SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



mowed 23 J acres of meadow, 23b in the proportion of 2 acres per virgate 

 for eighteen holdings and half an acre for the others. They also rendered, 

 among them, twenty autumn boon-works, four tenants sending among 

 them one man for two days at the lord's cost and the remaining eighteen 

 each one man for one day. Thirteen of them also owed eleven carrying 

 works (on foot). In view of the accepted definition of mol (or mal) 

 men as custumary tenants, whose early release from servile works has 

 reacted on their status in the direction of freedom,* 4 it is curious to note 

 that at Enfield the molmen, whose servile status is expressly asserted, were 

 actually, in 1419, the only tenants on the manor who rendered works at 

 all ; while at Stepney, where the services generally were commuted 

 very early, there is nothing to show that the mollond works were 

 commuted earlier, or more completely, than those of the other tenures. 

 In the Victoria History of county Durham S4a it is pointed out that the 

 Hatfield Survey equates Jirmarius to malmannus (malmanni sive jirmarii] , and 

 it is suggested that the malmen were farmers of portions of the demesne 

 land, their services being, by special arrangement, extensively commuted 

 for money payments. But at Stepney, as we have seen, though some 

 mollond was let on lease, the commutation of molmen works proceeded 

 pari passu with, and at Enfield was actually later than, those of the other 

 holdings. Neither is there anything to show that the mollond was 

 essentially, though some of it might be occasionally, demesne land. In 

 one Stepney account one acre of mollond is mentioned under the head- 

 ing of Jirme of demesne lands. Certainly at Enfield the molmen were 

 not firmarii^ for they rendered the same services before and after the 

 leasing of the demesne, with the sole difference that afterwards their 

 services belonged to the demesne farmer instead of to the lord of the 

 manor. Now the demesne lease explicitly conveyed to the farmer all 

 the weeding, mowing, and reaping works not let on lease (ad firmam non 

 dimissis) nor commuted (necque arrentatis)** and these, as the accounts show, 

 were precisely the works actually rendered to the firmarius by the 

 twenty-two molmen. 



' Acre ware ' occur at Isleworth, Blanchappelton (a Duchy of 

 Lancaster manor), and Fulham, but, unfortunately, not in a way to 

 throw any illumination on that much-discussed term. At Stepney 

 land is measured by ' day-work acres,' and on several manors in 

 ' pyghtellings.' 



On the two St. Paul's manors of Drayton and Sutton a portion of 

 the land is distinguished as 'solanda' or 'scholanda.' This was identified 

 erroneously by Archdeacon Hales 26 with the Kentish ' sulung ' or ' soli- 

 nus,' but Mr. Round has shown that it has no connexion with sulung, 



nb The account does not expressly state that these mowing works were rendered by the molmen, 

 but it is clear that this was the case from the proportion in which the works are allotted to the holdings, 

 and from the identity of the names of tenants for whose works allowances are made with those rendering 

 specified mollond services. 



14 Vinogradoff, Villeinage in England, 183 ; Engl. Hist. Rev. i, 734. 



lta V.C.H. Dur. \, 280-2. 



" P.R.O. Mins. Accts. (Duchy of Lane.), bdle. 53, No. 1010. '" Domesday of St. Paul's. 



2 65 9 



