long been prepared, for slavery had been losing some of its harshest
features. Of this process we have said something elsewhere[1117]. What
the church did for the slave may have been wisely and was humanely done;
but what it did for the slave was done to the detriment of the poorer
classes of free men. By insisting that the slave has a soul to be saved,
that he can be sinned against and can sin, that his marriage is a
sacrament, we obliterate the line between person and thing. On the other
hand, in the submission of one person to the will of another, a
submission which within wide limits is utter and abject, the church saw
no harm. Villeinage and monasticism are not quite independent phenomena;
even a lawyer could see the analogy between the two[1118]. And a touch
of mysticism dignifies slavery:--the bishop of Rome is the serf of the
serfs of God; an earl held land of Westminster Abbey 'like a
_theow_[1119].' One of the surest facts that we know of the England of
Cnut's time is that the great folk were confounding their free men with
their theowmen and that the king forbad them to do this. We see that one
of the main lines which has separated the rightless slave from the free
ceorl is disappearing, for the lord, as suits his interest best, will
treat the same man now as free and now as bond[1120].
[Growth of manors from below.]
We might here speak of the numerous causes for which in a lawful fashion
a free man might be reduced into slavery, and were we to do so, should
have to notice the criminal law with its extremely heavy tariff of _wer_
and _wite_ and _bót_. But of this enough for the time has been said
elsewhere[1121], and there are many sides of English history at which we
can not even glance. However, lest we should be charged with a grave
omission, we must explain that the processes which have hitherto come
under our notice are far from being in our eyes the only processes that
tended towards the creation of manors. We have been thinking of the
manors as descending from above (if we may so speak) rather than as
growing up from below. The alienation of royal rights over villages and
villagers has been our starting point, and it is to this quarter that we
are inclined to look for the main source of seignorial power. But, no
doubt, within those villages which had no lords--and plenty of such
villages there were in 1065--forces were at work which made in the
direction of manorialism. They are obscure, for they play among small
men whose doings are not recorded. But we have every reason to suppose
that in the first half of the eleventh century a fortunate ceorl had
many opportunities of amassing land and of thriving at the expense of
his thriftless or unlucky neighbours. Probably the ordinary villager was
seldom far removed from insolvency: that is to say, one raid of
freebooters, one murrain, two or three bad seasons, would rob him of his
precious oxen and make him beggar or borrower. The great class of
_bordarii_ who in the east of England are subjected to the sokemen has
probably been recruited in this fashion[1122]. And so we may see in
Cambridgeshire that a man will sometimes have half a hide in one
village, a virgate in another, two-thirds of a virgate in a third. He is
'thriving to thegn-right.' Then, again, some prelate or some earl will
perhaps obtain the commendation of all the villagers, and his hold over
the village will be tightened by a grant of sake and soke, though, if we
may draw inferences from Cambridgeshire, this seems to have happened
rarely, for the sokemen of a village have often shown a marvellous
disagreement among themselves in their selection of lords, and seem to
have chosen light-heartedly between the house of Godwin and the house of
Leofric as if they were but voting for the yellows or the blues. We
fully admit that these forces were doing an important work; but they
were doing it slowly and it was not nearly achieved when the Normans
came. Nor was it neat work. It tended to produce not the true and
compact manerio-villar arrangement, but those loose, dissipated manors
which we see sprawling awkwardly over the common fields of the
Cambridgeshire townships[1123].
[Sidenote: Theories which connect the English manor with the Roman
villa.]
We have been endeavouring to show that the legal, social and economic
structure revealed to us by Domesday Book can be accounted for, even
though we believe that in the seventh century there was in England a
large mass of free landowning ceorls and that many villages were peopled
at that time and at later times chiefly by free landowning ceorls and
their slaves. We have now to examine the evidence that is supposed to
point to a contrary conclusion and to connect the English manor of the
eleventh century with the Roman villa of the fifth. Two questions should
be distinguished from each other--(1) Have we any proof that during
those six centuries, especially during the first three of them, the type
of rural economy which we know as 'manorial' was prevalent in England?
(2) Have we any proof that the tillers of the soil were for the more
part slaves or unfree men? We will move backwards from Domesday Book.
[The _Rectitudines_.]
