THE DOMESDAY SURVEY In this case a vill of less than 4! hides is divided between no fewer than 1 3 sokemen, whose average holding was thus no more than a third of a hide apiece. It is of such communities as this that Professor Maitland writes Any theory of English history must face the free, the lordless village, and must account for it as one of the normal phenomena which existed in the year of grace 1066 . . . just as normal as the village which was completely subject to seignorial power. We have before us villages which, taken as wholes, have no lords. 1 We must remember however that Wickham, like the Pelhams, lay on the border of those eastern counties which, to quote his words, were 'the home of liberty.' Nor was Widiall, which he takes as an instance of a manor of 5^ hides formerly held by 9 sokemen, far distant from the Essex border. In this last instance there is a marked inequality of holdings which leads the professor to observe that 'such lordships as exist in it are plainly not the relics of a dominion which has been split up among divers persons by the action of gifts and inheritances.' On the other hand we can, I think, detect in Hertfordshire at least one case in which the equality of the portions proves, and another in which it suggests subdivision between brothers. The former is found at Barley, and the latter at Wakeley, where what is now Wakeley farm was divided, after as before the Conquest, between three distinct holders. WAKELEY H. V. A. Edith the Fair (as a 'manor') O O 40 ./Elfward, a man of earl Harold O O 40 Eadric, a man of earl JElfgzr o o 40 This is a most remarkable case of subdivision, the first fraction only being styled a manor, and the holders of the other two being com- mended to the heads of the greatest rival houses in England. The division of vills among several holders is characteristic of the east of England in Professor Maitland's opinion, and, as I have already explained, is probably due in Hertfordshire to its adjoining Essex on the east. Our county, in fact, impinged on what the professor terms 'the rich and thickly populated shires.' 2 But the evidence of Domesday Book on population and kindred matters is notoriously very vague. A male population of some 5,000 is actually enumerated in the county, but of this figure we can only say that it shows a ratio to area not far removed from that of the adjoining counties (except Essex). The area under cultivation, though relatively greater than in Middlesex, was proportionately far less than in Bedfordshire and substantially less than in Northants. 3 The former must always have been a rich agricultural county, but the latter, at the time of Domesday, was largely covered by forest, which illustrates the unexpected and hazardous character of the results obtained from Domesday figures. 1 DomeiJay Book and Beyond, p. 141. * Ibid, pp. 20-3. 3 See tables, ibid. pp. 4023. I 289 U
