Scandinavian-Britain

THE FIVE BOROUGHS 113Hence we find, around such pre-Viking names asAlford, Horncastle, Partney, Tetford, Belchford andDonington in the south wolds, and Frodingham, Bottesford,Caistor, Glanford Brigg, Binbrook and Ludfordin the north, groups of Danish place-names, chiefly"byes," showing that individuals took up land on thewolds, till then uncultivated. "Thorpes," indicatingvillages as opposed to "byes" or isolated farmsteads,and either Scandinavian or Anglian in originare found more plentifully on the lower and richerpastures, where the earlier settlers had their estateswhich were worked by the natives. Though theDanes certainly owned thralls, it is not a littleremarkable that in later years the proportion of free-slaves was much greater in the Danelaw thanmen toin the rest of England, and greatest of all in the mostDanish districts and in the manors of Danish origin.Professor Maitland (Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 22)noted that at the time of Domesday the numberof servi was at its maximum in Cornwall andGloucestershire, very low in Norfolk, Suffolk, Derby,Leicester, Middlesex and Sussex, but nil in Yorkshireand Lincolnshire. The number of sokemen (orcomparatively free men, owing certain dues to theHundred courts or to a lord, but otherwise mastersof their own land, somewhat like the customarytenants of Cumberland) was greater in Norfolk andSuffolk than in Essex, while in Lincolnshire theyformed nearly half the rural population. In Williamthe Conqueror'stime there were in Lincolnshire11,503 sokemen, 7,723 villans, and 4,024 bordars ;inH