Villainage in England: Essays in English Mediaeval History

History of free peasantry.

This being so, we may expect to find some traces of the gradual spread of serfdom in the subdivisions of that comprehensive class called villainage. And, indeed, there are unmistakable signs of the fact that the flood was rising slowly and swamping the several groups of the peasantry which hitherto had been of very various conditions. The Domesday classification will have to be discussed by itself, but it may be noticed even now that its fundamental features are the distinction between serfs and villains, and the very limited number of these first. Judging by this, the bulk of the peasantry was not considered unfree. The inference is corroborated for the epoch of the early Norman kings by the laws of Henry I, in which the villain is still treated on the same footing as the ceorl of Saxon times, is deemed 'worthy of his were and of his wite,' and is called as a free man to the hundred court, although not a landlord, 'terrarum dominus.' The hundredors of later times kept up the tradition: degraded in many ways, they were still considered as representatives of a free population. Ancient demesne tenure is another proof of the same freedom in villainage; it is protected though base, and supposes independent rights on the part of the peasantry. The position of the group of socmen outside the ancient demesne points the same way: their tenure is originally nothing more and nothing less than a customary freehold or a free copyhold, if one may say so. The law of Kent is constructed on this very basis: it is the law of free ceorls subjected to a certain manorial authority which has not been able to strike very deep roots in this soil.

But the general current went steadily against the peasantry. The disruption of political unity at the time of the great civil war, and the systematic resumption of royal rights by Henry II, must have led to a settlement which impaired the social standing of the villain in the sense of feudal law. The immediate connexion between the lower class and the royal power could not be kept up during the troubled reign of Stephen, when England all but lapsed into the political dismemberment of the neighbouring continental states. Government and law were restored by Henry II, but he had to set a limit to his sphere of action in order that within that sphere he might act efficiently. The very growth of the great system of royal writs necessitated the drawing a sharp line between the people admitted to use them and those excluded from this benefit. One part of the revolution effected by the development of royal jurisdiction is very noticeable in our documents: the struggle between king and magnates as to the right of judging freeholders has left many traces, of which the history of the 'breve quod vocatur praecipe' is perhaps the most remarkable. But the victorious progress of royal jurisdiction in regard to freeholders was counterbalanced by an all but complete surrender of it in regard to villains. The celebrated tit. 29 of William the Conqueror's laws providing that the cultivators of the land are not to be subjected to new exactions, had lost its sense in the reign of Henry II, and so soon as it was settled that one class of tenants was to be protected, while another was to be unprotected in the king's court, the lawyers set themselves thinking over the problem of a definite and plain division of classes. Their work in this direction bears all the marks of a fresh departure. They are wavering between the formal and the material test: instead of setting up at once the convenient doctrine that villainage is proved by stock, and that in regard to service and tenure the question is decided by their certainty or uncertainty, they try for a long time to shape conclusive rules as to the kind of services and incidents which imply villainage, and for a time distinction between rural labour and rent becomes especially important.

On the whole, I think that an analysis of the legal and manorial evidence belonging to the feudal age leads forcibly to the conclusion that the general classification of society under the two heads of freeholders and villains is an artificial and a late one. A number of important groups appear between the two, and if we try to reduce them to some unity, we may say that a third class is formed by customary freeholders. Another way of stating the same thing would be to say, that the feudal notion of a freehold from which the modern notion has developed must be supplemented from the point of view of the historian by a more ancient form which is hidden, as it were, inside the class distinction of villainage. By the side of the freeholder recognised by later law there stands the villain as a customary freeholder who has lost legal protection. I do not think that the problems resulting from the ambiguous position of the feudal villain can be solved better than on the supposition of this 'third estate.'

SECOND ESSAY.

THE MANOR AND THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY

CHAPTER I.

THE OPEN FIELD SYSTEM AND THE HOLDINGS

Structure of the manor.

My first essay has been devoted to the peasantry of feudal England in its social character. We have had to examine its classes or divisions in their relation to freedom, personal slavery, and praedial serfage. The land system was touched upon only so far as it influenced such classification, or was influenced by it.

