A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK on a large manor, and being cultivated by the labour of the lord of the manor himself, with the help at most of a single cottar.* Apart from these, the holdings of freemen and socmen were of every size from one acre to a hundred or more, but the average holdings were very small, quite as small as, and probably smaller than, the average villein holding, though no details are given of the latter. We may take a rough example from Thingoe Hundred, where the villeins and serfs were more numerous than usual. An average of eleven manors gives about four carucates to the manor, with 8 villeins, 7 cottars, and 4 serfs to cultivate it. On these eleven manors the villeins numbered 92, the bordars 80, and the serfs 45. In the same district there were 149 freemen and socmen holding land, the acreage of which was a little more than two-thirds of that of the eleven manors. One of these held two carucates, another one, but the average holding was only about twenty-three acres. To assist in the cultivation of their land they had 8 villeins, 84 bordars, and 13 serfs.' The relations of the freemen and socmen with small holdings to their superior lords presented a great many varieties. Even before the great change effected by the Conquest they had been exhibiting an increasing degree of dependence, and this tendency was now accentuated. Let us talce a single township in the midst of a district largely inhabited by freemen : the hundred of Hertesmere. There were no less than five tenants-in-chief interested in Gislingham, and under them forty-one freemen had holdings which varied in size from one acre up to thirty. Before the Conquest seven of the smaller holders had been driven by the insecurity of the times to place themselves under the protection of Ulwin, the lord of the neigh- bouring manor of Burgate and of much other land in Suffolk. A group of three freemen, who owned 53 acres, and had a freeman under them with I acre, had commended themselves to another neighbouring Saxon lord. Two other groups of six and four, possessing 13 and 10 acres respectively, had commended themselves severally to two freemen of their own township who held 30 acres apiece as manors. But the Conquest had borne heavily upon these small lords of manors. They had lost all their plough-cattle, and were themselves in need of protection. There was a manor of the larger kind in Gislingham. It had 240 acres as against 295 held by the freemen, but it had only two bordars to assist in its cultivation. It was natural that the lord of this manor and the freemen seeking protection should be drawn together. The two small manors and presumably the two groups of dependent freemen commended themselves to the larger manor, and another group of eight freemen owning 16 acres did the same.* The depression in the status of freemen and of socmen which had begun before the Conquest but was accentuated by that great change was not always due to voluntary commendation. In the new distribution of lordship the rights of small holders were often ignored. Bracton tells us at a later date that at the time of the Conquest freemen who were ejected by stronger people came back and received the same lands to be held in villeinage, and by villein ' Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyor.d, 117-18. • Suffolk Dom. Thingoe Hundred. The Latin text extended and translated. By John H. The calcu- lations are my own — G. U.
- Dom. Bk. ii, fol. jzzj^ b, 4404, 444^.
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