mr W. H.
Stevenson, of Exeter College, whose unrivalled knowledge of English
diplomatics has been generously placed at my service.
F. W. M.
_20 January, 1897._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xiv
ESSAY I.
DOMESDAY BOOK.
Domesday Book and its satellites, 1. Domesday and legal history,
2. Domesday a geld book, 3. The danegeld, 3. The inquest and the geld
system, 5. Importance of the geld, 7. Unstable terminology of the
record, 8. The legal ideas of century xi. 9.
§ 1. _Plan of the Survey_, pp. 9-26.
The geographical basis, 9. The vill as the unit, 10. Modern and
ancient vills, 12. Omission of vills, 13. Fission of vills, 14. The
nucleated village and the vill of scattered steads, 15. Illustration
by maps, 16. Size of the vill, 17. Population of the vill, 19.
Contrasts between east and west, 20. Small vills, 20. Importance of
the east, 21. Manorial and non-manorial vills, 22. Distribution of
free men and serfs, 23. The classification of men, 23. The classes of
men and the geld system, 24. Our course, 25.
§ 2. _The Serfs_, pp. 26-36.
The _servus_ of Domesday, 26. Legal position of the serf, 27.
Degrees of serfdom, 27. Predial element in serfdom, 28. The serf and
criminal law, 29. Serf and villein, 30. The serf of the _Leges_, 30.
Return to the _servus_ of Domesday, 33. Disappearance of _servi_, 35.
§ 3. _The Villeins_, pp. 36-66.
The boors or coliberts, 36. The continental colibert, 37. The
English boor, 37. _Villani_, _bordarii_, _cotarii_, 38. The villein's
tenement, 40. Villeins and cottiers, 41. Freedom and unfreedom of the
_villani_, 41. Meaning of freedom, 42. The villein as free, 43. The
villein as unfree, 45. Anglo-Saxon free-holding, 46. Free-holding
and seignorial rights, 47. The scale of free-holding, 49. Free land
and immunity, 50. Unfreedom of the villein, 50. Right of recapture,
50. Rarity of flight, 51. The villein and seignorial justice, 52. The
villein and national justice, 52. The villein and his land, 53. The
villein's land and the geld, 54. The villein's services, 56. The
villein's rent, 57. The English for _villanus_, 58. Summary of the
villein's position, 60. Depression of the peasants, 61. The Normans
and the rustics, 61. Depression of the sokemen, 63. The peasants on
the royal demesne, 65.
§ 4. _The Sokemen_, pp. 66-79.
_Sochemanni_ and _liberi homines_, 66. Lord and man, 67. Bonds
between lord and man, 67. Commendation, 69. Commendation and
protection, 70. Commendation and warranty, 71. Commendation and
tenure, 71. The lord's interest in commendation, 72. The seignory
over the commended, 74. Commendation and service, 74. Land-loans and
services, 75. The man's _consuetudines_, 76. Nature of
_consuetudines_, 78. Justiciary _consuetudines_, 78.
§ 5. _Sake and Soke_, pp. 80-107.
Sake and soke, 80. Private jurisdiction in the _Leges_, 80. Soke
in the _Leges Henrici_, 81. Kinds of soke in the _Leges_, 82. The
Norman kings and private justice, 83. Sake and soke in Domesday, 84.
Meaning of _soke_, 84. Meaning of _sake_, 84. Soke as jurisdiction,
86. Seignorial justice before the Conquest, 87. Soke as a regality,
89. Soke over villeins, 90. Private soke and hundredal soke, 91.
Hundredal and manorial soke, 92. The seignorial court, 94. Soke and
the earl's third penny, 95. Soke and house-peace, 97. Soke over
houses, 99. Vendible soke, 100. Soke and mund, 100. Justice and
jurisdiction, 102. Soke and commendation, 103. Sokemen and 'free
men,' 104. Holdings of the sokemen, 106.
§ 6. _The Manor_, pp. 107-128.
What is a manor? 107. _Manerium_ a technical term, 107. Manor and
hall, 109. Difference between manor and hall, 110. Size of the
_maneria_, 110. A large manor, 111. Enormous manors--Leominster,
Berkeley, Tewkesbury, Taunton, 112. Large manors in the Midlands,
114. Townhouses and berewicks attached to manors, 114. Manor and
soke, 115. Minute manors in the west, 116. Minute manors in the east,
117. The manor as a peasant's holding, 118. Definition of a manor,
119. The manor and the geld, 120. Classification of men for the geld,
122. Proofs of connexion of the manor with the geld, 122. Land gelds
in a manor, 124. Geld and hall, 124. The lord and the man's taxes,
125. Distinction between villeins and sokemen, 125. The lord's
subsidiary liability, 126. Manors distributed to the Frenchmen, 127.
Summary, 128.
§ 7. _Manor and Vill_, pp. 129-150.
Manorial and non-manorial vills, 129. The vill of Orwell, 129. The
Wetherley hundred of Cambridgeshire, 131. The Wetherley sokemen, 134.
The sokemen and seignorial justice, 135. Changes in the Wetherley
hundred, 135. Manorialism in Cambridgeshire, 136. The sokemen and the
manors, 137. Hertfordshire sokemen, 138. The small _maneria_, 138.
