V. THE VILLANI WERE HOLDERS OF VIRGATES, ETC.

The compilers of the Survey were not in the habit of describing in detail the character of the holdings of the villani. Whilst recording how many villani there were in a manor, the Domesday Survey does not, like the Hundred Rolls, usually go on to state how many of them held a virgate and how many a half-virgate each.

The holdings of the villani hides, virgates, and half-virgates.

Still, notwithstanding this general silence of the Survey on this point, treating the matter manor by manor, and taking for example the Peterborough manors, it might be inferred almost with certainty that as the villani of the Liber Niger in 1125 were holders of virgates and half-virgates, so their fathers and grandfathers before them must also have held virgates and half-virgates at the time of the Domesday Survey and of Edward the Confessor. And such an inference would be strengthened by the occasional use in the Survey of the terms integri villani[116] and villani dimidii,[117] answering no doubt to the same terms, and to the pleni virgarii and semi-virgarii of the Liber Niger and the Battle Abbey records. [p092]

That the land was really held at the date of the Survey in hides and virgates may also be gathered from the well-known statement of the Saxon Chronicle that 'næs an ælpig hide ne an gyrde landes' was omitted from the Survey—a statement which does not mean that not a hide nor a yard of land was omitted, but not a hide or a yard-land, i.e. a virgate.[118] So that it might fairly be inferred from this passage that the virgate was the normal or typical holding of the villanus, and this inference might well cover the whole area of the Survey.

But there is more direct evidence than these general inferences. It so happens that there are a few local exceptions to the general silence of the Survey as regards the holdings of the villani.

Examples in survey of Middlesex.

The most remarkable exception to the general reticence occurs in the survey for Middlesex, the compilers of which go out of their way fortunately to give precisely the desired information. And wherever they do so the holdings are found to be in the now familiar grades of hides, half-hides, virgates, and half-virgates.

The following are a few examples:—

(F. 127 a.)—Hesa.

(F. 128 a.)—In Villa ubi sedet Æcclesia Sti. Petri (Westminster).

(F. 128 b.)—Hermodesworde.

And so on throughout the survey for the county.

As might be expected, most of the villani held virgates and half-virgates, but there are a sufficient number of cases of hides and half-hides to show conclusively the relation to each other of the four grades in the regular hierarchy of villenage.

Examples in Herts.

Another local and solitary exception occurs in the record for Sawbridgeworth, in Hertfordshire. The holdings in this case were as follows:—

(F. 139 b.)—Sabrixteworde.

A few other exceptional cases occur in the [p094] Liber Eliensis. The abbey had three manors in Hertfordshire, and in these the holdings were as follows:

(P. 509–10.)—In Oedwinestreu Hundred.

Hadam. 1 'villanus' of 1 virgate.
18 'villani,' each of 12 virgate.
 7 'cotarii' of 12 virgate (i.e. together).

In the two Hundreds of Bradeutre.

Hatfield.18 'villani' each of 1 virgate.
The priest of 12 hide.
 4 'homines' of 4 hides (i.e. a hide each).

In Odeseie Hundred.

Chyllessella. 2 villani of 12 hide (i.e. 1 virgate each).
10 villani of 5 virgates (i.e. 12 virgate each).
 9 bordarii of 1 virgate (i.e. together).
 7 servi.

In the Fen Country.

The monks of Ely also had several manors in the Fen country, but the holdings in this district seem to have been peculiar. Instead of being 'each of a virgate,' or 'each of a half-virgate,' they are 'each of so many acres,' as was also found to be the case in some districts of Cambridgeshire in the Hundred Rolls. The Fen district seems to have had its own local peculiarities, both in the eleventh and in the fourteenth centuries, just as Kent also had. But here was no exception to the rule that the villani were classed in grades, each grade with equal holdings.

The yard-land the normal holding of the villanus.

These accidental instances in the Domesday Survey in which the required information is given are numerous enough to make it clear that at the date of the Survey the holdings of the villani were generally hides, half-hides, virgates, and half-virgates. The virgate or yard-land was the normal holding, as it was afterwards. And this being so, it may reasonably be [p095] concluded also that the virgates and half-virgates were themselves what they were afterwards—bundles of strips scattered over the open fields, and having some connexion not yet fully explained, but clearly indicated, with the number of oxen allotted to their holders or contributed by them to the manorial plough team of eight oxen.