Open field the shell of serfdom.
Thus the community in villenage fitted into the open field as into its shell—a shell which was long to survive the breaking up of the system of serfdom which lived within it. The débris of this shell, as we have seen, still remains upon the open fields of some English villages and townships to-day; but for the full meaning of some of its features, especially of the scattering of the strips in the yard-lands, we have to look still farther back into the past even than the twelfth century.
Analysis of the services.
Passing from the shell to the serfdom which lived within it, we have found it practically alike in the north and south and east and west of England, and from the time of the Black Death back to the threshold of the Domesday Survey. Complicated as are the numerous little details of the services and payments, they fall with great regularity under three distinct heads:—
Week-work.
Boon-work.
Gafol.
- 1. Week-work—i.e. work for the lord for so many days a week, mostly three days.
- 2. Precariæ, or boon-work—i.e. special work at request ('ad precem' or 'at bene'), sometimes counting as part of the week-work, sometimes extra to it.
- 3. Payments in money or kind or work, rendered by way of rent or 'Gafol'; and various dues, such as Kirkshot, Hearth-penny, Easter dues, &c.
The first two of these may be said to be practically quite distinct from the third class, and intimately connected inter se. The boon-work would seem to be a necessary corollary of the limitation of the week-work. If the lord had had unlimited right to the whole work [p079] of his villein tenant all days a week, and had an unrestricted choice as to what kind of work it should be, week-work at the lord's bidding might have covered it all. But custom not only limited the number of days' work per week, but also limited the number of days on which the work should consist of ploughing, reaping, and other work of more than usual value, involving oxen or piece-work, beyond the usual work of ordinary days.
The week-work, limited or otherwise, was evidently the most servile incident of villenage.