teamlands the term caruca has always the same meaning, we cannot stop
there, but must believe that in the statement (_C_) about the number of
teams this same meaning is retained. Often enough when there is equality
between teamlands and teams (_C = B_), the entry takes the following
form:--There is land for _b_ teams and 'they' are there[1374]. What are
there? The teams for which 'there is land': those teams which are
serving as a measure for the capacity of land. Let us try the two modes
of interpretation on the first lines that strike our eye. Here we have
two successive entries, each of which tells us that 'there is land for 6
teams[1375].' If the _caruca_ is a constant, we have learnt that in one
particular there is equality between these estates. If the _caruca_ is a
variable, we have learnt nothing of the kind. Let us see what we can
gain by reading further. In the one case there were 3 teams on the
demesne and the villeins had 6-1/2; in the other there were 2 teams on
the demesne, the villeins had 2 and the sokemen 2. We want to know
whether the second of these estates is under-teamed or over-teamed.
There is land for 6 teams and there are 6 teams on it; but 2 of these
teams belong to villeins and 2 to sokemen. If we give the villeins but 4
oxen to the team, how many shall we give the sokemen? Shall we say 6? If
so, there are 36 oxen here. Is that too many or too few or just enough
for the arable land that there is? That is an unanswerable question, for
the king's commissioners have been content with the statement that the
number of oxen appropriate to this estate lies somewhere between 23 and
49.
[The villeins' teams.]
Surely when we are told that 8 sokemen have '2 teams and 6 oxen' or that
9 sokemen and 5 bordiers have '3 teams and 7 oxen[1376],' we are being
told that the teams in question have no less than eight oxen apiece.
Surely when we are told that there are 23 villeins and 5 bordiers with 2
teams and 5 oxen[1377], we are being told that the teams of these
villeins are not teams of four. And what are we to say of cases in which
a certain number of teams is ascribed to a number of persons who belong
to various classes, as for example when 6 villeins and 7 bordiers and 2
sokemen are said to have 3 teams and 5 oxen[1378], or where 3 villeins,
2 bordiers, a priest and a huntsman are said to have one team and 6
oxen[1379], or where 19 radknights 'with their men' are said to have 48
teams[1380]? Even if we suppose that the officers of the exchequer have
tables which tell them how many oxen a _caruca_ implies when it is
attributed to a Northamptonshire sokeman or a Gloucestershire radknight,
we are still setting before them insoluble problems. The radknights of
Berkeley 'with their men' have 48 teams:--this may cover less than 200
or more than 300 oxen. And yet the record that is guilty of this laxity
will tell us how in Bedfordshire _Terra est dimidio bovi, et ibi est
semibos_[1381].
[The villeins' oxen.]
The main argument that has been urged in favour of a variable _caruca_
is that which, basing itself on later documents, protests that a villein
ought not to have more than two oxen[1382]. Now true it seems to be that
if by the number of the teams belonging to the _villani_ and _bordarii_
of Domesday Book we divide the number of _villani_ plus half the number
of _bordarii_ (and this would be a fair procedure), we shall obtain as
our quotient a figure that will be much nearer to 2 than to 4. But it
must be common ground to all who read our record that some villeins are
much better supplied with oxen than are their neighbours, and that some
villeins have whole teams, whatever a 'team' may mean. There is so much
difference in this respect between manor and manor that we are not
justified in talking of any particular number of oxen as the normal
outfit of the _villanus_, and outside of Domesday Book we have far too
little evidence to sanction the dogma that the average number must stand
close to 2[1383]. Even the villein virgater on the monastic manors of
the thirteenth century is often expected to have four oxen, and his
having eight is a possibility that must be contemplated[1384].
[Light and heavy ploughs.]
That light as well as heavy ploughs were in use we have not denied. At a
little later time we see teams of six beasts and teams of ten engaged in
ploughing. But the compilers of Domesday Book are not concerned with the
methods of husbandry; they are registering the number of oxen. If a man
has one ox which is employed as a beast of the plough, they say of him:
_Arat cum uno bove_[1385]. If he and another man have such an ox between
them, they say: _Ibi est semibos_. If he has four oxen, they set this
down as _dimidia caruca_. Instead of telling us that there are
thirty-eight oxen, they speak of five teams less two oxen[1386]. Twelve
pence make a shilling; and, at all events at the Exchequer, eight oxen
make a team.
