The sokemen of the Southern Danelaw in the eleventh century

Abstract

The social organisation of the Northern Danelaw and East Anglia has been subjected detailed analysis and the present thesis seeks to ascertain whether the Southern Danelaw ( comprising the counties of Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, Middlesex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire ) resembles these regions to which it is adjacent. The distribution of sokemen and "free' men' in the Southern Danelaw, both before and after the Conquest, has been investigated in detail and maps have been prepared for each county and the whole area. The free peasantry are most numerous in the regions adjoining the Northern Danelaw and East Anglia (namely Northamptonshire and Essex) and dwindle as the borders of Mercia and Wessex are approached. Analyses have been prepared to illustrate the contrast between manoriallsed and "free" villages. This is followed by a study of the following matters: (a) the size of the tenements of the free peasantry - these are smallest in the East and increase towards the South-west, the largest being in Middlesex; (b) the plough teams - the sokemen of the East and North usually possessed two or three oxen, but those of the South-west more; (c) the ability of the sokemen and free men to dispose of their tenements - the majority can sell, but restrictions are numerous oy the East Anglian border; (d) payments and services recorded in Domesday Boom. The investigation has been confined to the eleventh century and the thesis is based 6n the main upon the evidence of Domesday Book. No attempt has been made as yet to trace the survival of the free peasantry of' this region in the twelfth and thirteenth gentries.