Now, in these manors, the central feature would be the dwelling of the lord, or manor-house. It was substantially built and served as a court-house for the sittings of the court baron and the court leet. If the lord did not live in it, his bailiff did so, and perhaps the lord would come occasionally himself to hold these courts, or his bailiff might preside. Near the manor-house generally stood the church, often large for the size of the village, because the nave was frequently used as a town-hall for meetings or for markets. Then there would be the house of the priest, possibly in the demesne; and after these two the most important building was the mill, which, if there was a stream, would be placed on its banks in order to use the water-power. The rest of the tenants generally inhabited the principal street or road of the village, near the stream, if one ran through the place. The average population of an eleventh-century village must have been about 150 persons. The houses of these villages were poor and dirty, not always made of stone, and never (till the fifteenth century) of brick, but built of posts wattled and plastered with clay or mud, with an upper story of poles reached by a ladder. The articles of furniture would be very coarse and few, being necessarily of home manufacture; a few rafters or poles overhead, a bacon-rack, and agricultural tools being the most conspicuous objects. Chimneys were unknown, except in the manor-houses, and so too were windows, and the floor was of bare earth. Outside the door was the "mixen," a collection of every kind of manure and refuse, which must have rendered the village street alike unsavoury, unsightly, and unwhole

some.

It is necessary, in order to complete our sketch of the manorial system from the time of the Conquest onwards, to understand how the land was divided up. We may say that there were seven kinds of land altogether. (1) First came the lord's land round about the manor-house, the demesne land, which was strictly his own, and generally cultivated in early times by himself or his bailiff. All other land held by tenants was called land in villenage. (2) Next came the arable land of the village, held by the tenants in common fields. Now these fields were all divided up into many strips, and tenants held their strips generally in quite different places, all mixed up in any order. The lord and the parson might also have a few strips in Adapted by permission from H. de B. Gibbins, Industry in England, pp. 80-85. (Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1896.)

these fields. There were at least three fields, in order to allow the rotation of crops. Each tenant held his strip only till harvest, after which all fences and divisions were taken away, and the cattle turned out to feed on the stubble. (3) Thirdly came the common pasture, for all the tenants. But each tenant was restricted or stinted in the number of cattle that he might pasture, lest he should put on too many, and thus not leave enough food for his neighbours' cattle. Sometimes, however, we find pasture without stint, as in Port Meadow at Oxford to this day. (4) Then comes the forest or woodland, as in Estone, which belonged to the lord, who owned all the timber. But the tenants had rights, such as the right of lopping and topping certain trees, collecting fallen branches for fuel, and the right of "pannage," i.e., of turning cattle, especially swine, into the woods to pick up what food they could. (5) There was also in most manors what is called waste, i.e., uncultivated land, affording rough pasture, and on which the tenants had the right of cutting turf and bracken for fuel and fodder. Then near the stream there would be perhaps some (6) meadow land, as at Cuxham, but this generally belonged to the lord, who, if he let it out, always charged an extra rent (and often a very high one), for it was very valuable as affording a good supply of hay for the winter. Lastly, if the tenant could afford it and wanted to have other land besides the common fields, where he could let his cattle lie, or to cultivate the ground more carefully, he could occupy (7) a close, or a portion of land specially marked off and let separately. The lord always had a close on his demesne, and the chief tenants would generally have one or two as well. The close land was of course rented more highly than land in the common fields.

Such, then, was the manorial village and the manorial system generally in the eleventh century, and thus it lasted for two or three centuries more. But in the course of time it died out, though survivals of it last even to our own day.

19. A DIAGRAM OF A MANOR1

Suggestion of village with three fields divided into furlongs and acres: the 30 black acres represent one virgate

20. THE VILLAIN AND THE FREEMAN2

The outward similarity in the thirteenth century between the condition of the small freeholders and that of the villains was very great. Side by side they often worked together on the lord's demesne, or performed the duties of the manorial court, or assisted each other

Taken by permission from Henry Allsopp, An Introduction to English Industrial History, opposite p. 1. (G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., 1912.)