[The team of Domesday and other documents.]
Very lately an argument has been advanced in favour of a _caruca_, the
strength of which varies from place to place. In many instances the
Black Book of Peterborough in its description of the abbatial estates
will give to the demesne of a particular manor exactly the same number
of teams that are ascribed to it by Domesday Book, and, while in some
cases the later of these documents will tell us that there are eight
oxen to the team, in others it will speak of teams of six[1387]. That
there is force in this argument we must admit; but many changes will
take place in forty years, and we can not think that the correspondence
between the two documents is sufficiently close to warrant the inference
that the _caruca_ of Domesday can have fewer beasts than eight. An
exactly parallel argument would serve to prove that the hide of Domesday
contains a variable number of fiscal 'acres.' Were it possible (but we
shall see that it is not) for us to regard the teamland of Domesday as a
fixed area, then we might afford to allow the strength of the team to
vary; but if the teamland is no fixed area and the team has no fixed
strength, then King William's inquest ends in a collection of unknown
quantities.
[The teamland.]
We turn from the team (_C_) to the teamland (_B_), and must face some
perplexing questions. Reluctantly we have come to the opinion that this
term 'the land of (or for) one team' does not in the first instance
denote a fixed areal quantity of arable land. We have adopted this
opinion reluctantly because we are differing from some of the best
expositors of our record, and because it compels us to say that many of
the statistical data with which that record provides us are not so
useful as we hoped that they would be.
[Fractional parts of the teamland.]
In the first place, we must notice that if this term stands for a fixed
quantity, a very rude use is being made of it. We see indeed that
fractional parts of a teamland can be conceived. We often meet the land
of (or for) half a team; we may come upon the land of or for two oxen,
one ox, half an ox. But, except in a few counties, any mention of
fractions smaller than the half of a team is rare, and even halves
seldom occur. Now certainly the teamland was a large unit for such
treatment as this. If, for instance, we suppose that it contained 120
acres, then we must infer that in some shires the jurors who had to
describe a mass of 420 acres would have called it land for 3 or else
land for 4 teams, and that in most shires an odd 80 acres would have
been neglected or would have done duty as half a teamland. The hides or
the carucates (_A_) have often been split into small fractions where the
jurors distribute integral teamlands. One example of this common
phenomenon shall be given. In Grantchester lie six estates[1388]:
the first rated at 3 v. has land for 1 team,
the second rated at 2 h. 3 v. has land for 6 teams,
the third rated at 2 h. 3 v. has land for 4 teams,
the fourth rated at 1-1/2 v. has land for 1 team,
the fifth rated at 1 v. has land for 4 oxen,
the sixth rated at 1/2 v. has land for 3 oxen.
The teamland does not break up easily. As a general rule, we only hear
of fractional parts of it when the jurors are compelled to deal with a
tenement so small that it can not be said to possess even one
teamland[1389].
[Land for oxen and wood for swine.]
In passing we observe that this phrase, 'There is land for _x_ teams'
finds exact parallels in two other phrases that are not very uncommon,
namely, 'There is pasture for _y_ sheep' and 'There is wood for _z_
pigs': also that the values given to _y_ and _z_ are often large and
round. It may be that the jurors have in their minds equations which
connect the area of a wood or pasture with its power of feeding swine or
sheep, but an extremely lax use must be made of these equations when the
number of sheep is fixed at a neat hundred or the number of pigs at a
neat thousand, nor dare we say that the quality of the grass and trees
has no influence upon the computation.
[Teamland no areal unit.]
Secondly, we observe that the teamland when it does break into
fractional parts does not break into virgates, bovates, acres, roods, or
any other units which we can regard as units in a scheme of areal
measurement[1390]. The eighth of a teamland is the land of (or for) an
ox. If we wish to speak of the sixteenth of a teamland, we must
introduce the half-ox. Now had the jurors been told to state the
quantity of the arable land comprised in a tenement, they had at their
command plenty of words which would have served this purpose. No sooner
will they have told us that there is land for two teams, than they will
add that there are five acres of meadow and a wood which is three
furlongs in length by two in breadth. We infer that they have not been
asked to state the area of the arable. They have been asked to say
something about it, but not to state its area.