The Danes and freedom, 139. The Danish counties, 139. The contrast
between villeins and sokemen, 140. Free villages, 141. Village
communities, 142. The villagers as co-owners, 142. The waste land of
the vill, 143. Co-ownership of mills and churches, 144. The system of
virgates in a free village, 144. The virgates and inheritance, 145.
The farm of the vill, 146. Round sums raised from the villages, 147.
The township and police law, 147. The free village and Norman
government, 149. Organization of the free village, 149.
§ 8. _The Feudal Superstructure_, pp. 150-172.
The higher ranks of men, 150. Dependent tenure, 151. _Feudum_,
152. _Alodium_, 153. Application of the formula of dependent tenure,
154. Military tenure, 156. The army and the land, 157. Feudalism and
army service, 158. Punishment for default of service, 159. The new
military service, 160. The thegns, 161. Nature of thegnship, 163. The
thegns of Domesday, 165. Greater and lesser thegns, 165. The great
lords, 166. The king as landlord, 166. The ancient demesne, 167. The
comital manors, 168. Private rights and governmental revenues, 168.
The English state, 170.
§ 9. _The Boroughs_, pp. 172-219.
Borough and village, 172. The borough in century xiii., 173. The
number of the boroughs, 173. The aid-paying boroughs of century xii,
174. List of aids, 175. The boroughs in Domesday, 176. The borough as
a county town, 178. The borough on no man's land, 178. Heterogeneous
tenures in the boroughs, 179. Burgages attached to rural manors, 180.
The burgess and the rural manor, 181. Tenure of the borough and
tenure of land within the borough, 181. The king and other landlords,
182.
The oldest burh, 183. The king's burh, 184. The special peace of
the burh, 184. The town and the burh, 185. The building of boroughs,
186. The shire and its borough, 186. Military geography, 187. _The
Burghal Hidage_, 187. The shire's wall-work, 188. Henry the Fowler and
the German burgs, 189. The shire thegns and their borough houses, 189.
The knights in the borough, 190. _Burh-bót_ and castle-guard, 191.
Borough and market, 192. Establishment of markets, 193. Moneyers in
the burh, 195. Burh and port, 195. Military and commercial elements in
the borough, 196. The borough and agriculture, 196. Burgesses as
cultivators, 197. Burgage tenure, 198. Eastern and western boroughs,
199. Common property of the burgesses, 200. The community as
landholders, 200. Rights of common, 202. Absence of communalism in the
borough, 202. The borough community and its lord, 203. The farm of the
borough, 204. The sheriff and the farm of the borough, 205. The
community and the geld, 206. Partition of taxes, 207. No corporation
farming the borough, 208. Borough and county organization, 209.
Government of the boroughs, 209. The borough court, 210. The law-men,
211. Definition of the borough, 212. Mediatized boroughs, 212.
Boroughs on the king's land and other boroughs, 215. Attributes of the
borough, 216. Classification of the boroughs, 217. National element in
the boroughs, 219.
ESSAY II.
ENGLAND BEFORE THE CONQUEST.
Object of this essay, 220. Fundamental controversies over
Anglo-Saxon history, 221. The Romanesque theory unacceptable, 222.
Feudalism as a normal stage, 223. Feudalism as progress and
retrogress, 224. Progress and retrogress in the history of legal
ideas, 224. The contact of barbarism and civilization, 225. Our
materials, 226.
§ 1. _Book-land and the Land-book_, pp. 226-244.
The lands of the churches, 226. How the churches acquired their
lands, 227. The earliest land-books, 229. Exotic character of the
book, 230. The book purports to convey ownership, 230. The book
conveys a superiority, 231. A modern analogy, 232. Conveyance of
superiorities in early times, 233. What had the king to give? 234.
The king's alienable rights, 234. Royal rights in land, 235. The
king's _feorm_, 236. Nature of the _feorm_, 237. Tribute and rent,
239. Mixture of ownership and superiority, 240. Growth of the
seignory, 241. Book-land and church-right, 242. Book-land and
testament, 243.
§ 2. _Book-land and Folk-land_, pp. 244-258.
What is folk-land? 244. Folk-land in the laws, 244. Folk-land in
the charters, 245. Land booked by the king to himself, 246. The
consent of the witan, 247. Consent and witness in the land-books,
247. Attestation of the earliest books, 248, Confirmation and
attestation, 250. Function of the witan, 251. The king and the
people's land, 252. King's land and crown land, 253. Fate of the
king's land on his death, 253. The new king and the old king's heir,
254. Immunity of the ancient demesne, 255. Rights of individuals in
national land, 255. The _alod_, 256. Book-land and privilege, 257.
Kinds of land and kinds of right, 257.
§ 3. _Sake and Soke_, pp. 258-292.
Importance of seignorial justice, 258. Theory of the modern origin
of seignorial justice, 258. Sake and soke in the Norman age, 259. The
Confessor's writs, 259. Cnut's writs, 260. Cnut's law, 261. The book
and the writ, 261. Diplomatics, 262. The Anglo-Saxon writ, 264. Sake
and soke appear when writs appear, 265. Traditional evidence of sake
and soke, 267. _Altitonantis_, 268. Criticism of the earlier books,
269. The clause of immunity, 270. Dissection of the words of
immunity, 272. The _trinoda necessitas_, 273. The _ángild_, 274. The
right to wites and the right to a court, 275. The Taunton book, 276.