2 Adapted by permission from T. W. Page, "The End of Villainage in England," Publications of the American Economic Association, 3d Ser., Vol. I (1900), 298-314.

in the cultivation of their own holdings. It is true that in most cases the services of the freeholders were lighter than those of the villains; sometimes, indeed, they performed none at all, but very often the labor supplied and the dues paid by the members of the two classes differed neither in quantity nor quality, so that to distinguish the status of these sons of toil, whose lives ran so nearly in the same channel, was no easy matter. And yet a difference of condition there was: The essence of villain status consisted in the subjection of the person and the personalty of the villain to the uncertain will of his lord, a subjection that manifested itself in three ways.

First, the villain was bound to remain on the manor till his lord consented to his departure.

Second, he was bound to render service to his lord in the manner and to the amount that his lord should command.

Third, he was bound to surrender to his lord any or all of his personalty, if his lord saw fit to seize it.

It is true that in the thirteenth century this subjection was in large measure limited by the custom of the manor, but there still remained a considerable uncertainty as to the disposal the lord might make of his villain's person and possessions. So long as this uncertainty existed, it was impossible for the king's court to determine the degree of a villain's subjection; and, as a consequence of extreme importance the only protection against his lord that the law of the realm afforded him was protection "in life and limb." His lord might not kill him nor maim him, but he might beat him, confine him, eject him from house and home, or otherwise dispose of his person as caprice dictated, and the law would afford no remedy. In spite of the outward similarity, therefore, between the condition of many freemen on the manor and that of villains, the difference between them in reality was great.

Of the three obligations perhaps the most important was the villain's obligation to remain on the manor. He was adscriptus glebae, bound to the soil. It does not seem, however, to have been very difficult in the latter part of the thirteenth century for a villain to obtain the necessary permission if he wished to go away. A small payment, known as "chivage" or "head-money" would suffice to secure the lord's consent. The pettiness of the sums paid as chivage shows that as a rule the restrictions imposed by his status on a villain's freedom of movement were almost nominal; the real restriction

at that time was of an economic nature and consisted in a lack of demand for his labor elsewhere.

On the third of the villain's obligations the effect of the manorial custom was in many respects analogous to its effects on the others. As he was denied by common law all freedom of movement, so also he was denied all freedom to dispose of his possessions. It is true that in relation to all men except his lord he was treated as if he were free; in actions concerning his possessions third persons had to deal with him as if he were the owner of them. But according to the law of the realm he had no property rights whatsoever that his lord was bound to respect. Whatever the villain possessed belonged to his lord; whatever he produced or acquired he produced or acquired for his lord, provided that his lord chose to seize it. If the villain by any means came into possession of a freehold, it might be seized by his lord; if he received chattels through purchase, gift, or bequest, his lord might claim them as his own. If the villain squandered or alienated his goods and chattels without permission, he was liable to punishment on the ground that he was wasting his lord's property. Such was the law; but in practice we find the villains buying and selling, holding and enjoying the goods of this world with little interference on the part of their lords. Some of them even acquired considerable wealth, as is shown by their being able to purchase from their lords important rights and exemptions, such as freedom from laboring on the demesne or freedom from suit of court or the lord's promise that they should not be compelled to take an undesirable holding. Had the practice conformed to law, the lord might have seized the purchase money without granting such privileges in return for it.

In reality the occasions on which a lord might seize his villain's goods were fixed on each manor by custom, a custom that was seldom transgressed. If the lord did transgress it, however, the villain had no legal remedy; so far as the king's courts were concerned he was utterly unprotected in the possession of his goods.

Now, although the customs of different manors were set at variance on many points, they were very generally in agreement as to the occasions when the lord might seize the villain's goods. It might be done, as one would naturally suppose, in the event of any grave violation of the custom by the villain himself, as, for example, his refusal to perform the labor he owed, or his denial that he was the lord's villain, or his continued absence from the manor without permission.