Note 166 — Chapter V · MANORS AND SERFDOM UNDER SAXON RULE.

In the Codex Diplomaticus, No. MCCCLIV., there is an interesting document early in the eleventh century, the original of which is in the British Museum (MS. Cott. Tib. B. v. f. 76 b), written on the back of a much older copy of the Gospels, and containing particulars respecting the geburs on the Hatfield estate in Hertfordshire—their pedigrees, in fact—showing that they had intermarried with others of the following manors in Hertfordshire, viz.:—Tæccingawyrde (Datchworth), Wealaden (King's or Paul's Walden), Welugun (Welwyn), Wadtune (Watton), Munddene (Mundon), Wilmundeslea (Wymondley), and Eslingadene (Essenden). The fact that it was worth while to preserve a record of the pedigree of the geburs shows that they were adscripti glebæ. And there can be no doubt of the identity of the geburs of this document with the villani of the Domesday Survey of these various places. The pedigrees of villani or nativi were carefully kept in some manors even after the Black Death.