II THE GREAT PLAGUE AND ITS RESULTS 19 



because of the critical acumen which has been displayed 

 in sifting it. Professor Maitland himself declared that 

 generalities on the early history of the English Manor 

 are not yet safe, and this because of their infinite variety, 1 

 and yet one must present some general view even at the risk 

 of being condemned for l rushing in where angels fear to 

 tread '. 



A typical manor then, in the middle of the thirteenth 

 century, was a complete social and juridical unit. The 

 arable land is still cultivated in common, generally on the 

 three-field system, each field being left fallow every third 

 year. On these open fields the freeholders and the villeins, 

 who enormously preponderate, except in .a few North- 

 Eastern counties such as Norfolk and in Kent, hold their 

 strips, and in return pay rents or owe labour service to their 

 lord. The lord's demesne itself either lies in strips on the 

 open fields, or has become consolidated, and is cultivated by 

 all those who owe him service, such as ploughing, carting, 

 herding cows and dairy work, sometimes partly by hired 

 labour. 



If the lord is a small man he lives on the manor and 

 manages it himself. If he is the king or some great lord, 

 ecclesiastical or lay, with many manors, his demesne is j / 

 managed or let out in farm to his bailiff. Outside the 

 arable land lies the waste. This, according to the Statute 

 of Merton of the reign of Henry III, the lord could enclose 

 or dispose of at will, provided that he left sufficient whereon 

 the freeholders might pasture their cattle, cut turf, timber, 

 and so forth, privileges which by custom were usually 

 shared by the villeins, and for which a small annual pay- 

 ment was made. 



By law there is a great difference between the villein or 



1 English Hist. Review, Ix. 417. 

 B 2 



