1NTE0DUCTI0N Xlll 



responsible to the lord for everything connected with the 

 prosperity of the estate, and had to account in great detail 

 for everything under his charge. The two minor but very 

 important officials were the prepositus and the hayward 

 (messor), who were somewhat like foremen labourers ; the 

 former seems to have been the official representative of the 

 villans, who was responsible for them ; the latter had to 

 supply their contributions of seed, and to be present to 

 superintend their work. A large landed proprietor, who had 

 estates in different places, would also require a seneschal 

 (or steward) who should represent the lord personally and 

 hold the manorial courts on his behalf. His duties were 

 legal rather than economic, though he had the general super- 

 intendence of everything on the estate ; he was not, how- 

 ever, possessed of complete authority, as he could not 

 dismiss a responsible servant, like a bailiff, without the 

 consent of the lord himself. 



2. The origin of the legal powers of the lord of the 

 manor and the actual conditions which gave rise to the 

 different types of villanage do not concern us here ; it may 

 suffice to say that the manor, as an economic institution, 

 has interesting analogies in earlier history as well as in 

 backward countries in the present day. Wherever we have 

 an estate organised as a whole, and which has very little 

 communication with the outside world, it will be difficult 

 for the owner to realise the produce of the land or to make 

 purchases. His object will be to render the estate, so far as 

 may be, self-sufficient. He will consume or store the pro- 

 duce of the estate, and he will endeavour so to utilise its 

 resources that there will be little need to purchase anything 

 from the outside. This principle is plainly laid down in 

 Charles the Great's Capitulary de Villis, it is explicitly 

 stated in Grosseteste's Rules, and it may be taken as a 

 fundamental maxim for the judicious management of land, 

 as understood in days when roads were bad and the oppor- 

 tunities of trade infrequent, since the business of the 

 country was mainly carried on at annual fairs. It follows 

 almost necessarily that the landowner had comparatively 



