4 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



bouring villages during the autumn for the harvesting. 1 

 Again roughly generalising, a tenant farmer (villanus) 

 held from 30 to 120 acres, the normal holding being of the 

 smaller amount, and the smallholder five acres. One 

 main distinction between the two classes appears to have 

 been that the one usually possessed an ox or oxen, and the 

 other did not. Both classes held of the lord at what may 

 be called customary rents. These " rents " were made 

 up in the most varied manner, partly in kind, partly (in 

 some cases) in money, and in all cases largely of personal 

 service. The one obligation common to all was service on 

 the lord's demesne. The gradual reduction and eventual 

 disappearance of the servile element in the " rent " and 

 the commutation of produce and service rents into money 

 — a process extending over centuries — marked the 

 emergence of the tenant into independence. At the time 

 we are now considering he had, at any rate, " fixity of 

 tenure," for he was tied to the soil, and indeed to the lord, 

 by bonds which it was almost impossible to break. 



The land of the manor was divided into three main 

 parts — (1) the lord's demesne, which surrounded the 

 manor-house, and was cultivated, by the service of the 

 tenants of the manor, as a " home farm," though it 

 might be, and in later times was, let ; (2) the common 

 arable field ; (3) the common pastures and waste. The 

 common arable field was divided into acre or half-acre 

 strips, with " balks " of turf between. The tenant or 

 the smallholder had his 120 or 30 or 5 acres, or whatever 

 his holding might be, scattered all over the great common 

 field, but with an equal number of strips in each division, 

 according to the rotation of crops adopted. The whole 

 field was cultivated on a co-operative or communal plan, a 

 two or, more usually, a three-course system being adopted, 

 and the field divided into two or three parts accordingly. 

 The usual rotation was (1) wheat or rye ; (2) spring 



1 Thorold Rogers, " A History of Agriculture and Prices," 

 Vol. I., p. 252. 



