Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England

by Frederic William Maitland

We have been endeavouring to show that the legal, social and economic structure revealed to us by Domesday Book can be accounted for, even though we believe that in the seventh century there was in England a large mass of free landowning ceorls and that many villages were peopled at that time and at later times chiefly by free landowning ceorls and their slaves. We have now to examine the evidence that is supposed to point to a contrary conclusion and to connect the English manor of the eleventh century with the Roman villa of the fifth. Two questions should be distinguished from each other—(1) Have we any proof that during those six centuries, especially during the first three of them, the type of rural economy which we know as ‘manorial’ was prevalent in England? (2) Have we any proof that the tillers of the soil were for the more part slaves or unfree men? We will move backwards from Domesday Book.

The Rectitudines.

In the first place reliance has been placed on the document known as Rectitudines Singularum Personarum[1124]. Of the origin of this we know nothing; we can not say for certain that it is many years older than the Norman Conquest. Apparently it is the statement of one who is concerned in the management of great estates and is desirous of imparting his knowledge to others. It first sets forth the right of the thegn. He is worthy of the right given to him by his book. He must do three things in respect of his land, namely, fyrdfare, burh-bote and bridge-work. From many lands however ‘a more ample landright arises at the king’s ban’: that is to say, the thegn is subject to other burdens, such as making a deer-hedge at the king’s hám, providing warships[1125] and sea-ward and head-ward and fyrd-ward, and almsfee and church-scot and many other things. Then we hear of the right of the geneat. It varies from place to place. In some places he must pay rent (land-gafol) and grass-swine yearly, and ride and carry and lead loads, work and support his lord[1126], and reap and mow and hew the deer-hedge and keep it up, build and hedge the burh and make new roads for the tún, pay church-scot and almsfee, keep head-ward and horse-ward, go errands far and near wherever he is directed. Next we hear of the cottier’s services. He works one day a week and three days in harvest-time. He ought not to pay rent. He ought to have five acres more or less. He pays hearth-penny on Holy Thursday as every free man should. He ‘defends’ or ‘acquits’ his lord’s inland when there is a summons for sea-ward or for the king’s deer-hedge or the like, as befits him, and pays church-scot at Martinmas. Then we have a long statement as to the services of the gebúr. In some places they are heavy, in others light. On some land he must work two days a week and three days at harvest by way of week-work. Besides this there is rent to be paid in money and kind. There is ploughing to be done and there are boon-works. He has to feed dogs and find bread for the swine-herd. His beasts must lie[1127] in his lord’s fold from Martinmas to Easter. On the land where this custom prevails the gebúr receives by way of outfit two oxen and one cow and six sheep and seven sown acres upon his yard-land. After the first year he is to do his services in full and he is to receive his working tools and the furniture for his house. We then hear of the special duties and rights of the bee-keeper, the swine-herd, the follower, the sower, ox-herd, shepherd, beadle, woodward, hayward and so forth.

Discussion of the Rectitudines.

Now, according to our reading of this document, there stand below the thegn, but above the serfs (of whom but few words are said[1128]) three classes of men—there is the geneat, there is the gebúr and there is the cotsetla. The boor and the cottier are free men; the cottier pays his hearth-penny, that is his Romescot, his Peter’s-penny, on Holy Thursday as every free man does; but both boor and cottier do week-work. On the other hand the geneat does no week-work. He pays a rent, he pays a grass-swine (that is to say he gives a pig or pigs in return for his pasture rights), he rides, he carries, he goes errands, he discharges the forinsec service due from the manor, and he is under a general obligation to do whatever his lord commands. He bears a name which has originally been an honourable name; he is his lord’s ‘fellow[1129].’ His services strikingly resemble those which S^t. Oswald exacted from his ministri, his equites, his milites[1130]. Almost every word that is said of the geneat is true of those very substantial persons who took land-loans from the church of Worcester. The geneat (who becomes a villanus in the Latin version of our document that was made by a Norman clerk of Henry I.’s reign) is a riding-man, radman, radcniht, with a horse, a very different being from the villanus of the thirteenth century[1131]. On the other hand, in the gebúr of this document we may see the burus, who is also the colibertus of Domesday Book[1132], and he certainly is in a very dependent position, for his lord provides him with cattle, with instruments of husbandry, even with the scanty furniture of his house. We dare not indeed argue from this text that the villanus of Domesday Book does not owe week-work, for the writer who rendered geneat by villanus was quite unable to understand many parts of the document that he was translating[1133]; but when we place the Rectitudines by the side of the survey we can hardly avoid the belief that the extremely dependent gebúr of the former is represented, not by the villanus, but by the burus or colibertus of the latter. However, over and over again the author of the Rectitudines has protested that customs vary. He will lay down no general rule; he does but know what goes on in certain places[1134].

