298 An English Manor in the time of Eliznheth. 



to that court when summoned by the verderers. In return they had 

 rights of wood and pannage. Each tenant who had wood, besides 

 serving the court paid the ranger a woodhen at Christmas. They 

 had also to repair deer hedges and haul timber for the lord's use. 



If we look at the map of any manor in the 16th century we 

 shall see the church, the churchyard, the rectory, and barns for 

 the tithe corn, the manor house with its farm buildings around it, 

 the mill, and a little way off the smithy. Then the better houses 

 of a few free tenants and the tenements of the copyholders with 

 each one or two cottages " necessary for their husband." Editha 

 Hetherthorne, at Ugford, had a messuage and three half-virgates 

 of land with one house in which she dwelt, and another house 

 necessary for her husband ! This diil not mean that she and her 

 spouse could not agree, the second house was for her house-bond-man 

 who did the work on the holding. Around the village are the 

 three arable fields, each cut up into shots or furlongs, which are 

 again divided by green balks into acre strips. Now if we colour 

 the acre strips of these holdings a different tint we shall see that 

 it is probable that the tenants who were grouped for view of 

 frankpledge into a tithing had their acre strips all ov«r the three 

 fields, but generally together and in the same order. The free 

 tenant with his hide, the customary tenant with his virgate, the 

 bordarius with his seven acres, the rector with his glebe, and the 

 squire with the demesne, came in turn all over the three fields, 

 each having their acre strips, as they had been drawn by lot, to 

 begin with. The doles in the meadow were still similarly allotted, 

 " being every year divided by lot " in the manor of Patney, long 

 after the acre strips had ceased to be drawn for. 



The hide was an old measure for purposes of taxation ; it took 

 into account the amount of arable, but it ignored coarse land not 

 cultivated, so that at the time of Domesday Book some hides are 

 much larger than others ; but each hide contained a carucate of 

 ploughland, that was what a team of eight oxen could plough in a 

 year. Some land was easy, and some difficult, to plough ; some 

 hides had much more waste than others, so that the actual area of 

 two hides might ditfer, but the fiscal officers did not trouble about 



