42 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



under the name of " villeins," farming the land very much as 

 they had been doing under the communal or the mark system, 

 but paying rent in kind or in service to the lord, we shall have 

 a general idea as to what the manor was like. However, the 

 lord of the manor was not simply the owner of the land ; he was 

 also the ruler of the local community, holding courts and en- 

 forcing the laws. He was also responsible to the king for cer- 

 tain duties and services. From one point of view he may be 

 looked upon as an officer of the local government under the 

 king, receiving, instead of a salary from the king, a grant of the 

 land with the right to collect rents therefrom. In many cases, 

 however, his function as an officer of the local government was 

 assumed by himself without any authority from the king. Being 

 the most powerful man in the neighborhood, in a time of tur- 

 bulency or of inefficient administration of law, he assumed a 

 position of leadership or of authority. The rents which the ten- 

 ants had to pay may therefore, from the same point of view, be 

 looked upon as their taxes for the support of the local govern- 

 ment or the local ruler. Sometimes, however, one manor in- 

 cluded many villages, especially after the Norman Conquest. 

 These tenants were of various classes, most numerous of which 

 were the villeins. 1 Each villein held a tract of arable land, usu- 

 ally about thirty acres, besides a share of the meadowland, and 

 had the right of pasturing his stock upon the commons and 

 of cutting wood in the forest, very much as he had done under 

 the communal system. He was, however, by no means a free- 

 man. He was attached to the land he tilled, and could not 

 leave it without the lord's consent. He could be sold with the 

 land, but not apart from the land like a common slave. At 

 the same time he was compelled to pay certain rents in kind, 



1 The word " villein " meant a villager, or one who lived in the vill, or village, 

 and went out from this survivor of the old village community to till his allot- 

 ment of land or to work for the lord on the demesne lands. 