The immunists and the wite, 277. Justice and jurisdiction, 277. The
Frankish immunity, 278. Seignorial and ecclesiastical jurisdiction,
279. Criminal justice of the church, 281. Antiquity of seignorial
courts, 282. Justice, vassalage and tenure, 283. The lord and the
accused vassal, 284. The state, the lord and the vassal, 285. The
_landríca_ as immunist, 286. The immunist's rights over free men,
288. Sub-delegation of justiciary rights, 289. Number of the
immunists, 289.
Note: The _Ángild_ Clause, 290.
§ 4. _Book-land and Loan-land_, pp. 293-318.
The book and the gift, 293. Book-land and service, 294. Military
service, 295. Escheat of book-land, 295. Alienation of book-land,
297. The heriot and the testament, 298. The gift and the loan, 299.
The _precarium_, 300. The English land-loan, 301. Loans of church
land to the great, 302. The consideration for the loan, 303. St.
Oswald's loans, 303. Oswald's letter to Edgar, 304. Feudalism in
Oswald's law, 307. Oswald's riding-men, 308. Heritable loans, 309.
Wardship and marriage, 310. Seignorial jurisdiction, 310. Oswald's
law and England at large, 311. Inferences from Oswald's loans, 312.
Economic position of Oswald's tenants, 312. Loan-land and book-land,
313. Book-land in the dooms, 314. Royal and other books, 315. The
gift and the loan, 317. Dependent tenure, 317.
§ 5. _The Growth of Seignorial Power_, pp. 318-340.
Subjection of free men, 318. The royal grantee and the land, 318.
Provender rents and the manorial economy, 319. The church and the
peasants, 320. Growth of the manorial system, 321. Church-scot and
tithes, 321. Jurisdictional rights of the lord, 322. The lord and the
man's taxes, 323. Depression of the free ceorl, 324. The slaves, 325.
Growth of manors from below, 325.
Theories which connect the manor with the Roman villa, 326. The
_Rectitudines_, 327. Discussion of the _Rectitudines_, 328. The
Tidenham case, 329. The Stoke case, 330. Inferences from these cases,
332. The _villa_ and the _vicus_, 333. Manors in the land-books, 334.
The _mansus_ and the _manens_, 335. The hide, 336. The strip-holding
and the villa, 337. The lord and the strips, 338. The ceorl and the
slave, 339. The condition of the Danelaw, 339.
§ 6. _The Village Community_, pp. 340-356.
Free villages, 340. Ownership by communities and ownership by
individuals, 341. Co-ownership and ownership by corporations, 341.
Ownership and governmental power, 342. Ownership and subordinate
governmental power, 343. Evolution of sovereignty and ownership, 343.
Communal ownership as a stage, 344. The theory of normal stages, 345.
Was land owned by village communities? 346. Meadows, pastures and
woods, 348. The bond between neighbours, 349. Feebleness of village
communalism, 349. Absence of organization, 350. The German village on
conquered soil, 351. Development of kingly power, 351. The free
village in England, 352. The village meeting, 353. What might have
become of the free village, 353. Mark communities, 354. Intercommoning
between vills, 355. Last words, 356.
ESSAY III.
THE HIDE.
What was the hide? 357. Importance of the question, 357. Hide and
manse in Bede, 358. Hide and manse in the land-books, 358. The large
hide and the manorial arrangement, 360. Our course, 361.
§ 1. _Measures and Fields_, pp. 362-399.
Permanence and change in agrarian history, 362. Rapidity of change
in old times, 363. Devastation of villages, 363. Village colonies,
365. Change of field systems, 365. Differences between different
shires, 366. New and old villages, 367.
History of land measures, 368. Growth of uniform measures, 369.
Superficial measure, 370. The ancient elements of land measure, 372.
The German acre, 373. English acres, 373. Small and large acres, 374.
Anglo-Saxon rods and acres, 375. Customary acres and forest acres,
376. The acre and the day's work, 377. The real acres in the fields,
379. The _culturae_ or shots, 379. Delimitation of shots, 380. Real
and ideal acres, 381. Irregular length of acres, 383. The _seliones_
or beds, 383. Acres divided lengthwise, 384. The virgate, 385. Yard
and yard-land, 385. The virgate a fraction of the hide, 385. The
yard-land in laws and charters, 386.
The hide as a measure, 387. The hide as a measure of arable, 388.
The hide of 120 acres, 389. Real and fiscal hides, 389. Causes of
divergence of fiscal from real hides, 390. Effects of the divergence,
392. Acreage of the hide in later days, 393. The carucate and bovate,
395. The ox-gang, 396. The fiscal carucate, 396. Acreage tilled by a
plough, 397. Walter of Henley's programme of ploughing, 398.
§ 2. _Domesday Statistics_, pp. 399-490.
_Statistical Tables_, 400-403.
