219] '^^^ FERTILITY OF THE COMMON FIELDS 63 



the same sum was paid by each of twenty-three virgates 

 at Waltham/ 



At Fomcett and on the manors of the Berkeley estates 

 commutation had Httle part in the disappearance of labor 

 dues. The vacated land was leased in larger or smaller 

 parcels at the best rents which could be obtained. This rent 

 bore no relation to the value of the services formerly due 

 from the land. The customary tenements which had been 

 the units upon which labor dues were assessed were broken 

 up, and the acres leased separately, or in new combinations, 

 to other men.^ At Fomcett, as in the case of the Win- 

 chester manors where the services were commuted, the terms 

 of the new arrangement can be compared with those of the 

 old, and it is seen that the money rent obtained was less than 

 the value of the services formerly due. The customary ser- 

 vices were here valued at over two shillings per acre; the 

 average rent obtained was less than one shilling an acre, 

 ylie net pecuniary result of the change, then, was the same 

 as though the services had been commuted for money at 

 less than their valu^ 



Another method of reducing rents in this period was the 

 remission of_a_part of .th_eservices_due. Miss Levett notes 

 the extent to which this took place on the Winchester 

 manors, and suggests that the Bishop wished to avoid the 

 wastefulness and inefficiency of serf labor. ^ She overlooks 

 the fact that he failed to exact the money payment in place 

 of the services for which manorial custom provided. It 



1 Levett and Ballard, op. cit., pp. 42-43. 



' Davenport, Economic Development of a Norfolk Manor, p. 78, and 

 Smyth, op. cit., vol. i, p. 113. 



3 Levett and Ballard, op. cit., p. 157. "On many manors the 

 majority of the services owed were simply dropped, neither sold 

 nor commuted. They were evidently in many cases inefficient, expen- 

 sive, and inelastic." 



1 



