A HISTORY OF SUSSEX held by villeins, who ' belonged to Falmer ' ; of ' Felesmere ' also we read that ' villeins held ' it. Lastly at Westmeston, to the north of Brighton, lying at the foot of the South Downs, we have the noteworthy entry : ' Gueda comitissa tenuit, et sub ea tenebant villani ; non fuit ibi halla.' Here we have the same absence of a 'hall' (i.e. demesne) as in the villein-held estates of Millbrook, Hants,' and of Willesden, Middle- sex.' Between Sussex and Middlesex we have, in Surrey, two examples of estates held by villeins.' Nor did the Conquest entirely put an end to this state of affairs, for under Ninfield 'a certain villein' is mentioned as one of the subtenants. It is just possible that in this last instance we may have the former English tenant reduced from freedom to villeinage and holding on sufferance a small portion of the manor of which he has previously held the whole. Next below the villeins came the bordars, who are called by the equivalent name of cottars* in all the hundreds of Hastings rape except Ninfield and Staple' and in West Easwrith, Risberg, Benestede, Bury and Bosgrave. About them nothing beyond their number is recorded, save for a single entry in the hundred of Hawksborough where Osbern had ' one cottar who pays twelve pence' (fo. 19). Nor can we learn anything of the lowest class — the serfs — who were not very numerous in this county, the largest number on any manor being twenty at Hastings ; there were also seventeen on the royal manor of Bosham, but otherwise they in no case exceeded ten on any estate, being rarer than in Surrey. Burgesses occur several times, but will be considered under the boroughs ; ' ten shepherds ' are mentioned in Patcham, and ' a fowler ' was fortunate enough to retain a small estate near Marden which he had held in King Edward's time, and Chetel ' the huntsman ' was allowed to retain land in ' Lodesorde,' which, although surveyed under Surrey, is probably Lodsworth in Sussex. A class that might in some ways be regarded as almost intermediate between the peasantry and the landowner was the priests, for while they were of course freemen they were yet, in their association with and dependence on their churches, almost ' adscripti glebs.' Domesday not concerning itself with things ecclesiastical, we hear nothing of parishes, but find the priest spoken of as ' the priest of the manor ' ; nor is there any particular method in the mention or omission of the church and its minister ; usually the church alone is mentioned, sometimes the church ' ' Non est ibi aula.' 2 ' Jn domimo nil habetur.' 3 V.C.H. Surrey, i. 290, 291.
- A similar phenomenon has been observed in Surrey, where in three hundreds ' the cotarii are
nearly universal, to the exclusion of bordarii, vi'hile in the others the bordarii are nearly or quite universal, to the exclusion of the cotarii' (Domesday Studies, ^6()-jo; F.C.H. Surrey, i. 292). It should be observed that these Sussex cottars are classed with the villeins in connexion with the ploughs, which is the regular position of the bordarii (J. H. R.) "i Under the abbey of Fecamp's manor of ' Rameshe ' in Guestling Hundred we find bordars instead of cottars, but cottars are duly entered under the same abbey's manor of Bury. 8 In the case of the holdings of the Archbishop and Bishop of Chichester in this hundred bordars are returned, but in that of the abbot of Westminster cottars. 368
