Let us look at one of the most typical places.
Old Bolingbroke was the centre of a wapentake in 1086, administrative centre of an area 14 miles by 12 and including 23 villages named in Domesday (there were probably more). At Bolingbroke itself, where a Norman castle was erected in the eleventh century, an Anglo-Saxon landowner called Stori had held two carucates of land in 1066. By 1086 there were signs of renewed economic activity: 'Now Ivo has two teams there (in lordship) and 12 villeins and 8 bordars and 12 soketnen with three teams. There is a church there, and a new market, and three mills rendering 10 shillings, and 70 acres of meadow. Then it was worth £30, now £ 4 0 ....' Attached to the manor of Bolingbroke were holdings in 17 vills with land totalling 36 square miles; in these vills Domesday mentions no fewer than 508 sokemen, with 128 villeins and 33 bordars, and 11 churches. The total population of the manor of Bolingbroke then must have been well over 3(MMJ people - 80 or 90 per square mile as against a Domesday average of 6.2.
Domesday allows us to look closer at such people. At the time of the survey, the local courts of the Bolingbroke anil Candleshoe wapentakes had to testify in a dispute between a native Lincolnshire family and a Norman newcomer, Eudo. The family owned a dozen or more estates in the Horncastle and Bolingbroke area and lands in Candleshoc including salt-pans at Wainfleet.
Before 1066, Domesday reveals, the father of the family was one Godwin, whose kinsmen (brothers?) were called Tochi, Godric and Gunnewate. The local jurors 'testified that before 1066 [Godwin's sons ≡ Siwate, Alnod, Fenchel and Aschil

'Siwate, Alnod, Fenchel and Aschil divided the land of their father equally, and they held in such wise that if there were need for attendance in the king's host and Siwate could go, his brothers were to aid him [with money and provisions]; and on the next occasion another brother was to go and Siwate like the rest was to help him; and so on down the list; but Siwate was the king's man.'

divided their fathers land amongst them equally and share and share alike, and held it in such a manner that if there were a call to the Kings army, and Siwate could go, the other brothers assisted him ....'
Searching through the Lincolnshire folios, it is possible to identify the brothers' main holdings - Alnod (Alfnoth) at Mavis Enderby and Raithby; Aschil at Spilsby and Eresby; Fenchel at Scremby in Candleshoe; Siwate at East Keal. The Domesday appendix on disputes shows what took place when the circuit examiners heard the brothers' case before the courts of the wapentakes at Old Bolingbroke and Candlesby:' The wapentake bears witness that the bishop of Durham ought to have the land of three brothers with sake and soke [the right to administer justice), and Eudo son of Spirewic the land of the fourth brother with sake and soke likewise. Their names are Siwate, Alnod, Fenchel and Aschil.'
So the family lost the rights to their hereditary land. The tale comes out clear in Domesday's description of Scremby in Candleshoe, where Fenchel had farmed one carucate of land: 'The same man now holds it from the bishop of Durham with one plough team there on the lord's land and four villeins ploughing with five oxen.' Domesday's evidence for Bolingbroke gives us a picture of a society which before 1066 had a large and growing population, remarkably densely settled; a society whose ordinary landholders, the sokemen, enjoyed particular freedom; a society which practised an equitable form of partible inheritance; a society marked by economic growth, rising land values and new building, as instanced in the churches. This picture is consistent with Domesday statistics through much of East Anglia and Lincolnshire.
Over a wide area of eastern England sokemen amounted to over one third of the population, in many places to half, especially in the wapentakes of Ludborough, Bolingbroke and Louth Eske, from where in the two centuries after Domesday Book there is better evidence for the existence of a large free peasant population than from anywhere in the Danelaw, if not in all England - indeed perhaps much wider afield than that. For these areas, there survive literally hundreds of twelfth- and thirteenth-century grants of small parcels of land being conveyed by so-called 'peasants' using the charter and a personal seal, and thirteenth- and fourteenth-century surveys reveal large numbers of free smallholders with no relative decline in numbers since Domesday. The grants are particularly interesting evidence; a century after Domesday the sokemen and women of that survey are clearly engaged in a flourishing land market which they themselves control. A charter from Kirkstead Abbey in Lincolnshire, now in the British Library; records:

Let it be noted by all who hear or read this charter, that I, Henry, son of Tovi of Askeby (West Ashby, Lincolnshire), concede and give, and with this charter confirm to God and St. Mary Kirkstead (the donors local abbey) at the above mentioned place in pure and perpetual alms one acre, and a quarter acre of arable. And they lie in these places, to whit, first, on the west side of the village the plot I have above Theny next to Edric's land; secondly, on the other side of the village the strip two perches wide between the two ways, next to Eudo son of Norman's land; with pasture appurtenant to so much land. This honour I and my heirs warrant to the aforesaid monks against all men in perpetuity, so that they will have and hold it freely and released from all earthly service, custom and exaction. Witnessed by William, chaplain of Ashby, Roger, son of Norman of Ashby, Walo of Ashby, Henry son of Eudo; Simon of Kirkstead.