Domesday's three statements, 399. Northern formulas, 404. Southern
formulas, 405. Kentish formulas, 406. Relation between the three
statements, 406. Introduction of statistics, 407. Explanation of
statistics, 407. Acreage, 407. Population, 408. Danegeld, 408. Hides,
carucates, sulungs, 408. Reduced hidage, 410. The teamlands, 410. The
teams, 411. The values, 411. The table of ratios, 411. Imperfection
of statistics, 412. Constancy of ratios, 413.
The team, 413. Variability of the _caruca_, 414. Constancy of the
_caruca_, 414. The villein's teams, 415. The villein's oxen, 416.
Light and heavy ploughs, 417. The team of Domesday and other
documents, 417.
The teamland, 418. Fractional parts of the teamland, 418. Land for
oxen and wood for swine, 419. The teamland no areal unit, 419. The
teamlands of Great and the teams of Little Domesday, 420. The
Leicestershire formulas, 420. Origin of the inquiry touching the
teamlands, 421. Modification of the inquiry, 423. The potential teams,
423. Normal relation between teams and teamlands, 424. The land of
deficient teams, 425. Actual and potential teamlands, 426. The land of
excessive teams, 427. Digression to East Anglia, 429. The teamland no
areal measure, 431. Eyton's theory, 431. Domesday's lineal measure,
432. Measured teamlands, 433.
Amount of arable in England, 435. Decrease of arable, 436. The food
problem, 436. What was the population? 436. What was the field-system?
437. What was the acre's yield? 437. Consumption of beer, 438. The
Englishman's diet, 440. Is the arable superabundant? 441. Amount of
pasturage, 441. Area of the villages, 443. Produce and value, 444.
Varying size of acres, 445. The teamland in Cambridgeshire, 445.
The hides of Domesday, 446. Relation between hides and teamlands,
447. Unhidated estates, 448. Beneficial hidation, 448. Effect of
privilege, 449. Divergence of hide from teamland, 450. Partition of
the geld, 451. Distribution of hides among counties and hundreds, 451.
The hidage of Worcestershire, 451. _The County Hidage_, 455. Its date,
456. The Northamptonshire Geld Roll, 457. Credibility of _The County
Hidage_, 458. Reductions of hidage, 458. The county quotas, 459. The
hundred and the hundred hides, 459. Comparison of Domesday hidage with
Pipe Rolls, 460. Under-rated and over-rated counties, 461. Hidage and
value, 462. One pound, one hide, 465. Equivalence of pound and hide,
465. Cases of under-taxation, 466. Kent, 466. Devon and Cornwall, 467.
Cases of over-taxation, 468. Leicestershire, 468. Yorkshire, 469.
Equity and hidage, 470. Distribution of hides and of teamlands, 471.
Area and value as elements of geldability, 472. The equitable
teamland, 473. Artificial valets, 473. The new assessments of Henry
II., 473.
Acreage of the fiscal hide, 475. Equation between hide and acres,
475. The hide of 120 acres, 476. Evidence from Cambridgeshire, 476.
Evidence from the Isle of Ely, 476. Evidence from Middlesex, 477.
Meaning of the Middlesex entries, 478. Evidence in the Geld Inquests,
478. Result of the evidence, 480. Evidence from Essex, 480. Acreage of
the fiscal carucate, 483. Acreage of the fiscal sulung, 484. Kemble's
theory, 485. The ploughland and the plough, 486. The Yorkshire
carucates, 487. Relation between teamlands and fiscal carucates, 487.
The fiscal hide of 120 acres, 489. Antiquity of the large hide, 489.
§ 3. _Beyond Domesday_, pp, 490-520.
The hide beyond Domesday, 490. Arguments in favour of small hides,
490. Continuity of the hide in the land-books, 491. Examples from
charters of Chertsey, 492. Examples from charters of Malmesbury, 492.
Permanence of the hidation, 493. Gifts of villages, 494. Gifts of
manses in villages, 495. The largest gifts, 496. The Winchester
estate at Chilcombe, 496. The Winchester estates at Downton and
Taunton, 498. Kemble and the Taunton estate, 499. Difficulty of
identifying parcels, 500. The numerous hides in ancient documents,
501. _The Burghal Hidage_, 502. _The Tribal Hidage_, 506. Bede's
hidage, 508. Bede and the land-books, 509. Gradual reduction of
hidage, 510. Over-estimates of hidage, 510. Size of Bede's hide, 511.
Evidence from Iona, 512. Evidence from Selsey, 513. Conclusion in
favour of the large hide, 515. Continental analogies, 515. The German
_Hufe_, 515. The _Königshufe_, 516. The large hide on the continent,
517. The large hide not too large, 518. The large hide and the manor,
519. Last words, 520.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Siedelung und Agrarwesen der Westgermanen und Ostgermanen, der
Kelten, Römer, Finnen und Slawen, von August Meitzen, Berlin, 1895.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
B. = Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, London, 1885-7-93.
D. B. = Domesday Book.
E. = Earle, Land Charters, Oxford, 1888.
E. H. R. = English Historical Review.
H. & S. = Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical
Documents, vol. iii, Oxford, 1871.
K. = Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici, London, 1839-48.
T. = Thorpe, Diplomatarium Anglicanum, London, 1865.
ADDENDUM.
p. 347, note 794. Instances of the periodic reallotment of the whole
land of a vill, exclusive of houses and crofts, seem to have been not
unknown in the north of England. Here the reallotment is found in
connexion with a husbandry which knows no permanent severance of the
arable from the grass-land, but from time to time ploughs up a tract
and after a while allows it to become grass-land once more. See F. W.
Dendy, The Ancient Farms of Northumberland, Archaeologia Aeliana, Vol.
xvi. I have to thank Mr Edward Bateson for a reference to this paper.
ESSAY I.
DOMESDAY BOOK.
[Domesday Book and its satellites.]
At midwinter in the year 1085 William the Conqueror wore his crown at
Gloucester and there he had deep speech with his wise men. The outcome
of that speech was the mission throughout all England of 'barons,'
'legates' or 'justices' charged with the duty of collecting from the
verdicts of the shires, the hundreds and the vills a _descriptio_ of his
new realm. The outcome of that mission was the _descriptio_ preserved
for us in two manuscript volumes, which within a century after their
making had already acquired the name of Domesday Book. The second of
those volumes, sometimes known as Little Domesday, deals with but three
counties, namely Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, while the first volume
comprehends the rest of England. Along with these we must place certain
other documents that are closely connected with the grand inquest. We
have in the so-called Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiae, a copy, an
imperfect copy, of the verdicts delivered by the Cambridgeshire jurors,
and this, as we shall hereafter see, is a document of the highest value,
even though in some details it is not always very trustworthy[2]. We
have in the so-called Inquisitio Eliensis an account of the estates of
the Abbey of Ely in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and other counties, an
account which has as its ultimate source the verdicts of the juries and
which contains some particulars which were omitted from Domesday
Book[3]. We have in the so-called Exon Domesday an account of Cornwall
and Devonshire and of certain lands in Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire;
this also seems to have been constructed directly or indirectly out of
the verdicts delivered in those counties, and it contains certain
particulars about the amount of stock upon the various estates which are
omitted from what, for distinction's sake, is sometimes called the
Exchequer Domesday[4]. At the beginning of this Exon Domesday we have
certain accounts relating to the payment of a great geld, seemingly the
geld of six shillings on the hide that William levied in the winter of
1083-4, two years before the deep speech at Gloucester[5]. Lastly, in
the Northamptonshire Geld Roll[6] we have some precious information
about fiscal affairs as they stood some few years before the survey[7].
[Domesday and legal history.]
Such in brief are the documents out of which, with some small help from
the Anglo-Saxon dooms and land-books, from the charters of Norman kings
and from the so-called Leges of the Conqueror, the Confessor and Henry
I., some future historian may be able to reconstruct the land-law which
obtained in the conquered England of 1086, and (for our records
frequently speak of the _tempus Regis Edwardi_) the unconquered England
of 1065. The reflection that but for the deep speech at Gloucester, but
for the lucky survival of two or three manuscripts, he would have known
next to nothing of that law, will make him modest and cautious. At the
present moment, though much has been done towards forcing Domesday Book
to yield its meaning, some of the legal problems that are raised by it,
especially those which concern the time of King Edward, have hardly been
stated, much less solved. It is with some hope of stating, with little
hope of solving them that we begin this essay. If only we can ask the
right questions we shall have done something for a good end. If English
history is to be understood, the law of Domesday Book must be mastered.
We have here an absolutely unique account of feudalism in two different
stages of its growth, the more trustworthy, though the more puzzling,
because it gives us particulars and not generalities.
Puzzling enough it certainly is, and this for many reasons. Our task may
be the easier if we state some of those reasons at the outset.
[Domesday a geld book.]
To say that Domesday Book is no collection of laws or treatise on law
would be needless. Very seldom does it state any rule in general terms,
and when it does so we shall usually find cause for believing that this
rule is itself an exception, a local custom, a provincial privilege.
Thus, if we are to come by general rules, we must obtain them
inductively by a comparison of many thousand particular instances. But
further, Domesday Book is no register of title, no register of all those
rights and facts which constitute the system of land-holdership. One
great purpose seems to mould both its form and its substance; it is a
geld-book.
[Danegeld.]
When Duke William became king of the English, he found (so he might well
think) among the most valuable of his newly acquired regalia, a right to
levy a land-tax under the name of geld or danegeld. A detailed history
of that tax cannot be written. It is under the year 991 that our English
chronicle first mentions a tribute paid to the Danes[8]; £10,000 was
then paid to them. In 994 the yet larger sum of £16,000[9] was levied.
