In early Saxon times the settlement consisted of a number of families holding a district, and the land was regularly divided into three portions. There was the village itself, in which the people lived in houses built of wood or rude stonework. Around the village were a few small inclosures, or grass yards, for rearing calves and baiting farm stock; this was the common farmstead. Around this was the arable land, where the villagers grew their corn and other vegetables; and around this lay the common meadows, or pasture land, held by the whole community, so that each family could turn their cattle into it, subject to the regulations of an officer elected by the people, whose duty it was to see that no one trespassed on the rights of his neighbour, or turned too many cattle into the common pasture.
Around the whole colony lay the woods and uncultivated land, which was left in its natural wild state, where the people cut their timber and fuel, and pastured their pigs in the glades of the forest. The cultivated land was divided into three large fields, in which the rotation of crops was strictly enforced, each field lying fallow once in three years. To each freeman was assigned his own family lot, which was cultivated by the members of his household. But he was obliged to sow the same crop as his neighbour, and compelled by law to allow his lot to lie fallow with the rest every third year. The remains of this common-field system are still evident in many parts of the country, the fields being termed “lot meadows,” or “Lammas lands.” Our commons, too, many of which remain in spite of numerous inclosures, are evidences of the communal life of our village forefathers.
How long the Saxon villages remained free democratic institutions, we do not know. Gradually a change came over them, and we find the manorial system in vogue. Manors existed in England long before the Normans came, although “manor” is a Norman word; and in the time of Canute the system was in full force. The existence of a manor implies a lord of the manor, who exercised authority over all the villagers, owned the home farm, and had certain rights over the rest of the land. How all this came about, we scarcely know. Owing to the Danish invasions, when the rude barbarous warriors carried fire and sword into many a peaceful town and village, the villagers found themselves at the mercy of these savage hordes. Probably they sought the protection of some thane, or eorl, with his band of warriors, who could save their lands from pillage. In return for their services they acknowledged him as the lord of their village, and gave him rent, which was paid either in the produce of these fields or by the work of their hands. Thus the lords of the manor became the masters of the villagers, although they too were governed by law, and were obliged to respect the rights of their tenants and servants.
Saxon society was divided into two main divisions, the eorl and the ceorl, the men of noble birth, and those of ignoble origin. The chief man in the village was the manorial lord, a thane, who had his demesne land, and his gafol land, or geneat land, which was land held in villeinage, and cultivated by geneats, or persons holding by service. These villein tenants were in two classes, the geburs, or villeins proper, who held the yardlands, and the cottiers, who had smaller holdings. Beneath these two classes there were the theows, or slaves, made up partly of the conquered Britons, partly of captives taken in war, and partly of freemen who had been condemned to this penalty for their crimes, or had incurred it by poverty.
There were degrees of rank among Saxon gentlemen, as among those of to-day. The thanes were divided into three classes: (i.) those of royal rank (thani regis), who served the king in Court or in the management of State affairs; (ii.) thani mediocres, who held the title by inheritance, and corresponded to the lords of the manor in the later times; (iii.) thani minores, or inferior thanes, to which rank ceorls or merchants could attain by the acquisition of sufficient landed property.
We can picture to ourselves the ordinary village life which existed in Saxon times. The thane’s house stood in the centre of the village, not a very lordly structure, and very unlike the stately Norman castles which were erected in later times. It was commonly built of wood, which the neighbouring forests supplied in plenty, and had stone or mud foundations. The house consisted of an irregular group of low buildings, almost all of one story. In the centre of the group was the hall, with doors opening into the court. On one side stood the kitchen; on the other the chapel when the thane became a Christian and required the services of the Church for himself and his household. Numerous other rooms with lean-to roofs were joined on to the hall, and a tower for purposes of defence in case of an attack. Stables and barns were scattered about outside the house, and with the cattle and horses lived the grooms and herdsmen, while villeins and cottiers dwelt in the humble, low, shedlike buildings, which clustered round the Saxon thane’s dwelling-place. An illustration of such a house appears in an ancient illumination preserved in the Harleian MSS., No. 603. The lord and lady of the house are represented as engaged in almsgiving; the lady is thus earning her true title, that of “loaf-giver,” from which her name “lady” is derived.
