The English Village Community / Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)

by Frederic Seebohm

III. THE HUNDRED ROLLS OF EDWARD I., EMBRACING FIVE MIDLAND COUNTIES.

The facts thus learned from the Winslow Manor Rolls throw just that flash of light upon the otherwise dry details of the Hundred Rolls of Edward I. which is needful to make the picture they give in detail of the manors in parts of five midland counties vivid and clear.

Surveys of manors in five counties, A.D. 1279.

English economic history is rich in its materials; and of all the records of the economic condition of England, next to the Domesday Survey, the Hundred Rolls are the most important and remarkable. The second volume, in its 1,000 folio pages, contains inter alia a true and clear description of every manor in a large district, embracing portions of Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Cambridgeshire, in about the year 1279; and as in most cases the name of every tenant is recorded, with the character of his holding and a description of his payments and services, the picture of each manor has almost the detail and accuracy of a photograph. Turning over its pages, the mass of detail may at first appear confused and bewildering, and in one sense it is so, because [p033] it relates to a system which, however simple when fully at work, becomes broken up and entangled whilst in process of disintegration. But the key to it once mastered, the original features of the system may still be recognised. Even the broken pieces fall into their proper places, and the general economic outlines of the several manors stand out sharply and clearly marked.

They are of the Winslow type.

Speaking generally, in its chief economic features every manor is alike, as in the record itself one common form of survey serves for them all. Hence the Winslow example gives the requisite key to the whole. Bringing to the record the knowledge of how the open fields were everywhere divided into furlongs, and acre or half-acre strips, and that virgates and half-virgates were equal bundles of strips scattered all over the fields, the description of the manors in the Hundred Rolls becomes perfectly intelligible.

In the first place the manor consists, as in the Winslow example, of two parts—the land in demesne and the land in villenage.

The land in demesne consists of the home farm, and portions, irregular in area, let out from it to what are called free tenants (libere tenentes), some of them being nevertheless villeins holding their portions of the demesne lands in free tenure at certain rents in addition to their regular holdings.

Virgates and half-virgates.

The land in villenage, as in the Winslow manor, is held mostly in virgates and half-virgates, and below these cottiers hold smaller holdings, also in villenage.

In describing the tenants in villenage there is first a statement that A. B. holds a virgate in villenage at such and such payments and services, which are often [p034] very minutely described. The money value of each service and the total value of them all is in many cases also carefully given. This description of the holding and services of A. B. is then followed by a list of persons who also each hold a virgate at the same services as A. B.

Secondly, there is a similar statement in detail that C. D. holds a half-virgate in villenage, and that such and such are his payments and services, followed by a similar list of persons who also each hold a half-virgate at the same services as C. D.

Cottier tenants.

Then follows a list of the little cottier tenants, and their holdings and services. Amongst some of these cottage holdings there is equality, some are irregular, and some consist of a cottage and nothing else.

These holdings are all in villenage, but, as before mentioned, the names of the villein tenants often occur again in the list of free tenants (libere tenentes) of portions of the lord's demesne or of recently reclaimed land (terra assarta).

This may be taken as a fair description of the common type of manor throughout the Hundred Rolls, with local variations.

With exceptional variations the manors are all of one type.

The chief of these is that in many places in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire the holdings of the villani, instead of being described as virgates and half-virgates, are described by their acreage. There are so many holders of 30, 20, 15, 10, or other number of acres each. They are not the less in grades, with equality in each grade, but the holdings bear no distinctive name.

There is also in these counties a class of tenants, partly above the villani, called sochemanni, which we [p035] shall find again when we reach the Domesday Survey. But upon exceptional local circumstances it is not needful to dwell here.

The fact is, then, that in the Hundred Rolls of Edward I. there is disclosed over the much wider area of five midland counties almost precisely the same state of things as that which existed in the manor of Winslow late in the reign of Edward III. That manor was under the ecclesiastical lordship of an abbey, but here in the Hundred Rolls the same state of things exists under all kinds of ownership. Manors of the king or the nobility, of abbeys, and of private and lesser landowners, are all substantially alike. In all there is the division of the manor into demesne land and land in villenage. In all the mass of the land in villenage is held in the grades of holdings mostly called virgates and half-virgates, with equality in each grade both as to the holding and the services. In all alike are found the smaller cottage holdings, also in villenage; and lastly, in all alike there are the free tenants of larger or smaller portions of the demesne land.