But no correct estimate of the social standing of the peasantry can stop here, or content itself with legal or administrative definitions. In no degree of society do men stand isolated, and a description of individual status alone would be thoroughly incomplete. Men stand arranged in groups for economical and political co-operation, and these groups are composed according to the laws of the division and hierarchical organisation of labour, composed, that is, of heterogeneous elements, of members who have to fulfil different functions, and to occupy higher and lower positions. The normal group which forms as it were the constitutive cell of English mediaeval society is the manor, and we must try to make out in what way it was organised, and how it did its work in the thirteenth century, at the time of fully developed feudalism.

The structure of the ordinary manor is always the same. Under the headship of the lord we find two layers of population—the villains and the freeholders; and the territory occupied divides itself accordingly into demesne land450 and 'tributary land' (if I may use that phrase) of two different classes. The cultivation of the demesne depends to a certain extent on the work supplied by the tenants of the tributary land. Rents are collected, labour supervised, and all kinds of administrative business transacted, by a set of manorial officers or servants. The entire population is grouped into a village community which centres round the manorial court or halimote, which is both council and tribunal. My investigation will necessarily conform to this typical arrangement. The holding of the peasant is the natural starting-point: it will give us the clue to the whole agrarian system. Next may come that part of the territory which is not occupied in severalty but used in common. The agrarian obligations with regard to the lord and the cultivation of the demesne land may be taken up afterwards. The position of privileged people, either servants or freeholders, must be discussed by itself, as an exceptional case. And, lastly, the question will have to be put—to what extent were all these elements welded together in the village community, and under the sway of the manorial court?

Field systems.

The chief features of the field-system which was in operation in England during the middle ages have been sufficiently cleared up by modern scholars, especially by Nasse, Thorold Rogers, and Seebohm, and there is no need for dwelling at length on the subject. Everybody knows that the arable of an English village was commonly cultivated under a three years rotation of crops451; a two-field system is also found very often452; there are some instances of more complex arrangements453, but they are very rare, and appear late—not earlier than the fourteenth century. Walter of Henley's treatise on farming, which appears to belong to the first half of the thirteenth, mentions only the first two systems, and its estimate of the plough-land is based on them. In the case of a three-field rotation a hundred and eighty acres are reckoned to the plough; a hundred and sixty in a system of two courses454. We find the same estimate in the chapters on husbandry and management of an estate which are inserted in the law-book known as Fleta455. The strips in the fields belonging to the several tenants were divided by narrow balks of turf, and when the field lay fallow, or after the harvest had been removed, the entire field was turned into a common pasture for the use of the village cattle. The whole area was protected by an inclosure while it was under crop.

Inhoke.

A curious deviation is apparent in the following instance, taken from the cartulary of Malmesbury. The Abbey makes an exchange with a neighbour who has rights of common on some of the convent's land, and therefore does not allow of its being cultivated and inclosed (inhoc facere). In return for certain concessions on the part of the Abbey, this neighbouring owner agrees that fallow pasture should be turned into arable on the condition that after the harvest it should return to common use, as well as the land not actually under seed. Lastly comes a provision about the villains of the person entering into agreement with the Abbey: if they do not want to conform to the new arrangement of cultivation, they will be admitted to their strips for the purpose of ploughing up or using the fallow456. The case is interesting in two respects: it shows the intimate connexion between the construction of the inclosure (inhoc) and the raising of the crop; the special paragraph about the villains gives us to understand that something more than the usual rotation of crops was meant: the 'inhokare' appears in opposition either to the ordinary ploughing up of the fallow, or in a general sense to its use for pasture; it seems to indicate extra-cultivation of such land as ought to have remained uncultivated. These considerations are borne out by other documents. In a trial of Edward I's time the 'inheche' is explained in as many words as the ploughing up of fallow for a crop of wheat, oats, or barley457. The Gloucester Survey, in describing one of the manors belonging to the Abbey, arranges its land into four fields (campi), each consisting of several parts: the first field is said to contain 174 acres, the second 63, the third 109, the fourth 69 acres. Two-thirds of the whole are subjected to the usual modes of cultivation under a three-course system, and one-third remains for pasture. But out of this last third, 40 acres of the first field (of 174 acres) get inclosed and used for crop in one year, and 20 acres of the second in another458. In this way the ordinary three-course alternation becomes somewhat more complicated, and it will be hardly too bold a guess to suppose that such extra-cultivation implied some manuring of such patches as were deprived of their usual rest once in three years. In contradiction to the customary arrangement which did not require any special manuring except that which was incident to the use of arable as pasture for the cattle after the harvest, we find plots set apart for more intense cultivation459, and it is to be noticed that the reckoning in connexion with them does not start from the division according to three parts, but supposes a separate classification in two sections.

The 'Campus.'

Another fact worth noticing in the Gloucester instance is the irregular distribution of acres in the 'fields,' and the division of the entire arable into four unequal parts. The husbandry is conducted on the three-course system, and still four fields are mentioned, and there is no simple relation between the number of acres which they respectively contain (174, 63, 109, 69). It seems obvious that the expression 'field' (campus) is used here not in the ordinary sense suggested by such records as spring-field, winter-field, and the like, but in reference to the topography of the district. The whole territory under cultivation was divided into a number of squares or furlongs which lay round the village in four large groups. The alternation of crops distributed the same area into three according to a mode not described by the Survey, and it looks probable at first glance that each of the 'fields' (campi) contained elements of all three courses. The supposition becomes a certainty, if we reflect that it gives the only possible explanation of the way in which the twofold alternation of the 'inhoc' is made to fit with the threefold rotation of crops: every year some of the land in each campus had to remain in fallow, and could be inclosed or taken under 'inhoc.' Had the campus as a whole been reserved for one of the three courses, there would have been room for the 'inhoc' only every three years.

I have gone into some details in connexion with this instance because it presents a deviation from ordinary rules, and even a deviation from the usual phraseology, and it is probable that the exceptional use of words depended on the exceptional process of farming. A new species of arable—the manured plot under 'inhoc'—came into use, and naturally disturbed the plain arrangement of the old-fashioned three courses; the lands had to be grouped anew into four sections which went under the accustomed designation of 'fields,' although they did not fit in with the 'three fields' of the old system. In most cases, however, our records use the word 'field' (campus) in that very sense of land under one of the 'courses,' which is out of the question in the case taken from the Gloucester Cartulary. The common use is especially clear when the documents want to describe the holding of a person, and mention the number of acres in each 'field,' The Abbot of Malmesbury, e.g., enfeoffs one Robert with a virgate formerly held 'in the fields' by A., twenty-one acres in one field and twenty-one in another460. The charter does not contain any description of campi in the territorial sense, and it is evident that the expression 'in the fields' is meant to indicate a customary and well-known husbandry arrangement. The same meaning must be put on sentences like the following—R.A. holds a virgate consisting of forty-two acres in both fields461. The question may be raised whether we have to look for 'both fields' in the winter and spring-field of the three courses rotation, or in the arable and fallow of the two courses. In the first of these eventualities, the third reserved for pasture and rest would be left out of the reckoning; it would be treated as an appurtenance of the land that was in cultivation. Cases in which the portions in the several fields are unequal seem to point to the second sense462. It was impossible to divide the whole territory under cultivation like a piece of paper: conformation of the soil had, of course, much to do with the shape of the furlongs and their distribution, and the courses of the husbandry could not impress themselves on it without some inequalities and stray remnants. It may happen for this reason that a man holds sixteen acres in one field and fourteen in the other. There is almost always, however, a certain correspondence between the number of acres in each field; instances of very great disparity are rare, and suppose some local and special reasons which we cannot trace. Such disparities seem to point, however, to a rotation according to two courses, because the fallow of the three courses could have been left out of the reckoning only if all the parts in the fields were equal463. I think that a careful inspection of the surveys from this point of view may lead to the conclusion that the two courses rotation was very extensively spread in England in the thirteenth century.

