It is no cause for wonder that such instances occur at the end of the thirteenth century. It is much more wonderful that, in a good many cases, we are still well able to perceive a great deal of the original regularity. Swaffham Prior, in Cambridgeshire, is a grand example of an absolutely regular arrangement in a community of free socmen[763]. The Prior of Ely holds it for three hides and has 220 acres on his home-farm. The rest is divided among sixteen free socmen paying 5_s._ each and performing various labour services. These services have been considerably increased by the Prior. Mixed cases are much more usual--I mean cases in which the original regularity has suffered some modifications, though a little attention will discover traces of the ancient communal arrangement[764].
On the whole, I think that the notices of socmen's tenure in the Hundred Rolls are especially precious, because they prove that the observations that we have made as regards freehold generally are not merely ingenious suggestions about what may conceivably have happened. There is undoubtedly one weak point in those observations, which is due to the method which we are compelled to adopt. It is difficult, if not impossible, to classify the actual cases which come before us, to say--in this case freehold is the result of commutation, in that case the lord has enfeoffed a retainer or a kinsman, while in this third case, the freehold virgate has always been freehold. The edge of the inquiry is blunted, if I may so say, by the vagueness of terminological distinctions, and we must rely upon general impressions. The socman's tenure, on the contrary, stands out as a clear case, and a careful analysis of it abundantly verifies the conclusions to which we have previously come by a more circuitous route.
It seems to me that the general questions with which we started in our inquiry may now be approached with some confidence. The relation of free tenancies to the manorial system turns out to be a complex one. The great majority of such tenements appears as a later growth engrafted on the system when it was already in decay. Commutation of services, the spread of cultivation over the waste, and the surrender of portions of the demesne to the increasing dependent population, must largely account for the contrast between Domesday and the Hundred Rolls. But an important residue remains, which must be explained on the assumption that in many cases the shares of the community were originally distributed among free people who had nothing or little to do with manorial work.