V. THE DOUBLE AND ANCIENT CHARACTER OF THE SERVICES OF THE GEBUR—GAFOL AND WEEK-WORK.
Returning to the services of the gebur, stress must be laid upon their double character. Like the later villanus he paid a double debt to his lord in respect of his yard-land and outfit, or 'setene'—(1) gafol; (2) week-work.
Laws of King Ine.
This is a point of great importance at this stage of the inquiry; for it gives us the key to the meaning of an otherwise almost unintelligible passage in the laws of King Ine,[170] which bears directly upon the matter in hand.
Geset-land.
This passage immediately follows those already quoted, requiring one-half or more of the land of the absentee landlord to be 'gesettes land.'
It follows in natural order after this requirement, because it evidently relates to the process of increasing the number of tenants on the gesettes land, so introducing new geburs or villani, with new yard-lands or virgates, into the village community. The clause is as follows:
Yard-land.
Gafol and weorc.
BE GYRDE LONDES.
Gif mon geþingað gyrðe lander oþþe mære to pæðe-gafole.
geereð. gif se hlaforð him pile
lanð aræran to weorce
to gafole. ne þearf he him onfón gif he lum nan botl ne selð. . . .
OF A YARD OF LAND.
If a man agree for a yard-land or more at a fixed gafol and plough it, if the lord desire to raise the land to him to work and to gafol, he need not take it upon him, if the lord do not give him a dwelling. . . .
[p143] The meaning of it apparently is that if a man agree for a yard-land or more to 'ræd-gafol' (i.e. at such gafol payments as have been described), and plough it, still the lord cannot put the new holding 'to weorce and to gafole,' that is, make the holder completely into a gebur or villanus, owing both gafol and week-work to his lord, unless the lord also supply the homestead ('botl').
That the 'botl' or homestead was looked upon as the essential part of a man's holding is shown by another law of King Ine:—
LXVIII. Gif mon gesiðcundne monnan adrife. fordrife þy botle. næs þære setene
68. If a gesithcund man be driven off, it must be from the botl, not the setene.
The manor and serfdom in seventh century.
Now the importance of these passages can hardly be exaggerated; for, if we may trust the genuineness of the laws of King Ine,[171] they show more clearly than anything else could do, that in the seventh century—400 years before the Domesday Survey—the manor was already to all intents and purposes what it was afterwards. They show that at that early date part of the land was in the lord's demesne and part let out to tenants, who when supplied by the lord with everything—their homestead and their yard-land—owed, not only customary tribute or gafol, but also 'weorc' or service to the lord; and how otherwise could this 'weorce' be given then or afterwards [p144] except in the shape of labour on the lord's demesne, as is described in the 'Rectitudines'?
It is worth while to notice that while the double debt of both gafol and week-work was due from the gebur or villanus proper, and the week-work was the most servile service, yet even the mere payment of gafol was the sign of a submission to an overlordship. It had a servile taint about it, as well it might, being paid apparently part in kind and part in work. As the class of free hired labourers had not yet been born into existence under these early Saxon economic conditions, in times when the theows were the servants, so the modern class of farmers or free tenants at a rent of another's land had not yet come into being. It was the 'ceorl' who lived on 'gafol land,' [172] and to pay gafol was to do service, though of a limited kind.
Gafol a servile tribute.
The Saxon translators of the Gospels rendered the question, 'Doth your master pay tribute?' [173] by the words 'gylt he gafol?' And they used the same word gafol also in translating the counter question, 'Of whom do kings take tribute, of their own people or of aliens?'
Bede.
So when Bede described the northern conquest of Ethelfred, king of the Northumbrians, over the Britons in A.D. 603, and spoke of the inhabitants as being either exterminated or subjugated, and their lands as either cleared for new settlers or made tributary to the English, King Alfred in his translation expressed [p145] the latter alternative by the words 'set to gafol'—to gafulgyldum gesette.[174]
No doubt the Teutonic notion of a subjugated people was that of a people reduced to serfdom or villenage. They—the conquerors—were the nation, the freemen. The conquered race were the aliens, subjected to gafol and servitude.
Parable of 'the unjust steward.'
Thus, recurring to the Saxon translation of the parable of 'the unjust steward,' one may recognise how perfectly naturally everything seemed to the translators to transfer itself to a Saxon thane's estate, and to translate itself into Saxon terms.[175]
The 'hlaford' of the 'tun' or manor had his 'tun-gerefa' or reeve, just as the Saxon thane had. The land in villenage was occupied not by mere trade debtors of the lord, as our version has it, but by 'gafol-gyldan'—tenants to whom land and goods of the lord had been entrusted, as Saxon tenants were entrusted with their 'setene,' and who, therefore, paid gafol or tribute in kind. The natural gafol of the tenant of an olive-garden would be so many 'sesters' of oil. The tenant of corn land would pay for gafol, like the English tenant of a yard-land inter alia so [p146] many 'mittan' of wheat; and it was the duty of the unrighteous 'tun-gerefa,' or reeve of the manor, to collect the gafol from these tenants, as it was the duty of the Saxon thane's reeve to gather the dues from his servile tenants.
How many otherwise free tenants hired yard-lands without becoming geburs, and rendering the full week-work as well as gafol, we do not know. Except in the Danish district they seem to have left, as we have seen, no trace behind them on most manors in the Domesday Survey. The fact already mentioned, that the yard-lands of geburs, who owed both gafol and services, were sometimes called 'gyrda gafollandes,' shows how completely the gafol and the services had become united as coincidents of a common villein tenure. All villein tenants were apparently 'geneats' and paid 'gafol,' and there is a passage in the laws of King Edgar which states that if a geneat-man after notice should persist in neglecting to pay his lord's gafol, he must expect that his lord in his anger will spare neither his goods nor his life.[176]
Completeness of the evidence to the seventh century.
On the whole, leaving out of notice doubtful and exceptional tenants, as well we may, we are now in a position to state generally what were the main classes of villein tenants in early Saxon times, and what were their holdings on the land in villenage, whether it were known as geneat, or geset, or gafol land.
First, the 'Rectitudines,' of the tenth century, describes, as we have seen, these tenants as all geneats or villeins, and records their services in general terms. [p147] It then divides them into classes, just as the Domesday Survey does. And the two chief classes of the geneats are the geburs and the cottiers. These two classes are evidently the villani and the bordarii or cottiers of the Domesday Survey.
Secondly, the same document describes the holdings of these two classes. It speaks of the cottiers as holding mostly five acres each—sometimes more and sometimes less—in singular coincidence with the Domesday Survey and later evidence. And it describes the gebur, as we have seen, as holding a yard-land or virgate, the typical holding of the Domesday villanus, and as having allotted to him as 'outfit' two oxen, just as was the case with the Kelso husbandmen.
Thirdly, the laws of King Ine bring back the evidence to the seventh century by their incidental mention of the yard-land as a typical holding on geset-land; and also of half-hides[177] and hides, as well as of geneats[178] and geburs,[179] with their gafol and weorc.
When this concurrence of the evidence of the tenth and the seventh century is duly considered, it will be seen how complete is the proof that in the seventh century the West Saxon estate, though called a 'tun' or a 'ham,' was in reality a manor in the Norman sense of the term—an estate with a village community in villenage upon it under a lord's jurisdiction. [p148]