England Under the Norman Occupation (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1858 Excerpt: ... CHAP. IV. THE HALL, THE CHURCH AND THE PEASANTRY. At the time of the Conquest we find the larger portion of the inhabitants of England in a state of villenagc. We have no very appropriate term in English for this kind of hereditary subjection. Our villeins farmed under the lord their own part of the manor, called "terra villanorum," and were obliged to labour on the lords part, or demesne "dominium '--scilicet arare, kariare, falcare, bladum seeare, faenum facere et cetera (4. Mon. 625)--thus rendering agricultural service, as tenants in chivalry rendered military service. Villeins were tenants at will, and their services were undefined; they knew not in the evening what would be the labours of the morning (Co. Litt. 116 b.). Villenage was not a merely personal attribute; there were free lands and bond lands as well as free men and bondsmen: moreover, the limits of the condition of lands and of the condition of persons were not exactly coincident; and this want of isomoiria affords us four classes of tenants instead of the simple division into free men and unfree men. Namely: Freemen upon frce land, Freemen upon bond land', Bondsmen upon free land, Bondsmen upon bond land. The thanes and sochemen, villeins and bordars, cottars, coliberts and all the characters in Domesday connected with the land, must belong to one or other of these classes. The distinction between free lands and bond lands2 should never be out of consideration. Almost every manor was divided into two parls, an arrangement well described in the Agricultural Report of Wiltshire. "in general, there was in each manor one great, farm, called the lords farm, which usually had its land in severally and distinct from the tenants. The rest of the manor, called the tenantry part, was divided into sm...