So we seem now to see clearly how new tuns and hams or manors were always growing up century after century, on the royal demesne and on private estates or manors, as in a former chapter it became [p173] clear incidentally how new geburs with fresh yard-lands could be added to the village community, and the strips which made up the yard-lands intermixed with those of their neighbours in the village fields.
X. THE LAWS OF KING ETHELBERT—THERE WERE MANORS IN THE SIXTH CENTURY.
Tuns and hams in the time of Ethelbert,
We have seen that not only the general description of serfdom contained in the 'Rectitudines,' but also the two examples we have been able to examine of serfdom upon particular manors in Saxon times, testify clearly to the existence of a serfdom upon Saxon manors as complete and onerous as the later serfdom upon Norman manors. And we have seen that, connecting this evidence with that of the laws of King Ine, the proof is clear of the existence of manors and serfdom in the seventh century, i.e. 400 years before the Norman Conquest. There remains to be quoted the still earlier though scanty evidence of the laws of King Ethelbert, A.D. 597–616; which, if genuine, bring us back to the date of the mission of St. Augustine to England.
in single ownership.
The evidence of these laws is accidental and indirect, but taken in connexion with that already considered, it seems to show conclusively that the 'hams' and 'tuns' of that early period were already manors. Upon one point at least it is clear. It goes so far as to indicate that they were in the ownership of individuals, and not of free village communities.
[p174] The following passages occur:—
III. Gif cyning æt mannes ham drincæð, &c.
V. Gif in cyninges túne man mannan ofslea, &c.
XIII. Gif on eorles túne man mannan ofslæhð, &c.