In 1002 the tribute had risen to £24,000[10], in 1007 to £30,000[11], in
1009 East Kent paid £3,000[12]; £21,000 was raised in 1014[13]; in 1018
Cnut when newly crowned took £72,000 besides £11,000 paid by the
Londoners[14]; in 1040 Harthacnut took £21,099 besides a sum of £11,048
that was paid for thirty-two ships[15]. With a Dane upon the throne,
this tribute seems to have become an occasional war-tax. How often it
was levied we cannot tell; but that it was levied more than once by the
Confessor is not doubtful[16]. We are told that he abolished it in or
about the year 1051, some eight or nine years after his accession, some
fifteen before his death. No sooner was William crowned than 'he laid on
men a geld exceeding stiff.' In the next year 'he set a mickle geld' on
the people. In the winter of 1083-4 he raised a geld of 72 pence (6
Norman shillings) upon the hide. That this tax was enormously heavy is
plain. Taking one case with another, it would seem that the hide was
frequently supposed to be worth about £1 a year and there were many
hides in England that were worth far less. But grievous as was the tax
which immediately preceded the making of the survey, we are not entitled
to infer that it was of unprecedented severity. It brought William but
£415 or thereabouts from Dorset and £510 or thereabouts from
Somerset[17]. Worcestershire was deemed to contain about 1200 hides and
therefore, even if none of its hides had been exempted, it would have
contributed but £360. If the huge sums mentioned by the chronicler had
really been exacted, and that too within the memory of men who were yet
living, William might well regard the right to levy a geld as the most
precious jewel in his English crown. To secure a due and punctual
payment of it was worth a gigantic effort, a survey such as had never
been made and a record such as had never been penned since the grandest
days of the old Roman Empire. But further, the assessment of the geld
sadly needed reform. Owing to one cause and another, owing to privileges
and immunities that had been capriciously granted, owing also, so we
think, to a radically vicious method of computing the geldable areas of
counties and hundreds, the old assessment was full of anomalies and
iniquities. Some estates were over-rated, others were scandalously
under-rated. That William intended to correct the old assessment, or
rather to sweep it away and put a new assessment in its stead, seems
highly probable, though it has not been proved that either he or his
sons accomplished this feat[18]. For this purpose, however, materials
were to be collected which would enable the royal officers to decide
what changes were necessary in order that all England might be taxed in
accordance with a just and uniform plan. Concerning each estate they
were to know the number of geldable units ('hides' or 'carucates') for
which it had answered in King Edward's day, they were to know the number
of plough oxen that there were upon it, they were to know its true
annual value, they were to know whether that value had been rising or
falling during the past twenty years. Domesday Book has well been called
a rate book, and the task of spelling out a land law from the
particulars that it states is not unlike the task that would lie before
any one who endeavoured to construct our modern law of real property out
of rate books, income tax returns and similar materials. All the lands,
all the land-holders of England may be brought before us, but we are
told only of such facts, such rights, such legal relationships as bear
on the actual or potential payment of geld. True, that some minor
purposes may be achieved by the king's commissioners, though the quest
for geld is their one main object. About the rents and renders due from
his own demesne manors the king may thus obtain some valuable
information. Also he may learn, as it were by the way, whether any of
his barons or other men have presumed to occupy, to 'invade,' lands
which he has reserved for himself. Again, if several persons are in
dispute about a tract of ground, the contest may be appeased by the
testimony of shire and hundred, or may be reserved for the king's
audience; at any rate the existence of an outstanding claim may be
recorded by the royal commissioners. Here and there the peculiar customs
of a shire or a borough will be stated, and incidentally the services
that certain tenants owe to their lords may be noticed. But all this is
done sporadically and unsystematically. Our record is no register of
title, it is no feodary, it is no custumal, it is no rent roll; it is a
tax book, a geld book.
[The survey and the geld system.]
We say this, not by way of vain complaint against its meagreness, but
because in our belief a care for geld and for all that concerns the
assessment and payment of geld colours far more deeply than commentators
have usually supposed the information that is given to us about other
matters. We should not be surprised if definitions and distinctions
which at first sight have little enough to do with fiscal arrangements,
for example the definition of a manor and the distinction between a
villein and a 'free man,' involved references to the apportionment and
the levy of the land-tax. Often enough it happens that legal ideas of a
very general kind are defined by fiscal rules; for example, our modern
English idea of 'occupation' has become so much part and parcel of a
system of assessment that lawyers are always ready to argue that a
certain man must be an 'occupier' because such men as he are rated to
the relief of the poor. It seems then a fair supposition that any line
that Domesday Book draws systematically and sharply, whether it be
between various classes of men or between various classes of tenements,
is somehow or another connected with the main theme of that
book--geldability, actual or potential.
[Weight of the danegeld.]
Since we have mentioned the stories told by the chronicler about the
tribute paid to the Danes, we may make a comment upon them which will
become of importance hereafter. Those stories look true, and they seem
to be accepted by modern historians. Had we been told just once that
some large number of pounds, for example £60,000, was levied, or had the
same round sum been repeated in year after year, we might well have said
that such figures deserved no attention, and that by £60,000 our
annalist merely meant a big sum of money. But, as will have been seen,
he varies his figures from year to year and is not always content with a
round number; he speaks of £21,099 and of £11,048[19]. We can hardly
therefore treat his statements as mere loose talk and are reluctantly
driven to suppose that they are true or near the truth. If this be so,
then, unless some discovery has yet to be made in the history of money,
no word but 'appalling' will adequately describe the taxation of which
he speaks. We know pretty accurately the amount of money that became due
when Henry I. or Henry II. imposed a danegeld of two shillings on the
hide. The following table constructed from the pipe rolls will show the
sum charged against each county. We arrange the shires in the order of
their indebtedness, for a few of the many caprices of the allotment will
thus be visible, and our table may be of use to us in other
contexts[20].
