CHAPTER II of the manor. THE MANOR AND THE OPEN FIELD SYSTEM Definition THE manor constituted the rural framework of English society and was the prevailing type of social organization during the Middle Ages. It may be described in general terms as an estate owned by a lord and occupied by a community of dependent cultivators. Its underlying conception was that of a contract involving mutual obligations on the part of the lord and his tenants, the concession of land by the former, and the rendering of agricultural services by the latter. This principle was expressed in the distinction which manorial custom drew between the different kinds of lands comprised in the typical mediaeval estate : the demesne or home farm of the lord, the freehold of the privileged tenants, and the land held in villeinage by the dependent serfs. In legal theory the lord always retained the right to resume at will the occupation of the whole estate, except only the land belonging to his free tenants. Feudal common law did not recognize the villein's proprietary right to his tenement, and regarded the lord as legal owner 1. In reality, however, the lord's freedom of action was restricted by practical considerations. The absence of a wage-earning class 2 rendered him dependent upon the labour of tenants for the cultivation of the soil, and he was therefore constrained to leave a large portion of the estate in their hands in return for work and rents. Thus the distinction between the demesne and the villenagium or tributary holdings, while it had no place in law, was of primary importance in the On the class of wage-earners, see infra, p. 45. 1 Infra, p. 35. F economic arrangements of the manor. It involved, moreover, a corresponding distinction between the different classes of manorial inhabitants: the lord with his retinue of servants and officials, the free tenants enjoying a unique and privileged position, and the unfree class of villeins and cottagers. The main aspects of manorial life can best be illustrated by a survey of the characteristics that distinguished these various strata of the manorial population. demesne. The most considerable place in the manor was assigned The lord's to the lord. He was the owner of the whole estate, but retained only a portion of it in his own occupation. This was termed the demesne and constituted the home farm. It consisted as a rule1 not of a compact property, but of strips interspersed among those of the dependent holdings, and the work of cultivating it was imposed upon the manorial tenants as their primary obligation. The produce of the demesne was consumed by the lord and his household. To some extent it furnished a surplus for the market, but it is one of the fundamental differences between mediaeval and modern agriculture that the tillage of the Middle Ages was not usually conducted with a view to profit. On the one hand there was little local demand for corn where every one easily supplied his own requirements, and on the other the prevalence of a natural economy and the difficulties of intercourse were obstacles in the way of an extensive foreign trade. The absence of an organized corn trade accounts for the small size of the home farm which usually indeed formed the smallest part of the manor 2, though occasionally it covered more than half the estate. The demesne of St. Paul's Church in London was only three-eighths of its property, and the rest was occupied by tributary cultivators *; and the demesne of Forncett manor in Norfolk was oneninth of the total acreage 5. The monastic houses, which enjoyed a corporate experience denied to private land 1 E. Nasse, The Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages (1871), 52. W. H. Hale, The Domesday of St. Paul's (1858), p. xiv. The villeins. owners and whose estates were organized in a model manner, were content as a rule to hold only three or four hundred acres in demesne 1. The demesne of the manor was something more, however, than a mere farm providing food for the lord's table and clothing for his household. It contained a manor-house 2, where the lord usually resided and directed the administration of the estate, controlling and regulating the affairs of the villagers. The lord's hall, or court, constituted an economic centre round which the cultivators of the soil were grouped in varying degrees of legal and economic subjection. There existed, indeed, the closest possible connexion between the demesne and the holdings of the tenants, and at every turn the lives of the villagers were controlled by their economic dependency upon the labour arrangements of the lord's demesne. Their relation in fact was one of capital and labour, in which the lord assigned land to workmen on condition of predial services. Thus the manor was rigidly organized on capitalistic lines of estate management, and differed in many important ways from a free village community of independent peasant proprietors. First in social importance among the different classes of manorial tenants ranked the villeins (villani). They were the most numerous class, and of the 283,000 tenants recorded in Domesday Book 3 not less than 108,000 held in villeinage. At the time of the Survey (1086) they formed 38 per cent. of the total population, reaching