Compulsory rotation of crops.

A most important feature of the mediaeval system of tillage was its compulsory character. The several tenants, even when freeholders, could not manage their plots at their own choice464. The entire soil of the township formed one whole in this respect, and was subjected to the management of the entire village. The superior right of the community found expression in the fact that the fields were open to common use as pasture after the harvest, as well as in the regulation of the modes of farming and order of tillage by the township. Even the lord himself had to conform to the customs and rules set up by the community, and attempts to break through them, although they become frequent enough at the close of the thirteenth century, and especially in the fourteenth, are met by a resistance which sometimes actually leads to litigation465. The freeholders alone have access to the courts, but in practice the entire body of the tenantry is equally concerned. The passage towards more efficient modes of cultivation was very much obstructed by these customary rules as to rotation of crops, which flow not from the will and interest of single owners, but from the decision of communities.

Intermixture of strips.

The several plots and holdings do not lie in compact patches, but are formed of strips intermixed with each other. The so-called open-field system has been treated so exhaustively and with such admirable clearness by Seebohm, that I need not detain my readers in order to discuss it at length. I shall merely take from the Eynsham Cartulary the general description of the arable of Shifford, Oxon. It consists of several furlongs or areas, more or less rectangular in shape; each furlong divided into a certain number of strips (seliones), mostly half an acre or a rood (quarter acre) in width; some of these strips get shortened, however (seliones curtae), or sharpened (gorae), according to the shape of the country. At right angles with the strips in the fields lie the 'headlands' (capitales), which admit to other strips when there is no special road for the purpose466. When the area under tillage abuts against some obstacles, as against a highway, a river, a neighbouring furlong, the strips are stunted (buttae). Every strip is separated from the next by balks on even ground, and linches on the steep slopes of a hill. The holding of a peasant, free or villain, has been appropriately likened to a bundle of these strips of different shapes, the component parts of which lie intermixed with the elements of other holdings in the different fields of the township. There is e.g. in the Alvingham Cartulary a deed by which John Aysterby grants to the Priory of Alvingham in Lincolnshire his villain Robert and half a bovate of land467. The half-bovate is found to consist of twelve strips west of Alvingham and sixteen strips east of the village; the several plots lie among similar plots owned by the priory and by other peasants. The demesne land of the priory is also situated not in compact areas, but in strips intermixed with those of the tenantry, in the 'communal fields' according to the phraseology of our documents.

Such a distribution of the arable seems odd enough. It led undoubtedly to very great inconvenience in many ways: it was difficult for the owner to look after his property in the several fields, and to move constantly from one place to another for the purposes of cultivation. A thrifty husbandman was more or less dependent for the results of his work on his neighbours, who very likely were not thrifty. The strips were not always measured with exactness468, and our surveys mention curious misunderstandings in this respect: it happens that as much as three acres belonging to a particular person get mislaid somehow and cannot be identified469. It is needless to say that disputes among the neighbours were rendered especially frequent by the rough way of dividing the strips, and by the cutting up of the holdings into narrow strips involving a very long line of boundary. And still the open-field system, with the intermixed strips, is quite a prevalent feature of mediaeval husbandry all over Europe. It covers the whole area occupied by the village community; it is found in Russia as well as in England.

Division of the land in Segheho.

Before we try to find an explanation for it, I shall call the attention of the reader to the following tale preserved by an ancient survey of Dunstable Priory. I think that the record may suggest the explanation with the more authority as it will proceed from well-established facts and not from suppositions470. The story goes back to the original division of the land belonging to the Wahull manor by the lords de Wahull and de la Lege. The former had to receive two-thirds of the manor and the latter one-third: a note explains this to mean, that one had to take twenty knight-fees and the other ten. The lord de Wahull took all the park in Segheho and the entire demesne farm in 'Bechebury.' As a compensation for the surrender of rights on the part of his fellow parcener, he ordered the wood and pasture called Northwood to be measured, as also the neighbouring wood called Churlwood. He removed all the peasants who lived in these places, and had also the arable of Segheho measured, and it was found that there were eight hides of villain land. Of these eight hides one-fourth was taken, and it was reckoned that this fourth was an equivalent to the one-third of the park and of the demesne farm, which ought by right to have gone to the lord de la Lege. On the basis of this estimation an exchange was effected. In the time of the war (perhaps the rebellion of 1173) the eight hides and other hides in Segheho were encroached upon and appropriated unrighteously by many, and for this reason a general revision of the holdings was undertaken before Walter de Wahull and Hugh de la Lege in full court by six old men; it was made out to which of the hides the several acres belonged. At that time, when all the tenants in Segheho (knights, freeholders, and others) did not know exactly about the land of the village and the tenements, and when each man was contending that his neighbours held unrighteously and more than they ought, all the people decided by common agreement and in the presence of the lords de Wahull and de la Lege, that everybody should surrender his land to be measured anew with the rood by the old men as if the ground had been occupied afresh: every one had to receive his due part on consideration of his rights. At that time R.F. admitted that he and his predecessors had held the area near the castle unrighteously. The men in charge of the distribution divided that area into sixteen strips (buttos), and these were divided as follows: there are eight hides of villain land in Segheho and to each two strips were apportioned.

Intermixture produced by the wish to equalise the shares.

The narrative is curious in many respects. It illustrates beautifully the extent to which the intermixture of plots was carried, and the inconveniences consequent upon it. Although the land had been measured and divided at the time when the lord de Wahull took the land, everything got into confusion at the time of the civil war, and the disputes originated not in violence from abroad but in encroachments of the village people among themselves: the owners of conterminous strips were constantly quarrelling. A new division became necessary, and it took place under circumstances of great solemnity, as a result of an agreement effected at a great meeting of the tenantry before both lords. The new distribution may stand for all purposes in lieu of the original parcelling of the land on fresh occupation. The mode of treating one of the areas shows that the intermixture of the strips was a direct consequence of the attempt to equalise the portions. Instead of putting the whole of this area into one lot, the old men divide it into strips and assign to every great holding, to every hide, two strips of this area. Many inconveniences follow for some of the owners, e.g. for the church which, it is complained, cannot put its plot to any use on account of its lying far away, and in intermixture with other people's land. But the guiding principle of equal apportionment has found a suitable expression.

Possible modes of dividing the land.

We may turn now from the analysis of this case to general considerations. The important point in the instance quoted was, that the assignment of scattered strips to every holding depended on the wish to equalise the shares of the tenants. I think it may be shown that the treatment adopted in Segheho was the most natural, and therefore the most widely-spread one. To begin with, what other form of allotment appears more natural in a crude state of society? To employ a simile which I have used already, the territory of the township is not like a homogeneous sheet of paper out of which you may cut lots of every desirable shape and size: the tilth will present all kinds of accidental features, according to the elevation of the ground, the direction of the watercourses and ways, the quality of the soil, the situation of dwellings, the disposition of wood and pasture-ground, etc. The whole must needs be dismembered into component parts, into smaller areas or furlongs, each stretching over land of one and the same condition, and separated from land of different quality and situation. Over the irregular squares of this rough chess-board a more or less entangled network of rights and interests must be extended. There seem to be only two ways of doing it: if you want the holding to lie in one compact patch you will have to make a very complicated reckoning of all the many circumstances which influence husbandry, will have to find some numerical expression for fertility, accessibility, and the like; or else you may simply give every householder a share in every one of the component areas, and subject him in this way to all the advantages and drawbacks which bear upon his neighbours. If the ground cannot be made to fit the system of allotment, the system must conform itself to the ground. There can be no question that the second way of escaping from the difficulty is much the easier one, and very suitable to the practice of communities in an early stage of development. This second way leads necessarily to a scattering and an intermixture of strips. The explanation is wide enough to meet the requirements of cases placed in entirely different local surroundings and historical connexions; the tendency towards an equalising of the shares of the tenantry is equally noticeable in England and in Russia, in the far west and in the far east of Europe. In Russia we need not even go into history to find it operating in the way described; the practice is alive even now.