Page:VCH Worcestershire 1.djvu/348

 A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE above (pp. 250-251), and it was there suggested that they were some- times here indistinguishable from the free tenants, who are usually termed ' liberi homines,' but in two instances, it should be observed, ' franci homines.'^ From these there is a sharp drop to the village group and its officers. Ellis allowed but one ' bedellus ' and seven ' prepositi ' to Worcestershire ; but these figures have to be doubled when we include the manors on fo. 180^.^ For then the bydel and the gerefa of Old English days are found to have respectively, in all, five and eleven repre- sentatives.^ The village smith, an important functionary, seems to be mentioned eight times, and the miller occasionally. Here, as elsewhere, the villeins {yillani) vfCVQ the backbone of the rural community. Ellis reckoned their number at 1,520, but I make it, adding those on fo. 180^, to be 1,666. In a somewhat inferior position to them were the class known as bordars (bordarii), whom I similarly make, by adding those omitted by Ellis, to have numbered 1,821, not 1,728, The ' bovarii ' are a class deserving of attention, for their occur- rence in Domesday seems to be restricted to a group of adjacent coun- ties: — Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Cheshire, and South Lancashire, the same district (with the exception of Gloucestershire) as that in which occur the ' Radchenistres ' and ' Radmans.' On the Evesham Abbey manor of Ombersley we find it the duty of the ' bovarii ' to have charge of the oxen, to plough, and to guard any thieves.* At Wickhamford, each of the four ' virge bovariorum ' sent two men ' ad carucam.'^ At Hampton (by Evesham), we learn definitely that each of the ' virge bovariorum ' found ' two men for the lord's plough,' that is the plough on the lord's demesne.* At Blackwell (in Tredington), a manor held by the monks of Worcester, the ' bovarii ' similarly held half virgates, and had charge of the Prior's ploughs, and of such prisoners as there were.' These ' bovarii ' appear to have escaped the notice of Domes- day commentators,* but an entry in the Glastonbury Inquisition (1189) tells us that ' Peter the bovarius. . . has charge of the lord's oxen, and goes with (ad) the plough.' * ' Bovarii ' also occur in a district even fur- ther from that in which we find them in Domesday ; for the Peterborough manet' (fo. 175^) ; and at the end of those of Westminster Abbey we read of the ' placita francorum hominum' under the Confessor (fo. 175). ^ See p. 239 above, ^ For the gerefa and the byde/, see Andrews' Old English Manor, pp. 130-143. Preter hoc isti debent custodire latrones si fuerint in curia' (Harl. MS. 3,763, fo. jSd). 6 Ibid. fo. 72. ^ ' Per totum annum virga debet invenire duos homines ad carucam domini et autump- no ii homines ad ebdomada et ad Wedhoc,' etc. [Ibid. fo. 79). ' ' sunt ibi iiij bovatae terrae, scilicet duae virgatae, quarum tenentes tenebunt et fugabimt et custodient carrucas Prioris . . . Bovarii, si non custodient carrucas, et cotarii debent custodire prisones ' (Hale, pp. 66a, 66b). ^ They are not mentioned in the Indexes to Ellis' Introduction to Domesday, Maitland's Domesday Book and Beyond, or Seebohm's English Village Community. ^ ' Petrus bovarius . . . custodit boves domini et vadit ad aratrum,' 274
 * At the end of Pershore Abbey's lands we read of ' unaquaque hida ubi francus homo
 * ' Quatuor sunt virge bovarionmi. Isti custodiunt boves, et arant per v dies . ..