The carrying and post-horse services, more strictly included in the manorial angariæ and averagium, extended over Britain, Gaul, and the German provinces.
Various operæ.
(3) The 'obsequia operarum et artificum diversorum'—the doing all sorts of services and labour when required—like the Saxon 'boon-work,' which formed so constant a feature of manorial services in addition to the gafol and regular week-work. How could the words be better translated than in the Anglo-Saxon of the Tidenham record—'and sela ōdra [p299] þinga dón,' 'and shall do other things,' qualified by the previous words, 'swá him man byt,' 'as he is bid.'?[441]
Lime burning.
(4) The 'obsequium coquendæ calcis'—lime-burning. This was one of the specially mentioned services of the servi of the Church in Frankish times, under the Bavarian laws, in this very district of Rhætia, as we shall see by-and-by.
Building, &c., and support of inns, roads and bridges.
(5) The 'præbitio materiæ, lignorum, et tabulorum; cura publicarum vel sacrarum ædium construendarum atque reparandarum; cura hospitalium domorum et viarum et pontium'—the supply of material, wood, and boarding for building, repairing, or constructing public and sacred buildings, and the keeping up of inns, roads, and bridges. Here we have two out of the 'three needs' marking in England the higher service of the Saxon thane.
Such were the chief 'sordida munera' of the settlers in Rhætia and other Roman provinces. But servile as they were, and like as they were to the later manorial services, we must not therefore conclude that the settlers from whom they were due—whether German or Roman, in Romano-German provinces—were under Roman law necessarily serfs. They were, as we have said, 'free coloni' or 'læti,' and below them were the 'servi.' The three grades in which they were classed, 'ditiores, mediocres, atque infimi,' marked gradations of wealth,—probably according to the number of yokes of oxen held, or the size of their holdings—not necessarily degrees of freedom.[442] [p300]
VIII. THE TENDENCY TOWARDS A MANORIAL MANAGEMENT OF THE 'AGER PUBLICUS,' OR IMPERIAL DOMAIN.
Having now examined into the character of the holdings, tribute, and 'sordida munera' of the tenants on what may be called the great provincial manor of the Roman emperor, it may perhaps be possible to trace some steps in the process by which these tenants became in some districts practically serfs on the royal villas or manors of the Teutonic conquerors of the provinces.