Let us begin by a survey of the different kinds of labour duties performed by the dependent holdings which clustered round the manorial centre. Foremost stands ploughing and the operations connected with it. The cultivation of the demesne soil of a manor depended largely on the help of the peasantry. By the side of the ploughs and plough-teams owned by the lord himself, the plough-teams of his villains are made to till his land, and manorial extents commonly mention that the demesne portion has to be cultivated by the help of village customs, 'cum consuetudinibus villae[573].' The duties of every householder in this respect are reckoned up in different ways. Sometimes every dependent plough has its number of acres assigned to it, and the joint owners of its team are left to settle between themselves the proportions in which they will have to co-operate for the performance of the duty[574]. In most cases the 'extent' fixes the amount due from each individual holder. For instance, every virgater is to plough one acre in every week. This can only mean that one acre of the lord's land is reckoned on every single virgate in one week, without any reference to the fact that only one part of the team is owned by the peasant. If, for example, there were four virgaters to share in the ownership of the plough, the expression under our notice would mean that every team has to plough four acres in the week[575]. But the ploughs may be small, or the virgaters exceptionally wealthy, and their compound plough team may have to cultivate only three acres or even less. The lord in this case reckons with labour-weeks and acres, not with teams and days-work. A third possibility would be to base the reckoning on the number of days which a team or a holder has to give to the lord[576]. A fourth, to lay on the imposition in one lump by requiring a certain number of acres to be tilled, or a certain number of days of ploughing[577]. It must be added, that the peasants have often to supplement their ploughing work by harrowing, according to one of these various systems of apportionment[578].
The duties here described present only a variation of the common 'week-work' of the peasant, its application to a certain kind of labour. They could on occasion be replaced by some other work[579], or the lord might lose them if the time assigned for them was quite unsuitable for work[580]. There is another form of ploughing called gafol-earth, which has no reference to any particular time-limits. A patch of the lord's land is assigned to the homage for cultivation, and every tenant gets his share in the work according to the size of his holding. Gafol-earth is not only ploughed but mostly sown by the peasantry[581].
A third species of ploughing-duty is the so-called aver-earth or grass-earth. This obligation arises when the peasants want more pasture than they are entitled to use by their customary rights of common. The lord may grant the permission to use the pasture reserved for him, and exacts ploughings in return according to the number of heads of cattle sent to the pasturage[582]. Sometimes the same imposition is levied when more cattle are sent to the commons than a holding has a right to drive on them[583]. It is not impossible that in some cases the very use of rights of common was made dependent on the performance of such duties[584]. A kindred exaction was imposed for the use of the meadows[585]. Local variations have, of course, to be taken largely into account in all such matters: the distinction between gafol-earth and grass-earth, for instance, though drawn very sharply in most cases, gets somewhat confused in others.
Manorial records mention a fourth variety of ploughing-work under the name of ben-earth, precariae carucarum. This is extra work in opposition to the common ploughings described before[586]. It is assumed that the subject population is ready to help the lord for the tillage of his land, even beyond the customary duties imposed on it. It sends its ploughs three or four times a year 'out of love,' and 'for the asking.' It may be conjectured how agreeable this duty must have been in reality, and indeed by the side of its common denominations, as boon-work and asked-work, we find much rougher terms in the speech of some districts—it is deemed unlawenearth and godlesebene[587]. It must be said, however, that the lord generally provided food on these occasions, and even went so far as to pay for such extra work.
Other expressions occur in certain localities, which are sometimes difficult of explanation. Lentenearth[588], in the manors of Ely Minster, means evidently an extra ploughing in Lent. The same Ely records exhibit a ploughing called Filstnerthe or Filsingerthe[589], which may be identical with the Lentenearth just mentioned: a fastnyngseed[590] occurs at any rate which seems connected with the ploughing under discussion. The same extra work in Lent is called Tywe[591] in the Custumal of Bleadon, Somersetshire. When the ploughing-work is paid for it may receive the name of penyearth[592]. The Gloucester survey speaks of the extra cultivation of an acre called Radacre, and the Ely surveys of an extra rood 'de Rytnesse[593].' I do not venture to suggest an explanation for these last terms; and I need not say that it would be easy to collect a much greater number of such terms in local use from the manorial records. It is sufficient for my purpose to mark the chief distinctions.
Reaping.
All the other labour-services are performed more or less on the same system as the ploughings, with the fundamental difference that the number of men engaged in them has to be reckoned with more than the number of beasts. The extents are especially full of details in their descriptions of reaping or mowing corn and grass; the process of thrashing is also mentioned, though more rarely. In the case of meadows (mederipe) sometimes their dimensions are made the basis of calculation, sometimes the number of work-days which have to be employed in order to cut the grass[594]. As to the corn-harvest, every holding has its number of acres assigned to it[595], or else it is enacted that every house has to send so many workmen during a certain number of days[596]. If it is said that such and such a tenant is bound to work on the lord's field at harvest-time with twenty-eight men, it does not mean that he has to send out such a number every time, but that he has to furnish an amount of work equivalent to that performed by twenty-eight grown-up labourers in one day; it may be divided into fourteen days' work of two labourers, or into seven days' of four, and so forth.
Harvest-time is the most pressing time in the year for rural work; it is especially important not to lose the opportunity presented by fine weather to mow and garner in the crop before rain, and there may be only a few days of such weather at command. For this reason extra labour is chiefly required during this season, and the village people are frequently asked to give extra help in connexion with it. The system of precariae is even more developed on these occasions than in the case of ploughing[597]. All the forces of the village are strained to go through the task; all the houses which open on the street send their labourers[598], and in most cases the entire population has to join in the work, with the exception of the housewives and perhaps of the marriageable daughters[599]. The landlord treats the harvesters to food in order to make these exertions somewhat more palatable to them[600]. These 'love-meals' are graduated according to a set system. If the men are called out only once, they get their food and no drink: these are 'dry requests.' If they are made to go a second time, ale is served to them (precariae cerevisiae). The mutual obligations of lords and tenantry are settled very minutely[601]; the latter may have to mow a particular acre with the object of saying 'thanks' for some concession on the part of the lord[602]. The same kind of 'requests' are in use for mowing the meadows. The duties of the peasants differ a great deal according to size of their holdings and their social position. The greater number have of course to work with scythe and sickle, but the more wealthy are called upon to supervise the rest, to ride about with rods in their hands[603]. On the other hand, a poor woman holds a messuage, and need do no more than carry water to the mowers[604].
Carriage duties.