Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/274

 NOTE The date of the Domesday Survey is 1086, and the two previous periods referred to are King Edward's time (T.R.E.), which is usually the time of his death, and the time at which the manor was acquired by the Norman holder. The letter • M,' prefixed to an entry, stands for M[anor]. The ' hide ' is the unit of assessment to the ' geld,' and the ' virgate ' its quarter ; thirty (geld) acres went to a virgate. The caruca was a plough drawn by eight oxen, and the arable land was reckoned by the number of ploughs required to till it ; ' land for half a plough ' (or ' for four oxen ') merely means half a plough land. The term ' demesne ' is used both of those manors which a lord kept in his own hands (instead of enfeoffing a tenant therein), and of that portion of a manor which was kept in hand (as a kind of home farm), the peasantry holding the rest of it under the lord. The ' bordars ' were a class of peasants intermediate between the villeins and the serfs. It should always be remembered that when Domesday enters a man as holding a certain place, it does not neces- sarily mean that he held the whole of it, for there may be similar entries relating to other portions of it.