Terms which have in view the general economic condition of the peasant, vary a good deal according to localities. Even in private documents they are on the whole less frequent than the terms of the first class, and the Hundred Rolls use them but very rarely. It wOUld be very wrong to imply that they were not widely spread in practice. On the contrary, their vernacular forms vouch for their vitality and their use in common speech. But being vernacular and popular in origin, these terms cannot obtain the uniformity and currency of literary names employed and recognised by official authority. The vernacular equivalent for villanus seems to have been niet or neat.(19*) It points to the regular cultivators of the arable, possessed of holdings of normal size and performing the typical services of the manor.(20*) The peasant's condition is here regarded from the economical side, in the mutual relation of tenure and work, not in the strictly legal sense, and men of this category form the main stock of the manorial population. The Rochester Custumal says(21*) that neats are more free than cottagers, and that they hold virgates. The superior degree of ******* thus ascribed to them is certainly not to be taken in the legal sense, but is merely a superiority in material condition. The contrast with cottagers is a standing one,(22*) and, being the main population of the village, neats are treated sometimes as if they were the only people there.(23*)The name may be explained etymologically by the Anglo-Saxon geneat, which in documents of the tenth and eleventh century means a man using another person's land. The differences in application may be discussed when we come to examine the Saxon evidence.
Another Saxon term - gebur - has left its trace in the burus and buriman of Norman records. The word does not occur very often, and seems to have been applied in two different ways-to the chief villains of the township in some places, and to the smaller tenantry, apparently in confusion with the Norman bordarius, in some other.(24*) The very possibility of such a confusion shows that it was going out of common use. On the other hand, the Danish equivalent bondus is widely spread. It is to be found constantly in the Danish counties.(25*) The original meaning is that of cultivator or 'husband' -- the same in fact as that of gebur and boor. Feudal records give curious testimony of the way in which the word slid down into the 'bondage' of the present day. We see it wavering, as it were, sometimes exchanging with servus and villanus, and sometimes opposed to them.(26*)Another word of kindred meaning, chiefly found in eastern districts, is landsettus, with the corresponding term for the tenure;(27*) this of course according to its etymology simply means an occupier, a man sitting on land.
Several terms are found which have regard to the nature of services. Agricultural work was the most common and burdensome expression of economical subjection. Peasants who have to perform such services in kind instead of paying rents for them are called operarii.(28*) Another designation which may be found everywhere is consuetudinarii or custumarii.(29*) It points to customary services, which the people were bound to perform. When such tenants are opposed to the villains, they are probably free men holding in villainage by customary work.(30*) As the name does not give any indication as to the importance of the holding a qualification is sometimes added to it, which determines the size of the tenement.(31*)In many manors we find a group of tenants, possessed of small plots of land for the service of following the demesne ploughs.
These are called akermanni or carucarii (32*), are mostly selected among the customary holders, and enjoy an immunity from ordinary work as long as they have to perform their special duty.(33*) On some occasions the records mention gersumarii, that is peasants who pay a gersuma, a fine for marrying their daughters.(34*) This payment being considered as the badge of personal serfdom, the class must have consisted of men personally unfree.
Those names remain to be noticed which reflect the size of the holding. In one of the manors belonging to St. Paul's Cathedral in London we find hidarii.(35*) This does not mean that every tenant held a whole hide. On the contrary, they have each only a part of the hide, but their plots are reckoned up into hides, and the services due from the whole hide are stated.
