Land Tenure and Agriculttire. Sy 



Norman times became so intricate, did not progress to any con- 

 siderable extent in pre-Conquest days, for botli the king and 

 the king's thanes found that sub-infeudation interfered with 

 their independence and reversionary interests, since whenever 

 lands became once more theirs they reverted subject to the 

 rights of the rear-vassalage. The grants to sub-vassals were 

 for this cause never hereditary'-, though in later Saxon times 

 the Bocland charters partook of the nature of leases for two or 

 more lives. But whatever the form of tenure may have been, 

 a system of communal agriculture prevailed. Let us now 

 more especially examine that on the land partly public and 

 partly private. 



The tract of the township farmed by the villeins, or (to be 

 strictly synchronous in our language) geburs, was known as the 

 gafol, gesiths, or geneats land, in contradistinction to the thane's 

 inland, i.e. the lord's lands in hand. The geburs included the 

 landholders and superior tenantry. They possessed fixity of 

 tenure so long as they performed their predial and agricul- 

 tural services.^ Most geburs had apportioned to them about 

 ten acres or strips in each of the divisions of the common field.^ 

 Instead of resorting to the communal practice of the Welsh 

 tribal husbandry, the gebur looked to the overlord for plough 

 beasts and tackle. He was in fact started in life by the 

 landed proprietor, who not only supplied him with his home- 

 stead and the stulit or outfit of two oxen and implements 

 necessary to cultivate a yard-land, but also added a few neces- 

 sary live stock to afford such dietetic wants as eggs and milk ; 

 and even one division of land in the common field was culti- 

 vated and sown with oats for him. Everthing of course re- 

 verted to the landlord at death, and everything was paid for 

 in some shape or form. There was the Michaelmas charge of 

 gafol pence and the gafol ploughing. But besides this, the 

 gebur had to perform predial service on the inland twice a week, 

 and oftener still in harvest and spring tide, and for the grass 



* Palgrave, Eise and Fall of the English Commonwealth, vol. i., pt. i., 

 p. 13. 



^ Eectitudines singularum Personarum, a.d. 900, Vide Seebolim, 

 Village Community, ch. v. 