In the first place reliance has been placed on the document known as
_Rectitudines Singularum Personarum_[1124]. Of the origin of this we
know nothing; we can not say for certain that it is many years older
than the Norman Conquest. Apparently it is the statement of one who is
concerned in the management of great estates and is desirous of
imparting his knowledge to others. It first sets forth the right of the
thegn. He is worthy of the right given to him by his book. He must do
three things in respect of his land, namely, fyrdfare, burh-bote and
bridge-work. From many lands however 'a more ample landright arises at
the king's ban': that is to say, the thegn is subject to other burdens,
such as making a deer-hedge at the king's hám, providing warships[1125]
and sea-ward and head-ward and fyrd-ward, and almsfee and church-scot
and many other things. Then we hear of the right of the _geneat_. It
varies from place to place. In some places he must pay rent
(_land-gafol_) and grass-swine yearly, and ride and carry and lead
loads, work and support his lord[1126], and reap and mow and hew the
deer-hedge and keep it up, build and hedge the _burh_ and make new roads
for the _tún_, pay church-scot and almsfee, keep head-ward and
horse-ward, go errands far and near wherever he is directed. Next we
hear of the cottier's services. He works one day a week and three days
in harvest-time. He ought not to pay rent. He ought to have five acres
more or less. He pays hearth-penny on Holy Thursday as every free man
should. He 'defends' or 'acquits' his lord's inland when there is a
summons for sea-ward or for the king's deer-hedge or the like, as befits
him, and pays church-scot at Martinmas. Then we have a long statement as
to the services of the _gebúr_. In some places they are heavy, in others
light. On some land he must work two days a week and three days at
harvest by way of week-work. Besides this there is rent to be paid in
money and kind. There is ploughing to be done and there are boon-works.
He has to feed dogs and find bread for the swine-herd. His beasts must
lie[1127] in his lord's fold from Martinmas to Easter. On the land where
this custom prevails the _gebúr_ receives by way of outfit two oxen and
one cow and six sheep and seven sown acres upon his yard-land. After the
first year he is to do his services in full and he is to receive his
working tools and the furniture for his house. We then hear of the
special duties and rights of the bee-keeper, the swine-herd, the
follower, the sower, ox-herd, shepherd, beadle, woodward, hayward and so
forth.
[Discussion of the _Rectitudines_.]
Now, according to our reading of this document, there stand below the
thegn, but above the serfs (of whom but few words are said[1128]) three
classes of men--there is the _geneat_, there is the _gebúr_ and there is
the _cotsetla_. The boor and the cottier are free men; the cottier pays
his hearth-penny, that is his Romescot, his Peter's-penny, on Holy
Thursday as every free man does; but both boor and cottier do week-work.
On the other hand the _geneat_ does no week-work. He pays a rent, he
pays a grass-swine (that is to say he gives a pig or pigs in return for
his pasture rights), he rides, he carries, he goes errands, he
discharges the forinsec service due from the manor, and he is under a
general obligation to do whatever his lord commands. He bears a name
which has originally been an honourable name; he is his lord's
'fellow[1129].' His services strikingly resemble those which St. Oswald
exacted from his _ministri_, his _equites_, his _milites_[1130]. Almost
every word that is said of the _geneat_ is true of those very
substantial persons who took land-loans from the church of Worcester.
The _geneat_ (who becomes a _villanus_ in the Latin version of our
document that was made by a Norman clerk of Henry I.'s reign) is a
riding-man, radman, radcniht, with a horse, a very different being from
the _villanus_ of the thirteenth century[1131]. On the other hand, in
the _gebúr_ of this document we may see the _burus_, who is also the
_colibertus_ of Domesday Book[1132], and he certainly is in a very
dependent position, for his lord provides him with cattle, with
instruments of husbandry, even with the scanty furniture of his house.
We dare not indeed argue from this text that the _villanus_ of Domesday
Book does not owe week-work, for the writer who rendered _geneat_ by
_villanus_ was quite unable to understand many parts of the document
that he was translating[1133]; but when we place the _Rectitudines_ by
the side of the survey we can hardly avoid the belief that the extremely
dependent _gebúr_ of the former is represented, not by the _villanus_,
but by the _burus_ or _colibertus_ of the latter. However, over and over
again the author of the _Rectitudines_ has protested that customs vary.
He will lay down no general rule; he does but know what goes on in
certain places[1134].