The open field system is the shell of serfdom.

If the picture of a manor and its open fields and virgates or yard-lands in villenage—i.e. both of the shell and of the community in serfdom inhabiting the shell—drawn in detail from the single Winslow example, has thrown light upon the Hundred Rolls, these latter, embracing hundreds of manors in the midland counties of England, give the picture a typical value, proving that it is true, not for one manor only, but, speaking generally, for all the manors of central England.

They also give additional information on the relation [p036] of the holdings to the hide, and reveal more clearly than the Winslow manor rolls the nature of the serfdom under which the villein tenants held their virgates. Before passing from the Hundred Rolls it will be worth while to examine the new facts they give us, and to devote a section to an examination of the services.

IV. THE HUNDRED ROLLS (continued)—RELATION OF THE VIRGATE TO THE HIDE AND CARUCATE.

Before passing to the villein services described in the Hundred Rolls, evidence may be cited from them showing the relation of the virgate or yard-land—which is now known to be the normal holding of the normal tenant in villenage—to the hide and carucate. If to the knowledge of what a virgate was, can be added an equally clear understanding of what a hide was, another valuable step will be gained.

In the rolls for Huntingdonshire a series of entries occurs, describing, contrary to the usual practice of the compilers, the number of acres in a virgate, and the number of virgates in a hide, in several manors.

These entries are given below,[31] and they show clearly—

(1) That the bundle of scattered strips called a virgate did not always contain the same number of acres.

(2) That the hide did not always contain the same number of virgates.

But at the same time it is evident that the hide in [p037] Huntingdonshire most often contained 120 acres or thereabouts. It did so in twelve cases out of nineteen. In one case it contained the double of 120, i.e. 240 acres. In six cases only the contents varied irregularly from the normal amount.

The normal hide four virgates or 120 acres; the double hide of 240 acres: but there are local variations.

Taking the normal hides of 120 acres, five of them were made up of four virgates of thirty acres each, which we may take to have been normal virgates. In one case there were eight virgates of fifteen acres each in the hide. In other places these probably would have been called half-virgates, as at Winslow.

There were occasionally five virgates and sometimes six virgates in the hide, and the fact of these variations will be found to have a meaning hereafter; but in the meantime we may gather from the instances given in the Hundred Rolls for Huntingdonshire, that the normal hide consisted as a rule of four virgates of about thirty acres each. The really important [p038] consequence resulting from this is the recognition of the fact that as the virgate was a bundle of so many scattered strips in the open fields, the hide, so far as it consisted of actual virgates in villenage, was also a bundle—a compound and fourfold bundle—of scattered strips in the open fields.

The ancient hidage or assessment of taxation.

Whilst, however, marking this relation of the virgate to the hide, regarded as actual holdings in villenage, it is necessary to observe also that throughout the Hundred Rolls the assessed value of the manors is generally stated in hides and virgates; and that, in the estimate thus given of the hidage of a manor as a whole, the demesne land as well as the land in villenage is taken into account. In this case the hide and virgate are used as measures of assessment, and it does not follow that all land that was measured or estimated by the hide and virgate was actually divided up by balks into acres, although the demesne land itself was in fact, as we have seen, often in the open fields, and intermixed with the strips in villenage. Distinction must therefore be made between the hide and virgate as actual holdings and the hide and virgate as customary land measures, used for recording the assessed values or the extent of manors, just as in the case of the acre.

The virgate and the hide were probably, like the acre, actual holdings before they were adopted as abstract land measures. It may be even possible to learn or to guess what fact made a particular number of acres the most convenient holding.

The scutage.

