The land in villenage is also in the occupation of tenants, but it is held in villenage, at the will of the lord, and at customary services. It lies in open fields. These are divided into three seasons, according to the [p023] three-field system. There is a west field, east field, and south field. The demesne land lies also in these three fields,[19] probably more or less intermixed, as in many cases, with the strips in villenage, but sometimes in separate furlongs or shots from the latter.
Throughout the pages of the manor rolls, in recording transfers of holdings in villenage, the common form is always adhered to of a surrender by the old tenant to the lord, and a re-grant of the holding to the new tenant, to be held by him at the will of the lord in villenage at the usual services. Where the change of holding occurs on the death of a tenant, the common form recites that the holding has reverted to the lord, who re-grants it to the new tenant as before in villenage.
Further examination at once discloses a marked difference in kind between some classes of holdings in villenage and others.
Virgates and half-virgates.
In some cases the holding handed over is simply described by the one comprehensive word 'virgata' (the Latin equivalent for 'yard-land'), without any further description. The 'virgate' of A. B. is transferred to C. D. in one lump; i.e. the holding is an indivisible whole, evidently so well known as to need no description of its contents.
In other cases the holding is in the same way described as a 'half-virgate,' without any details being needful as to its contents.
But in the case of all other holdings the contents are described in detail half-acre by half-acre, each half-acre being identified by the names of the holders [p024] of the strips on either side of it. They vary in size from one half-acre to 8 or 10 or 12 half-acres, and in a few cases more. The greater number of them are, however, evidently the holdings of small cottier tenants. A few cases occur, but only a few, where a messuage is held without land.
What is a virgate or yard-land?
But the question of interest is what may be the nature of the holdings called virgates and half-virgates—these well-known bundles of land, which, as already said, need no description of their contents. Fortunately in one single case a virgate or yard-land—that of John Moldeson—loses its indivisible unity and is let out again by the lord to several persons in portions. These being new holdings, and no longer making up a virgate, it became needful to describe their contents on the rolls.[20] Thus the details of which a virgate was made up are accidentally exposed to view.
Putting the broken pieces of it together, this virgate of John Moldeson is found to have consisted of a messuage in the village of Shipton, in the manor of Winslow, and the following half-acre strips of land scattered all over the open fields of the manor.