The Tidenham case.

In 956 King Eadwig gave to Bath Abbey thirty manses at Tidenham in Gloucestershire[1135]. A cartulary compiled in the twelfth century contains a copy of his gift, and remote from this it contains a statement of the services due from the men of Tidenham. It is possible, but unlikely, that this statement represents the state of affairs that existed at the moment when the minster received the gift; to all appearance it belongs to a later date[1136]. It begins by stating that at Tidenham there are 30 hides, 9 of inland and 21 ‘gesettes landes,’ that is 9 hides of demesne and 21 hides of land set to tenants. Then after an account of the fisheries, which were of importance, it tells us of the services due from the geneat and from the gebúr. The geneat shall work as well on the land as off the land, whichever he is bid, and ride and carry and lead loads and drive droves ‘and do many other things.’ The gebúr must do week-work, of which some particulars are stated, and he also must pay rent in money and in kind. Here again a well marked line is drawn between the geneat and the gebúr. Here again the geneat, like the cniht or minister of Oswaldslaw, is under a very general obligation of obedience to his lord; but he is a riding man and there is nothing whatever to show that he is habitually employed in agricultural labour upon his lord’s demesne. As to the gebúr, he has to work hard enough day by day, and week by week, though of his legal status we are told no word.

The Stoke case.

In a Winchester cartulary, ‘a cartulary of the lowest possible character,’ there stands what purports to be a copy of the charter whereby in the year 900 Edward the Elder gave to the church of Winchester 10 manentes of land ‘æt Stoce be Hysseburnan’ together with all the men who were thereon at the time of Alfred’s death and all the men who were ‘æt Hisseburna’ at the same period. Edward, we are told, acquired the land ‘æt Stoce’ in exchange for land ‘æt Ceolseldene’ and ‘æt Sweoresholte [Sparsholt].’ At the end of the would-be charter stand the names of its witnesses. Then follows in English (but hardly the English of the year 900) a statement of the services which the ceorls shall do ‘to Hysseburnan.’ Then follow the boundaries. Then the eschatocol of the charter and the list of witnesses is repeated[1137]. On the face of the copy are three suspicious traits: (1) the modernized language, (2) the repeated eschatocol, (3) the description of the services, for the like is found in no other charter. This is not all. Two other documents in the same cartulary bear on the same transaction. By the first Edward gave to the church of Winchester 50 manentes ‘æt Hysseburnan’ which he had obtained by an exchange for land ‘æt Merchamme[1138].’ By the second he gave to the church of Winchester 50 manentes ‘ad Hursbourne’ and other 10 ‘ad Stoke[1139].’ The more carefully these three documents are examined, the more difficult will the critic find it to acquit the Winchester monks of falsifying their ‘books’ and improving Edward’s gift. Therefore this famous statement about the ceorls’ services is not the least suspicious part of a highly suspicious document. It is to this effect:—‘From each hiwisc (family or hide), at the autumnal equinox, forty pence and six church mittan of ale and three sesters of loaf-wheat. In their own time they shall plough three acres and sow them with their own seed, and in their own time bring it [the produce of the sown land] to barn. They shall pay three pounds of gafol barley and mow half an acre of gafol-mead in their own time and bring it to the rick; four fothers of split gafol-wood for a shingle-rick in their own time and sixteen yards of gafol-fencing in their own time. And at Easter two ewes with two lambs, but two young sheep may be counted for an old one; and they shall wash and shear sheep in their own time. And every week they shall do what work they are bid, except three weeks, one at Midwinter, one at Easter and the third at the Gang Days.’ Here no doubt, as in the account of Tidenham, as in the Rectitudines, we see what may fairly be called the manorial economy. The lord has a village; he has demesne land (inland) which is cultivated for him by the labour of his tenants; these tenants pay gafol in money or in kind; some of them (the geneat of Tidenham, the geneat of the Rectitudines) assist him when called upon to do so; others work steadily from day to day; in many particulars the extent of the work due from them is ascertained; whether they are free men, whether they are bound to the soil, whether the national courts will protect them in their tenure, whether they are slaves, we are not told.

Inferences from these cases.