>Yes, and that was quasi-deliberate. By my second view, the carls and
>thanes form an upper, 'propertied' class that mostly looks out for
>its own. Oh, sure, they want to keep the cottar's alive and healthy,
>and exceptional members there may own their own plough team some day,
>but really they need them to be cottars, their lifestyle depends on a
>good number of people not having their own land to plough and teams
>to do it.
I don't think there's this much difference between carls and cotters. After all a carl is defined by having a pair of oxen and a plough which even with half carls who share means a fair number of cattle before you can afford this. I therefore see the majority of cotters as being the basic free farmer, comfortably off by Heortling standards - maybe two or three cows but neither wealthy like carls and thanes, nor poor like stickpickers. They may herd sheep and grow vegetables rather than herd cows and grow wheat but in some places that may well provide a better standard of living. Probably the biggest thing keeping cotters as cotters will be the difficulty of getting suitable land for growing cereal crops. As far as the clan is concerned that's a bigger constraint than oxen and ploughs and once all three are available it makes sense for anyone capable to use them.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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