70 THE ENCLOSURES IN ENGLAND [226 



Chatteris tenant when he was ordered by the manorial court 

 to put his holding in repair can be understood : ^* Non re- 

 pcuravit tenementum, et dicit quod non vult reparare sed 

 potius dimittere et abire." ^ If he left the manor and joined 

 the other men who under the same circumstances were giv- 

 ing up their land and becoming fugitives, it was not with the 

 hope of greatly improving his condition. Some of the fugi- 

 tives found employment in the towns, but this was by no 

 means certain, and the records frequently state that the 

 absent villains had become beggars.' 



The declining productivity of the soil not only affected 

 the villains, but reduced the profits of demesne cultivation. 

 It has already been seen that the acreage under crop was 

 steadily decreasing, as more and more land reached a stage 

 of barrenness in which it no longer repaid cultivation. This 

 process is seen from another angle in the frequent complaints 

 that the customary meals supplied by the lord to serfs work- 

 ing on the demesne cost more than the labor was worth. 

 According to Miss Levett : 



This complaint was made on many manors belonging to the 

 Bishop of Winchester in spite of the fact that if one may judge 

 from the cost of the "Autumn Works " the meals were not very 

 lavish, the average cost being i d. or i-j^- d. per head for each 

 Precaria. . . . The complaint that the system was working at 

 a loss comes also from Brightwaltham (Berkshire), Hutton 

 (Essex), and from Banstead (Surrey), as early as 1325, and is 

 reflected in contemporary literature. " The work is not worth 

 the breakfast" (or the reprisd) occurs several times in the 

 Winchester Pipe Rolls. ... By 1376 the entry is considerably 

 more frequent, and applies to ploughing as well as to harvest- 

 work.^ At Meon 64 acres of ploughing were excused quia 



* Page, End of Villainage, p. 365. 



2 Ihid., p. 384. 



3 Levett and Ballard, op. cit., p. 157. 



