A Short History of English Agriculture | Page 5

Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and
Northamptonshire. It is not easy to draw the line between them, but the
chief distinction lay in the latter being more burdened with service and
customary dues and more especially subject to the jurisdictional
authority of the lord.[22] They were both free, but both rendered
services to the lord for their land. Both the freemen and the slaves by
1086 were rapidly decreasing in number.
The most numerous class[23] on the manors was the third, that of the
villeins or non-free tenants, who held their land by payment of services
to the lord. The position of the villein under the feudal system is most
complicated. He both was and was not a freeman. He was absolutely at
the disposal of the lord, who could sell him with his tenement, and he
could not leave his land without his lord's permission. He laboured
under many disabilities, such as the merchet or fine for marrying his
daughter, and fines for selling horse or ox. On the other hand, he was

free against every one but his lord, and even against the lord was
protected from the forfeiture of his 'wainage' or instruments of labour
and from injury to life and limb.[24]
His usual holding was a virgate of 30 acres of arable, though the virgate
differed in size even in the same manors; but in addition to this he
would have his meadow land and his share in the common pasture and
wood, altogether about 100 acres of land. For this he rendered the
following services to the lord of the manor:
1. Week work, or labour on the lord's demesne for two or three days a
week during most of the year, and four or five days in summer. It was
not always the villein himself, however, who rendered these services,
he might send his son or even a hired labourer; and it was the holding
and not the holder that was considered primarily responsible for the
rendering of services.[25]
2. Precarii or boon days: that is, work generally during harvest, at the
lord's request, sometimes instead of week work, sometimes in addition.
3. Gafol or tribute: fixed payments in money or kind, and such services
as 'fold soke', which forced the tenants' sheep to lie on the lord's land
for the sake of the manure; and suit of mill, by which the tenant was
bound to grind his corn in the lord's mill.
With regard to the 'boon days' in harvest, it should be remembered that
harvest time in the Middle Ages was a most important event.
Agriculture was the great industry, and when the corn was ripe the
whole village turned out to gather it, the only exceptions being the
housewives and sometimes the marriageable daughters. Even the larger
towns suspended work that the townsmen might assist in the harvest,
and our long vacation was probably intended originally to cover the
whole work of gathering in the corn and hay. On the occasion of the
'boon-day' work, the lord usually found food for the labourers which,
the Inquisition of Ardley[26] tells us, might be of the following
description: for two men, porridge of beans and peas and two loaves,
one white, the other of 'mixtil' bread; that is, wheat, barley, and rye
mixed together, with a piece of meat, and beer for their first meal. Then

in the evening they had a small loaf of mixtil bread and two 'lescas' of
cheese. While harvest work was going on the better-off tenants, usually
the free ones, were sometimes employed to ride about, rod in hand,
superintending the others.
The services of the villeins were often very comprehensive, and even
included such tasks as preparing the lord's bath; but on some manors
their services were very light.[27] When the third of the above
obligations, the gafol or tribute, was paid in kind it was most
commonly made in corn; and next came honey, one of the most
important articles of the Middle Ages, as it was used for both lighting
and sweetening purposes. Ale was also common, and poultry and eggs,
and sometimes the material for implements.
These obligations were imposed for the most part on free and unfree
tenants alike, though those of the free were much lighter than those of
the unfree; the chief difference between the two, as far as tenure of the
land went, lay in the fact that the former could exercise proprietary
rights over his holding more or less freely, the latter had none.[28] It
seems very curious to the modern mind that the villein, a man who
farmed about 100 acres of land, should have been in such a servile
condition.
The amount of work due from each villein came to be fixed by the
extent or survey of the manor, but the