2. We find that each vill or tun had a =lord=, an eorl, or thane, who practically owned the place and everything in it, though he could not do entirely as he liked. There was the land which belonged to him, and which was in his own hands, or occupation, as we say; that was called his =demesne=. The rest of the land was also his, but it was let out to people who had lived on the land from time out of mind--the =cheorls= or =villeins=. The lord's house was on his demesne. The villeins' houses were all together in the tun, with the grass yards for the cattle close to them, and the open fields and pasture-lands outside the tun, just as they had been in the olden days. 3. There seem to have been two classes of villeins--=geburs= and =cottiers=. 4. The geburs were the higher class. They seem very frequently to have held about 120 acres of land; they had to work on the lord's home farm two or three days a week, or pay him certain produce of the land as a rent; and they had to provide one or more oxen for the village plough, when there was ploughing to be done on the lord's farm, or in the common field. 5. In the Danish part of the country there appears to have been a class of freeholders in some places, called =socmen=, but there were not very many of them. They, no doubt, had had their rights granted to them for distinguished service in the Danish wars. 6. The =cottiers= held only about 5 acres of land. They had to work for the thane or lord on certain days of the week; but, as they had no oxen, they had no ploughing to do for him. 7. Below the geburs and the cottiers were the =theows=, =thralls=, or =slaves=, who could be bought and sold. They were captives taken in war; or men who, for their crimes, had been doomed to slavery. [Illustration: Serf or Theow] 8. We must remember that the overlord might be the king, or a bishop; a monastery, or a thane. Their rights over their vills and tuns were much the same in each case, and their duties to those vills and tuns were also similar. 9. A very large number of vills and tuns were under the lordship of the various bishops and monasteries. It was so with towns like Winchester, Reading, Bury St. Edmund's, and St. Alban's. The custom had grown up quite naturally and in the course of many years. 10. It is pretty clear that the overlord did not always reside in his vill or tun. The tuns or vills of the bishopric of Winchester, for instance, were scattered about in various parts of the diocese. It was the same with other overlords. But we find in every place a =steward=, and in each town the =king's reeve= or the =lord's reeve=. These acted for the overlord, whoever he was, and saw that the villeins and cottiers did their proper proportion of work at the right time; they saw that the lord's tolls at the markets, fairs, and ferries, were properly enforced. The steward was a most important officer in every town and village, and a great deal of power was in his hands.