vill2 [90]
this estimate of the evidence. Without touching the subject in all its bearings, I may say at once that I do not see sufficient reason to follow the testimony of Domesday very closely as to names of classes. If we find in a place many free tenants mentioned in the Hundred Roll, and none but villains in Domesday, it would be wrong to infer that there were none but villains in the later sense at the time of the Survey, or that all the free tenements of the Hundred Rolls were of later creation than the Conquest. It would be especially dangerous to draw such an inference in a case where the freeholders of the thirteenth century are possessed of virgates, half-virgates, etc., and not of irregular plots of land. Such cases may possibly be explained by sweeping commutation, which emancipated the entire village at one stroke, instead of making way for the freehold by the gradual enfranchisement of plot after plot. But it is not likely that all the many instances can be referred to such sweeping emancipation. In the light of Kentish evidence, of free and villain socage, it is at least probable that the thirteenth-century freeholders were originally customary freeholders entered as villains in Domesday, and rising to freedom again in spite of the influence of feudalism. Such an assumption, even if only possible and hypothetical, would open the way for further proof and investigation on the lines of a decline of free village communities, instead of imposing a peremptory termination of the whole inquiry for the period after the Conquest. If the Domesday villains are in no case predecessors in title of freeholders, this fact would go a long way to establish the serfdom of the village community for all the period after the Conquest, and we should have to rely only on earlier evidence to show anything else. Our case would be a hard one, because the earlier evidence is scanty, scattered, obscure, and one-sided, But if the villains of Domesday may be taken to include customary freeholders, then we may try to illustrate our conceptions of the early free village by traits drawn from the life of the later period,
NOTES:
1. Rot. Hundred. ii. 528, b: 'Et modo omnia illa arrentata sunt et dant per annum 14 sol. 8 d.'
2. Exch. Q. R. Min. Acc., Bundle 510, No. 13: 'Et solebant facere servicia consueta, sed per voluntatem et ad placitum domini extenta sunt in denariis., Cf Abingdon Cartulary, ii. 303. Rot. Hundred. ii. 453, a: 'Omnes isti prenominati nomine villenagii sunt ad voluntatem domini de operibus eorundem.' Cf Ibid. 407, b.
3. Worcester Cartulary (Camden Series), 54, b: 'Haec villa tradita est ab antiquo villanis ad firmam, ad placitum cum omnibus ad nos pertinentibus.' Cf Gloucester Cartulary, iii. 37.
4. Worcester Cartulary (Camden Series), l.c.: 'Praeterea percipimus medietatem proventuum et herietum, praeterea debent metere, ligare et compostare bladum de antiquo dominico de Hordewell.... et gersummabunt filias.'
5. Glastonbury Cartulary, Bodleian MSS., Wood, i., f 241, a: 'Jocelynus dei gratia Bathoniensis episcopus..... Noveritis nos quietos clamasse omnes homines abbatie Glastonie de Winterburne in perpetuam de arruris et aliis operacionibus quas facere debebant castro Marleberghe de terra de Winterburne, quos homines nostros Henricus illustris rex Anglie nobis concessit.'
6. Wartrey Priory Cartulary, Fairfax MSS. f 19, a: 'Et Adam dicit quod predictus Prior villenagium in persona ipsius Ade allegare non potest quia dicit quod dudum convenit inter quemdam Johannem dudum priorem de Wartre.... et quendam Henricum de W... patrem ipsius Ade videlicet quod isdem Prior.... per quoddam scriptum indenturam concesserunt Henrico.... quoddam toftum simul cum duabus bovatis terre.'
7. Malmesbury Cartulary (Rolls Series), ii. I99: 'Nos tradidisse... Roberto le H. de K. et Helenae uxori suae, et Agneti filiae eorum primogenitae nativis nostris, omnibus diebus vitae eorum, unam domum. Ita quod non licet praedicto Roberto alicui vendere nec occasione istius traditionis aliquam libertatem ipsis vendicare.'
8. As to molmen,
NOTES:
1. Rot. Hundred. ii. 528, b: 'Et modo omnia illa arrentata sunt et dant per annum 14 sol. 8 d.'
2. Exch. Q. R. Min. Acc., Bundle 510, No. 13: 'Et solebant facere servicia consueta, sed per voluntatem et ad placitum domini extenta sunt in denariis., Cf Abingdon Cartulary, ii. 303. Rot. Hundred. ii. 453, a: 'Omnes isti prenominati nomine villenagii sunt ad voluntatem domini de operibus eorundem.' Cf Ibid. 407, b.
3. Worcester Cartulary (Camden Series), 54, b: 'Haec villa tradita est ab antiquo villanis ad firmam, ad placitum cum omnibus ad nos pertinentibus.' Cf Gloucester Cartulary, iii. 37.
4. Worcester Cartulary (Camden Series), l.c.: 'Praeterea percipimus medietatem proventuum et herietum, praeterea debent metere, ligare et compostare bladum de antiquo dominico de Hordewell.... et gersummabunt filias.'
5. Glastonbury Cartulary, Bodleian MSS., Wood, i., f 241, a: 'Jocelynus dei gratia Bathoniensis episcopus..... Noveritis nos quietos clamasse omnes homines abbatie Glastonie de Winterburne in perpetuam de arruris et aliis operacionibus quas facere debebant castro Marleberghe de terra de Winterburne, quos homines nostros Henricus illustris rex Anglie nobis concessit.'
6. Wartrey Priory Cartulary, Fairfax MSS. f 19, a: 'Et Adam dicit quod predictus Prior villenagium in persona ipsius Ade allegare non potest quia dicit quod dudum convenit inter quemdam Johannem dudum priorem de Wartre.... et quendam Henricum de W... patrem ipsius Ade videlicet quod isdem Prior.... per quoddam scriptum indenturam concesserunt Henrico.... quoddam toftum simul cum duabus bovatis terre.'
7. Malmesbury Cartulary (Rolls Series), ii. I99: 'Nos tradidisse... Roberto le H. de K. et Helenae uxori suae, et Agneti filiae eorum primogenitae nativis nostris, omnibus diebus vitae eorum, unam domum. Ita quod non licet praedicto Roberto alicui vendere nec occasione istius traditionis aliquam libertatem ipsis vendicare.'
8. As to molmen,