In the Hundred Rolls for Oxfordshire there is frequent reference to the payment of the tax called scutage. The normal amount of this is assumed [p039] to be 40s. for each knight's fee, or scutum. And it appears that the knight's fee was assumed to contain four normal hides. There is an entry, 'One hide gives scutage for a fourth part of one scutum.' And as four virgates went usually to each hide, so each virgate should contribute 116 of a scutum. There are several entries which state that when the scutage is 40s. each virgate pays 2s. 6d., which is 1 16 of 40s.[32]

Connexion between acreage of holdings and the coinage.

And these figures seem to lead one step further, and to connect the normal acreage of the hide of 120A., and of the virgate of 30A., with the scutage of 40s. per knight's fee; for when these normal acreages were adhered to in practice the assessment would be one penny per acre, and the double hide of 240 acres would pay one pound. In other words, in choosing the acreage of the standard hide and virgate, a number of acres was probably assumed, corresponding with the monetary system, so that the number of pence in the 'scutum' should correspond with the number of acres assessed to its payment. We shall find this correspondence of acreage with the coinage by no means confined to this single instance.

But there remains the question, why the acreage in the virgate and hide as actual holdings, and the [p040] number of virgates in the hide, were not constant. Their actual contents and relations were evidently ruled by some other reason than the number of pence in a pound.

Carucate, or land of a plough team, used instead of the hide for later taxation,

A trace at least of the original reason of the varying contents and relations of the hide and virgate is to be found in the Hundred Rolls, as, indeed, almost everywhere else, in the use of another word in the place of hide, when, instead of the anciently assessed hidage of a manor, its more modern actual taxable value is examined into and expressed. This new word is 'carucate'—the land of a plough or plough team,—'caruca' being the mediæval Latin term for both plough and plough team.

and varied according to the soil.

The Hundred Rolls for Bedfordshire afford several examples in point. In some cases the carucate seems to be identical with the normal hide of 120 acres, but other instances show that the carucate varied in area.[33] It is the land cultivated by a plough team; varying in acreage, therefore, according to the lightness or heaviness of the soil, and according to the strength of the team.

V. THE HUNDRED ROLLS (continued)—THE SERVICES OF THE VILLEIN TENANTS.

Services often commuted into money payments.

In the Hundred Rolls for Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire the services of the villein tenants [p041] are almost always commuted into money payments. From each virgate a payment of from 16s. to 20s. is described as due, or services to that value (vel opera ad valorem), showing that the actual services have become the exception, and the money payments the rule. But in many cases distinguishing marks of serfdom still remained in the fine upon the marriage of a daughter, the heriot on the death of the holder, and the restraint on the sale of animals.[34]

In Huntingdonshire and Oxfordshire, on the other hand, the services, whilst often having their money value assigned, are mostly given in great detail, as though still frequently enforced.

Of three kinds.

Speaking generally, the chief services, notwithstanding variations in detail, may be classed under three different heads.

Week work.

(1) There is the weekly work at ploughing, reaping, carrying, usually for two or three days a week, and most at harvest-time. In other cases there are so many days' work required between certain dates.

Precariæ.

(2) There are precariæ, or 'boon-days,' sometimes called bene works—special or extra services which the lord has a right to require, sometimes the lord providing food for the day, and sometimes the tenant providing for himself.

Fixed dues in money or in kind.

(3) There are payments in kind or in money at specified times, such as Christmas, Easter, Martinmas, and Michaelmas dues; churchshot, an ancient ecclesiastical [p042] due; besides contributions towards the lord's taxes in the shape of tallage or scutage.

Sometimes the services are to be performed with one or two labourers, showing that the cottier tenants were labourers under the holders of virgates, or indicating possibly in some cases the remains of a slave class.

The chief weekly services were those of ploughing, the tenants sometimes supplying oxen to the lord's plough team, sometimes using their own ploughs, two or more joining their oxen for the purpose. This co-operation is a marked feature of the services, and is found also in connexion with reaping and carrying.

The cottier tenants in respect of their smaller holdings often worked for their lord one day a week, and having no plough, or oxen, their services did not include ploughing.

Annexed are typical instances of the services of both classes of tenants. They are taken from three counties, and placed side by side for comparison.