[51] We take the figures from Ellis, Introduction, ii. 417 ff.
[52] Very possibly this figure is too low. There is reason to think that some of the free men and sokemen of these counties get counted twice or thrice over because they hold land under several different lords. On the other hand Ellis (Introduction, ii. 491) would argue that the figure is too high. But the words Alii ibi tenent which occur at the end of numerous entries mean, we believe, not that there are in this vill other unenumerated tillers of the soil, but that the vill is divided between several tenants in chief.
[53] D. B. i. 162 b.
[54] Ellis’s figures are: England 283,242: the three counties 72,883.
[55] We take these figures from Ellis.
[56] Lay Subsidy, 25 Edw. I. (Yorkshire Archaeological Society), pp. xxxi-xxxv. Fractions of a pound are neglected.
[57] Powell, The Rising in East Anglia, 120–3. The great decrease between 1377 and 1381 in the number of persons taxed, we must not try to explain.
[58] See the serviceable maps in Seebohm, Village Community, 86. But they seem to treat Yorkshire unfairly. It has 5·5 per cent. of sokemen.
[59] This is found at the beginning of the Inquisitio Eliensis; D. B. iv. 497; Hamilton, Inquisitio, 97. See Round, Feudal England, 133 ff.
[60] We must not hastily draw the inference that every party of commissioners received the same set of instructions. Perhaps, for example, carucates, not hides, were mentioned in the instructions given to those commissioners who were to visit the carucated counties. Perhaps the non-appearance of servi in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire may be due to no deeper cause.