And then, outside the circle of houses would be the lands which the villagers held and worked. There would be a certain area of this land which would be cultivated, with the plough, for crops, and, further, outside that there would be land which would be grazed by the villagers' cattle and sheep. It would be what we call "common land," and any freeman in the village would have the right to turn out on it a certain fixed number of animals. Besides this there would be a certain area of ground beyond again, called "the waste," where the pigs of the villagers might be turned out to feed in the woods. This area also was defined by law, so that it should not run into the area allotted to a neighbouring village.
Now the area of cultivated land held by each of the ceorls (the churls, or free peasants) in the village was generally fixed at thirty acres. It was reckoned that thirty acres was the limit that a team of oxen could plough and keep in order during the year. But a team was reckoned to consist of eight oxen, and each ceorl was only allowed one pair of oxen.
You will see what this implies. It implies that they shared their oxen among them, four of the proprietors coming together, with two oxen each, to make up a team. Thus there was sharing in the oxen and in the ploughing work that the oxen did, as well as in the common grazing land. I want you to notice, as a great feature of the early village life, this sharing or community, this having many things in common.
Then there were the cattle and the flocks and the pigs; and these would all need looking after. But each owner did not look after his own. On the contrary, a herdsman for the cattle, a shepherd for the sheep, and a swineherd for the pigs were appointed.
The ceorls were not the only freemen. There was a class of freemen, too, of less importance than these holders of thirty acres. They had to do some of the work under the thirty-acre men; and perhaps it was from their class that the swineherd and the shepherd were taken. Another man who was employed in the same way, as a servant of the community, was the miller, the corn-grinder.
Below this lower class of freemen, again, came the serfs, the slaves. In the earliest known documents that show us what the duties and rights of the freemen in the villages were, there is no mention at all of the rights and duties of the serfs, because, as a matter of fact, they had, in law, no rights, and to their duties there was no limit. They had to do what they were bid, and their masters had as much authority over them as over cattle. They were indeed owned as "chattels," or cattle. But it does not follow that they were ill-treated, for a wise master would not treat even his cattle or his sheep ill. He would treat them well, because the stronger and healthier they were the more work they would do for him or the more milk or wool they would give him. It was to his interest to be kind to both the two-legged and the four-legged cattle. The slaves were members of the conquered race for the most part.
Eorls and cheorls
And then, besides the ceorls, and probably at first chosen by them and from among them, was the eorl. His business was to look after the community in a general way, to preside at its meetings, to act as its judge, and as its leader in case of quarrels with the neighbours. In return, he had portions of land given to him amidst the portion of the ceorls, and the ceorls had to work the land for him, or to get it worked for him by their slaves. Generally the law was that they had to give him so many days' work during the week. That is the way in which their work was measured. They thus paid him what was really very like a rent for his land, and as time went on it was more and more in the light of what we call rent that it was regarded. Similarly, when they brought corn to the mill to be ground, they had to put a certain portion of the ground corn into a chest especially kept there for the eorl. And here again, this paying in of the corn came to convey the idea that the mill belonged to the eorl and that this was a payment for the privilege of grinding the corn there. Thus the eorl came more and more into the position of owner of the land and of all in the village.
Besides the duties that the eorl owed to the ceorls, and the duties they owed to him, he himself had duties that he owed to the king. These were chiefly three, to follow the king to war, to maintain the bridges within the boundaries of the village lands, and to help build the fortified places, the castles. He also had to see that the king's taxes were paid, when taxes began to be imposed. And just as, out of the payments of service and of corn made by the ceorls to the eorl, the idea grew that these payments were made as a kind of rent for the land, of which the eorl was the owner, so too, as between the eorl and the king, the services that the eorl owed and paid began to be looked on as payments made by the eorl for the land which he held from the king. Therefore the whole land of the country began to be regarded as in the king's possession and to be rented, as we should say, from him by the eorls, by whom it was again in part "sub-let," to use our modern term, to the ceorls or peasants.
As we have seen, the area that it was considered right for the ceorl to hold was thirty acres, but in various ways this might be divided or added to, so that the original equality did not last long. And as the population grew, more land had to be taken in, from the waste, for cultivation, to provide for younger sons.