APPROXIMATE CHARGE OF A DANEGELD OF TWO SHILLINGS ON THE HIDE IN THE
MIDDLE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.
£ £
Wiltshire 389 | Cambridge 114
Norfolk 330 | Derby and Nottingham 110
Somerset 278 | Hertford 110
Lincoln 266 | Bedford 110
Dorset 248 | Kent 105
Oxford 242 | Devon 104
Essex 236 | Worcester 101
Suffolk 235 | Leicester 100
Sussex 210 | Hereford 94
Bucks 205 | Middlesex 85
Berks 202 | Huntingdon 71
Gloucester 190 | Stafford 44
S. Hants 180 | Cornwall 23
Surrey 177 | Rutland 12
York 160 | Northumberland 100
Warwick 129 | Cheshire[21] 0
N. Hants 120 | ----
Salop 118 | Total 5198
[The geld of old times.]
Now be it understood that these figures do not show the amount of money
that Henry I. and Henry II. could obtain by a danegeld. They had to take
much less. When it was last levied, the tax was not bringing in £3500,
so many were the churches and great folk who had obtained temporary or
permanent exemptions from it. We will cite Leicestershire for example.
The total of the geld charged upon it was almost exactly or quite
exactly £100. On the second roll of Henry II.'s reign we find that £25.
7_s._ 6_d._ have been paid into the treasury, that £22. 8_s._ 3_d._ have
been 'pardoned' to magnates and templars, that £51. 8_s._ 2_d._ are
written off in respect of waste, and that 16_s._ 0_d._ are still due. On
the eighth roll the account shows that £62. 12_s._ 7_d._ have been paid
and that £37. 6_s._ 9_d._ have been 'pardoned.' No, what our table
displays is the amount that would be raised if all exemptions were
disregarded and no penny forborne. And now let us turn back to the
chronicle and (not to take an extreme example) read of £30,000 being
raised. Unless we are prepared to bring against the fathers of English
history a charge of repeated, wanton and circumstantial lying, we shall
think of the danegeld of Æthelred's reign and of Cnut's as of an impost
so heavy that it was fully capable of transmuting a whole nation.
Therefore the lines that are drawn by the incidence of this tribute will
be deep and permanent; but still we must remember that primarily they
will be fiscal lines.
[Unstable terminology of the survey.]
Then again, we ought not to look to Domesday Book for a settled and
stable scheme of technical terms. Such a scheme could not be established
in a brief twenty years. About one half of the technical terms that meet
us, about one half of the terms which, as we think, ought to be
precisely defined, are, we may say, English terms. They are ancient
English words, or they are words brought hither by the Danes, or they
are Latin words which have long been in use in England and have acquired
special meanings in relation to English affairs. On the other hand,
about half the technical terms are French. Some of them are old Latin
words which have acquired special meanings in France, some are Romance
words newly coined in France, some are Teutonic words which tell of the
Frankish conquest of Gaul. In the one great class we place _scira_,
_hundredum_, _wapentac_, _hida_, _berewica_, _inland_, _haga_, _soka_,
_saka_, _geldum_, _gablum_, _scotum_, _heregeat_, _gersuma_, _thegnus_,
_sochemannus_, _burus_, _coscet_; in the other _comitatus_, _carucata_,
_virgata_, _bovata_, _arpentum_, _manerium_, _feudum_, _alodium_,
_homagium_, _relevium_, _baro_, _vicecomes_, _vavassor_, _villanus_,
_bordarius_, _colibertus_, _hospes_. It is not in twenty years that a
settled and stable scheme can be formed out of such elements as these.
And often enough it is very difficult for us to give just the right
meaning to some simple Latin word. If we translate _miles_ by _soldier_
or _warrior_, this may be too indefinite; if we translate it by
_knight_, this may be too definite, and yet leave open the question
whether we are comparing the _miles_ of 1086 with the _cniht_ of
unconquered England or with the knight of the thirteenth century. If we
render _vicecomes_ by _sheriff_ we are making our sheriff too little of
a _vicomte_. When _comes_ is before us we have to choose between giving
Britanny an _earl_, giving Chester a _count_, or offending some of our
_comites_ by invidious distinctions. Time will show what these words
shall mean. Some will perish in the struggle for existence; others have
long and adventurous careers before them. At present two sets of terms
are rudely intermixed; the time when they will grow into an organic
whole is but beginning.
[Legal ideas of cent. xi.]
To this we must add that, unless we have mistaken the general drift of
legal history, the law implied in Domesday Book ought to be for us very
difficult law, far more difficult than the law of the thirteenth
century, for the thirteenth century is nearer to us than is the
eleventh. The grown man will find it easier to think the thoughts of the
school-boy than to think the thoughts of the baby. And yet the doctrine
that our remote forefathers being simple folk had simple law dies hard.