[The Tidenham case.]
In 956 King Eadwig gave to Bath Abbey thirty manses at Tidenham in
Gloucestershire[1135]. A cartulary compiled in the twelfth century
contains a copy of his gift, and remote from this it contains a
statement of the services due from the men of Tidenham. It is possible,
but unlikely, that this statement represents the state of affairs that
existed at the moment when the minster received the gift; to all
appearance it belongs to a later date[1136]. It begins by stating that
at Tidenham there are 30 hides, 9 of inland and 21 'gesettes landes,'
that is 9 hides of demesne and 21 hides of land set to tenants. Then
after an account of the fisheries, which were of importance, it tells us
of the services due from the _geneat_ and from the _gebúr_. The _geneat_
shall work as well on the land as off the land, whichever he is bid, and
ride and carry and lead loads and drive droves 'and do many other
things.' The _gebúr_ must do week-work, of which some particulars are
stated, and he also must pay rent in money and in kind. Here again a
well marked line is drawn between the _geneat_ and the _gebúr_. Here
again the _geneat_, like the _cniht_ or _minister_ of Oswaldslaw, is
under a very general obligation of obedience to his lord; but he is a
riding man and there is nothing whatever to show that he is habitually
employed in agricultural labour upon his lord's demesne. As to the
_gebúr_, he has to work hard enough day by day, and week by week, though
of his legal status we are told no word.
[The Stoke case.]
In a Winchester cartulary, 'a cartulary of the lowest possible
character,' there stands what purports to be a copy of the charter
whereby in the year 900 Edward the Elder gave to the church of
Winchester 10 _manentes_ of land 'æt Stoce be Hysseburnan' together with
all the men who were thereon at the time of Alfred's death and all the
men who were 'æt Hisseburna' at the same period. Edward, we are told,
acquired the land 'æt Stoce' in exchange for land 'æt Ceolseldene' and
'æt Sweoresholte [Sparsholt].' At the end of the would-be charter stand
the names of its witnesses. Then follows in English (but hardly the
English of the year 900) a statement of the services which the ceorls
shall do 'to Hysseburnan.' Then follow the boundaries. Then the
eschatocol of the charter and the list of witnesses is repeated[1137].
On the face of the copy are three suspicious traits: (1) the modernized
language, (2) the repeated eschatocol, (3) the description of the
services, for the like is found in no other charter. This is not all.
Two other documents in the same cartulary bear on the same transaction.
By the first Edward gave to the church of Winchester 50 _manentes_ 'æt
Hysseburnan' which he had obtained by an exchange for land 'æt
Merchamme[1138].' By the second he gave to the church of Winchester 50
_manentes_ 'ad Hursbourne' and other 10 'ad Stoke[1139].' The more
carefully these three documents are examined, the more difficult will
the critic find it to acquit the Winchester monks of falsifying their
'books' and improving Edward's gift. Therefore this famous statement
about the ceorls' services is not the least suspicious part of a highly
suspicious document. It is to this effect:--'From each _hiwisc_ (family
or hide), at the autumnal equinox, forty pence and six church _mittan_
of ale and three sesters of loaf-wheat. In their own time they shall
plough three acres and sow them with their own seed, and in their own
time bring it [the produce of the sown land] to barn. They shall pay
three pounds of gafol barley and mow half an acre of gafol-mead in their
own time and bring it to the rick; four fothers of split gafol-wood for
a shingle-rick in their own time and sixteen yards of gafol-fencing in
their own time. And at Easter two ewes with two lambs, but two young
sheep may be counted for an old one; and they shall wash and shear sheep
in their own time. And every week they shall do what work they are bid,
except three weeks, one at Midwinter, one at Easter and the third at the
Gang Days.' Here no doubt, as in the account of Tidenham, as in the
_Rectitudines_, we see what may fairly be called the manorial economy.
The lord has a village; he has demesne land (_inland_) which is
cultivated for him by the labour of his tenants; these tenants pay
_gafol_ in money or in kind; some of them (the _geneat_ of Tidenham, the
_geneat_ of the _Rectitudines_) assist him when called upon to do so;
others work steadily from day to day; in many particulars the extent of
the work due from them is ascertained; whether they are free men,
whether they are bound to the soil, whether the national courts will
protect them in their tenure, whether they are slaves, we are not told.
