INTRODUCTION XV11 



to buy his own time from the lord at the old customary 

 rates if he could. In the thirteenth century, however, it 

 may have been the lord rather than the villan who preferred 

 to insist on cash payment where he could, as there was less 

 trouble in collecting the payments than in superintending 

 the regular work day by day throughout the year ; and 

 there was less difficulty about the quality of the coin than 

 about the diligence of the service. It thus appears that, 

 from the side both of the villan and of the lord, the 

 change from actual services to cash payment would be 

 welcome, where the circumstances of the estate rendered it 

 possible. 



This change in the relations between the villan and the 

 lord necessitated other changes in the management of the 

 home farm. The lord might work his domain land with 

 hired labour, or he might break it up into holdings and let 

 it, or he might use it as a sheep farm ; the last expedient 

 was increasingly adopted after the Black Death. This 

 terrible catastrophe gave a blow to the system of farming 

 with hired labour, as the rates of wages became abnormally 

 high, and it could scarcely be remunerative. The estates 

 on which bailiff farming had most chance of surviving were 

 those where there had been least change, and where the 

 actual services were still due. Even before 1349 the lords 

 on some estates had broken up the home farm and rented 

 it in portions to the tenants, who were collectively respon- 

 sible for the payment of their money-rents, as they had 

 formerly been for rendering predial services. An instruct- 

 ive case occurs in the letting of the St. Albans' estate at 

 Granborough in Buckinghamshire in 1346. 



It is now possible to describe with greater precision the 

 nature of the topics treated in each of the four treatises 

 which are here printed. The general subject is the manage- 

 ment of estates, and in the management of an estate the 

 successful working of the home farm — under the superin- 

 tendence of a bailiff, and by means of the services of the 

 villans, with the assistance of hired labourers — was the chief 

 element of success. They deal primarily with bailiff farm- 



a 



