PARALLEL CASES 77
English society also had at one time its servile classes. One has only to turn to the Domesday Book to see what the state of English Society was at the time of the Norman conquest.
The Domesday Book which is a social survey of the land in England and its various kinds of tenants made by William the Conqueror immediately after his conquest in 1086 shows the following classes in which the population was divided:
- Gentry
Tenants in Chief 1,400
& made up of 9,300
Clergy Under tenants 7,900
- Freeholders
Freemen 12,000
made up of
Yeomen Socmen 32,000
44,000
- Half-free
Villeins 169,000
or 259,000 made up of Unfree Cottars and Borders 90,000
- Slaves 25,000
Out of a total of 3,37,000 souls as many as 2,84,000 were either unfree or slaves.
These are examples of servility in which race or religion played no part. But examples of servility by reason of race or religion are not wanting in history. The principal one is that of the Jews. On account of the belief that the Jews were responsible for the death of Christ, the Jews have been subjected to persecution. During the Middle ages in almost all the European towns, the Jews were compelled to reside within a restricted quarter in a separate part of the town, and this Jewish quarter came to be known as the ‘Ghetto’. A Council held in Coyanza in Australia in
1050 enacted ‘that no Christian shall reside in the same house with Jews, nor partake of the food; whoever transgresses this decree shall perform penances for seven days, or, refusing to do it, if a person of rank, he shall be excommunicated for a year; if of an inferior degree, he shall receive 100 lashes.” The Council of Falencia in 1388 enacted that “Christians must not dwell within the quarters assigned to the Jews and Moors, and those that resided within them were to remove therefrom within two months after the publication of this decree in the Cathedral and if they did not, were to be compelled by Ecclesiastical censure.” In the Middle ages the Jews were obliged to have communal baths. No Jewish community could be