Note 992 — Chapter I
Reading edition
Prof. Maitland, the most circumspect opponent of the "serf" view, did not consider this when he asked (Domesday Book and Beyond, ed. 1907, p. 222) how either the Saxon victors could in the mass have sunk to serfdom or the conquered Britons, whose language had disappeared, could be so numerous as to constitute the mass of the population.