io HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



The services of the villeins were often very comprehensive, 

 and even included such tasks as preparing the lord's bath ; 

 but on some manors their services were very light. 1 



When the third of the above obligations, the gafol or 

 tribute, was paid in kind it was most commonly made in corn ; 

 and next came honey, one of the most important articles of 

 the Middle Ages, as it was used for both lighting and sweetening 

 purposes. Ale was also common, and poultry and eggs, and 

 sometimes the material for implements. 



These obligations were imposed for the most part on free 

 and unfree tenants alike, though those of the free were much 

 lighter than those of the unfree ; the chief difference between 

 the two, as far as tenure of the land went, lay in the fact that 

 the former could exercise proprietary rights over his holding 

 more or less freely, the latter had none. 2 



It seems very curious to the modern mind that the villein, 

 a man who farmed about 100 acres of land, should have been 

 in such a servile condition. 



The amount of work due from each villein came to be fixed 

 by the extent or survey of the manor, but the quality of it was 

 not 3 ; that is, each one knew how many days he had to work, 

 but not whether he was to plough, sow, or harrow, &c. It is 

 surprising to find, that on the festival days of the Church, 

 which were very numerous and observed as holy days, the 

 lord lost by no work being done, and the same was the case 

 in wet weather. 



One of the most important duties of the tenant was the 

 ' averagium ', or duty of carrying for the lord, especially neces- 

 sary when his manors were often a long way apart. He would 

 often have to carry corn to the nearest town for sale, the 

 products of one manor to another, also to haul manure on to 



1 Maitland, Domesday Bool', p. 56. 



2 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, \. 1 66. 

 In some manors free tenants could sell their lands without the lord's 

 licence, in others not. 



8 Vinogradoff, Villeinage in England, p. 279. 



