Agricultural History Review, Volume 39 Part 2 (1991), pp. 108–115

This study reassesses the evidence of the Hundred Rolls of 1279 to investigate the social structure and socio- economic identity of the freeholders, significantly revising the classic analysis of E A Kosminsky. Careful linkage of the personal names of freeholders within and between manors and vills reveals four groups within this broad category: clergy; gentry; craftsmen; and tradesmen. The investigation suggests that more than half the freehold land of the counties surveyed was not in the hands of their direct cultivators: manorial freehold was of major importance, and subtenancy and rent relationships already widespread at the time of the compilation of the Hundred Rolls. 

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