Manor-Farming 33 



it has done so often in the case of smallholders. For a large 

 number of the villains and bordars the problem of making ends 

 meet from one harvest to another must have been terribly 

 difficult. Now men in the same position may borrow money on 

 their growing crops, or on their wool, if they have sheep, to 

 carry them over the time of scarcity ; they may get assistance 

 from credit banks, but in those days men had to rely on what they 

 grew themselves on their holdings. 



Some serfs gave up their land with or without their lord's 

 consent, and became free labourers working for wages. The 

 Normans freed the slaves at a more rapid rate than the Anglo- 

 Saxons, as they found that landless labourers who had to look 

 after themselves were less troublesome and more profitable than 

 slaves who had to be cared for and maintained. Thus men were 

 added to the class of free labourers from two sides, but between 

 one harvest and another there must have been long intervals 

 when there was no work and no wages. There were no potatoes, 

 no mangolds, no turnips, and no clover crops upon which men 

 might find employment, and with which they might be able to 

 feed cattle and sheep throughout; the winter. 



5 

 Decay of the Manor 



THE manor reached its most perfect form under the late 

 Norman and early Plantagenet kings, but enough has been said 

 to suggest that it was a system which could not last in a perfect 

 form. For different reasons different races could not tolerate 

 this tight -laced style of life. A weak and spiritless race would 

 collapse under it as a feeble man would under a heavy coat of 

 mail ; a spirited, ambitious, enterprising race like the English 

 kicked and strained until it eased the yoke of the galling harness 

 and leading strings. It was a fine organization for war, as a ship 



2535-7 c 



