Vill is a term used in English history to describe the basic rural land unit, roughly comparable to that of a
parish,
manor
Manor may refer to:
Land ownership
*Manorialism or "manor system", the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of medieval Europe, notably England
*Lord of the manor, the owner of an agreed area of land (or "manor") under manorialism
*Man ...
,
village or
tithing.
Medieval developments
The vill was the smallest territorial and administrative unit—a geographical subdivision of the
hundred and
county—in Anglo-Saxon England. It served both a policing function through the
tithing, and the economic function of organising common projects through the village moot. The term is the Anglicized form of the word , used in Latin documents to translate the Anglo-Saxon .
The vill remained the basic rural unit after the
Norman conquest—land units in the ''
Domesday Book'' are frequently referred to as vills—and into the late
medieval era. Whereas the manor was a unit of landholding, the vill was a territorial one—most vills did ''not'' tally physically with manor boundaries—and a public part of the royal administration. The vill had judicial and policing functions, including
frankpledge, as well as responsibility for taxation, roads and bridges. It would also organise the communal pastures, the seasonal chronology of rural agriculture, and the
three-field system.
With the Angevin growth of royal, as opposed to feudal, government, new duties were imposed upon the vill. By the early 12th century, the
reeve
Reeve may refer to:
Titles
*Reeve (Canada), an elected chief executive of some counties, townships, and equivalents
*Reeve (England), an official elected annually by the serfs to supervise lands for a lord
*High-reeve, a title taken by some Englis ...
and four villagers were required to attend the hundred court "on behalf of all"; in the 1166
Assize of Clarendon
The Assize of Clarendon was an act of Henry II of England in 1166 that began a transformation of English law and led to trial by jury in common law countries worldwide, and that established assize courts.
Prior systems for deciding the winning ...
, "four of the more lawful men of each vill" were required to present malefactors. Four men and the reeve were again called on for tax assessment in 1198; the Ordinance of 1242 on policing provided for "continuous watch ... in every vill by six men or four or less according to the number of the inhabitants".
At the same time, the vill emerged as a legal entity in its own right, taking oppressive lords of the manor to court, or suing other vills, or purchasing privileges from the Crown, as well as repairing bridges and churches as required. While retaining and even extending its hierarchical and socially stratified nature to the end, the medieval vill always remained a vibrant part of local rural life.
[C. Dyer, "The English Village Community and its Decline", ''Journal of British Studies'' 33 (1994) pp. 407–429]
Legal and other usage
*Traditionally, among legal historians, a vill referred to the tract of land of a rural community, whereas "
township" was referred to when the tax and legal administration of a rural community was meant.
*The word would later develop into ''
ville'' and ''
village'', while an unfree inhabitant of a vill was called a
villein.
See also
Notes
{{Reflist, 2}
External links
vill
Former subdivisions of England