[571] On four out of the five manors the rent is 2s. 3d.; on the fifth 3s. 0d.
[572] Inq. Com. Cant. 41.
[573] D. B. i. 137 b.
[574] D. B. i. 141 b.
[575] Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 108–110. As names of the Abbot of Ely’s sokemen in Meldreth and neighbouring villages we have Grimmus, Alsi Cild, Wenesi, Alsi, Leofwinus, Ædricus, Godwinus, Almarus, Aluricus frater Goduuini, Ædriz, Alsi Berd, Alricus Godingessune, Wenestan, Alwin Blondus, Alfuuinus, Aluredus, Alricus Brunesune, Alware, Hunuð, Hunwinus, Brizstanus. This does not point to a preponderance of Norse or Danish blood.
[576] Owing to the wasted condition of Yorkshire, the information that we obtain of the T. R. E. is meagre and perfunctory. But what seems characteristic of this county is a holding of two or three ploughlands which we might fairly call an embryo manor.
[577] See the early extents in Cart. Rams. iii. Thus (242) at Hemingford: ‘R. V. tenet tres virgatas et dimidiam et sequitur hundredum et comitatum.... R. H. tenet duas virgatas et sequitur hundredum et comitatum.’ Elsworth (249): ‘R. filius T. duas virgatas. Pro altera sequitur comitatum et hundredum; pro altera solvit quinque solidos.’ Brancaster (261): ‘Cnutus avus Petri tenebat terram suam libere in tempore Regis Henrici et sequebatur comitatum et hundredum, et fuit quietus ab omni servitio.’ See also Vinogradoff, Villainage, 411 ff.
[578] Some thirty years ago the whole political world of England was agitated by controversy about ‘the compound householder.’ Was he to have a vote? The historian of the nineteenth century will not treat the compound householders as forming one homogeneous class of men whose general status could be marked off from that of other classes. Nor, it is to be hoped, will etymological guesses lead him to believe that the compound householder held a compound house. He will say that a landlord ‘compounded for’ the rates of the aforesaid householder. Mutatis mutandis may not the villein have been the compound householder of the eleventh century?
[579] D. B. ii. 204: ‘3 liberi homines ... semper arant cum 3 bobus.’
[580] D. B. ii. 184 b.