A LAND OF VILLAGES
On the border between Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

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[Between pp. 16–17]

A LAND OF HAMLETS
On the border between Somerset and Devon.

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Size of the vill.

To say that the villa of Domesday Book is in general the vill of the thirteenth century and the civil parish of the nineteenth is to say that the areal extent of the villa varied widely from case to case. More important is it for us to observe that the number of inhabitants of the villa varied widely from case to case. The error into which we are most likely to fall will be that of making our vill too populous. Some vills, especially some royal vills, are populous enough; a few contain a hundred households; but the average township is certainly much smaller than this[47]. Before we give any figures, it should first be observed that Domesday Book never enables us to count heads. It states the number of the tenants of various classes, sochemanni, villani, bordarii, and the like, and leaves us to suppose that each of these persons is, or may be, the head of a household. It also states how many servi there are. Whether we ought to suppose that only the heads of servile households are reckoned, or whether we ought to think of the servi as having no households but as living within the lord’s gates and being enumerated, men, women and able-bodied children, by the head—this is a difficult question. Still we may reach some results which will enable us to compare township with township. By way of fair sample we may take the Armingford hundred of Cambridgeshire, and all persons who are above the rank of servi we will include under the term ‘the non-servile population[48].’

Armingford Hundred.