VI. SERFDOM ON A MANOR of KING EDWY.

The evidence hitherto given on the nature of the serfdom on Anglo-Saxon manors has been of a general character.

We are fortunately able to confirm and illustrate it by reference to actual local instances.

Manor of Tidenham.

The first example is that of the manor of Tidenham, and it derives a more than ordinary value from its peculiar geographical position.

The parish of Tidenham comprises the wedge-shaped corner of Gloucestershire, shut in between the Wye and the Severn, where they join and widen into the Bristol Channel; while to the north-east, on its land side, it was surrounded by the Forest of Dean.

In the belief of local antiquaries, the Roman road from Gloucester to Caerleon-upon-Usk—the key to South Wales—passed through it as well as the western continuation of the old British road of Akeman Street from the landing-place of the Severn, opposite Aust (where St. Augustine is said to have met the Welsh Christians) to the further crossing-place on the Wye. Lastly, upon it was the southern end of Offa's Dyke, the mysterious rampart which, commencing thus at the mouth of the Wye, extended to the mouth of the Dee.[180]

Saxon since A.D. 577,

The manor probably has been in English hands ever since about the time when, according to the Saxon Chronicle, after Deorham battle in A.D. 577, Bath, Gloucester, and Cirencester were wrested from [p149] the Welsh by Ceawlin, king of the West Saxons. According to the Welsh legends of the Liber Landavensis[181] this was about the time when the diocese of Llandaff was curtailed by the Wye instead of the Severn becoming the boundary between the two kingdoms. It may therefore have been for nearly five centuries before the Norman Conquest the extreme corner of West Saxon England on the side of South Wales.

The Manor of Tidenham, & West Wales.

See Larger: [West Wales].
[Manor of Tidenham].
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was a royal manor,

Conquered probably by Ceawlin, or soon after the year 577, the manor of Tidenham seems to have remained folkland or terra regis of the West Saxon kings, till Offa conquered it from them and gave his name to the dyke upon it. One of its hamlets bore, as we shall find, the name of Cinges tune, and Tidenham Chase remained a royal chase till after the Norman Conquest.

given by King Edwy, A.D. 956, to the Abbey of Bath.

The manor itself was granted by King Edwy in A.D. 956 by charter[182] to the Abbot of Bath, under whose name it is registered in the Domesday Survey. It is in this charter of King Edwy that the description of the manor and of the services of the tenants is contained. The services must be regarded, therefore, as those of a royal manor before it was handed over to ecclesiastical hands.

The boundaries still to be traced.

The boundaries as appended to the charter are given below,[183] and may still, with slight exceptions, be traced on the Ordnance Survey. [p150]

The northern limit on the Severn is described as Astege pul, now, after a thousand years, known as Ashwell Grange Pill, the puls of 1,000 years ago and the present pills being the little streams which wear away a sort of miniature tidal estuary in the mudbanks as they empty themselves into the Severn and the Wye. Numbers of pills are marked in the Ordnance map, and as many 'puls' are mentioned in the boundaries of Saxon charters and those inserted in the Liber Landavensis.

Inland and gesettes land.

After the boundaries, under the heading 'Divisiones et consuetudines in Dyddanhamme,' [184] the document proceeds to state that 'at Dyddanhamme are xxx. hides, ix. of inland and xxi. of gesettes land.' The manor was therefore in the tenth century divided into demesne land and land in villenage.

Next are stated separately the contents of each hamlet on the manor, as follows:—

Yard-lands.

Hæc- and cyt- weirs.

The hamlets.

Thus this manor, like the Winslow manor, had hamlets or small dependencies upon it, and these are [p151] still traceable on the map. Street is still Stroat on the old Roman street—the Via Julia (?)—from Gloucester to Caerleon. The Cinges túne, now Sudbury, lay on the high wedge-shaped southern promontory above the cliffs, between the Wye and Severn where they join; and it lies as it did then, part on one side and part on the other side of Offa's Dyke, as if the dyke had been cut through its open fields. Its fisheries were naturally some on the Severn and some on the Wye. The 'Bishop's túne' is still traceable in Bishton farm. Lastly, Llancaut, the only hamlet on this Saxon manor 900 years ago with a Welsh name, bears its old name still. This hamlet is surrounded almost entirely by a bend of the Wye, and its situation backed by its woods (coit=wood) may well have protected it from destruction at the time of the Saxon conquest.

