In contrast with this principal body of tenants stand several small freeholders endowed with irregular plots reckoned in acres and so much varying in size that it is quite impossible to arrange them according to any plan, not to speak of the virgate system. But these small tenants are all sub-tenants enfeoffed by the principal freeholders whose own tenements are distributed into regular agrarian unity. It is easy to see that even when the stock of free tenancies stood arranged according to a definite plan, deviations from this plan would easily arise owing to new feoffments made by the lord out of the demesne land or out of the waste.(60*) What I am concerned to say is, not that the Hundred Rolls show a distribution of free holdings quite as regular as that of the servile tenements, but that amidst all the irregularities of the freehold plots we frequently come across unmistakable traces of a system similar to that which prevailed on villain soil. These traces are not always of the same kind, and present various gradations. In a comparatively small number of instances the duties imposed on the shareholders are equal, or nearly so; much more often the rent and labour rendered by them to the lord vary a great deal, although their tenements are equal. The Ayllington instance, quoted above, belongs to the former class, but the proportionate distribution of duties is somewhat obscured by the fact that part of them is reckoned in labour. The normal rent is computed at six shillings per virgate,(61*) though there are a few noticeable exceptions, but the duty of ploughing is imposed according to two different standards, and it is not easy to reduce these to unity. The freeholders of one group have to plough eight acres per virgate for the lord, while for the members of the other group the ploughing work is reckoned in the same way as in the case of the villains, each placing his team at the disposal of the lord one day of every week from Michaelmas to the 1st of August, four weeks being excepted in honour of Christmas, Easter, and Trinity.(62*) Ravenston, in Buckinghamshire, is a much clearer example. Twelve villains hold of the Prior of Ravenston twelve acres each, and their service is worth eighteen shillings per holding; four villains hold six acres each, and their service is valued at nine shillings. One free tenant has twelve acres and pays sixteen shillings; six have six acres each, and pay seven shillings. There are three other tenants whose duties cannot be brought within the system.(63*) The portion of Fulborne, in Cambridgeshire, belonging to Baldwin de Maneriis, may also serve as an illustration of an almost regular distribution of land and service among the freeholders.(64*) Instances in which the duties, although not exactly, are still very nearly equal, are very frequent. In Radewelle, Bedfordshire, the mean rent of the six is two shillings per half-virgate, although the villains perform service to the amount of eight shillings per virgate.(65*) Bidenham, Bedfordshire, also presents an assessment of four shillings per free virgate.(66*) In that part of Fulborne which is owned by Alan de la Zuche the virgates and half-virgates of the free holders are variously rented; but twelve shillings per half-virgate is of common occurrence(67*) while in the fee of Maud Passelewe we find only four and five shillings as the rent for the half-virgate.(68*) Papworth Anneys exhibits a ferdel of seven and a half acres, for which ten to twelve shillings are paid.(69*) As to the cases in which the service varies a great deal, although the land is held in shares, I need not give quotations because they are to be found on every page of the printed hundred Rolls. We may say, in conclusion, that the process of disruption acts much more potently in the sphere of free holding than it does in regard to villainage; but that it has by no means succeeded in destroying all regularity even there.
Thus, even among the freeholders, landholding is often what Ishall take leave to call 'shareholding.' Now, whatever ultimate explanation we may give of this fact, it has one obvious meaning.
That part of the free population which holds in regular shares is not governed entirely by the rules of private ownership, but is somehow implicated in the village community. Bovates and virgates exist only as parts of carucates or hides, and the several carucates or hides themselves fit together, inasmuch as they suppose a constant apportionment of some kind. Two sets of important questions arise from this proposition, both intimately connected with each other, although they suggest different lines of enquiry. We may start from an examination of the single holding, and ask whether its regular shape can be explained by the requirements of its condition or by survivals of a former condition. Or again, we may start from the whole and inquire whether the equality the elements of which we detect is equality in ownership or equality in service. Let us take up the first thread of the inquiry.