[Inferences from these cases.]
That such an arrangement was common in the eleventh century we know; a
solitary instance of it comes to us professedly from the first year of
the tenth, and certainly from a cartulary that is full of lies. To
draw general inferences from a few such instances would be rash.
What should we believe of 'the English village of the eleventh century'
if the one village of which we had any knowledge was Orwell in
Cambridgeshire[1140]? What should we believe of 'the English village of
the thirteenth century' if our only example was a village on the ancient
demesne? The traces of a manorial economy that have been discovered in
yet remoter times are few, slight and dubious. A passage in the laws of
Ine[1141] seems to prove that there were men who had let out small
quantities of land, 'a yard or more,' to cultivators at rents and who
were wrongfully endeavouring to get from their lessees work as well as
_gafol_. The same law may prove the highly probable proposition that
some men had taken 'loans' of manses and were paying for them, not only
by _gafol_, but by work done on the lord's land. That already in Ine's
day there were many free men who were needy and had lords above them,
that already the state was beginning to consecrate the relation between
lord and man as a security for the peace and a protection against crime
is undoubted[1142]. But this does not bring us very near to the Roman
_villa_. Nor shall we see a _villa_ wherever the dooms or the land-books
make mention of a _hám_ or a _tún_, for the meanest ceorl may have a
_tún_ and will probably have a home of his own[1143].
[The _villa_ and the _vicus_.]
It is said that the England of Bede's day was full of _villae_ and that
Bede calls the same place now _villa_ and now _vicus_[1144]. But before
we enter on any argument about the use of such words, we ought first to
remember that neither Bede nor the scribes of the land-books were
trained philologists. London is a _villa_[1145], but it is also a
_civitas_, _urbs_, _oppidum_, _vicus_, a _wíc_, a _tún_, a _burh_, and a
_port_. When we see such words as these used promiscuously we must lay
but little stress upon the occurrence of a particular term in a
particular case. Suppose for a moment that in England there were many
villages full of free landholders: what should they be called in Latin?
They should, it is replied, be called _vici_ and they should not be
called _villae_, for a _villa_ is an estate. But it is part of the case
of those who have used this argument that at the time of the barbarian
invasions the Roman world was full of _villae_, so full that every or
almost every _vicus_ was situated on and formed part of a _villa_[1146].
We are therefore exacting a good deal from Bede, from a man who learnt
his Latin in school, if we require him to be ever mindful of this nice
distinction. We are saying to him: 'True it is that a knot of
neighbouring houses with the appurtenant lands is habitually called a
_villa_; but then this word introduces the notion of ownership; the
_villa_ is an unit in a system of property law, and, if your village is
not also an estate, a _praedium_, then you should call it _vicus_ and
not _villa_.' To this we must add that, while the word _villa_ did not
until after the Norman Conquest force its way into English speech, the
word _vicus_ became an English word at a very early period[1147]. It
became our word _wick_ and it became part of a very large number of
place-names[1148]. The Domesday surveyors found _herdwicks_ and
_berewicks_ in many parts of the country[1149]. Moreover we can see
that in the Latin documents _villa_ is used in the loosest manner.
London is a _villa_; but a single house, a single 'haw,' in the city of
Canterbury or the city of Rochester is a _villa_[1150].
[Notices of manors in the charters.]
If we carefully attend to the wording of the land-books, we shall find
the manorial economy far more visible in the later than in the earlier
of them. The Confessor gives to Westminster 'ða cotlife Perscore and
Dorhurste' with all their lands and all their berewicks[1151]. He gives
the cotlif Eversley and all things of right belonging thereto, with
church and mill, with wood and field, with meadow and heath, with water
and with moor[1152]. From 998 we have a gift of a 'heafod-botl,' a
capital mansion, we may say, and its appurtenances[1153]. In earlier
times we may sometimes find that the subject matter of the royal gift is
spoken of as forming a single unit; it is a _villa_, or it is a _vicus_.
But rarely is the thing that is given called a _villa_ except when the
thing that is given is just a single hide[1154]. If a charter freely
disposes of several _villae_, meaning thereby villages, we shall
probably find some other reasons for assigning that charter, whatever
date it may bear, to the eleventh, the twelfth or a yet later
century[1155]. Sometimes in old books the king will say that he is
giving a _vicus_, a _vicus_ of five or eight or ten _tributarii_[1156].
