The total number of villani in these counties was 108,407.[125] If each villanus held a yard-land or virgate of 30 acres, then about 3,250,000 acres were [p102] contained in their holdings. The number of villani holding half-virgates was, however, probably greater than the number holding half-hides and hides; so that the average holding would perhaps hardly be equal in acreage to the normal holding of 30 acres. Taking the average holding at 20 acres instead of 30, we should probably under-estimate the acreage. It would even then amount to 2,168,000. We shall be safe if we say that the villani held in their bundles of strips 2¼ millions of acres.[126] «Area in the holdings of cottiers,» We must add the holdings of the 82,000 bordarii and of the 6,000 or 7,000 cottier tenants.[127] If these lesser holdings averaged three acres each, we must add another quarter of a million acres for them. The total of two and a half millions of acres can thus hardly be an over-estimate of the acreage of the arable strips in the open fields held by the villani and bordarii in villenage. What proportion did this bear to the whole cultivated area of these counties? «and of free tenants.» To include the total acreage under the plough, the holdings of the _sochmanni_ and _liberi homines_ of the Danish district must be added, and also the arable land (ploughed mainly by the villani) on the lord's demesne. The 23,000 _sochmanni_[128] can hardly have held as little as a similar number of villani--say half a million acres. The 12,000 _liberi homines_ may have held another half-million. And one or two million acres can hardly be an excessive estimate for the arable portion of the lord's demesne. «Total about five million acres, nearly one-half of what is now arable.» Putting all these figures together, the evidence of the Domesday Survey seems therefore to show that [p103] at its date about five million acres were under the plough, _i.e._ from one-third to one-half of the acreage now in arable cultivation in the same counties of England.[129] This is not mere conjecture. It rests upon facts recorded in detail in the Survey for each manor upon the oath of the villani themselves; with no chance of exaggeration, because upon the result was to be founded a tax; with little chance of omission, because the men of the hundred, who also were sworn, would take care in their own interests that one place was not assessed more lightly than others. The general opinion was that 'not a single hide or yard-land was omitted.' The acreage under arable cultivation at the time of the Survey, and twenty years earlier in the time of Edward the Confessor, was thus really very large. And the villani in their yard-lands held nearly half of it, and together with the bordarii fully half of it, in villenage. It must be borne in mind also that by their services they tilled the greater part of the rest. «Tilled by serf labour.»