THE PROBLEM OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 47 



money rents, and never subject to labour obligations. Among the 

 names of the tenants of the essart, or clearance, we find many who 

 held at the same time either virgates in free tenure or land in villenage; 

 but probably in most cases the new holdings were given to the younger 

 sons of tenants especially cotters who otherwise would have held 

 no land at all. It was here, and on the demesne, that cottages and 

 plots of land were found for the artisans, mostly weavers, who first 

 show themselves in the thirteenth century. 



Hitherto all the freeholdings described were such as were created 

 on the land held in villenage, or on land which the villeins had pre- 

 viously held in common. Allusion, however, has already been made 

 to tenants holding demesne land. The letting of portions of the 

 demesne for money rents had in many instances taken place quite as 

 early as any of the other changes which have been described. It has 

 been seen that the whole organization of the manor was directed 

 toward providing labour for the cultivation of that part which the 

 lord kept in his own hands. It is therefore evident that if the lord 

 found it to his interest to let portions of the demesne instead of culti- 

 vating it through his bailiff or reeve, his need for the services of the 

 villeins would be pro tanto diminished, and he would be the readier to 

 accept commutation. The letting of the demesne would do more, 

 then, than any other thing to change the relations between the lord 

 and the villagers. But if, as may be naturally supposed, the renting 

 of demesne land often meant only that a man who had previously 

 been bound to cultivate certain acres, the lord taking the produce, 

 now promised a certain fixed amount in return for whatever the pro- 

 duce might chance to be, there would be absolutely no disturbance 

 at all in the actual method of cultivation. 



2. In all the cases previously noticed the commutation of labour- 

 dues for money had been accompanied by a rise from servile to free 

 tenure. But from the beginning of the thirteenth century we notice 

 a much more general and far-reaching change, the commutation of 

 week-work, or even of all labour services, without the tenant being 

 thereby raised to a free tenure. We find in many of the custumals 

 of the thirteenth century that, even where the labour is not generally 

 commuted, each item of it a day's work of each sort is precisely 

 valued, at a halfpenny, a penny, or the like. At first, probably, this 

 was in order to assess the fines to be paid by a villein who neglected 

 his due task. But very often the money would be more welcome 

 than the labour; and in Fleta the reeve is directed to look carefully 