[The commissioners and the teamlands.]
What had they been asked to say? Here we naturally turn to that
well-known introduction to the Inquisitio Eliensis which professes to
describe the procedure of the commissioners and which at many points
corresponds with the contents of Domesday Book[1391]. We read that the
barons made inquiry about the number of the hides (_A_) and the number
of the teams (_C_); we do not read any word about the teamlands (_B_).
_Quot hidae_ they must ask; _Quot carucae[1392] in dominio et quot
hominum_ they must ask; _Quot carucis ibi est terra_--there is no such
question. On the other hand, the jurors are told to give all the
particulars thrice over (_hoc totum tripliciter_), once with reference
to King Edward's day, once with reference to the date when the Conqueror
bestowed the manor, and once with reference to the present time.
[The teamlands of Great Domesday.]
Now, if these be the interrogatories that the justiciars administered to
the jurors, then the answering verdicts as they are recorded in Great
Domesday err both by defect and by excess. On the one hand, save when
they are dealing with the geld or the value of a tenement, they rarely
give any figures from King Edward's day, and still seldomer do they
speak about the date of the Conqueror's feoffments. Our record does not
systematically report that whereas there are now four teams on this
manor, there were five in the Confessor's reign and three when its new
lord received it. On the other hand, we obtain the apparently unasked
for information that 'there is land for five teams.'
[The teams of Little Domesday.]
We turn to Little Domesday and all is altered. Here the words of the
writ seem to be punctually obeyed. The particulars are stated three
times over, the words _tunc_, _post_ and _modo_ pointing to the three
periods. Thus we learn how many teams there were when Edward was living
and when the Conqueror gave the land away. On the other hand, we are not
told how many teams 'could till' that land, though if the existing teams
are fewer than those that were ploughing in time past, it will sometimes
be remarked that the old state of things could be 'restored[1393]'.
[The Leicestershire formulas.]
Next we visit Leicestershire. We may open our book at a page which will
make us think that the account of this shire will be very similar to
those reports that are typical of Great Domesday. We read that Ralph
holds four carucates; that there is land for four teams; that there are
two teams on the demesne while the villeins have two[1394]. But then,
alternating with entries which run in this accustomed form, we find
others which, instead of telling us that there is land for so many
teams, will tell us that there were so many upon it in the time of King
Edward[1395]. Perhaps, were this part of the survey explored by one
having the requisite knowledge, he would teach us that the jurors of
some wapentakes use the one formula while the other is peculiar to other
wapentakes; but, as the record stands, the variation seems due to the
compiling clerk. Be that as it may, we can hardly read through these
Leicestershire entries without being driven to believe that
substantially the same piece of information is being conveyed to us now
in one and now in the other of two shapes that in our eyes are
dissimilar. To say, 'There were four teams here in King Edward's day' is
much the same as to say, 'There is land here for four teams.'
Conversely, to say, 'There is land here for four teams' is much the same
as to say,'There were four teams here in King Edward's day.' For an
exact equivalence we must not contend; but if the commissioners get the
one piece of information they do not want the other. On no single
occasion, unless we are mistaken, are both put on record[1396].
[Origin of the inquiry about the teamlands.]
When we have thought over these things, we shall perhaps fashion for
ourselves some such guess as that which follows. The original scheme of
the Inquest was unnecessarily cumbrous. The design of collecting the
statistics of the past broke down. Let us imagine a similar attempt made
in our own day. Local juries are summoned to swear communal verdicts
about the number of horses and oxen that the farmers were keeping twenty
years ago. Roughly, very roughly true would such verdicts be, although
no foreign invasion, no influx of alien men and words and manners
divides us from the fortieth year of Queen Victoria. In Essex, Norfolk
and Suffolk some sort of answer about these matters was extracted from
the jurors; but frequently they report that the arrangements which exist
now have always existed, and by this they mean that they cannot remember
any change. Now, when we fail to find in Great Domesday any similar
figures, we may ascribe this to one of two causes. Either the
commissioners did not collect statistics, or the compilers did not think
them worthy of preservation. In some cases the one supposition may be
true, in other cases the other. We may be fairly certain that in many or
all counties the horses and the pigs and the 'otiose animals' that were
extant in 1086 were enumerated in the verdicts[1397]. Also we know that
Domesday Book is no mere transcript, but is an abstract or digest, and
we have cause for believing that those who made it held themselves free
to vary the phrases used by the jurors, provided that no material change
was thus introduced[1398]. Howbeit, to come to the question that is
immediately before us, our evidence seems to tell us that the
commissioners and their master discovered that the original programme of
the inquest was unnecessarily cumbrous. Once and again in more recent
days has a similar discovery been made by royal commissioners. So some
interrogatories were dropped.
