§ 8. Free Tenants. Soke-men
In Domesday, we find that the Eastern and East-central counties were those in which “free” tenants or soke-men were most prevalent. There they form from 27 to 45 per cent. of the inhabitants of those parts, though, taking all England into view, they only form 4 per cent. of the total population. The number of free tenants, however, was constantly increasing, even among tenants in villeinage, for the lord often found it more useful to have money, and was willing to allow commutation of services; or again, he might prefer not to cultivate all his own land (his demesne), but to let it for a fixed money rent to a villein to do what he could with it; and thus the villein became a free man, while the lord was sure of a fixed sum from his land every year, whether the harvest were good or bad.
§ 9. Illustrations of old manors. (1) Estone
First we will take a manor in Warwickshire in the Domesday Survey (1089)—Estone, now Aston, near Birmingham. It was one of a number belonging to William, the son of Ansculf, who was tenant in chief, but had let it to one Godmund, a sub-tenant in mesne. The Survey runs: “William Fitz-Ansculf holds of the King Estone, and Godmund of him. There are 8 hides.[11] The arable employs 20 ploughs; in the demesne the arable employs 6 ploughs, but now there are no ploughs. There are 30 villeins with a priest, and 1 bondsman, and 12 bordars [i.e. cottars]. They have 18 ploughs. A mill pays 3 {17} shillings. The woodland is 3 miles long and half a mile broad. It was worth £4; now 100 shillings.”
[11] A hide varied in size, and was (after the Conquest) equal to a carucate, which might be anything from 80 to 120 or 180 acres. Perhaps 120 is a fair average, though some say 80.
Here we have a good example of a manor held by a sub-tenant, and containing all the three classes mentioned in § 4 of this chapter—villeins, cottars, and slaves (i.e. bondsmen). The whole manor must have been about 5000 acres, of which 1000 were probably arable land, which was of course parcelled out in strips among the villeins, the lord, and the priest. As there were only 18 ploughs among 30 villeins, it is evident some of them at least had to use a plough and oxen in common. The demesne land does not seem to have been well cultivated by Godmund the lord, for there were no ploughs on it, though it was large enough to employ six. Perhaps Godmund, being an Englishman, had been fighting the Normans in the days of Harold, and had let it go out of cultivation, or perhaps the former owner had died in the war, and Godmund had rented the land from the Norman noble to whom William gave it.
§ 10. Cuxham Manor in the eleventh and thirteenth centuries
[12] In his Six Centuries of Work and Wages.