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Quelle: Michael Wood, The Domesday Quest: In search of the Roots of England, S 153ff. anzusehen bei: https://books.google.at/books?id=eF8dUgIxse0C&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=Siwate+Fenchel&source=bl&ots=iGjI112pmN&sig=ACfU3U1h8wl1g0jIkGsSUUXifQLi80pcRA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjK2bnytf7vAhVjgf0HHbY2BtgQ6AEwDXoECAEQAw#v=onepage&q=Tateshale&f=false

[58] The process can be directly observed in the Lincolnshire Domesday. The estate of Godwin (Godwine 'of West Keal', Goduinus in 1066), which had the same structure as the soke of Bolingbroke, was divided between his sons ≡ Siwate

SIGHWAT HOLDS IT. The Domesday forms of this name - Siuuate, Siuuat - represent Old Swedish Sighwat, Old Norse Sighvatr: von Feilitzen, Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, p. 363. In the printed Phillimore edition the forms Siwat (NTT, OXF) and Sighvatr (LIN) are used; they have now been standardized as Sighwat. The Alecto edition has Sighwat for the T.R.E. holders, Siwate here for the only 1086 tenant. This is the only occurrence of this name in Domesday Nottinghamshire.
Q: content.rtf, Version 1a, S. 6,10, zu: http://domesday.pase.ac.uk/Domesday?op=5&personkey=49698 ; Annotzations and Corrections oa: Sawyer, P. H. (1956), 'The place-names of the Domesday manuscripts',

, Alnod, Fenchel, and Aschil (Lincs. DB, 69/38; 70/30). Siwate 'was the king's man', and his land passed to Eudo son of Spirewic with sake and soke.
The bishop of Durham succeeded to the rest, likewise with sake and soke.
Godwin almost certainly held the same liberties, although the fact is not explicit in the text, and it seems likely that the division of the estate in such a way that it passed to two Norman tenants-in-chief was only possible because of these privileges.

There was probably some arrangement like the division of Siwate's estate in the wapentake of Horncastle: his demesne land was shared by his three sons Harold, Godevert, and Alfric, but the soke was only divided between two of them. Subsequently, the estate passed to two tenants-in-chief (Lincs. DB, 3/10; 29/1; 69/20-1). By way of contrast, the four manors of Ingemund and his brothers were probably not held with sake and soke - enrolled in one entry, they were presumably the right of an overlord (see chapter 4) - and therefore all went to Count Alan (Lincs. DB, 12/31; 70/26). David Roffe, PhD: Soke,title, the origins of manors. in: http://www.roffe.co.uk/phd/phd050.htm, Fußnote 58. [accessed 14.04.2021]

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Zur Angel-Sächsischen Zeit, unter Alfred, war der Grundbesitz als Lehen an den Kriegsdienst gebunden: 1 voll ausgestatteter Ritter mit zwei Pferden pro 5 hidas.
Lavell berichtet ebenso von Siwate:
We have already seen that the warrior-representative of the five-hide unit was not chosen by rotation, but was specially designated. The same man would normally serve on all campaigns, and it is to him that the military summons would go. Thus, Siwate and his three brothers inherited their fathers estate in Lincolnshire, dividing it equally among them. In the event of a military expedition, Siwate normally served as the warrior-representative of the estate, his brothers giving him financial support on the pattern of the Berkshire system.
Should Siwate be unable to go, one of his brothers served, and Siwate and the others aided him. But the passage concludes with the specific statement that Siwate was the king's man.'4' Was Siwate a thegn? So it would seem, but if he was, then the passage proves that all landed thegns did not serve in the army. For by the eleventh century thegnhood was hereditary and Siwate's brothers would be thegns as well as he.144 In any event, Siwate was the specified warrior representative o f his estate, and therefore would receive the summons and, if necessary, pay the fyrdwite. Yet it is perfectly evident that Siwate's obligation was based on his land rather than his rank in society—it was territorial rather than personal.14' Again, two brothers, Chetel and Turuer, divided their father's Lincolnshire estate in such a way that Chetel normally performed military service and Turuer supported him financially.146 DB Lincs. CS 38 (fol. 37$d):'Siuuate et Alnod et Fenchel er Anschil equaliter et pari liter diuiserunt inter se ter ram patris sui, TRE, et ita tenuerunt ut si opus fuit expeditione Regis et Siuuate potuit ire, alii fraters iuuerunt cum. Post istum, iuit alter, et Siuuate cum reliquis iuuit cum, et six de omnibus. Siuuate tamcn fuit homo Regis.' ['Siwate ( = Sighvatr), Alnoth, Fenkell and Eskil equally and jointly divided between themselves the land o f their father TRE and held it in such a way that if work was necessary for a royal expedition and Siwate could go, the other brothers helped him. After him, another went and Siwate, with the rest, helped him; and so on with them all. However, Siwate was the King's man.'] Quelle: Alfred`s Wars: Sources and Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the Viking Age (Warfare in History) Englisch Ausgabe | von Ryan Lavelle