especially, often strike a kind of balance between the expense incurred and the value of the work performed. By the end of the thirteenth century it is generally found that both ends are just made to meet in cases of extra work attended by extra feeding, and in some instances it is found that the lord has to lay out more than he gets back.(117*) The rise in the prices of commodities had rendered the service unprofitable. No wonder that such 'boon-work' has to be given up or to be commuted for money.
These regularly recurring liberationes or liberaturae as they are called, that is, meals and provender delivered to the labourers, have their counterpart in the customary arrangement of the amount and kind of services. I shall have to speak of their varieties and usual forms in another connexion, but it must be noticed now, that these peasants unprotected at law were under the rule of orderly custom. W e have seen already that the payments and duties which followed from the subjection of the villains were for the most part fixed according to constant rules in each particular case. The same may be said of the economical pressure exercised in the shape of service and rent. It did not depend on the caprice of the lord, although it depended theoretically on his will. The villains of a manor in Leicestershire are not bound to work at weeding the demesne fields unless by their own consent, that is by agreement.(118*) Abaker belonging to Glastonbury Abbey is not bound to carry loads unless a cart is provided him.(119*) A survey of Ely mentions that some peasants are made to keep a hedge in order as extra work and without being fed. But it is added that the jurors of the village protest against such an obligation, as heretofore unheard of.(120*) All these customs and limitations may, of course, be broken and slighted by the lord, but such violent action on his part will be considered as gross injustice, and may lead to consequences unpleasant for him -- to riots and desertion.
It is curious that the influence of custom makes itself felt slowly but surely among the most debased of the villains. The Oxfordshire Hundred Roll treats for instance of the servi of Swincombe. They pay merchet; if any of them dies without making his will the whole of his moveable property falls to the lord.
They are indeed degraded. And still the lord does not tallage them at pleasure, they are secure in the possession of their waynage (salvo contenemento).(121*)We may sum up the results already obtained by our analysis of manorial documents in the following propositions: --1. The terminology of the feudal period and the treatment of tenure in actual life testify to the fact that the chief stress lay more on tenure than on status, more on economical condition than on legal distinctions.
2. The subdivisions of the servile class and the varieties of service and custom show that villainage was a complex mould into which several heterogeneous elements had been fused.
3. The life of the villain is chiefly dependent on custom, which is the great characteristic of medieval relations, and which stands in sharp contrast with slavery on the one hand and with freedom on the other.
NOTES:
1. Thorold Rogers has made great use of this last class of manorial documents in his well-known books.
2. Bracton, 271 b.
3. Bracton, 124.
4. Cartulary of Malmesbury (Rolls Series), ii. 186: 'Videlicet quod prefatus Ricardus concessit praedictis abbati et conventui et eorum tenentibus, tam rusticis, quam liberis quod ipsi terras suas libere pro voluntate sua excolant.'
5. As to the Warwickshire Hundred Roll in the Record Office, see my letter in the Athenaeum, 1883, December 22.
6. Rot. Hundred. ii. 471, a: 'Libere tenentes prioris de Swaveseia.... Henricus Palmer 1 mesuagium et 3 rodas terre reddens 12 d. et 2 precarias. Servi Adam scot tenet 10 acras reddens 4s. et 6 precarias.... Cotarii.....'
7. Rot. Hundred. ii. 715. a: 'In servitute tenentes. Assunt et ibidem 10 tenentes qui tenent 10 virgatas terre in villenagio et operantur ad voluntatem domini et reddunt per annum 25 s.'
8. Rot. Hundred. ii. 690. 691: 'Villani servi-custumarii. Et tenent ut villani, ut servi, ut libere tenentes.' Rot Hundred.
ii. 544, b: 'De custumariis Johannes Samar tenet 1 mesuagium et 1croft.... per servicium 3 sol. 2 d. et secabit 2 acras et dim., falcabit per 1 diem. De servis. Nicholaus Dilkes tenet 15 acras -- et faciet per annum 144 opera et metet 2 acras. De aliis servis.... De cotariis.... De aliis cotariis.'
9. Rot. Hundred. ii. 528, a: 'Henr. de Walpol habet latinos (corr. nativos), qui tenent 180 acras terre et redd. 10 libr. et 8 sol. et 4 d. et ob. Nomina eorum qui tenent de Henrico de Walpol in villenagio.' Chapter House, County Boxes, Salop. 14, c:
'Libere tenentes.... Coterelli.... Nativi.'
10. Hale, in his Introduction to the Domesday of St. Paul's, xxiv, speaks of the 'nativi a principio' of Navestock, and distinguishes them from the villains. 'The ordinary praedial services due from the tenentes or villani were not required to be performed in person, and whether in the manor or out of it the villanus was not in legal language "sub potestate domini." Not so the nativus.' Hale's explanation is not correct, but the twofold division is noticed by him.
11. Domesday of St. Paul's, 157 (Articuli visitationis): 'An villani sive custumarii vendant terras. Item, an nativi custumarii maritaverunt filias-vel vendiderint vitulum -- vel arbores -- succidant.' A Suffolk case is even more clear.
Registrum cellararii of Bury St. Edmunds, Cambridge University Gg. iv. 4, f 30, b: 'Gersumarius vel custumarius qui nativus est.... Antecessor recognovit se nativum domini abbatis in curia domini regis.'
12. Cartulary of Eynsham in Oxfordshire, MS. of the Chapter of Christ Church in Oxford, N. 27, p. 25, a: 'In primis Willelmus le Brewester nativus domini tenet de dictis prato et terris...'
