All the other labour-services are performed more or less on the same system as the ploughings, with the fundamental difference that the number of men engaged in them has to be reckoned with more than the number of beasts. The extents are especially full of details in their descriptions of reaping or mowing corn and grass; the process of thrashing is also mentioned, though more rarely. In the case of meadows (mederipe)sometimes their dimensions are made the basis of calculation, sometimes the number of work-days which have to be employed in order to cut the grass.(22*) As to the corn-harvest, every holding has its number of acres assigned to it,(23*) or else it is enacted that every house has to send so many workmen during a certain number of days.(24*) If it is said that such and such a tenant is bound to work on the lord's field at harvest-time with twenty-eight men, it does not mean that he has to send out such a number every time, but that he has to furnish an amount of work equivalent to that performed by twenty-eight grown-up labourers in one, day. It may be divided into fourteen days' work of two labourers, or into seven days' of four, and so forth.
Harvest-time is the most pressing time in the year for rural work; it is especially important not to lose the opportunity presented by fine weather to mow and garner in the crop before rain, and there may be only a few days of such weather at command. For this reason extra labour is chiefly required during this season, and the village people are frequently asked to give extra help in connexion with it. The system of precariae is even more developed on these occasions than in the case of ploughing.(25*) All the forces of the village are strained to go through the task; all the houses which open on the street send their labourers,(26*) and in most cases the entire population has to join in the work, with the exception of the housewives and perhaps of the marriageable daughters.(27*) The landlord treats the harvesters to food in order to make these exertions somewhat more palatable to them.(28*) These 'love-meals' are graduated according to a set system. If the men are called out only once, they get their food and no drink: these are 'dry requests.' If they are made to go a second time, ale is served to them (precariae cerevisiae). The mutual obligations of lords and tenantry are settled very minutely;(29*) the latter may have to mow a particular acre with the object of saying 'thanks' for some concession on the part of the lord.(30*) The same kind of 'requests' are in use for mowing the meadows. The duties of the peasants differ a great deal according to size of their holdings and their social position. The greater number have of course to work with scythe and sickle, but the more wealthy are called upon to supervise the rest, to ride about with rods in their hands.(31*) On the other hand, a poor woman holds a messuage, and need do no more than carry water to the mowers.(32*)A very important item in the work necessary for medieval husbandry was the business of carrying produce from one part of the country to the other. The manors of a great lord were usually dispersed in several counties, and even in the case of small landowners it was not very easy to arrange a regular communication with the market. The obligation to provide horses and carts gains in importance accordingly.(33*) These averagia are laid out for short and long distances, and the peasants have to take their turn at them one after the other.(34*) They were bound to carry corn to London or Bristol according to the size of their holdings.(35*) Special importance was attached to the carriage of the 'farm,' that is of the products designed for the consumption of the lord.(36*) In some surveys we find the qualification that the peasants are not obliged to carry anything but such material as may be put on the fire, i.e. used in the kitchen.(37*) In the manor itself there are many carriage duties to be performed: carts are required for the grain, or for spreading the dung. The work of loading and of following the carts is imposed on those who are not able to provide the implements.(38*) And alongside of the duties of carriage by horses or oxen we find the corresponding manual duty. The 'averagium super dorsum suum' falls on the small tenant who does not own either horses or oxen.(39*) Such small people are also made to drive the swine or geese to the market.(40*) The lord and his chief stewards must look sharp after the distribution of these duties in order to prevent wealthy tenants from being put to light duties through the protection of the bailiffs, who may be bribed for the purpose.(41*)It would be hard to imagine any kind of agricultural work which is not imposed on the peasantry in these manorial surveys.
