Life mid Work on the Barony. 199 



Rolls, and compare custom witli custom, tenancy with tenancy, 

 rent witli rent, and service with service, could accurately in- 

 form us what were the commonest every-day duties of a 

 villein on the thirteenth-century manor. We should like to 

 know something of the value of land, expressed either in 

 money, produce, or service ; how and where the various rents 

 were rendered, and many other particulars, which custom of 

 the country, the Estate Rental, and other ofSce archives 

 would nowadays afford the student of estate management. 

 But without proceeding far into detail, one is able to describe 

 in general terms the nature of the various holdings, the classes 

 of people who occupied them, the way they farmed, and the 

 daily routine of their life. 



We must not, however, expect to be able to unravel the 

 duties and occupation of that numerous class of agriculturists 

 to which we were introduced in our examination of Domesday 

 Book and later Manor Rolls. Besides names already familiar 

 to us from the examination made then, we might collate from 

 the different Manor Rolls of the period a longer list still, such 

 as Lundinarii, Terendelli,^ etc., signifying certain subtle gra- 

 dations of rank, and perhaps only explicable by some one well 

 posted up in the customs of the time and locality. 



We can, however, reduce the necessary list to a few simple 

 and general distinctions, according to the area of land occu- 

 pied by each individual agriculturist of the mediaeval manor. 

 The arable lands held in villeinage were split up into virgates 

 and half virgates for purposes of distribution among the farmers 

 of the district. The villeins who held whole virgates head the 

 list, after them come the holders of half virgates, next the 

 bordars holding a cottage and one or two acres, and last the 

 servile labourers. 



As to their various occupations, we shall find very little 

 different to what the Rectitudines Singularum Personarum 

 of an earlier period would lead us to expect. There were the 

 days of each week set apart for predial service on the lord's 

 demesne, and the extra work or precationes at seed-time and 

 harvest on the same lands. The rest of the year's work was 

 ^ Vidt Ashley, Economic History, chap. i. (note 41). 



