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 A HISTORY OF ESSEX as a rule ; and the fact that it was more general in 1066 than twenty years later is significant of its former prevalence. The most striking cases no doubt are those in which the change in the number of serfs corresponds with that in the number of teams on the lord's demesne. At Writtle the ploughs in demesne had diminished from 12 to 9, and the serfs from 24 to 18 ; at (Saffron) Walden the ploughs in demesne had, on the contrary, increased from 8 to i o and the serfs from 1 6 to 20. At Stanstead Mountfichet and at Moreton we read of a decrease in these ploughs from 3 to 2 and in the serfs from 6 to 4 ; at Latton, Bobbingworth and Newport alike these ploughs have decreased from 2 to i and the serfs from 4 to 2. Of manors where the number of the serfs as well as of demesne ploughs was the same in 1086 as in 1066, we find 1 2 serfs and 6 ploughs at Debden with 6 serfs and 3 ploughs at Amberden in Debden ; on two of the Bumpstead manors we have re- spectively 4 demesne ploughs and 8 serfs and 3 demesne ploughs and 6 serfs. At Bendish (Hall), Great Bardfield and Castle Hedingham there are in each case 8 serfs and 4 demesne ploughs, while each of two manors at Gestingthorpe has 6 serfs and 3 such ploughs, a proportion which is found also at Strethall, Chreshall, Chishall, Newham, Stanway, Great Braxted, Ramsey, Dovercourt, Great Baddow and Tilbury-by- Clare. At Greenstead the proportion on the two manors is 6 to 3 and 4 to 2. At Hockley, where the lord is credited with 2 plough teams, we find 5 serfs. There are twenty-eight cases in which the proportion, in 1086 and in 1066, is 2 demesne ploughs and 4 serfs, so that one need hardly dwell on the numerous examples of a proportion of i to 2. Yet more striking is the great number of cases in which the ratio existed at the death of Edward the Confessor, although it had changed since then. At Thaxted there then had been 1 6 serfs to 8 demesne ploughs, at Elmdon 1 2 to 6, at Great Easton and at Hatfield Peverel i o to 5 ; at one of the Layers, at Panfield, at Hempstead, at Henham and at Clavering 8 to 4. At fifteen other places it had been 6 to 3, and at thirty-five 4 to 2. Here again the number might be swollen by adding examples of 2 to i ; but, after the scores of examples given, this can hardly be needful. It has been sufficiently demonstrated that the ' serfs ' before the Conquest were normally men of whom two had charge of each plough-team on the lord's demesne. Although at the time of the great Survey we find these ' serfs ' disappearing, or at least diminishing in number, their work had still to be done, and one can hardly doubt that in many cases they had become, or had been replaced, in 1086, by ' bordars.' At Little Thurrock, for instance, we read : ' Then i bordar ; now 6. Then 6 serfs ; now i ' (fo. ii b). 'And in the next entry but one we find at Little Burstead : 'Then i bordar; now 6. Then 4 serfs ; now i.' So also at Good Easter (fo. 20^), where the villeins were stationary in number, there were 5 more bordars and 5 fewer serfs. At Stambridge (fo. 23^) we have an extreme case, in which all the 7 villeins and 3 serfs have dis- appeared, the bordars increasing at the same time from 5 to 10. This, 362