SELF-SUFFICING FAKMING 9 



the people or the reverse, is here immaterial. Eoughly 

 and genei'ally speaking, the immediate lordship of the 

 land farmed by a village community, including the wastes 

 and commons, was, after the Norman Conquest, vested in 

 the lord of the manor, subject to regulated rights enjoyed 

 by its members. 



During the three centuries after the Conquest the 

 manorial estate consisted of three portions — the demesne 

 land, the villein's land, and the commons. The demesne 

 land was originally intended for the lord's personal use ; 

 it was his ' board land.' It therefore constituted the smaller 

 portion of the total acreage. Thus in 1222 the manors of 

 St. Paul's contained 24,000 acres, of which three-eighths 

 were in demesne. The demesne might be kept in hand 

 and cultivated by the agricultural services of the peasantry ; 

 or let off in solid blocks to tenants, who also held land in 

 the common fields ; or cut up into strips and intermixed 

 with other holdings of the villenage. The distinction be- 

 tween the ' terra dominica ' and the ' terra villanorum ' was 

 that the first, if let out, might be resumed each season at 

 will, but villein land was land of inheritance alienated in 

 perpetuity on payment of certain praedial services. Thus 

 the lord of the manor might keep his demesne in his own 

 hands, cultivating it as a home farm by the agricultural 

 services of the peasantry ; or he might be a modern land- 

 lord, letting it out to tenants in separate farms at an annual 

 rent ; or he might throw it into the farm of the township, 

 and become a shareholder with his tenants in the common 

 venture of the Agrarian Association. 



The mass of the rural population lived in hereditary 

 subjection, holding land by labour-rent. Of this semi- 

 servile class, the villeins formed the aristocracy. The vil- 

 lein proper was no ordinary servant in husbandry, but, 



