A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE who treats them as 'bailiffs' and 'under-bailiffs,^*'andby Professor Andrews/** with whom I agree in holding that the gerefa of Saxon times was less the representative of the villagers than of the lord."" The view of Professor Vino- gradofF is, at first sight, different, for he writes that In every single manor we find two persons of authority. The bailiff or beadle was an outsider appointed by the lord, and had to look to the interests of his employer. . . . By his side appears the reeve or prepositus, nominated from among the peasants of a particular township, and mostly chosen by them. . . . The reeve acts as the representative of the village community as well in regard to the lord as on public occasions. "^ But these words refer to a later period, when the reeve's office, as is observed by Professor Andrews, had been considerably, if somewhat obscurely, modified. Both officers at the time of Domesday were doubtless of local villein origin, and with them may be classed another important village functionary — the smith. Rather over twenty fabri, apart from those of Hereford itself, are mentioned, and one village carpenter is met with as well as a mason {cemen- tarius), who held no less than three virgates at Eastnor. The swineherd was at times a more substantial personage than might be expected ; he is found more than once in Herefordshire holding as much as half a hide. A cowherd as well as a swineherd is mentioned at Stanford. The three great normal classes into which the peasantry were divided in Domesday were the villeins, bordars, and serfs, as is seen, for instance, in the Leominster entry. But, apart from these, there were much smaller ones, cottars, coliberts, and 'burs' [buri) — less than a score of each — of whom the latter two are now recognized to have been identical, and to have probably occupied a midway position between the serfs and the free." With the great class of serfs (servi) we may combine for discussion the bovarii and the ancillae, for these were associated closely. The present writer appears to have been the first to discover the connexion between the bovarii and servi and the ploughs on the lord's demesne."' The number of the servi or of the bovarii or of both classes jointly is found in a great majority of cases to be exactly double that of these ploughs, and it is clear that each of them had charge of half a plough-team of oxen ; "'^ but since then there has been some discussion as to the status of the oxmen [bovarii) ."* As a class they are only found in a certain group of counties, Cheshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire, and of these. Professor Tait reminds us, Shropshire contains more than half."^ But his- Shropshire, like that of Ellis, is the Domesday county, which includes manors in the north of Herefordshire as we know it, so that if these were included the number of bovarii in our county would be substantially more than the "' Introd. to Dom. i, 245-7. "' The functionary next in importance to ti& gerefa was, if we interpret the evidence rightly, the bydet or beadle {The Old Engl. Manor, 142). " Ibid. 1 34. '" Villeinage in Engl. 3 1 8. "^ Introd. to Dom. i, 85-6 ; Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 36-8. '" V.C.H. Wore, i, 274-6 ; V.C.H. Essex, i, 361-2. Prof. Maitland somewhat strangely failed to detect this connexion, though in the five entries with which he begins his dissertation on the servi we have (in Surrey) 5 demesne ploughs and 10 serfs, and (in Hants) 6 demesne ploughs and 12 serfs; Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 26. His failure to detect this special association had a considerable bearing on his views as to the sub- stitution of villein for serf labour ; ibid. 34-5. '"" For further details see preceding note. '" Vinogradoff, Growth of the Manor, 334 ; and Tait in V.C.H. Shrops. i, 302-3. '" V.C.H. Shops. 1, 302. In his population tables he reckons the Shropshire bovarii as 397 against the 384 of 'Eyton.' But collation proves that Eyton's figures are really those of Ellis {Introd. to Dom. ii, 480). 288