Too often we allow ourselves to suppose that, could we but get back to
the beginning, we should find that all was intelligible and should then
be able to watch the process whereby simple ideas were smothered under
subtleties and technicalities. But it is not so. Simplicity is the
outcome of technical subtlety; it is the goal not the starting point. As
we go backwards the familiar outlines become blurred; the ideas become
fluid, and instead of the simple we find the indefinite. But difficult
though our task may be, we must turn to it.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiae, ed. N. E. Hamilton. When, as
sometimes happens, the figures in this record differ from those
given in Domesday Book, the latter seem to be in general the
more correct, for the arithmetic is better. Also it seems plain
that the compilers of Domesday had, even for districts
comprised in the Inquisitio, other materials besides those that
the Inquisitio contains. For example, that document says
nothing of some of the royal manors. [Since this note was
written, Mr Round, Feudal England, pp. 10 ff. has published the
same result after an elaborate investigation.]
[3] This is printed in D. B. vol. iv. and given by Hamilton at the
end of his Inq. Com. Cantab. As to the manner in which it was
compiled see Round, Feudal England, 133 ff.
[4] The Exon Domesday is printed in D. B. vol. iv.
[5] Round, Domesday Studies, i. 91: 'I am tempted to believe that
these geld rolls in the form in which we now have them were
compiled at Winchester after the close of Easter 1084, by the
body which was the germ of the future Exchequer.'
[6] Printed by Ellis, Introduction to Domesday, i. 184.
[7] Round, Feudal England, 147.
[8] Earle, Two Chronicles, 130-1.
[9] Ibid. 132-3.
[10] Ibid. 137.
[11] Ibid. 141.
[12] Ibid. 142.
[13] Ibid. 151.
[14] Ibid. 160-1.
[15] Ibid. 167.
[16] There is a valuable paper on this subject, A Short Account of
Danegeld [by P. C. Webb] published in 1756.
[17] D. B. iv. 26, 489.
[18] In 1194 the tax for Richard's ransom seems, at least in
Wiltshire, to have been distributed in the main according to
the assessment that prevailed in 1084; Rolls of the King's
Court (Pipe Roll Soc.) i. Introduction, p. xxiv.
[19] The statement in Æthelred, II. 7 (Schmid, p. 209) as to a
payment of £22,000 is in a general way corroborative of the
chronicler's large figures.
[20] The figures will be given more accurately on a later page.
[21] Cheshire pays no geld to the king. This loss is compensated by
a sum which is sometimes exacted from Northumberland.
§ 1. _Plan of the Survey._
[The geographical basis.]
England was already mapped out into counties, hundreds or wapentakes and
vills. Trithings or ridings appear in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, lathes
in Kent, rapes in Sussex, while leets appear, at least sporadically, in
Norfolk[22]. These provincial peculiarities we must pass by, nor will we
pause to comment at any length on the changes in the boundaries of
counties and of hundreds that have taken place since the date of the
survey. Though these changes have been many and some few of them have
been large[23], we may still say that as a general rule the political
geography of England was already stereotyped. And we see that already
there are many curious anomalies, 'detached portions' of counties,
discrete hundreds, places that are extra-hundredal[24], places that for
one purpose are in one county and for another purpose in another
county[25]. We see also that proprietary rights have already been making
sport of arrangements which in our eyes should be fixed by public law.
Earls, sheriffs and others have enjoyed a marvellous power of taking a
tract of land out of one district and placing it, or 'making it lie' in
another district[26]. Land is constantly spoken of as though it were the
most portable of things; it can easily be taken from one vill or hundred
and be added to or placed in or caused to lie in another vill or
hundred. This 'notional movability' of land, if we may use such a term,
will become of importance to us when we are studying the formation of
manors.
[The vill as the geographical unit.]
For the present, however, we are concerned with the general truth that
England is divided into counties, hundreds or wapentakes and vills. This
is the geographical basis of the survey. That basis, however, is hidden
from us by the form of our record. The plan adopted by those who
fashioned Domesday Book out of the returns provided for them by the
king's commissioners is a curious, compromising plan. We may say that in
part it is geographical, while in part it is feudal or proprietary. It
takes each county separately and thus far it is geographical; but within
the boundaries of each county it arranges the lands under the names of
the tenants in chief who hold them. Thus all the lands in Cambridgeshire
of which Count Alan is tenant in chief are brought together, no matter
that they lie scattered about in various hundreds. Therefore it is
necessary for us to understand that the original returns reported by the
surveyors did not reach the royal treasury in this form. At least as
regards the county of Cambridge, we can be certain of this. The hundreds
were taken one by one; they were taken in a geographical order, and not
until the justices had learned all that was to be known of Staplehow
hundred did they call upon the jurors of Cheveley hundred for their
verdict. That such was their procedure we might have guessed even had we
not been fortunate enough to have a copy of the Cambridgeshire verdicts;
for, though the commissioners seem to have held but one moot for each
shire, still it is plain that each hundred was represented by a separate
set of jurors[27]. But from these Cambridgeshire verdicts we learn what
otherwise we could hardly have known. Within each hundred the survey was
made by vills[28]. If we suppose the commissioners charging the jurors
we must represent them as saying, not 'Tell us what tenants in chief
have lands in your hundred and how much each of them holds,' but 'Tell
us about each vill in your hundred, who holds land in it.' Thus, for
example, the men of the Armingford hundred are called up. They make a
separate report about each vill in it. They begin by stating that the
vill is rated at a certain number of hides and then they proceed to
distribute those hides among the tenants in chief. Thus, for example,
they say that Abington was rated at 5 hides, and that those 5 hides are
distributed thus[29]: