Villainage in England: Essays in English Mediaeval History

Harvest-time is the most pressing time in the year for rural work; it is especially important not to lose the opportunity presented by fine weather to mow and garner in the crop before rain, and there may be only a few days of such weather at command. For this reason extra labour is chiefly required during this season, and the village people are frequently asked to give extra help in connexion with it. The system of precariae is even more developed on these occasions than in the case of ploughing597. All the forces of the village are strained to go through the task; all the houses which open on the street send their labourers598, and in most cases the entire population has to join in the work, with the exception of the housewives and perhaps of the marriageable daughters599. The landlord treats the harvesters to food in order to make these exertions somewhat more palatable to them600. These 'love-meals' are graduated according to a set system. If the men are called out only once, they get their food and no drink: these are 'dry requests.' If they are made to go a second time, ale is served to them (precariae cerevisiae). The mutual obligations of lords and tenantry are settled very minutely601; the latter may have to mow a particular acre with the object of saying 'thanks' for some concession on the part of the lord602. The same kind of 'requests' are in use for mowing the meadows. The duties of the peasants differ a great deal according to size of their holdings and their social position. The greater number have of course to work with scythe and sickle, but the more wealthy are called upon to supervise the rest, to ride about with rods in their hands603. On the other hand, a poor woman holds a messuage, and need do no more than carry water to the mowers604.

Carriage duties.

A very important item in the work necessary for medieval husbandry was the business of carrying produce from one part of the country to the other. The manors of a great lord were usually dispersed in several counties, and even in the case of small landowners it was not very easy to arrange a regular communication with the market. The obligation to provide horses and carts gains in importance accordingly605. These averagia are laid out for short and long distances, and the peasants have to take their turn at them one after the other606. They were bound to carry corn to London or Bristol according to the size of their holdings607. Special importance was attached to the carriage of the 'farm,' that is of the products designed for the consumption of the lord608. In some surveys we find the qualification that the peasants are not obliged to carry anything but such material as may be put on the fire, i.e. used in the kitchen609. In the manor itself there are many carriage duties to be performed: carts are required for the grain, or for spreading the dung. The work of loading and of following the carts is imposed on those who are not able to provide the implements610. And alongside of the duties of carriage by horses or oxen we find the corresponding manual duty. The 'averagium super dorsum suum' falls on the small tenant who does not own either horses or oxen611. Such small people are also made to drive the swine or geese to the market612. The lord and his chief stewards must look sharp after the distribution of these duties in order to prevent wealthy tenants from being put to light duties through the protection of the bailiffs, who may be bribed for the purpose613.

It would be hard to imagine any kind of agricultural work which is not imposed on the peasantry in these manorial surveys. The tenants mind the lord's ploughs, construct houses and booths for him, repair hedges and dykes, work in vineyards, wash and shear the sheep614, etc. In some cases the labour has to be undertaken by them, not in the regular run of their services, but by special agreement, as it were, in consideration of some particular right or permission granted to them615. Also it happens from time to time that the people of one manor have to perform some services in another, for instance, because they use pasture in that other manor616. Such 'forinsec' labour may be due even from tenants of a strange lord. By the side of purely agricultural duties we find such as are required by the political or judicial organisation of the manor. Peasants are bound to guard and hang thieves, to carry summonses and orders, to serve at the courts of the superior lord and of the king617.

Classification of labour-services.

In consequence of the great variety of these labour-services they had to be reduced to some chief and plain subdivisions for purposes of a general oversight. Three main classes are very noticeable notwithstanding all variety: the araturae, averagia, and manuoperationes. These last are also called hand-dainae or daywerke618; and the records give sometimes the exact valuation of the work to be performed during a day in every kind of labour. Sometimes all the different classes are added up under one head for a general reckoning, and without any distinction as to work performed by hand or with the help of horse or ox. Among the manors of Christ Church, Canterbury619, for instance, we find at Borle '1480 work-days divided into 44 weeks of labour from the virgaters, 88 from the cotters, 320 from the tofters holding small tenements in the fields.' In Bockyng the work-days of 52 weeks are reckoned to be 3222. It must be added, that when such a general summing up appears, it is mostly to be taken as an indication that the old system based on labour in kind is more or less shaken. The aim of throwing together the different classes of work is to get a general valuation of its worth, and such a valuation in money is commonly placed by the side of the reckoning. The single day-work yields sometimes only one penny or a little more, and the landlord is glad to exchange this cumbrous and cheap commodity for money-rents, even for small ones.

Payments in kind.