[Modification of the inquiry.]
Then we suspect that the inquiry about the number of oxen that were
ploughing in Edward's day became a more practicable, if looser, inquiry
about the number of oxen capable of tilling the land. The transition
would not be difficult. What King William really wants to know is the
agricultural capacity of the tenement. He learns that there are now upon
it so many beasts of the plough. But this number may be accidentally
large or accidentally small. With an eye to future taxation, he wishes
for figures expressive of the normal condition of things. But, according
to the dominant idea of his reign, the normal condition of things is
their Edwardian condition, that in which they stood before the usurper
deforced the rightful heir. And so these two formulas which we see
alternating in the account of Leicestershire really do mean much the
same thing: 'There is land for _x_ teams': 'There were _x_ teams in the
time of King Edward.'
[Inquiry as to potential teams.]
But if we suppose the justices abandoning the question 'How many teams
twenty years ago?' in favour of 'How many teams can there be?' we see
that, though they are easing their task and enabling themselves to
obtain answers in the place of silence, they are also substituting for a
matter of pure fact what may easily become a matter of opinion. They
have left the actual behind and are inquiring about potentialities. They
will now get answers more speedily; but who eight centuries afterwards
will be able to analyze the mental processes of which these answers are
the upshot? It is possible that a jury sets to work with an equation
which connects oxen with area, for example, one which tells that a team
can plough 120 acres. It is but too possible that this equation varies
from place to place and that the commissioners do not try to prevent
variations. They are not asking about area; they are asking about the
number of teams requisite for the tillage of the tenement. With this and
its value as data, William's ministers hope to correct the antiquated
assessments. Some of the commissioners may allow the jurors to take the
custom of the district as a guide, while others would like to force one
equation on the whole country. Our admiration for Domesday Book will be
increased, not diminished, if we remember that it is the work not of
machines but of men. Some of the justices seem to have thought that the
inquiry about potential teams (_B_) was not of the first importance, not
nearly so important as the inquiries about actual teams (_C_) and
gelding units (_A_). In various counties we see many entries in which
_Terra est_ is followed by a blank space. In Gloucester, Worcester and
Hereford we find no systematic mention of teamlands, but only occasional
reports which show that at certain places there might be more teams than
there are. At the end of the account of the Bishop of Worcester's triple
hundred of Oswaldslaw (an account so favourable to St. Mary that it
might have been dictated by her representative) we find the remark that
in none of these manors could there be any more teams than now are
there[1399]. The bishop, who fully understands the object of the
inquest, does not mean to have his assessment raised, and the justices
are compelled to take the word of jurors every one of whom is the vassal
of St. Mary.
[Normal relation between teams and teamlands.]
We know so little as to the commissioners' intentions, in particular so
little as to any design on their part to force upon the whole country
some one equation connecting oxen with area, that the task which is set
before us if we would explain the relation between the number of the
teams (_C_) and the number of the teamlands (_B_) that we find in a
given county is sometimes an intricate and perhaps insoluble problem. If
England be taken as a whole, the two numbers will stand very close to
each other. In some counties, for example in Lincolnshire, if at the
foot of each page we add up the particulars, we shall long remain in
doubt whether _B_ or _C_ will be the greater when our final sum is made.
In county after county we shall find a large number of entries in which
_B = C_, and, though there will always be some cases in which, the
tenement being waste, _C_ descends to zero, and others in which _C_ is
less than _B_, still the deficiency will be partially redressed by
instances in which _B_ falls short of _C_. On the whole, the relation
between the two is that which we might expect. Often there is equality;
often the variation is small; but an excess on the part of _B_ is
commoner than an excess on the part of _C_, and when the waste teamlands
have been brought into the account, then in most counties _B_ will
usually exceed _C_ by 10 per cent, or little more. There are, however,
some marked and perplexing exceptions to this rule[1400].
