A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



if the idea of commutation was not entirely foreign to the system, although 

 the valuation obviously has its origin in the lord's desire to be certain that 

 the work performed was more than worth the food which it cost him in 

 Barnhorne the harrowing and brushwood cutting were only worth zd. a day, 

 and the man's three meals cost 3^., so that if the lord exacted the labour he 

 suffered a loss of id. a day on the transaction ! 60 



In curious contrast to these somewhat onerous services are the 

 obligations of the customary tenants on Iden manor in 1291. They were 

 thirty-five in number, owing altogether rents amounting to 30^. 3^. a year ; 

 twenty-one of them owed in addition forty hens and one cock, worth in all 

 5*. \d.\ four of them were bound to cut and bind 4 acres of corn, without 

 drink, and they had also to mow and spread the hay on 2 acres of meadow. 

 The surveyor, however, apparently wishing to make the fact of their 

 villeinage quite clear, and aware that appearances were against him, added 

 the significant phrase ' and they all hold at will.' 61 With these may be 

 compared the practically contemporary survey of Iham, where there were 

 twenty-five foreign customary tenants, most of whom owed a small money 

 rent, a hen, and suit of court, while two of them were bound to mow for 

 half a day. 62 The burden of servitude cannot have sat very heavily upon 

 these men, who evidently lived at a distance from the manor, possibly at 

 Guestling and Ore, like the freemen mentioned above, and could probably 

 only be controlled by the bailiff of the manor at considerable trouble to 

 himself. 63 



It is thus obvious that the nature or extent of services cannot be taken 

 as affording any basis for distinguishing between freeman and villein or villein 

 and cottar, and in fact apart from fourteenth-century evidence of legal 

 disabilities it is very difficult to generalize at all on the question of status. 

 One fact, however, appears to emerge from the mass of conflicting evidence ; 

 namely, that in early days that is between the eleventh and the fourteenth 

 centuries the normal villein-holding in Sussex consisted of one wista or 

 virgate of land or of some simple multiple or fraction of a wista. The best 

 evidence for this statement comes from the Battle custumal, where the villein 

 services on nearly every manor are assigned to the holder of a wista, or the 

 holder of half a wista, as the case may be. Further corroboration of the fact 

 may, however, be obtained from other sources. 



Thus at Wadhurst in 1277 the customary tenants are called ' virgatarii 

 operarii.' At Duddington certain services are reckoned on the half virgate. 8 * 

 At Bibleham in 1334 the villein services seem to have been a burden 

 partly upon the land and partly upon the individual villein, the eleven 

 customers, for instance, were bound to plough 6 acres in common, and each 

 had to harrow for one day with one man and one horse, and to carry manure 

 for a day with two horses or oxen ; there were, however, twenty-one carrying 

 works and forty-two boon works in autumn, which were assigned amongst 



60 Custumals of Battle Abbey (Camd. Soc.), 20 ; this would seem to be the explanation of the somewhat 

 curious calculation given. 



" P.R.O. Rentals and Surv. R. 660. " Ibid. ptfo. ft. 



65 Cf. the difficulty of recovering a fugitive villein when once he had contrived to escape from the 

 immediate neighbourhood of the manor ; Add. Ct. R. 31864, &c. 



64 Add. MS. 5703, fol. 926 ; and L. F. Salzmann, Hist, of Hailsham, 176 ; cf. also Chan. Inq. p.m. 

 Hen. Ill, file 23, No. 9. 



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