i8 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



small tribute or service to the king and looking to him 

 for such justice as they could not administer themselves, 

 in their village meeting or in the hundred court, found 

 that the new holder of the rights took a far keener 

 interest in their lives than did his royal predecessor. 

 Should they wish to extend the arable or meadow land 

 to meet the requirements of an increased population, 

 the estate-holder had to be dealt with and some new 

 tribute or service might be claimed. If the men could 

 not arrange to extend the area of the arable land, the 

 holdings would have to be reduced in size all round, or 

 the younger men would find themselves without land 

 for their support. Many men thus squeezed out of 

 the community became the servants of the estate- 

 holders. Others similarly placed took some part of the 

 land that the estate-holder claimed, and the latter, 

 maybe, would provide them with stock on loan or on 

 lease ; if they succeeded, all went well, but if they failed 

 they sank down still lower in the social scale. Again, 

 the village quarrel which the peasants could easily have 

 settled amongst themselves might, under the new con- 

 ditions, be looked upon as a serious breach of the peace, 

 to be inquired into by the hundred court held under 

 the presidency of the holder of the profits of justice, 

 who took the fees and put into his own pocket the fine 

 that might have gone into the village chest and have 

 been spent for the good of the poor. In some cases the 

 supervision of justice by an eorl, bishop or other autho- 

 rity, which followed the alienation of the profits of 

 justice from the king, resulted in the setting aside of 

 the hundred moots and the creation of definite new 

 courts in their place. The informal village markets 

 must also at this time have become subject to stricter 

 supervision and to the exaction of tolls. Lastly, when 



