64 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



relief of sickness and of poverty, and their power to 

 protect the people from oppression. 



The villager had much social life and many duties 

 outside the cultivation of the land. As a member 

 of the village gild he would have a part to play in 

 helping the priest in his care of the poor and sick ; 

 he helped, with funds, members on pilgrimage and 

 welcomed them on their return, and when death came 

 to any member, he provided prayers for the soul. The 

 gilds would arrange a religious and social meeting 

 on the day of the patron saint of the village church, 

 to which all the population would come ; and might also 

 organize plays and pageants. The peasant had too 

 his public duties, his village meetings and the courts 

 of the manor to attend, and he might be called to local 

 hundred and other courts. He had also to see that 

 the customs of the manor were enforced and the land 

 kept in cultivation. He would probably at some time 

 in his life have to act as a reeve, or a constable, or as 

 a foreman of the fields or other official, and at any time 

 he might be called off from work on his own or the 

 lord's land to repair bridges or fortresses, or perhaps 

 to fight for his lord, either in some petty quarrel or 

 in the nation's wars. 



Although the rule of astriction tied men to the 

 manors, most of the young men of the peasant class 

 must have made an opportunity to leave their homes in 

 search of adventure. Many evaded lord and bailiff and 

 slipped away without leave, others left their homes on 

 military duties or on a pilgrimage by leave of the 

 Church. Men who had once got beyond the manor 

 boundary must have wandered as fancy took them 

 from place to place, meeting many strange travellers on 

 the strips of rough grass land that at that time served 