We must now proceed to examine the different forms assumed by payments in kind and money: they present a close parallel to the many varieties of labour-service. Thirteenth-century documents are full of allusions to payments in kind—that most archaic form of arranging the relations between a lord and his subjects. The peasants give corn under different names, and for various reasons: as gavelseed, in addition to the money-rent paid for their land620; as foddercorn, of oats for the feeding of horses621; as gathercorn, which a manorial servant has to collect or gather from the several homesteads622; as corn-bole, a best sheaf levied at harvest-time623. Of other provender supplied to the lord's household honey is the most common, both in combs and in a liquid form624. Ale is sometimes brewed for the same purpose, and sometimes malt and braseum furnished as material to be used in the manorial farm625. Animals are also given in rent, mostly sheep, lambs, and sucking-pigs. The mode of selection is peculiar in some cases. In the Christ Church (Canterbury) manor of Monckton each sulung has to render two lambs, and the lord's servant has the right to take those which he pleases, whereupon the owner gets a receipt, evidently in view of subsequent compensation from the other co-owners of the sulung626. If no suitable lamb is to be found, eight pence are paid instead of it as mail (mala). On one of the estates of Gloucester Abbey a freeman has to come on St. Peter's and Paul's day with a lamb of the value of 12d., and besides, 12 pence in money are to be hung in a purse on the animal's neck627. Poultry is brought almost everywhere, but these prestations are very different in their origin. The most common reason for giving capons is the necessity for getting the warranty of the lord628: in this sense the receipt and payment of the rent constitute an acknowledgment on the part of the lord that he is bound to protect his men, and on the part of the peasant that he is the lord's villain. 'Wood hens' are given for licence to take a load of wood in a forest; similar prestations occur in connexion with pasture and with the use of a moor for turbary629. At Easter the peasantry greet their protectors by bringing eggs: in Walton, a manor of St. Paul's, London, the custom is said to exist in honour of the lord, and at the free discretion of the tenants630. Besides all those things which may be 'put on the fire and eaten,' rents in kind sometimes take the shape of some object for permanent use, especially of some implement necessary for the construction of the plough631. Trifling rents, consisting of flowers or roots of ginger, are sometimes imposed with the object of testifying to the lord's seignory; but the payers of such rents are generally freeholders632. I need not dwell long on the enumeration of all the strange prestations which existed during the Middle Ages, and partly came down to our own time: any reader curious about them will find an enormous mass of interesting material in Hazlitt's 'Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors.'

Money-payments.

In opposition to labour and rents in kind we find a great many payments in money. Some of these are said in as many words to have stept into the place of labour services; of mowing, carrying, making hedges633, etc. The same may be the case in regard to produce: barlick-silver is paid instead of barley, fish-silver evidently instead of fish, malt-silver instead of malt; a certain payment instead of salt, and so on634. But sometimes the origin of the money rent is more difficult to ascertain. We find, for instance, a duty on sheep, which is almost certainly an original imposition when it appears as fald-silver. Even so the scythe-penny from every scythe, the bosing-silver from every horse and cart, the wood-penny, probably for the use of wood as fuel, must be regarded as original taxes and not quit-rents or commutation-rents635. Pannage is paid in the same way for the swine grazing in the woods636. Ward-penny appears also in connexion with cattle, but with some special shade of meaning which it is difficult to bring out definitely; the name seems to point to protection, and also occurs in connexion with police arrangements637.

Classification of money payments.

I must acknowledge that in a good many cases I have been unable to find a satisfactory explanation for various terms which occur in the records for the divers payments. An attentive study of local usages will probably lead to definite conclusions as to most of them638. From a general point of view it is interesting to notice, that we find already in our records some attempts to bring all the perplexing variety of payments to a few main designations. Annual rents are, of course, reckoned out under the one head of 'census.' Very obvious reasons suggested the advisability of computing the entire money-proceed yielded by the estate639. It sometimes happens that the general sum made up in this way, fixed as it is at a constant amount, is used almost as a name for a complex of land640. A division of rents into old and new ones does not require any particular explanation641. But several other subdivisions are worth notice. The rent paid from the land often appears separately as landgafol or landchere. It is naturally opposed to payments that fall on the person as poll taxes642. These last are considered as a return for the personal protection guaranteed by the lord to his subjects. Of the contrast between gafol as a customary rent and mál as a payment in commutation I have spoken already, and I have only to add now, that gild is sometimes used in the same sense as mál643. Another term in direct opposition to gafol is the Latin donum644. It seems to indicate a special payment imposed as a kind of voluntary contribution on the entire village. To be sure, there was not much free will to be exercised in the matter; all the dependent people of the township had to pay according to their means645. But the tax must have been considered as a supplementary one in the same sense as supplementary boon-work. It may have been originally intended in some cases as an equivalent for some rights surrendered by the lord, as a mál or gild, in fact646. In close connexion with the donum we find the auxilium647, also an extraordinary tax paid once a year, and distinguished from the ordinary rent. It appears as a direct consequence of the political subjection of the tenantry648: it is, in fact, merely an expression of the right to tallage. Our records mention it sometimes as apportioned according to the number of cattle owned by the peasant, but this concerns only the mode of imposition of the duty and hardly its origin649. As I have said already, the auxilium is in every respect like the donum. One very characteristic trait of both taxes is, that they are laid primarily on the whole village, which is made to pay a certain round sum as a body650. The burden is divided afterwards between the several householders, and the number of cattle, and more particularly of the beasts of plough kept on the holding, has of course to be taken into account more than anything else. But the manorial administration does not much concern itself with these details: the township is answerable for the whole sum.

