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.
III. THE FREE TENANTS ON THE LORD'S DEMESNE.
In the Domesday Survey for the greater part of England there is no mention of free tenants, whether 'liberi homines' or 'libere tenentes.'
Liberi homines and sochmanni in Danish district only.
Nor, considering the extreme completeness of the Survey, is it easy to explain their absence on any other hypothesis than that of their non-existence.[109] A glance at the map will show that throughout those [p087] counties of England most completely under Danish influence there were plenty of liberi homines and of the allied class of sochmanni, but nowhere else. And that these two classes were distinctly and exceptionally Danish there is evidence in a passage in the laws of Edward the Confessor, in which the 'Manbote in Danelaga' is given separately and as different from that of the rest of England, viz. 'de vilano et socheman xii. oras: de liberis hominibus iii. marcas.' [110]
That the existence of these classes in a manor was local and quite exceptional is also confirmed by the place in which they are mentioned in the list of classes of tenants, the numbers of whom were to be recorded. They are placed last of all, even after the 'servi.' Inquiry was to be made, 'quot villani, quot cottarii, quot servi, quot liberi homines, quot sochemanni.' These were the words used in the statement of the inquiry to be made in the manors of the monks of Ely, [p088] which manors lay in the Danish district; and the two last-mentioned classes were added out of order at the end of a common form, to meet its special needs.[111]
It is remarkable, however, that by common law (which generally represents very ancient custom) the existence of free tenants was essential to the Court Baron of a manor. Without some freemen, according to the old law books, it could not be held.[112] And there is a curious instance, in the Survey, of three sochmanni being lent by one lord to another, so that he might hold his court.[113]