Manorialism in Cambridgeshire.
In the thirteenth century the common field of a Cambridgeshire village was often a very maze of proprietary rights, and yet the village was an agrarian whole. Let us take, for example, Duxford as it stood in the reign of Edward I.[570] We see 39 villein tenements each of which has fourteen acres in the fields. These tenements are divided between five different manors. Four of our typical ‘townsmen’ hold of Henry de Lacy, who holds of Simon de Furneaux, who holds of the Count of Britanny, who holds of the king. Two hold of Ralph of Duxford, who holds of Basilia wife of Baldwyn of St George, who holds of William Mortimer, who holds of Simon de Furneaux, who holds of the Count of Britanny, who holds of the king. Eight hold of the Templars, who hold of Roger de Colville, who holds of the Earl of Albemarle, who holds of the king. Nine hold of William le Goyz, who holds of Henry of Boxworth, who holds of Richard de Freville, who holds of the king. Sixteen hold of John d’Abernon, who holds of the Earl Marshal, who holds of the king. Three of the greatest ‘honours’ in England are represented. Three monasteries and two parochial churches have strips in the fields. And yet there are normal tenements cut according to one pattern, tenements of fourteen acres the holders of which, though their other services may differ, pay for the more part an equal rent[571]. The village seems to say that it must be one, though the lords would make it many. And then we look back to the Confessor’s day and we see that a good part of Duxford was held by sokemen[572].
The sokemen and the manors.
Perhaps we shall be guilty of needless repetition; but what is written in Domesday Book about maneria is admirably designed for the deception of modern readers whose heads are full of ‘the manorial system.’ Therefore let us look at two Hertfordshire villages. In one of them there is a manerium which Ralph Basset holds of Robert of Ouilly[573]. It has been rated at 4, but is now rated at 2 hides. There is land for 4 teams. In demesne are 2 teams; and 31⁄2 villani with 2 sokemen of 1 hide and 5 bordarii have 2 teams. There are 1 cottager and 1 serf and a mill of 10 shillings and meadow for 3 teams. It is now worth £3; in King Edward’s day it was worth £5. Now here, we say, is a pretty little manor of the common kind. Let us then explore its past history. ‘Five sokemen held this manor.’ Yes, we say, before the Conquest this manor was held in physically undivided shares by five lords. Their shares were small and they were humble people; but still they had a manor. But let us read further. ‘Two of them were the men of Brihtric and held 11⁄2 hides; other two were the men of Osulf the son of Frane and held 11⁄2 hides; and the fifth was the man of Eadmer Atule and held a hide.’ We will at once finish the story and see how Robert of Ouilly came by this manor. ‘No one of these five sokemen belonged to his antecessor Wigot; every one of them might sell his land. One of them bought (i.e. redeemed) his land for nine ounces of gold from King William, so the men of the hundred say, and afterwards turned for protection to Wigot.’ So Robert’s title to this manor is none of the best. But are we sure that before the Conquest there was anything that we should call a manor? These five sokemen who have unequal shares, who have three different lords, who hold in all but 4 team-lands, whose land is worth but £5, do not look like a set of coparceners to whom a ‘manor’ has descended. When Robert of Ouilly has got his manor there are upon it 2 sokemen, 3 villeins, 5 bordarii, a cottager and a serf. It was not a splendid manor for five lords.
Hertfordshire sokemen.
We turn over a few pages. Hardouin of Eschalers has a manor rated at 51⁄2 hides[574]. It contains land for 8 teams. In demesne are 2 hides less 20 acres, and 3 teams; 11 villani with the priest and 5 bordarii have 5 teams. There are 4 cottagers and 6 serfs. It is worth £9; in the Confessor’s day it was worth £10. Who held this manor in the past? Nine sokemen held it. Rather a large party of joint lords, we say; but still, families will grow. Howbeit, we must finish the sentence:—‘Of these, one, Sired by name, was the man of Earl Harold and held 1 hide and 3 virgates for a manor; another, Alfred, a man of Earl Ælfgar, held 11⁄2 hides for a manor; and the other seven were sokemen of King Edward and held 2 hides and 1 virgate and they supplied the sheriff with 9 pence a year or 21⁄4 averae (carrying services).’ No, we have not been reading of the joint holders of a ‘manor’; we have been reading of peasant proprietors. Two of them were substantial folk; each of the two held a manerium at which geld was paid; the other seven gelded at one of the king’s maneria under the view of his bailiffs. Maneria there have been everywhere; but ‘manors’ we see in the making. Hardouin has made one under our eyes.
The small maneria.
We hear the objection that, be it never so humble, a manor is a manor. But is that truism quite true? If all that we want for the constitution of a manor is a proprietor of some land who has a right to exact from some other man, or two or three other men, the whole or some part of the labour that is necessary for the tillage of his soil, we may indeed see manors everywhere and at all times. Even if we introduce a more characteristically medieval element and demand that the tillers shall be neither menial servants nor labourers hired for money, but men who make their living by cultivating for their own behoof small plots which the proprietor allows them to occupy, still we shall have the utmost difficulty if we would go behind manorialism. But suppose for a moment that we have a village the land of which is being held by nine sokemen, each of whom has a hide or half-hide scattered about in the open fields, and each of whom controls the labour of a couple of serfs, shall we not be misleading the public and ourselves if we speak of nine manors or even of nine ‘embryo manors’? At any rate it is clear enough that if these estates of the sokemen are ‘embryo manors,’ then these embryos were deposited in the common fields. In that case the common fields, the hides and yard-lands of the village are not the creatures of manorialism.
The Danes and freedom.
We have seen free villages; we have seen a free hundred. We might have found yet freer hundreds had we gone to Suffolk. We have chosen Cambridgeshire because Cambridgeshire can not be called a Danish county, except in a sense in which, notwithstanding the wasted condition of Yorkshire, about one half of the English nation lived in Danish counties. When men divide up England between the three laws, they place Cambridgeshire under the Danelaw; but to that law they subject about one half of the inhabitants of England. There may have been many men of Scandinavian race in Cambridgeshire; but we find hundreds not wapentakes, hides not carucates, while among the names of villages there are few indeed which betray a Scandinavian origin. The Wetherley hundred was not many miles away from the classic fields of Hitchin[575].