Payments to State and Church.

It is to be added that the payment is sometimes actually mentioned as a political one in direct connexion with 'forinsec' duties towards the king. The burdens which lay on the land in consequence of the requirements of State and Church appear not unfrequently in the documents. Among those the scutage and hidage are the most important. The first of these taxes is so well known that I need not stop to discuss it. It may be noticed however that in relation to the dependent people scutage is not commonly spoken of; the tax was levied under this name from the barons and the armed gentry, and was mostly transmitted by these to the lower strata of society under some other name, as an aid or a tallage. Hidage is historically connected with the old English Danegeld system, and in some cases its amount is set out separately from other payments, and the tenants of a manor have to pay it to the bailiff of the hundred and not to the steward. A smaller payment called ward-penny is bound up with it, probably as a substitute for the duty of keeping watch and ward651. In the north the hidage is replaced by cornage652, a tax which has given rise to learned controversy and doubt; it looks like an assessment according to the number of horns of cattle, pro numero averiorum, as our Latin extents would say. The Church has also an ancient claim on the help of the faithful; the churchscot of Saxon times often occurs in the feudal age under the name of churiset or cheriset653. It is mostly paid in kind, but may be found occasionally as a money-rent.

Questions suggested by a survey of work and rents.

A survey of the chief aspects assumed by the work and the payments of the dependent people was absolutely necessary, in order to enable us to understand the descriptions of rural arrangements which form the most instructive part of the so-called extents. But every survey of terms and distinctions (even if it were much more detailed than the one I am able to present), will give only a very imperfect idea of the obligations actually laid on the peasantry. It must needs take up the different species one by one and consider them separately, whereas in reality they were meant to fit together into a whole. On the other hand it may create a false impression by enumerating in systematic order facts which belonged to different localities and perhaps to different epochs. To keep clear of these dangers we have to consider the deviations of practical arrangements from the rules laid down in the books and the usual combinations of the elements described.

Cases where the usual order was not adhered to.

When one reads the careful notices in the cartularies as to the number of days and the particular occasions when work has to be performed for the lord, a simple question is suggested by the minuteness of detail. What happened when this very definite arrangement came into collision with some other equally exacting order? One of the three days of week-work might, for instance, fall on a great feast; or else the weather might be too bad for out-of-doors work. Who was to suffer or to gain by such casualties? The question is not a useless one. The manorial records raise it occasionally, and their ways of settling it are not always the same. We find that in some cases the lord tried to get rid of the inconveniences occasioned by such events, or at least to throw one part of the burden back on the dependent population; in Barling, for instance, a manor of St. Paul's, London654, of two feasts occurring in one week and even in two consecutive weeks, one profits to the villains and the other to the lord; that is to say, the labourer escapes one day's work altogether. But the general course seems to have been to liberate the peasants from work both on occasion of a festival and if the weather was exceptionally inclement655. Both facts are not without importance: it must be remembered that the number of Church festivals was a very considerable one in those days. Again, although the stewards were not likely to be very sentimental as to bad weather, the usual test of cold in case of ploughing seems to have been the hardness of the soil—a certain percentage of free days must have occurred during the winter at least. And what is even more to be considered—when the men were very strictly kept to their week-work under unfavourable circumstances, the landlord must have gained very little although the working people suffered much. The reader may easily fancy the effects of what must have been a very common occurrence, when the village householders sent out their ploughs on heavy clay in torrents of rain. The system of customary work on certain days was especially clumsy in such respects, and it is worth notice that in harvest-time the landlords rely chiefly on boon-days. These were not irrevocably fixed, and could be shifted according to the state of the weather. Still the week-work was so important an item in the general arrangement of labour-services that the inconveniences described must have acted powerfully in favour of commutation.

Relation between the customary system and the arbitrary authority of the lord.

