There is, indeed, apparently an instance, under date 787,[484] of the settlement of a new serf—the grant of a fresh holding in villenage from the Abbot of St. Gall to the new tenant. The holding, if we may use the Saxon terms, is 'set' both 'to gafol and to week-work;' for the tenant binds himself (1) to pay to the abbey as census (i.e. as gafol) yearly vii. maldra of grain and a sound spring frisking, to be delivered at the granary of the monastery; and (2) to plough every week (i.e. as week-work)[485] at their nearest manor (curtem) a 'jurnal' (or acre strip) in every zelga[486] (i.e. in each of the three fields); and also six days in a year when work out of doors is needed, whether in harvest or hay-mowing, to send two 'mancipii' for the work: also, when work is wanted in building or repairing bridges, to send one man with food to the work, who is to stop at it as long as required. And to these payments and services the new tenant bound 'himself, his heirs, and all their descendants lawfully begotten.' [p322]
This surely is a distinct case of the settlement of a new serf upon the land, rendering in Saxon phrase both gafol and week-work; and the serfdom created is as nearly as possible identical with that of an English manor of the same date.
Surrender of whole villas or of holdings on villas.
But to return to the surrenders. It is clear from the instances quoted that some of these owners who surrendered their holdings were holders of whole villas or heims, some of them of portions of villas or heims. And yet they placed themselves by the surrender, as Salvian described it, in a servile position, lower, as he says, than that of the coloni of the rich, for they merely retained the usufruct during their life. The inheritance was lost. And they still had a tribute to pay to their lord, though free from tribute to the public purse. The Frankish kings now stood in the place of the Roman Emperor. The old Roman tributum apparently remained, but was payable to the Frankish king. When under the Alamannic laws these surrenders were made to the Church, the tribute also was transferred from the king to the Church.
We have seen that when such a surrender had been made under Roman rule to a rich Roman landowner, the latter became responsible to the public exchequer for the tributum, but he exacted tribute in his turn from his tenant, who thus, as Salvian said, though parting with his inheritance, still paid tribute to his lord. But this tribute can hardly have been the full tributum at which the holding was assessed to the jugatio. It seems to have been rather a fixed and typical gafol or census, marking a servile condition. For in the Alamannic laws there are clauses making the following remarkable provisions:— [p323]
Tribute, services, and three days' 'week-work' under the Alamannic law.
Leges Alamannorum Illotharii[487] (A.D. 622).
XXII.
(1) Servi enim ecclesiæ tributa sua legitime reddant, quindecim siclas de cervisa, porco valente [al. porcum valentem] tremisse uno, pane [al. panem] modia dua, pullos quinque, ova viginti.
(2) Ancillæ autem opera inposita sine neglecto faciant.