Reading F W Maitland’s 1897 work, ‘Domesday Book and Beyond’. Is jolly hard work even to an old-school, History Channelling, amateur pedant who hates the modern world so fucking intensely he nightly prays for a global Armageddon.
   Domesday Book – they didn’t use the ‘The’, like Pixies or Beatles – was a detailed register of taxable assets on lands designated as carucates or hides by previous Roman or German administrations. Another funny thing – before 1914 all discussion of post-Roman, pre-French culture defaults to, ‘German’ – after 1918 became ‘Anglo-Saxon’ across the board?
   In his preface Maitland makes pointed note of the stoically rigorous objectivity applied to the Conqueror’s censorial survey which contains no soft, soppy guesswork, no personal opinions, hidden agendas, analysis of its mundane filings – just forthright FACTS. Probably as there was nothing to gain by recording hypotheticals – what’s in it for us? was the editor’s brief in 1085. In so doing Domesday presents a collection of raw details of what was happening at the time. Thereby supplying a sterling store of precious data for the modern geographer to sort and sift and divine the TRUE nature of mediaeval life; its social infrastructure, political palaver, the property dealings, laws and loopholes, sex and crime, rocks and rolls. With our first civil servants advising distrust of contemporary reports which were partisan proud and dishonestly produced with subjective insight mostly by monks who nobody trusted, even then. The statistics published in this case are not DAMNED LIES!
   And there is no mention of jurisprudence, no royal regulations nor executive charter – unless as exception by provincial privilege. The convoluted ratings’ definitions are essential to the LEGAL aspect; those nomenclature obsessed sly solicitors licking their lips at the argumental prospects.
   The geld or tax register of Domesday Book notes the number of hides in each county, hundred, wapentake or vill. With associated notes of name of mansion; priest in situ; how many plough teams, mills, fisheries; how much wood, meadow, pasture; what goods and wares have been removed – loosely arranged by an arbitrarily hierarchic taxa – best left, well alone.
   By 1080 the territories of England had been partitioned into manorial estates assigned to lords, each containing a village community whose inhabitants existed in declining degrees of bonded servitude. The Lord’s home farm was attended by tenants divided into distinctive groups: a thegn – or thane was given land in return for military service – equivalent to Baron or knight but below Earl; Sochemani or villani whose holdings were granted by the lord – assigned to shared ploughing and minor military duties; below but similar were cottari or cottiers who possessed no oxen and occupied small plots – not involved in ploughing; lowest were servi – further classified from unfree buri down to theow or ‘thing’. Theows did have rights – if they suffered mutilation or death during punishment ‘a pecuniary mulct up to 40 shillings may be extracted from the master.’
   This grade of peasant is a virtual slave legally bound to the land he works. Mediaeval serfs were either bought or bred – with servile blood transmitted from the father – mothers are not mentioned? If your slave commits a capital crime he must be freed into the hands of the kindred of the slain for execution as a ‘free man’. The righteousness of a servi is only recognised in a court at which his lord is president. Rights sanctioned by manorial justice are ignored by the King’s courts which are only open to the ‘free’. Exceptional immunities to ‘liberties’ or ‘franchises’ are by degree – ‘freedom’ as an ideal is elastic and kept deliberately vague. Resumes an old argument – as slavery reduces the serf’s responsibilities, should an owner be accountable for any misdeeds. Cake and eat it? Slavery was, and still is, considered an efficient labour system by employers – a topic too gross for this petty piece.
Yet, despite endemic ecclesiastic corruption, in 7th century Europe the humanising power of Christianity had silently raised the status of the slave. The monastery and manorial system had dignified farm working, giving the slave a form of ‘property’ in his labour – graduating from slavery to serfdom. Coincidentally caused a rapid decline in lawlessness throughout Gaul.

   Having endured Karl Marx’s multiple entries of graphs and charts of God-knows what boring bollocks left a lasting terror of lists, tables, menus, addenda, coda, memoranda forever and more. Reading Maitland’s work induced similar dread but by manful struggle found a raft of antiquated names and phrases describing things they had back then to fire my dark imagination; elegant terms I’d like to introduce to our crappy plastic modern vernacular. Here’s a short list of the very best ones:
HIDE – from ‘hywan’ which meant family in Anglo-Saxon – a land area of 120 acres, mostly recognised as a taxation unit assessed on earnings of £1 per hide. Divided into four virgates or eight oxgangs.
GABLUM – land allowed to a knight for military service.
MOOT – township or shire moot – political assembly or Kangaroo Court?
DOOMS – judgements or laws made by Anglo-Saxon kings, usually religious.
WERGILD – ‘man payment’ – compensation to family of injured party.
FREE LOAF-EATER – peasant who didn’t pay taxes – or do work?
FREIZUGIGKEIT – German ‘fare worthiness’ – means something else now, but used to refer to a farm worker’s right to change jobs, forbidden to most.
SOCA, SAKE, SOKE, SOCN, etc – from Latin for, ‘plough’ – a version of tenancy where the sokeman either pays or receives rents and fines from people above or below him. There is no actual useful information anywhere on this?
OX-GANG, OX-GATE, PLOUGH-OF-LAND, DABHACH, BOVATE – the area an oxen could plough in a season, and variations on this.

   Consistently irked by modern types bragging of personal ‘progress’ – what a fantastic life we lead, here and now. How did they live without mobile phones in the Middle Ages? Ho ho ho. With their rampant deformational diseases, halitosis, hairy armpits, baggy eyes? Without vegan cocktails, 5:2 diets, cabrito bat-arse taro smoothies, keto spider crab consommé, coffee enemas, anal bleaching? It must’ve been Hell!
   Here’s a description of the farm worker’s lot around 1100:
Geneat – retainer or vassal: must pay rent or land-gafol and grass-swine yearly; ride, carry and lead loads; reap and mow and hew the deer hedge; build roads for the tun; pay church-scot and almsfee; keep head-ward and horse-ward; go errands when dirsted. Works one day a week and three days at harvest-time. Defends or acquits his lord’s inlands.
Gebur – villein (owner of 30 acres): Boor or gebur or colibertus as an ‘unfree’ man who typically worked two days a week, three at harvest time for the lord; pays gafol in money, barley, sheep and poultry; does ploughing; pays hearth-penny and must feed a dog; is provided with two oxen, one cow, six sheep and seed for seven acres; all of which returns to the lord on his death. He owns nothing.
Ceorl – from each hide: forty pence and six mittan of ale three sesters of loaf-wheat. In his own time shall plough and sow three acres and bring the seed to barn. Shall pay three punds of gafol-barley and mow half an acre of gafol-mead and bring it to the rick; supply four fothers of split gafol-wood and build sixteen yards of gafol fencing in their own time. At Easter provide two ewes with lambs.
   None of which display any semblance of a HELL.