Estate Management. 191 



acreage of the arable and meadow lands, and the head of live 

 stock existing as well as capable of existing on the pastures. 

 And here is perhaps the first ^ allusion to the coming subdivi- 

 sion of the business of the Court Baron into several separate 

 assemblies. 



It is evident that the seneschal could never find time among 

 all these multitudinous engagements for that close and 

 detailed supervision which the husbandry in each manorial 

 demesne demanded. It was the bailiff, a man selected out of 

 the villein class, who performed this duty, acting on his own 

 responsibility in all trivial transactions, but looking to the 

 seneschal for advice on an emergency. The former was the 

 servant of the subvassal who inhabited the manor house, or 

 in cases where the manor was kept in hand by the tenant-in- 

 chief, the bailiff himself often tenanted the manor house and, 

 like the seneschal, was the baron's officer.^ The early rising 

 and late attendance entailed by the supervision of yoking and 

 unyoking each day, the management of the live stock, and the 

 superintendence of all farming operations, are so similar to a 

 modern bailiff's duties as to scarcely require a passing glance. 

 But besides these duties he had to estimate and write down the 

 acreage ploughed, reaped, or harvested by the predial service. 

 He was not allowed to bake or brew without his lord's warrant, 

 nor to entertain a visitor on the manor except at his own 

 expenses.'^ His sole perquisites were straw, hay, and firewood. 

 His task was to keep a watchful eye over the contents of the 

 granges, and prevent the removal of straw, hay, or fern, which 

 had to be consumed on the manor either in the form of forage 

 or as manure. A curious rule restricted him from purchasing 

 the winter seed-corn without the lord's or seneschal's warrant 

 by writ.'^ The spring seed, however, might be sown from his 

 own store, unless " cheapness prevented him by order of the 

 writ," a regulation which seems to imply that his purchase of 

 seed-corn was limited to a certain market price, above which 

 he might not go. What little produce had to be sold in fair 



^ Vide chap. xxx. of this book. 



^ SeiieHchancie^ p. 91. Translation of Eoj-al Hist. Soc. 



^ Id.^ Ibid. ■* Idem, p. 93. 



