He must settle tenants on the land.
These clauses suggest very clearly that the gesithcundman had been entrusted with the ten hides or twenty hides, or sometimes a smaller number, under the special obligation to provide the food rent by settling tenants upon the land.
Method of settling gafol-geldas and geburs on yardlands.
Let us pass, then, to what evidence the Dooms of Ine afford as to the customary method of settling tenants on the land.
The very next sections to those just quoted are as follows:—
Be gyrde londes.
Of a yardland.
Gif mon geþingað gyrde landes oþþe mære to ræde-gafole ⁊ geereð, gif se hlaford him wile þ land aræran to weorce ⁊ to gafole, ne þearf he him onfon gif he him nan botl ne selð. ⁊ þolie þara æcra.
(67) If a man agrees for a yardland or more to gafol and ploughs it, if the lord wants to raise the land to work and to gafol, he need not take it upon him if he [the lord] does not give him a botl, and let him give up (?) the acres.
Gif mon gesiðcundne monnan adrife, fordrife þy botle, næs þære setene.