given existed, in its essential character, long before the Conquest; it
received a new name as the shire also did, but neither the one nor the
other was created by this change. The local jurisdictions of the thegns
who had grants of _sac_ and _soc_, or who exercised judicial functions
among their free neighbors, were identical with the manorial
jurisdictions of the new owners.

It may be conjectured with great probability that in many cases the
weaker freemen, who had either willingly or under constraint attended
the courts of their great neighbors, were now, under the general
infusion of feudal principle, regarded as holding their lands of them as
lords; it is not less probable that in a great number of grants the
right to suit and service from small land-owners passed from the king to
the receiver of the fief as a matter of course; but it is certain that
even before the Conquest such a proceeding was not uncommon; Edward the
Confessor had transferred to St. Augustine's monastery a number of
allodiaries in Kent, and every such measure in the case of a church must
have had its parallel in similar grants to laymen. The manorial system
brought in a number of new names; and perhaps a duplication of offices.
The _gerefa_ of the old thegn, or of the ancient township, was replaced,
as president of the courts, by a Norman steward or seneschal; and the
_bydel_ of the old system by the bailiff of the new; but the gerefa and
bydel still continued to exist in a subordinate capacity as the _grave_
or reeve and the _bedell_; and when the lord's steward takes his place
in the county court, the reeve and four men of the township are there
also. The common of the township may be treated as the lord's waste, but
the townsmen do not lose their customary share.

The changes that take place in the state have their resulting analogies
in every village, but no new England is created; new forms displace but