THE MANOR AT ITS ZENITH 25 



Michaelmas, a peck of wheat, 4 bushels of oats, and 3 hens on 

 November 12, and at Christmas a cock, two hens, and two 

 pennyworth of bread. His labour services were to plough, 

 sow, and till half an acre of the lord's land, and give his work 

 as directed by the bailiff except on Sundays and feast days. 

 In harvest time he was to reap three days with one man at his 

 own cost. 



Some of these tenants held, besides their half virgates, other 

 plots of land for which each had to make hay for one day for 

 the lord, with a comrade, and received a halfpenny ; also to 

 mow, with another, three days in harvest time, at their own 

 charges, and another three days when the lord fed them. 

 After harvest six pennyworth of beer was divided among 

 them, each received a loaf of bread, and every evening when 

 work was over each reaper might carry away the largest sheaf 

 of corn he could lift on his sickle. 



The cottagers paid from is. id. to 2s. a year for their hold- 

 ings, and were obliged to work a day or two in the hay-making, 

 receiving therefor a halfpenny. They also had to do from 

 one to four days' harvest work, during which they were fed at 

 the lord's table. For the rest of the year they were free 

 labourers, tending cattle or sheep on the common for wages or 

 working at the various crafts usual in the village. This manor 

 was a small one, and contained in all twenty-four households, 

 numbering from sixty to seventy inhabitants. 1 



On most manors, as in Forncett 2 , which contained about 

 2,700 acres, from the preponderance of arable, the chief source 

 of income to the lord was from the grain crops ; other sources 

 may be seen from the following table of the lord's receipts and 

 expenses in 1272-3 : 



1 Compare the account of the manors in Huntingdonshire belong- 

 ing to Romsey Abbey given in Page, End of Villeinage in England, 

 pp. 28 et seq. 



2 Davenport, A Norfolk Manor, p. 36 ; and see Hall, Pipe Roll of 

 Bishopric of Winchester, p. xxv. 



