[149] Chapter 62 is here given out of order because it contains a comprehensive survey of the products and activities upon which the royal stewards were expected to report. The other chapters are more specific. It is likely that they have not come down to us in their original order.
[150] The ordinary estate in this period, whether royal or not, consisted of two parts. One was the demesne, which the owner kept under his immediate control; the other was the remaining lands, which were divided among tenants who paid certain rentals for their use and also performed stated services on the lord's demesne. Charlemagne instructs his stewards to report upon both sorts of land.
[151] Probably payments for the right to keep pigs in the woods. The most common meat in the Middle Ages was pork and the use of the oak forests as hog pasture was a privilege of considerable value.
[152] Fines imposed upon offenders to free them from crime or to repair damages done.
[153] Panic was a kind of grass, the seeds of which were not infrequently used for food.
[154] The serfs were a semi-free class of country people. They did not own the land on which they lived and were not allowed to move off it without the owner's consent. They cultivated the soil and paid rents of one kind or another to their masters—in the present case, to the agents of the king.
[155] A variety of fermented liquor made of salt fish.
[156] A blue coloring matter derived from the leaves of a plant of the same name.
[157] A red coloring matter derived from a plant of the same name.
[158] Burrs of the teasel plant, stiff and prickly, with hooked bracts; used in primitive manufacturing for raising a nap on woolen cloth.