The English Village Community / Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)

by Frederic Seebohm

I. THERE WERE MANORS EVERYWHERE.

The manor.

In the Domesday Survey, as might be expected from the evidence of the foregoing chapter, the unit of inquiry is everywhere the manor, and the manor was a landowner's estate, with a township or village community in villenage upon it, under the jurisdiction of the lord of the manor.

But the same person was often the lord of many manors.

Manors of the king,

1,422 manors were in the ancient demesne of the Crown at the date of the Survey,[107] and most of them had also been Crown manors in the time of Edward the Confessor. Thus, for centuries after the Conquest, the Domesday book was constantly appealed to as evidence that this manor or that was of 'ancient demesne,' i.e. that it was a royal manor in the time of Edward the Confessor; because the tenants of these manors claimed certain privileges and immunities which other tenants did not enjoy. [p083]

of the monastic houses,

The monasteries also at the time of Edward the Confessor were holders of many manors, often in various counties, and the Survey shows that they were generally permitted to retain them after the Conquest.

and of thanes.

Earls and powerful thanes were also at the time of Edward the Confessor possessors of many manors, and so were their Norman successors at the date of the Survey. The resident lord of a manor was often the mesne tenant of one of these greater lords. However this might be, every manor had its lord, resident, or represented by a steward or reeve (villicus).

Divided manors.

Sometimes the Survey shows that a village or township, once probably under a single lord, had become divided between two or more manors; and sometimes again, by what was called subinfeudation, lesser and dependent manors, as in the Hitchin example, had been carved out of the original manor, once embracing directly the whole village or township.

But these variations do not interfere with the general fact that there were manors everywhere, and that the typical manor was a manorial lord's estate, with a village or township upon it, under his jurisdiction, and in villenage.

Further, this was clearly the case both after the Conquest at the date of the Survey, and also before the Conquest in the time of Edward the Confessor.

Terra regis.

What land was extra-manorial or belonged to no township was probably royal forest or waste. At the date of the Survey this unappropriated forest, as well as the numerous royal manors already alluded to, was included in the royal demesne. Whatever belonged to the latter was excluded from the jurisdiction [p084] of the courts of the hundreds. It acknowledged no lordship but that of the king, and was described in the Survey as terra regis.