Note s — NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII. (continued 2)

A presumptive proof of this may be drawn from a chapter in the Laws of Henry I. c. 81, where the penalty payable by a villein for certain petty offences is set at thirty pence; that of a cotset at fifteen; and of a theow at six. The passage is extremely obscure; and this proportion of the three classes of men is almost the only part that appears evident. The cotset, who is often mentioned in Domesday, may thus have been an inferior villein, nearly similar to what Glanvil and later law-books call such.