GROWTH OF THE MANOR 13 



from corn to be baked and malt to be brewed. 1 Besides these 

 three officers, on a large estate there would be a messor who 

 took charge of the harvest, and many lesser officers, such as 

 those of the akermanni, or leaders of the unwieldy plough 

 teams ; oxherds, shepherds, and swineherds to tend cattle, sheep, 

 and pigs when they were turned on the common fields or 

 wandered in the waste ; also wardens of the woods and fences, 

 often paid by a share in the profits connected with their 

 charge ; for instance, the swineherd of Glastonbury Abbey 

 received a sucking-pig a year, the interior parts of the best pig, 

 and the tails of all the others slaughtered. 52 On the great 

 estates these offices tended to become hereditary, and many 

 families did treat them as hereditary property, and were a great 

 nuisance in consequence to their lords. At Glastonbury we 

 find the chief shepherd so important a person that he was 

 party to an agreement concerning a considerable quantity of 

 land. 3 There were also on some manors ' cadaveratores ', whose 

 duty was to look into and report on the losses of cattle and 

 sheep from murrain, a melancholy tale of the unhealthy con- 

 ditions of agriculture. 



The supervision of the tenants was often incessant and 

 minute. According to the Court Rolls of the Manor of 

 Manydown in Hampshire, tenants were brought to book for 

 all kinds of transgressions. The fines are so numerous that 

 it almost appears that every person on the estate was amerced 

 from time to time. In 1365 seven tenants were convicted of 

 having pigs in their lord's crops, one let his horse run in the 

 growing corn, two had cattle among the peas, four had cattle 

 on the lord's pasture, three had made default in rent or service, 

 four were convicted of assault, nine broke the assize of beer, 



1 Domesday of S. Paul, xxxv. Fleta, ' an anonymous work drawn up 

 in the thirteenth century to assist landowners in managing their estates,' 

 says, the reeve ' shall rise early, and have the ploughs yoked, and then 

 walk in the fields to see that all is right and note if the men be idle, or if 

 they knock off work before the day's task is fully done.' 



2 Vinogradoff, Villeinage in England, p. 321. 3 Ibid. p. 324. 



