While researching my family history i came across a document telling of the land one of my ancestors occupied. The text is as follows "Alured de Merleberge holds the Castle of Ewias from William the King. (The King himself granted to him the lands which William the Earl, who had re-strengthened this castle, had given to him.) That is to say, 5 carucates of land there, and at Manitone other 5 carucates. The king granted to him also the land of Radolfus de Bernai, which land belonged to the castle. There he had in demesne 2 ploughs and 9 Welshmen with 6 ploughs rendering 7 sextaries of honey and 12 borders working one day in every week. There are 4 cowherds and 1 "man" rendering 6 pence. His five knights, Richard, Gilbert, William, and William and Harnold, have 5 ploughs in demesne and 12 borders and 3 fisheries and 22 acres of meadows. Two others, William and Radolfus, hold land for 2 ploughs. Turstin holds land rendering 19d and Warnerius land of 5s. They have 5 borders. This Castle of Ewias is worth £10.[2] He had a daughter Agnes, to whom he gave a large tract of land, supposedly as a wedding present.[3] In Radelaw Hundred the same Alured holds Cuure. Earl Harold held it. There are 15 hides paying geld, but King William acquitted 6 hides from payment of geld. Agnes, daughter of Alured, the wife of Turstin de Wigemore, holds this Manor. In demesne there are 2 ploughs, and a priest and a bailiff and 26 villeins and 8 borders. Amongst them all they have 32 ploughs. There are four serfs and a smith, and the meadow and wood renders nothing, and one hide of this land lies in the King's Wood. In the time of King Edward, the third penny from the three hundred belonged to this Manor. Now it is taken away--Then it was worth £25, now 100 shillings less.[4] The great Earl William who granted land at Wigemore Castle to Turstin, and Ewias Castle to Alured de Merleberge, was killed in a battle in Flanders in 1070, and his son Roger succeeded him as earl of Hereford. Tile latter with his brother-in-law, the Earl of Norfolk, rebelled against King William. For this act his hand was forfeited and he died in prison. As above shown, the king re-granted Ewias to De Merleberge, while Wigemore was granted to Ralf de Mortimer" i am very curious as to what some of these norman terms mean such as borders villeins ploughs andsextaries. I would love if a historian could explain these norman conquest terms.
Giving the context, borders there are bordarii, an ill-defined category of poor but free (altough often lumped with villani by the XIIth century) peasantry found in Normandy and Western France in general and mentioned in the Doomsday Book in England after the Norman conquest.
Bordarii (you can also find the french equivalent bordiers) are characterized by a tenure called bordage, seemingly more limited in size than villains' (generally one to two acres^(1) in contemporary Normandy, sometimes up to 6, compared to 30 acres for villains, considered enough to feed a family) and were still to provide a corvee for the estate.
They were much more present in England than in Normandy by the late century, bordarii and cotarii, representing nearly 30% of tenants. It's quite possible that it was a "Normandisation" of late Anglo-Saxons status (cotsetlas and geburs) that didn't entierely fit continental statutes, and the term eventually disappeared in England, being mixed with cottarii.
Basically, borders would be poor manual labourers, technically free but tied to the estate by a set of obligations, without enough land to feed a family (and thus directly depending on the lord for subsistance).
Villeins, there, are villains, a semi-free peasantry tied to the land but with significantly more important tenure allowing them to feed directly their family, probably descending from late Anglo-Saxons ceorls, but still having to provide work for the estate in addition of part of their harvest.
^(1) Acres in Normandy were more important than in England roughly by a 1/3 (making the maximum tenure in England by 5 to 8 acres)
- L'organisation seigneuriale dans les possessions anglaises et normandes de l'abbaye de la Trinité de Caen au XIIe siècle : étude comparée. ; Letouzey-Réty Catherine. In: Annales de Normandie, 55ᵉ année, n°4, 2005. pp. 291-332.