Life and Work on the Barony. 203 



during the Middle Ages. For the sake of details let us now take 

 an example. On the Manor of Cuxham^ we find that the 

 holder of a military fee would have to pay about 40s. annually 

 as scutage, that a free tenant would be paying about Is. per 

 acre for a portion of his land, and a pound of pepper, valued at 

 Is, Gd, for another of nine acres. A householder would be 

 under an obligation to keep two lighted lamps in the church ; 

 the parish miller would be paying 40s. per annum for his tene- 

 ment ; a serf, for the occupancy of about half a virgate, would 

 be rendering, («) a quarter of seed wheat at Michaelmas, a peck 

 of wheat, four bushels of oats and three hens on Nov. 12th, a 

 cock and two hens at Christmas, and two pennyworth of bread 

 annually as predial payments ; (6) the complete tillage of 

 half an acre of the demesne, any extra duties demanded by 

 the bailiff, and three days' reaping by himself and a man, as 

 boon services ; (c) and a money payment at Nov. 12th of one 

 halfpenny. In addition to these, his lord's consent was of 

 course required for the marriage of his children, the sale of his 

 live stock, and the fallage of any oak or ash. The cottager had 

 to pay about Is. Qd. annually for his tenement, perform a 

 day or two's haymaking at a halfpenny's wage, and do four 

 days' labour in corn harvest in exchange for his food whilst 

 working. The rest of his time was at his own disposal and 

 was employed in hiring himself out as herdsman or labourer 

 to the richer occupants of the manor. If he could not some- 

 how contrive to get into an ecclesiastical profession his highest 

 ambition would probably be to become bailiff, and live in the 

 manor house ; an office which often became hereditary. 



These mixed rents of partly compulsory, partly boon, and 

 partly monied services defeat any attempt at accurately 

 estimating the value of lands in Mediaeval times, though 

 Professor Rogers has accomplished all in this direction that is 

 possible. 



The population, size, proportions of land distribution, and 

 acreage under cultivation, of course varied in each manor. In 

 the Eastern counties two-thirds of the village of Hawstead 



^ Yide Kogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages., p. 39, and Prices 

 and Agric, vol. i., p. 72. 



