Farm of the Manor and Community of the Vill in Domesday Book

Abstract

ALTHOUGH the bare fact has often been noticed, an adequate account still remains to be given of the Domesday evidence for the farm of the manor by the peasants themselves, the of the in the familiar phrase of the thirteenth century. This method of economic exploitation is significant for its implications respecting the conditions of the peasantry in England in the generation which followed the Norman Conquest and the establishment of feudalism in England. Perhaps one reason for this neglect of an important subject is that the evidence, with a few very obvious exceptions, is both vague and intractable, as will appear. Nonetheless, a survey of Domesday Book leads to some interesting facts, and the conclusions which may be drawn throw new light on an old but perennial problem, the economic and social status of the Anglo-Norman peasantry. The status of the peasantry is in large measure determined by two distinguishable but related sets of facts: on the one hand, the lands and stock at its disposal (though not necessarily under its ownership), and on the other hand, the rights and duties enjoyed by or incumbent upon it. The economic facts have recently been illuminated in a series of important articles by Mr R. V. Lennard;1 and, in additioii to her earlier contributions to the subject, Professor H. M. Cam has recently provided a suggestive and authoritative summary of the role and significance of the community of the vill in all its aspects, economic and otherwise, in the high M\iddle Ages.2 WAhile Mr Lennard has not concerned himself with the community of the vill, or any other aspects of communalism in the Anglo-Norman period, that period was outside the scope of Professor Cam's paper. The economic activity of the peasants as groups as homines ville, or as a