Servi autem ecclesiæ secundum possessionem suam reddant tributa. Opera vero 3 dies in ebdomada in dominico operent [al. operentur], 3 vero sibi faciant. Si vero dominus eius [al. eorum] dederit eis boves aut alias res quod habet [al. quas habent], tantum serviant, quantum eis per possibilitatem impositum fuerit; tamen iniuste neminem obpremas [al. opprimas].

Let the servi of the Church pay tribute according to their holdings. Let them work 3 days a week in the demesne, and 3 days for themselves. But if their lord give them oxen or other things they have, let them do as much service as can be put upon them, yet thou shalt oppress no one unjustly.

Gafol-yrth or ploughing of andecenæ or acre strips, probably for the tenths on the 'tithe-lands.'

In the face of this evidence it seems impossible to ignore either the continuity of the tribute and services under Roman and German rule on the one hand, or their identity with the gafol, the gafol-yrth, and the week-work of the English manor on the other hand. There is first the tenth of the chief produce due as of old from these occupants of the 'Agri Decumates' of Tacitus, closely connected with the tribute of ploughing—the Saxon gafol-yrth noticed above in the St. Gall charters. This is to be rendered in lawful andecenæ, and this measure of the plough-work is reckoned by the Roman rod of ten feet, and takes the precise form, four rods by forty, which belongs to the English acre of four roods;[491] and this is the [p327] strip to be sown, gathered, and stored, just as in the case of the Saxon 'gafol-yrth.'

The tending of vines is peculiar to the country. The tenth bundle of flax, the tenth vessel of honey, and the fowls and eggs are also familiar items of the census or gafol, both in the charters of St. Gall and in the services of Saxon manors.

'Sordida munera.'

Then there are the pack-horse services (parafreti) and the carrying services ('angariæ cum carra'), the keeping up of buildings, supply of the limekiln, and the carriage of lime to the villa—all which once public services ('sordida munera'), due to the Roman Emperor on whose tithe lands the coloni were settled, were now the manorial services of 'coloni' of the Church. They were called in the Codex Theodosianus 'obsequia,' and are almost identical with the Saxon 'precariæ' or boon-works.

Lastly, it has been observed that the coloni or accolæ did not give 'week-work.' This was, as has been seen, the distinctive mark of serfdom here in Rhætia, as for centuries afterwards throughout the manors of mediæval Europe.

In other words, in the seventh century there are two classes of tenants on ecclesiastical manors—(1) the coloni or accolæ, to use the Saxon terms of King Ine's laws, set to gafol; and (2) the servi, set to gafol and to week-work.

Throw the two classes together, or let the remaining Roman coloni sink, as the result of conquest or otherwise, down into the condition up to which the slaves have risen in becoming serfs, and the serfdom of the mediæval manorial estate is the natural result. At the same time an explanation is given of the [p328] persistently double character of the later services, which apparently was a survival of their double origin in the union of the public tribute and sordida munera of the Roman colonus with the servile work of the Roman slave.