II. THE DIVISION OF THE MANOR INTO LORD'S DEMESNE AND LAND IN VILLENAGE.
Not only were there manors everywhere, but throughout the Domesday Survey the division of the land of the manor into lord's demesne and land in villenage was all but universal, both in the time of Edward the Confessor and at the later date. It was so equally in the case of manors both in royal and in private hands.
Hides ad geldum.
The record generally begins with the number of hides or carucates at which the whole manor was rated according to ancient assessment. Generally, except in the Danish district of England (where the carucate only is used), the word hide (though often originally meaning, as already mentioned, the same thing as a carucate, viz. the land of one plough) was used in the Survey exclusively as the ancient unit of assessment, while the actual extent of the manor was described in carucates, and thus the number of hides often fell far short of the number of carucates.
Actual carucæ or plough teams.
In the Inquisitio Eliensis the Huntingdonshire manors of the abbey are described as containing so many hides 'ad geldum,' and so many carucates 'ad arandum,' thus exactly explaining the use of the terms.
Domesday Surveys: Sochmanni and Liberi Homines; Servi; Bordarii and Cotarii; and Villani.
See Larger: [Sochmanni and Liberi Hominies, and Servi]
[Bodarii and Cotarii, and Villani]
Go to: [List of Illustrations]
![[Sochmanni and Liberi Hominies, and Servi]](#351141212465882302_i06e-1.jpg.id-6535985064298918727.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
![[Bodarii and Cotarii, and Villani]](#351141212465882302_i06e-2.jpg.id-6216873322332713096.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
In Kent the ancient assessment was, consistently with later records, given by the number of [p085] solins—sulung being an old word used both long before and afterwards, as we have seen, in the south-east of England for 'plough land.'
Generally, whatever the terms made use of, the basis of the assessment seems to have been the number of plough teams at the time it was made, and (except in the west of England) this probably had been the case also as regards the ancient one quoted in the Survey. The actual circumstances of the manors had at the date of the Survey wandered far away from those at the date of the ancient assessment, and therefore it was needful to state the present actual number of carucates (carucatæ) or plough teams (carucæ).[108] The devastations of the Norman Conquest had not been wholly repaired at the date of the Survey, and therefore after the number of actual plough teams in demesne and in villenage it is often stated that so many more might be added.
In demesne and in villenage.
The total number of plough teams being given, information is almost always added how many of them were in demesne and how many belonged to the villeins. And it is to be noticed that the plough teams of the villeins were smaller than the typical manorial plough team of 8 oxen, just as was the case on the Peterborough manors, according to the Liber Niger.
There were on an average in most counties about half as many ploughs in villenage as there were villeins; so that, roughly speaking, two villeins, as in [p086] the Peterborough manors, seem to have joined at each villein plough, which thus can hardly have possessed more than 4 oxen in its team.