Next, it is clear that the geset land in the open fields round each 'túne' or hamlet, except at Llancaut and Bishop's tune, was divided, as usual, into yard-lands—gyrda gafollandes. These yard-lands and the open fields have long since been swept away by the enclosure of the parish.

The fishing weirs.

Besides the yard-lands there were belonging to each hamlet the numerous fisheries—cytweras and hæcweras—some on the Severn and some on the Wye. What were these 'cyt' and 'hæc' weirs?

They certainly were not the ancient dams or banks across the river which are now called 'weirs,' over which the tidal wave sweeps, thus—

'Hushing half the babbling Wye.'

It is impossible that there can have been so many of these as there were cytweras and hæcweras 900 [p152] years ago—as many as thirty together at Street, fourteen at Middletune, and twenty-one at Cingestune. The fact is that the old Saxon word wera meant any structure for entrapping fish or aiding their capture. And no doubt arrangements which would not be called 'weirs' now were so called then. The words cyt and hæc weras seem to point rather to wattled basket and hedge weirs than to the solid structures now called weirs.

But the best illustration of what they were may be derived from the arrangements now at work for catching salmon in the Wye and Severn.

Cytweras.

Hæcweras.

The stranger who visits this locality will find here and there across the muddy shore of the Severn structures which at a distance look like breakwaters; but on nearer inspection he will find them to be built up of rows two or three deep of long tapering baskets arranged between upright stakes at regular distances. These baskets are called putts or butts or kypes, and are made of long rods wattled together by smaller ones, with a wide mouth, and gradually tapering almost to a point at the smaller or butt end. These putts are placed in groups of six or nine between each pair of stakes, with their mouths set against the outrunning stream; and each group of them between its two stakes is called a 'puttcher.' The word 'puttcher' can hardly be other than a rapidly pronounced putts weir, i.e. a weir made of putts. If the baskets had been called 'cyts' instead of 'putts,' the group would be a cytweir. So, e.g., the thirty cytweras at Street would represent a breakwater such as may be seen there now, consisting of as many puttchers. This use of what may be called basket weirs [p153] is peculiar to the Wye and the Severn, and has been adopted to meet the difficulty presented by the unusual volume and rapidity of the tidal current.

Group of Puttchers on the Severn near Tedenham.

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Then as to the hæcweras there is nothing unusual in the use of barriers or fences of wattle, or, as it is still called, hackle, to produce an eddy, or to entrap the fish. Thus a statute (1 Geo. I. c. 18, s. 14) relating to the fisheries on the Severn and the Wye uses the following words: 'If any person shall make, 'erect, or set any bank, dam, hedge, stank, or net across the same,' &c.

These wattled hedges or hackle-weirs are sometimes used to guide the fish into the puttchers, but generally in the same way as more permanent structures on the Wye, now called cribs, to make an eddy in which the fish are caught from a boat in what is called a stop-net.

Salmon fisheries.

This mode of fishing is also peculiar to the Wye and Severn. The boat is fixed by two long stakes sideways across the eddy, and a wide net, like a bag with its open end stretched between two poles, is let down so as to offer a wide open mouth to the stream which carries the closed end of the bag-net under the boat. When a salmon strikes the net the open end is raised out of the water, and the fish is taken out behind. This clumsy process of catching salmon is the ancient traditional method used in the Wye and Severn fisheries, and so tenaciously is it adhered to that the fishermen can hardly be induced to substitute more efficient modern improvements.

So much for the cytweras and the hæcweras.

