220 History of the English Landed Interest. 



before Easter, mederepe or liay harvesting, tlie ingathering of 

 the demesne's crops, etc., all had their special remuneration. 

 Sheep, lambs, sucking pigs, horse fodder, and honey were 

 equivalents for a monied rent, and even the free tenants 

 acknowledged seignorial jurisdiction by the payment in kind 

 of such small dues as eggs at Easter, roots of ginger, pepper, 

 and the like.^ 



Then there comes a time wlien terms associated with the 

 chink of money replace in the old mediaeval manuscripts those 

 enumerated above. We begin to read of barlick silver, fish 

 silver, malt silver, fald silver, scythe pence, wood pence, ward 

 pence, and the like, until the class of molmen arises who re- 

 present the intermediate stage between the tenants paying 

 rent wholly in labour and kind and those paying rent wholly 

 in money. 



There was another division of the villeinage amongst whom 

 the same process was taking place. These were the tenants 

 of ancient demesne, who were peasants belonging to manors 

 which were vested in the Crown at the time of the Conquest. 

 Personally free, they held their lands in villeinage, though a 

 villeinage of a privileged type. They possessed their own 

 particular courts, and were subject to a law of their own. 

 Free from market tolls and custom duties, exempted from 

 serving on juries and from the jurisdiction of the sheriff, not 

 assessable for danegeld or the common amercement, and even 

 taxed differently to the rest of the villeinage, they were still 

 classed among the villeinage, and had their tallages to pay to 

 the king, but they were not represented in Parliament.'^ 



This commutation of predial service, and letting of demesne 

 land for monetary equivalents, which did not become general 

 till the reign of Edward II., were agreeable to the interests of 

 both parties. The lord, on the one part, was anxious to save 

 the costs of supervision, and in cases where he possessed the 

 seignorial rights to toll, not displeased in finding an enhanced 

 source of profit from his market dues. The tenant in villeinage, 



' For details of the various forms of predial and precarial services, 

 vide. Vinogradoif, Villeinage in Enr/land, paasim. 

 - VinogradofF, Villeinage in England, chap. iii. 



