An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

The manor, or vill.

These mediæval estates were called vills, or manors, and closely resembled the Roman villas described in an earlier chapter. A portion of the estate was reserved by the lord for his own use; the rest of it was divided up among the peasants,[156] usually in long strips, of which each peasant had several scattered about the manor. The peasants were generally serfs who did not own their fields, but could not, on the other hand, be deprived of them so long as they worked for the lord and paid him certain dues. They were attached to the land and went with it when it changed hands. The serfs were required to till those fields which the lord reserved for himself and to gather in his crops. They might not marry without their lord's permission. Their wives and children rendered such assistance as was necessary in the manor house. In the women's buildings the daughters of the serfs engaged in spinning, weaving, sewing, baking, and brewing, thus producing clothes, food, and drink to be used by the whole community.

An English Manor House, Thirteenth Century

The obligations of the serfs.

We get our clearest ideas of the position of the serfs from the ancient descriptions of manors, which give an exact account of what each member of a particular community owed to the lord. For example, we find that the abbot of Peterborough held a manor upon which Hugh Miller and seventeen other serfs, mentioned by name, were required to work for him three days in each week during the whole year, except one week at Christmas, one at Easter, and one at Whitsuntide. Each serf was to give the lord abbot one bushel of wheat and eighteen sheaves of oats, three hens and one cock yearly, and five eggs at Easter. If he sold his horse for more than ten shillings, he was to give the said abbot four pence. Five other serfs, mentioned by name, held but half as much land as Hugh and his companions, by paying and doing in all things half as much service.

There were sometimes a few people on the manor who did not belong to the great body of cultivators. The limits of the manor and those of the parish often coincided; in that case there would be a priest who had some scattered acres and whose standing was naturally somewhat superior to that of the people about him. Then the miller, who ground the flour and paid a substantial rent to the lord, was generally somewhat better off than his neighbors, and the same may be said of the blacksmith.

The manor independent of the outside world.

One of the most remarkable characteristics of the manor was its independence of the rest of the world. It produced nearly everything that its members needed and might almost have continued to exist indefinitely without communication with those who lived beyond its bounds. Little or no money was necessary, for the peasants paid what was due to the lord in the form of labor and farm products. They also rendered the needful help to one another and found little occasion for buying and selling.

The monotony and misery of the peasants' lives.