The fisheries are now almost exclusively devoted to salmon. About the date of the Norman Conquest [p154] the manor of Tidenham was let on lease by the Bishop of Bath to Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury,[185] and as a portion of the rent reserved was 6 porpoises (merswin) and 30,000 herrings, it would seem at first sight that the main fisheries there were for herrings rather than salmon, but it is more probable that the lease was a mutual arrangement whereby the archbishop's table was provided with salmon from the west, and the monks of Bath with herrings from the east.

Turning from the fisheries to the services, they are described as follows:[186]—

General services of geneats.

Of Dyddanhamme gebyreð micel weorcrǽden.

Se geneát sceal wyrcan swá on lande, swá of lande, hweðer swá him man byt, and ridan and auerian, and láde lǽdan, dráfe drífan, and fela óðra þinga dón.

To Tidenham belong many services.

The geneat shall work as well on land as off land, whichever he is bid; and ride, and carry and lead loads, and drive droves, and do other things.

And after thus stating, to begin with, the general services of all geneats, the document proceeds, like the 'Rectitudines,' to describe the special services of the gebur, or holder of a yard-land.

Services of geburs.

Week-work.

Se gebúr sceal his riht dón.

He sceal erian healfne æcer tó wíceworce, and ræcan sylf ðæt sæd on hláfordes berne gehálne tó cyrcscette, sá hweðere of his ágenum berne.

Tó werbolde xl. mæra oððe án foðer gyrda; oððe viii. geocu byld. iii. ebban tyne. Æcertyninge xv. gyrda, oððe díche fiftyne; and dície i. gyrde burhheges, ripe óðer healfne æcer, máwe healfné; on oðran weorcan wyrce, á be weorces mæðe.

The gebur shall do his 'riht.'

He shall plough a half-acre as week-work, and himself prepare the seed in the lord's barn ready for kirkshot, or else from his own barn.

For weir-building 40 large rods or 1 load of small rods, or build 8 yokes and wattle 3 ebbs. Of acre-fencing 15 yards, or ditch 15; and ditch 1 yard of burh-hedge, reap 1 acre and a half, mow half an acre. At other work, work as the work requires.

[p155] These are the various details of his week-work. Then follow the gafol-payments.

Gafol.

Sylle vi. penegas ofer éstre, healfne sester hunies tó Hlafmæssan. vi. systres mealtes tó Martines mæsse, an cliwen gódes nettgernes. On ðam sylfum lande stent seðe vii. swýn hæbbe ðæt he sylle iii. and swá forð á ðæt teoðe, and ðæs naðulæs mæstenrǽdene ðonne mæsten beó.

Pay 6d. after Easter, half a sester of honey (or mead?) at Lammas. 6 sesters of malt at Martinmas, 1 clew of good net-yarn. On the same land, if he has 7 swine, he pays 3, and so forth at that rate, and nevertheless give mast dues if there be mast.

It will be observed that in their week-work the geburs of Tidenham, in addition to strictly agricultural services, had to provide the materials for the puttchers and hedge-weirs, as well as other requisites for the fisheries.

What the eight geocu to be built may have been is doubtful; but the tyning or wattling of three ebbs was at once explained on the spot by the lessee of the fisheries, who pointed out that when hackle weirs were used, three separate wattled hedges would always be needed, as, owing to the very various heights of the tide, the hedge must be differently placed for the spring tides, the middle tides, and the neap tides respectively.

The 'week-work' was shown by the 'Rectitudines' to be the chief service of the gebur, and this work, added to the gafol, made the holder of the yard-land into a gebur, according to the laws of Ine.

No limitation of week-work to three days.

Two things are very striking about the week-work on the manor of Tidenham. (1) There is no limit to three days a week more or less, as in the 'Rectitudines.' (2) There is a clear adaptation of the week-work [p156] to local circumstances. In particular the fisheries have a prominent regard in its arrangement. As described in the 'Rectitudines,' the work varied according to the customs of each place.

So much for the 'week-work.'

No bene-work.

Next, there were at Tidenham no 'precariæ,' or 'bene' works, which formed so prominent a feature in the later services. When the week-work was not limited to some days only, clearly there was no need or room for these additional services.

Lastly, as to the gafol—this formed a prominent feature of the weorc-ræden of the Tidenham yard-land.

