The management of the estate, the collection of revenue, the supervision of work, the police duties incumbent on the manor, etc., required a considerable number of foremen and workmen of different kinds.(10*) Great lords usually confided the general supervision of their estates to a seneschal, steward or head manager, who had to represent the lord for all purposes, to preside at the manorial courts, to audit accounts, to conduct sworn inquests and extents, and to decide as to the general husbandry arrangements. In every single manor we find two persons of authority. The bailiff or beadle was an outsider appointed by the lord, and had to look to the interests of his employer, to collect rents and enforce duties, to manage the home farm, to take care of the domanial cattle, of the buildings, agricultural implements, etc. These functions were often conferred by agreement in consideration of a fixed rent, and in this case the steward or beadle took the name of firmarius.(11*) By his side appears the reeve, or praepositus, nominated from among the peasants of a particular township, and mostly chosen by them.(12*) Manorial instructions add sometimes that no villain has a right to hold aloof from such an appointment, if it is conferred on him.(13*) The reeve acts as the representative of the village community, as well in regard to the lord as on public occasions. He must, of course, render help to the steward in all the various duties of the latter. The reeve has more especially to superintend the performance of labour imposed on the peasantry. Manorial ploughings, reapings, and the other like operations are conducted by him, sometimes with the help of the free tenants in the place. Of the public duties of the reeve we have had occasion to speak. Four men, acting as representatives of the village, accompany him.
Next after the reeve comes, on large estates, the messor, who takes charge of the harvest, and sometimes acts as collector of fines imposed for the benefit of the lord.(14*) The akermanni or carucarii are the leaders of the unwieldy ploughs of the time,(15*) and they are helped by a set of drivers and boys who have to attend to the oxen or horses.(16*) Shepherds for every kind of cattle are also mentioned,(17*) as well as keepers and warders of the woods and fences.(18*) In the Suffolk manors of Bury St. Edmund's we find the curious term kurard to designate a person superintending the hay harvest.(19*)By the side of a numerous staff busy with the economic management of the estate, several petty officers are found to be concerned with the political machinery of the manor. The duty to collect the suitors of the hundred and of the county court is sometimes fulfilled by a special 'turn-bedellus.'(20*) A'vagiator' (vadiator?) serves writs and distrains goods for rents.(21*) The carrying of letters and orders is very often treated as a service imposed on particular tenements. It must be noted that sometimes all these duties are intimately connected with those of the husbandry system and imposed on all the officers of the demesne who own horses.(22*)A third category is formed by the house-servants, who divide among themselves the divers duties of keeping accounts, waiting on the lord personally, taking charge of the wardrobe, of the kitchen, etc. The military system and the lack of safety called forth a numerous retinue of armed followers and guards.
All-in-all a mighty staff of ministeriales, as they were called in Germany, came into being. In England they are termed sergeants and servants, servientes. In Glastonbury Abbey there were sixty-six servants besides the workmen and foremen employed on the farm.(23*) Such a number was rendered necessary by the grand hospitality of the monastery, which received and entertained daily throngs of pilgrims. In Bury St. Edmund's the whole staff was divided into five departments, and in each department the employments were arranged according to a strict order of precedence.(24*)The material for the formation of this vast and important class was supplied by the subject population of the estates. The Gloucester manorial instruction enjoins the stewards to collect on certain days the entire grown-up population and to select the necessary servants for the different callings. It is also enacted that the men should not be left without definite work, that in case of necessity they should be moved from one post to the other,(25*) etc. The requirements of the manorial administration and of the lord's household opened an important outlet for the village people. Part of the growing population thus found employment outside the narrow channel of rural arrangements. The elder or younger brothers, as it might be, took service at the lord's court. The husbandry treatises of the thirteenth century go further and mention hired labourers as an element commonly found on the estate. We find, for instance, an elaborate reckoning of the work performed by gangs of such labourers hired for the harvest.(26*) In documents styled 'Minister's Accounts'
we may also find proof, that from the thirteenth century downwards the requirements of the lord's estate are sometimes met by hiring outsiders to perform some necessary kind of work. These phenomena have to be considered as exceptional, however, and in fact as a new departure.
The officers and servants were remunerated in various ways.
