In the feudal hierarchy established following the Norman Conquest and documented extensively in the Domesday Book of 1086, the cottar (or cotarius) occupied a socio-economic stratum above the absolute slave but below the more affluent villeins and bordars. Unlike the villein, who might hold thirty acres of land in the open-field system, the cottar typically possessed only a small cottage and a tiny parcel of land, often less than five acres. This insufficient acreage meant they could not sustain a family through subsistence farming alone, forcing them to provide labor to the manorial lord or wealthier tenants as a means of survival.
From an administrative and legal perspective, the cottar was 'ascriptus glebae', bound to the manor and subject to the jurisdiction of the manorial court. Their labor services were generally less regulated than the formal 'week-work' of the villeinage, often consisting of irregular day labor or specialized tasks. While they lacked the heraldic status or knightly rank of the nobility, their presence was essential to the manorial economy, filling the gap between the landed peasantry and the landless laborers. Over the subsequent centuries, the distinction between cottars and bordars blurred, eventually evolving into the broader class of agricultural laborers following the decline of serfdom.