Gafol chiefly in produce: honey, &c.

It consisted mainly of the produce of the land, like the gafol of the gafolgylders in the Saxon translation of the parable of 'the unjust steward.' Honey and malt, or ale, and yarn and pork—these, as we shall see by-and-by, were the chief products of this and the adjoining districts of Wales.

These, then, were the services of the geburs of Tidenham in respect of their yard-lands in A.D. 950, while the manor was still in royal hands just before it was handed over to the Abbot of Bath.

Comparison of services in the thirteenth century.

Now let us compare these services with the services on the same manor 350 years afterwards, in the time of Edward I. An Inquisitio post mortem of the 35th year of Edward I. enables us to make this comparison.[187]

The following is an abstract of the services of a tenant who held a messuage and xviii. acres of land in villenage (probably a half-virgate). [p157]

His week-work was—

Then as to his precariæ,—

Lastly came his gafol, &c.

Now, comparing the services on the manor of Tidenham at these dates 300 years apart, at which period was the service most complete serfdom? at the later date, when the week-work of the villeins was limited to two and a half or three days a week, and in addition he made precariæ or extra works; or at the earlier date, when his week-work was unlimited [p158] as to the days, and therefore there was no room for the extra work?

Saxon services more complete.

Surely the unlimited week-work marked the most complete serfdom. Surely the later services, limited in their amount and commutable into money payments, were clearly a mitigated service fast growing into a fixed money rent. In fact, the gebur or villanus was fast growing into a mere customary tenant in the time of Edward I. Indeed, he is not called in the 'Inquisition' a 'villanus,' but a 'custumarius,' and such he was. He was halfway on the road to freedom. Another sign of the times was this, that at the later date, side by side with the customary tenants on the land in villenage, a whole host of libere tenentes had already grown up upon the lord's demesne, not, as we have more than once observed, necessarily liberi homines at all, but some of them villein tenants or custumarii holding additional pieces of free land of the lord's demesne. Of these free tenants there were none at the earlier period. So that the gebur, with his weorc-ræden 100 years and more before the Norman Conquest, was much more clearly a serf, and rendered far more complete and servile services than his successor in the thirteenth century, with the Black Death and Wat Tyler's rebellion in the near future before him.

Finally, let us look backward and ask how long this more complete serfdom had lasted on the manor of Tidenham.

They probably go back to near the first conquest.

If in the laws of King Ine are found, as we have seen, the 'geset land' and 'gyrd lands,' and the 'gafol,' and the 'weorc,' and the 'geneat,' and the 'gebur,' and the obligation not to leave the lord's [p159] land; and if all those were incidents of what in the 'Rectitudines' and in the charter of King Edwy just examined was in fact serfdom—if the laws of Ine are good evidence that this serfdom existed in full force in the seventh century anywhere—they must surely be good evidence that it existed on the manor of Tidenham. For it was, as we have seen, a royal manor of King Edwy, and most probably he had received it through a succession of royal holders from King Ine. There is no evidence of its having ceased to be folcland, and so to be in the royal demesne of the kings of Wessex or of Mercia, from Ine's time to Edwy's. And if it was a royal manor of King Ine's, surely the laws of King Ine may be taken to interpret the serfdom on his own estate. Lastly, looking further back still, as King Ine probably held the manor in direct succession from Ceawlin, or whoever conquered it from the Welsh, and cut it from the diocese of Llandaff in A.D. 577 or thereabouts, the inference is very strong indeed that the weorc-ræden had remained much the same ever since, 100 years before the date of King Ine's laws, it first fell under Saxon rule.

Changes in local customs very slow.

The lesson to be learned from a careful tracing back of the customs of such a manor as Tidenham, and we might add also the methods of fishing, and the construction of the 'cyt' and 'hæcweras,' surely is, that in those early times changes in custom and habit were slow, and not easily made. It would be as unlikely that between the days of King Ceawlin and those of King Ine great changes should have been made in the internal economic structure of a Saxon manor, as that in the same period bees should have changed the shape of their hexagonal cells. [p160]