We have seen the Kelso monks furnishing their tenants with their outfit or 'stuht'—the two oxen needful to till the husbandland of two bovates; also a horse, and enough of oats, barley, and wheat for seed. The 'Rectitudines' shows that in the tenth century this custom had long been followed by Saxon landlords. It further shows that the new tenants so created were settled on yard-lands, and called geburs.
Two oxen to yard-land.
It states that in some places it is the custom that in settling the gebur on the land, there shall be given to him 'to land setene' (i.e. as 'stuht' or outfit) two oxen, one cow, six sheep, and seven acres sown on his yard-land or virgate. Then after the first year [p139] he performs the usual services. Having been supplied by his lord, not only with his stuht, but also even with tools for his work and utensils for his house, it is not surprising that on his death everything reverted to his lord.
The gebur here answers exactly to the villanus of post-Domesday times.[166] His normal holding is the yard-land or virgate. His stuht, which goes with the yard-land 'to setene,' or for outfit, is two oxen, one cow, &c.; i.e. one ox for each of the two bovates which made up the yard-land.
That this was the usual outfit of the yard-land, and that the yard-land at the same time was the one-fourth part of the sulung or full plough-land, in still earlier times than the date of the 'Rectitudines,' receives clear confirmation from an Anglo-Saxon will dated A.D. 835, in which there is a gift of 'an half swulung,' and 'to ðem londe iiii oxan & ii cy & 1 scepa,' &c.[167] The half-sulung being the double of the yard-land, it is natural that the allowance for outfit in [p140] the bequest of oxen and cows should be just double the outfit assigned by custom to the yard-land. It is obvious that the allotment to the whole sulung would be a full team of eight oxen.
Services.
The gebur, then, having been 'set' upon his yard land by his lord, and supplied with his setene or 'stuht,' had to perform his services.
What were these services?
An examination of them as stated in the 'Rectitudines' will show at once their close resemblance to those of the holders of virgates in villenage in post-Domesday times.
They may be classified in the same way as these were classified.