[178a] Guardian, Jan. 18th, 1905.
[178b] Monasticon, vol. i, 564–565.
[178c] Lincs. Notes & Queries, vol. iv, pp. 16, 17.
[178d] Weir’s History of Lincolnshire, vol. i, p. 335. Ed. 1828.
[179] Harleian MSS., No. 6,829, p. 342.
[180a] It contains several entries of baptisms during the Commonwealth, a period when, frequently, only births were allowed to be registered.
[180b] Testa de Nevill, folio 248 (536).
[183a] Testa de Nevill, fol. 348 (556).
[183b] Domesday Book.
[183c] Soc-men were small tenants who held their lands under the lord, on the terms of doing certain agricultural service for him. Bordars, from the Saxon “bord” a cottage, were a lower class of smaller tenants, who had a cottage and small allotment, supplying to the lord more continuous labour, and also eggs and poultry. By statute of Queen Elizabeth (31 Eliz., c. 7), which probably only confirmed old usage, at that time liable to fall into abeyance, it was enacted that any proprietor electing a new cottage should be compelled to attach thereto four acres of land. If something like this were done in these days we should probably hear less of the rural population migrating to the towns, to the increase of pauperage. There was a third still lower class of dependents, not here mentioned, named villeins, who performed the meanest labours; these were attached either to the land, or to the person of the owner, and could be transferred from one to another owner, like goods or chattels. Such a position of serfdom is unknown to the agricultural labourer of modern times; and their name, as having belonged to the lowest grade of society, now only survives as a synonym for a dishonest person, a scoundrel or villain.