Finally, the evidence of these Saxon documents--the '_Rectitudines_' and the charters of Tidenham and Hysseburne--read in the light of the later evidence and of the earlier laws of King Ine, is so clear that it seems needful to explain how it has happened that [p164] there has ever been any doubt as to the servile nature of the services of the holders of yard-lands in Saxon times. The explanation is simple. Mr. Kemble quotes from all these documents in his chapter on '_Lænland_;'[191] but for want of the clear knowledge what a yard-land was, it never seems to have occurred to him that in these services of the _geburs_ or holders of yard-lands we have the services of the later _villani_ of the Domesday Survey--the services of the holdings embracing by far the greater part of the arable land of England. Dr. Leo, in his work on the '_Rectitudines_,' confesses that he does not know what is meant by the yard-land of the gebur.[192] It is only when, proceeding from the known to the unknown, we get a firm grasp of the fact that the yard-land was the normal holding of the _gebur_ or _villanus_, that it was a bundle of normally thirty scattered acres in the open fields, that it was held in villenage, and that these were the services under which it was held of the manorial lord of the _ham_ or _tun_ to which it belonged--it is only when these facts are known and their importance realised, that these documents become intelligible, and take their proper place as links in what really is an unbroken chain of evidence. VIII. THE THEOWS OR SLAVES ON THE LORD'S DEMESNE. «The _theows_, or slave class.» One word must be said of the _theows_ or slaves on the lord's demesne--the thane's _inland_--lest we should [p165] forget the existence of this lowest class of all, in contrast with whose slavery the _geburs_ and cottiers on the _geneat_ land, notwithstanding their serfdom, were '_free_.' These latter were prædial serfs 'adscripti glebæ,' but not slaves. The _theows_ were slaves, bought and sold in the market, and exported from English ports across the seas as part of the commercial produce of the island. Some of the _theows_ were slaves by birth. But it seems to have been a not uncommon thing for freemen to sell themselves into slavery under the pressure of want.[193] «The servi of the Domesday Survey.» The 'servi' of the Domesday Survey were no doubt the successors of the Saxon _theows_. And as in the Survey the _servi_ are mostly found on the demesne land of the lord, so probably in Saxon times the _theows_ were chiefly the slaves of the manor-house. Most of the farm work on the thane's _inland_, especially the ploughing, was done no doubt by the services of the villein tenants; but as, in addition to the villein ploughs, there were the great manorial plough teams, so also there were _theows_ doing slave labour of various kinds on the home farm of the lord, and maintained at the lord's expense.