[Deficiency of teams in the south-west.]
As we pass through the southern counties from east to west, the ratio
borne by the teamlands to the teams steadily increases, until ascending
by leaps it reaches 1.43:1 (or thereabouts) in Devon and 2:1 in
Cornwall. Now to all seeming we are not in a country which has recently
been devastated; it is not like Yorkshire; we find no large number of
'waste' or unpopulated or unvalued estates. Here and there we may see a
tenement which has as many teams as it has teamlands; but in the great
majority of cases the preponderance of teamlands is steadily maintained.
What does this mean? One conceivable explanation we may decidedly
reject. It does not mean a relatively scientific agriculture which makes
the most of the ox. Nor does it mean a fertile soil[1401]. Our figures
seem to show that men are sparse and poor; also they are servile. We
suspect their tillage to be of that backward kind which ploughs enormous
tracts for a poor return. _Arva per annos mutant et superest ager._ Of
the whole of the land that is sometimes ploughed, they sow less than
two-thirds or a half in any one year: perhaps they sow one-third only,
so that of the space which the royal commissioners reckon as three
teamlands two-thirds are always idle. We must remember that in modern
times the husbandry that prevailed in Cornwall was radically different
from that which governed the English open fields. It was what the
agrarian historians of Germany call a _Feldgrasswirtschaft_[1402]. That
perhaps is the best explanation which we can give of this general and
normal excess of teamlands over teams. But to this we may add that
systems of mensuration and assessment which fitted the greater part of
England very well, may have fitted Devon, Cornwall and some other
western counties very badly[1403]. Those systems are the outcome of
villages and spacious common fields where, without measurement, you
count the 'acres' and the plough-lands or house-lands, and they refuse
to register with any accuracy the arrangements of the Celtic hamlets, or
rather _trevs_ of the west.
[Actual and potential teamlands.]
It is by no means impossible that when the commissioners came to a
county which was very sparsely peopled (and in Cornwall each 'recorded
man' might have had near 160 acres of some sort or another all to
himself) their question about the number of teamlands or about the
number of teams 'that could plough there' became a question about remote
possibilities, rather than about existing or probable arrangements, and
that the answer to it became mere guesswork. On one occasion in Cornwall
they are content with the statement that there is land for 'fifteen or
thirty teams[1404].' In the description of a wasted tract of
Staffordshire we see six cases close together in which two different
guesses as to the number of the potential teamlands are
recorded[1405]:--'There is land for two teams', but 'or three' is
interlined. Five times 'or two' is written above 'one,' Now this is of
importance, for perhaps we may see in it the key to the treatment that
wasted Yorkshire receives. How much arable land is there in this
village? Well, if by 'arable land' you mean land that is ploughed, there
is none. If you do not mean this, if you are speaking of a 'waste' vill
where no land has been ploughed these fifteen years, then you must be
content with a speculative answer[1406]. If the ruined cottages were
rebuilt and inhabited, if oxen and men were imported, then employment
might be found for four or five teams. Called to speculate about these
matters, the Yorkshire jurors very naturally catch hold of any solid
fact which may serve as a base for computations. This fact they seem to
find in the geld assessment. This estate is rated to the geld at two
carucates; the assessment seems tolerably fair; so they say that two
teams would plough the land. Or again, this estate is rated to the geld
at four carucates; but its assessment is certainly too high, so let it
be set down for two teamlands[1407]. Even in other parts of the country
the jurors may sometimes avail themselves of this device. In particular
there are tracts in which they are fond of reporting that the number of
teamlands is just equal to (_B=A_) or just twice as great (_B=2A_) as
the number of gelding carucates. We very much fear, though the ground
for this fear can not be explained at this stage of our inquiry, that
the figure which the jurors state when questioned about potential teams
is sometimes dictated by a traditional estimate which has been playing a
part in the geld assessment, and that the number of teamlands is but
remotely connected with the agrarian arrangements of 1086. All our other
guesses therefore must be regarded as being subject to this horrible
suspicion, of which we shall have more to say hereafter[1408].