Of course, the passage from one system to the other, however desirable for the parties concerned, was not to be effected easily and at once: a considerable amount of capital in the hands of the peasantry was required to make it possible, and another necessary requirement was a sufficient circulation of money. While these were wanting the people had to abide by the old labour system. The facts we have been discussing give indirect proof that there was not much room for arbitrary changes in this system. Everything seems ruled and settled for ever. It may happen, of course, that notwithstanding the supposed equality between the economic strength of the different holdings, some tenants are unable to fulfil the duties which their companions perform656. As it was noticed before, the shares could not be made to correspond absolutely to each other, and the distribution of work and payments according to a definite pattern was often only approximate657. Again, the lord had some latitude in selecting one or the other kind of service to be performed by his men658. But, speaking generally, the settlement of duties was a very constant one, and manorial documents testify that every attempt by the lord to dictate a change was met by emphatic protests on the part of the peasantry659. The tenacity of custom may be gathered from the fact that when we chance to possess two sets of extents following each other after a very considerable lapse of time, the renders in kind and the labour-services remain unmodified in the main660. One has to guard especially against the assumption that such expressions as 'to do whatever he is bid' or 'whatever the lord commands' imply a complete servility of the tenant and unrestricted power on the part of the lord to exploit his subordinate according to his pleasure. Such expressions have been used as a test of the degree of subjection of the villains at different epochs; it has been contended, that the earlier our evidence is, the more complete the lord's sway appears to be661. The expressions quoted above may seem at first glance to countenance the idea, but an attentive and extended study of the documents will easily show that, save in exceptional cases, the earlier records are by no means harder in their treatment of the peasantry than the later. The eleventh century is, if anything, more favourable to the subjected class as regards the imposition of labour-services than the thirteenth, and we shall see by-and-by that the observation applies even more to Saxon times. In the light of such a general comparison, we have to explain the above-mentioned phrases in a different way. 'Whatever he is bid' applies to the quality and not to the quantity of the work662. It does not mean that the steward has a right to order the peasant about like a slave, to tear him at pleasure from his own work, and to increase his burden whenever he likes. It means simply that such and such a virgater or cotter has to appear in person or by proxy to perform his week-work of three days, or two days, or four days, according to the case, and that it is not settled beforehand what kind of work he is to perform. He may have to plough, or to carry, or to dig trenches, or to do anything else, according to the bidding of the steward. A similar instance of uncertainty may be found in the expression 'without measure663' which sometimes occurs in extents. It would be preposterous to construe it as an indication of work to be imposed at pleasure. It is merely a phrase used to suit the case when the work had to be done by the day and not by a set quantity; if, for instance, a man had to plough so many times and the number of acres to be ploughed was not specified. It is true that such vague descriptions are mostly found in older surveys, but the inference to be drawn from the fact is simply that manorial customs were developing gradually from rather indefinite rules to a minute settlement of details. There is no difference in the main principle, that the dependent householder was not to be treated as a slave and had a customary right to devote part of his time to the management of his own affairs.

The holdings and the population.

Another point is to be kept well in view. The whole arrangement of a manorial survey is constructed with the holding as its basis. The names of virgaters and cotters are certainly mentioned for the sake of clearness, but it would be wrong to consider the duties ascribed to them as aiming at the person. John Newman may be said to hold a virgate, to join with his plough-oxen in the tillage of twenty acres, to attend at three boon-days in harvest time, and so forth. It would be misleading to take these statements very literally and to infer that John Newman was alone to use the virgate and to work for it. He was most probably married, and possibly had grown-up sons to help him; very likely a brother was there also, and even servants, poor houseless men from the same village or from abroad. Every householder has a more or less considerable following (sequela)664, and it was by no means necessary for the head of the family to perform all manorial work in his own person. He had to appear or to send one workman on most occasions and to come with all his people on a few days—the boon-days namely. The description of the precariae is generally the only occasion when the extents take this into account, namely, that there was a considerable population in the village besides those tenants who were mentioned by name665. I need not point out, that the fact has an important meaning. The medieval system, in so far as it rested on the distribution of holdings, was in many respects more advantageous to the tenantry than to the lord. It was superficial in a sense, and from the point of view of the lord did not lead to a satisfactory result; he did not get the utmost that was possible from his subordinates. The factor of population was almost disregarded by it, households very differently constituted in this respect were assumed to be equal, and the tenacity of custom prevented an increase of rents and labour-services in proportion to the growth of resource and wealth among the peasants. Some attempts to get round these difficulties are noticeable in the surveys: they are mostly connected with the regulation of boon-works. But these exceptional measures give indirect proof of the very insufficient manner in which the question was generally settled.