Abolition of Slavery.
In those districts where the Danes exercised complete dominion the custom of slavery was abolished. This fact is established by a comparison of the population of those districts colonised by the Danes with that of the older English districts. The population returns given in Domesday Book prove that no "servi" existed in the counties where Danish influence was greatest. Both in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire at this time there is no record of slavery. In the counties where this influence was less, such as Nottingham, the returns show that one serf existed to every 200 of the population. In Derbyshire 1 per cent., in Norfolk and Suffolk 4 per cent., in Leicestershire 6 per cent., in Northamptonshire 10 per cent., in Cambridge, Hertford and Essex 11 per cent. Outside the influence of the Danelagh the proportion is much greater. In Oxfordshire 14 per cent. were slaves, in Worcester, Bucks, Somerset and Wiltshire 15 per cent., in Dorset and Hampshire 16 per cent., in Shropshire 17 per cent., in Devonshire 18 per cent., in Cornwall 21 per cent., and in Gloucestershire 24 per cent., or almost one-fourth of the whole population. These records were not made by Danish surveyors, but Norman officials, and explode the theory of historians like Green who assert that the English settlers were Communities of free men. These conditions of tenure were introduced by the Danes, and became so firmly established that the names given to such freeholders as "statesmen" in Cumberland, "freemen" and "yeomen" in Yorkshire, Westmorland and North Lancashire still exist at the present day.
As we have seen, records of struggles for tenant rights have come to light in recent years which prove that feudal conditions were imposed by successive landlords, and were resisted both before and after the Commonwealth.