a very high percentage in Yorkshire, where it was 63, and a very low percentage in East Anglia, where in Suffolk it was only 14. In the western and southern counties they were more evenly distributed, and the proportion here ranged from one-third to one-half of the inhabitants. Both in respect of the nature of his holding and the character of his obligations the villein, who "took his name from the vill, 1 Vinogradoff, Villainage, 314. * Vinogradoff, English Society, 358 et passim. For the manorial hall, see N. J. Hone, The Manor and Manorial Records (1906), c. 3. These are round figures; see H. Ellis, Introduction to Domesday Book (1833), ii. 511. See map in Seebohm, Village Community, facing p. 86. as the burgesses from the borough" 1, appears as the typical villager of the Middle Ages, and without his services the work of the manor as an economic organization could not have been carried on for a single day. The holding of the tenant in villeinage was termed a virgate or yardland; it was not a compact farm, but a bundle of strips dispersed in the open fields among all the other tenements. The size of the virgate was not everywhere uniform, and the number of acres contained in it occasionally varied from fifteen to as many as eighty. These variations, however, were apparently exceptional and local, and can be accounted for by the varying quality of the soil in the different parts of the country. The normal virgate represents a holding of thirty acres. The holdings were hereditary and generally descended to the eldest son, upon the payment of a heriot, usually the best animal3, in recognition of the lord's rights. The rule of indivisible succession prevailed, except in Kent. It was to the lord's interest to prevent the subdivision of the holding among co-heirs, in order to ensure the due performance of the services which he claimed. Moreover, economic considerations favoured the principle of single succession, since the unity of the tenement preserved the unity of the plough-team, a condition vital for the good management of the tillage. Besides the strips of cultivated land which he owned in severalty, every tenant shared with the lord the use of the meadow and waste as well as rights of pasture, and also possessed a homestead (messuage) surrounded by a toft or farmyard. The villein was thus, if not a substantial farmer, yet Their obsomething more than a landless labourer with no stake in ligations. society. His position was one of great economic importance, and the general diffusion throughout the country of a numerous class of small but relatively well-to-do peasants gave stability to the manorial system, of which they constituted the indispensable basis. The position enjoyed by the villein involved, however, corresponding obligations in 1 The Mirror of Justices (Seld. Soc. Pub.), 79. * Seebohm, Customary Acres, 67; Vinogradoff, Villainage, 239. • Pollock and Maitland, English Law, i. 317; Vinogradoff, op. cit. 160. an age when every right proceeded from the performance of a duty. The services of the villeins were of varied character, as the manorial rolls testify, but their main duties can be grouped under three heads. (1) The primary obligation of the tenant in villeinage was the liability to predial service, to agricultural work in the fields. He was required to cultivate the lord's demesne on two or three days in the week, though not necessarily for the whole of the day. This week-work, as it is termed, comprised almost every kind of agricultural operations, of which ploughing was the chief. The full villein, holder of thirty acres, contributed a pair of oxen; his poorer neighbour, the half - villein who could boast of only a semi-virgate of fifteen acres, came with his single ox. Thus working side by side with the ploughteams of the demesne were the teams of the dependent tenants 1. The villeins also performed carriage duties, acting as carriers and providing the requisite horses and carts. There were "short carriages" to adjoining manors, markets or mills, and "long carriages" farther afield 2. On the manor of Alsiston in Sussex the tenants were required to carry wherever and whenever' they were bidden; but if they could not return by nightfall the expense of the journey was borne by the lord 3. Elsewhere villeins had to carry for a distance of sixteen 'leagues' (leucae) from their homes at their own cost (sine cibo) 4. Carriage duty was a function of no small importance and equally of no small difficulty in the absence of organized means of communication. The produce of the farm, when it was not consumed on the estate, was carried to the market or to some other manor belonging to the lord. Frequently no doubt the lord and his retinue travelled from manor to manor eating up its produce, but where the estate was owned by a monastery the produce had to be conveyed to it by the tenants. The villein with neither ox nor horse had himself to shoulder the load (super dorsum), and bear it to its destination. Besides the ploughing and carriage duties there was a multitude 1 On the variety in the strength of the teams, see Hale, Domesday of St. Paul's, p. xv. 2 Neilson, Ramsey Manors, 37. 3 Custumals of Battle Abbey, 29. 4 Plac. Abbrev. 57 a. On the leuca, see infra, p. 214 (n. 1). |