Gafolgelder

And if the services had stopped here, we might have concluded that the ‘ceorls’ of Hysseburne were gafolgelders, and not serfs.

How many of these gafolgelders by contract were to be found on Saxon manors, whether on the lord’s demesne or holding virgates in the open fields, libere tenentes or free holders of villain holdings, as I have elsewhere stated we cannot tell, but if we may take the experience of the interval between the Domesday survey and the hundred rolls as any guide to the natural multiplication of libere tenentes on the lord’s demesne, the class may have become numerous on many, and perhaps mostly on royal manors, without giving ground, I think, for any inference in favour of the original freedom of the Saxon village community.

The position of gafolgelders is extended to English geburs, which in these cases appear as equivalent to ceorls[…]

It is probable that the owners of folkland are most nearly represented, at the later part of this period, by the geneats and the gafolgelders.