Thirty acres in yard-land; ten in each field.
These were the services of the gebur or villanus, and we may gather that his yard-land embraced the usual thirty acres or strips, i.e. ten strips in each of the three common fields of his village. This seems to follow from the fact that his outfit included 'seven acres sown.' These seven acres were no doubt on the wheat-field which had to be sown before winter. It was seven acres, and not ten, because the crop on the other three counted as 'gafolyrð' to his lord, and this was not due the first season. The oats or beans on the second or spring-sown field he could sow for himself. The third field was in fallow. The only start he required was therefore the seven acres of wheat which must be sown before winter.
So much for the gebur; now as to the cottier.
Cottier's holding of five acres, and his services.
The cottier tenant, in respect of his five acres (more or less), rendered similar services on an humbler scale. His week-work was on Mondays each week throughout the year, three days a week at harvest. He was free from land-gafol, but paid hearth-penny and church-scot at Martinmas. The nature of his work was the ordinary service of the geneat as [p142] required by his lord from time to time; only, having no oxen, he was exempt from ploughing, as he was also after the Norman Conquest.
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.