Much more frequently he will not speak thus; he will not speak as though
the subject matter of his gift had a physical unity and individuality.
'I give,' he will say, 'so many _manentes_, _tributarii_, or _casati_
in the place known as _X_,' or 'I give a certain part of my land, to
wit, that of so many _manentes_, _tributarii_, or _casati_ at the spot
which men call _Y_.' Such language does not suggest that the manses thus
given are subservient to one dominant and dominical manse or manor; it
is very unlike the language of the twelfth century[1157]. Such words as
_fundus_ and _praedium_ are conspicuously absent, and _ager_ usually
means but a small piece of land, an acre. Foreign precedents would have
suggested that when an estate was to be conveyed it should be conveyed
_cum servis et ancillis_, or _cum mancipiis et accolabus_; such clauses
are rare in our English land-books[1158].
[The _mansa_ and the _manens_.]
But, it will be said, at all events the king is giving persons, men, as
well as land; he is giving _manentes_, _casati_, _tributarii_. What is
more these are foreign words and they describe the 'semi-servile'
occupants of the soil. Now it is true that sometimes he gives
_manentes_, _casati_, _tributarii_, though more often he gives either so
many manses (_mansas_), or 'the land of so many _manentes_, _casati_,
_tributarii_,' while in Kent he gives plough-lands or sullungs. But we
think it plain that in England these Latin words were used simply to
describe the extent, or rather the rateable extent, of land, without
much reference to the number or the quality of its occupants. The _terra
unius manentis_, even the _unus casatus_ when that is the subject of a
conveyance, is like Bede's _terra unius familiae_, the unit known to
Englishmen as the _hiwisc_, or _hide_[1159]. Hence it is that reference
is so often made to repute and estimation. 'I give,' says Egbert, 'a
certain portion of land to the amount, as I estimate, of five
_casati_,' or (it may be) 'of twenty _manentes_[1160].' Nothing can be
easier than to count whether there be four, five, or six 'semi-servile'
households on a given piece of land. Far easier would it be to do this
than to do what is habitually done, namely, to set forth the boundaries
of the land with laborious precision. But there is already an element of
estimation, of appreciation, in these units. Already they are units in a
system of taxation. Hence also it is that so very frequently what the
king gives is just exactly five, or some multiple of five, of these
units[1161]. Rating is a rough process; five and ten are pleasant
numbers.
[The hide.]
But against the argument which would see in every conveyance of 'five
_manentes_' or of 'the land of five _casati_' a conveyance of five
semi-servile households with their land we have another objection to
urge. Here we will state it briefly; a fuller statement would take us
far away from our present theme. If the land-books of the churches are
to lead up to Domesday Book, the unit conveyed as _terra unius manentis_
(_casati_, _tributarii_) is a hide with some 120 acres of arable land,
the land appropriate to a plough-team of eight oxen. Had the
semi-servile _manens_ as a general rule 120 arable acres, a plough-team
of eight oxen? We do not believe it, and those who have most strongly
insisted on the servility or 'semi-servility' of the tillers of the
soil, do not believe it. They would give the _gebúr_ but a quarter of a
hide and but two beasts of the plough. That being so, it should be
common ground that the _terra unius manentis_ (_casati_, _tributarii_)
can not be construed as 'the land occupied by one semi-servile tenant.'
An explanation of the fact that land is conveyed by reference to units
so large as the hide of 120 acres and that these units are spoken of as
though each household would normally have one of them must be sought
elsewhere; we can not here pause to find it. But in any case these
foreign terms should give us little trouble. When he hears such words as
_manens_, _casatus_, _tributarius_, the man who has lived in Gaul may
hear some undertone of servility or 'semi-servility.' We do not discuss
this matter; it may be so. But look at the words themselves, what do
they primarily mean? A _manens_ is one who dwells upon land, a _casatus_
is one to whom a _casa_ has been allotted, a _tributarius_ pays
_tributum_; the free English landowner pays a _tributum_ to the
king[1162]. We must make the best we can of a foreign, an inappropriate
tongue, and the best that we make is often very bad, especially when we
have a taste for fine writing. And so England is full of villas which
are Roman and satraps who, no doubt, are Persian.
[The strip-holding and the villa.]