XVI INTRODUCTION 



It was, apparently, argued in later times, from the mode of 

 statement adopted in the Great Survey, 1 that the predial 

 services had been all commuted for money before the Norman 

 Conquest. But the practice of estimating in terms of 

 money the value of obligations which were discharged by 

 actual service was common in the thirteenth century ; and 

 though it is clear that the process of commutation had 

 already begun in the time of the Confessor, there is reason 

 to believe that it was quite exceptional. A very ordinary 

 arrangement in the time of Edward I. appears to have been 

 that the villans' obligations were stated in terms of money, 

 but were paid either in services or in cash at the will of the 

 lord. If partly paid in cash, the villan would still have to 

 defray his remaining duties and dues in service or kind. 

 When the villan paid to be quit of the ordinary week work, 

 and, so to speak, bought his time for himself during any one 

 year, his payment was entered as opera vendita. Some were 

 able, however, to pay cash every year and to be quit of these 

 services quite regularly ; they are sometimes spoken of as 

 molmen ; 2 or the fact that the lord had agreed to take cash 

 in lieu of all services 3 is noted in the Extent, which de- 

 scribes the condition of his estate, or is drawn out in detail 

 in a special document. 4 When this stage was reached, the 

 villan, with his virgate of thirty acres in the common arable 

 fields, was in a position very similar to that of the modern 

 peasant farmer who pays rent for his land. 



The change by which one portion and another of the 

 villans' obligations were commuted for cash seems to have 

 gone on slowly, here and there, all over the country. When 

 the villan had the opportunity of paying cash he might 

 possibly be glad to buy his freedom, and be his own 

 master all through the week ; this was certainly the case 

 after the Black Death, when his labour had become much 

 more valuable, as it would obviously be to his interest then 



1 1 R. ii. c. 6. 4 Growth of Eiiglish Industry 



2 Vinogradov in The English during the Early and Middle Ages, 

 Historical Review, I. 734. p. 513, for the case at Barrington 



3 Hundred Bolls, II. 636. in Cambridgeshire. 



