38 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



from the village, was the centre of its own life. It 

 consisted as a rule of a large hall, with one or two 



smaller rooms ; near by would be the court- 

 general yard with a barn for storing corn, a dove- 



character- cot, farm buildings and possibly rooms for 

 e^tate^ *** ^ arm servants and slaves. Then there would 



be a garden with fruit trees and veget- 

 ables, and often a vineyard. With the hall went the 

 home farm, the land of the Anglo-Saxon estate- 

 holder extended and called the * demesne.' It would, 

 in all probability, consist of a few enclosed fields 

 near the hall with a considerable number of strips 

 intermingled with the peasants' strips in the open 

 fields, and held subject to the same rules as the 

 peasants' land. The possession of these strips would 

 therefore carry with it a share in the lot meadows, 

 and a proportionate share in the rights over commons, 

 woods and wastes. 



Unless the manor happened to be in the hands of 

 a small resident squire, it would be the seneschal or 

 the bailiff who would reside at the hall. But now 

 and again the lord of the manor would come with 

 his retinue of servants and retainers to visit his estate. 

 The life on such occasions would be rough and 

 simple : the retainers would camp in the big hall or 

 in the outbuildings, taking meals in the former, and 

 sleeping there on bundles of rushes, fern or straw. 

 The lord would reserve for himself and family the 

 private room or rooms, but would join his retainers 

 in the hall for meals. The lord, whose interests lay 

 in the main in outside affairs and not in husbandry, 

 might be expected to stay for a month or two of 

 every year in the manor, until he had consumed a 

 large proportion of the stores of food, gone through 



