during harvest, at the lord's request, sometimes instead of week work, sometimes in addition.

3. Gafol or tribute: fixed payments in money or kind, and such services as 'fold soke', which forced the tenants' sheep to lie on the lord's land for the sake of the manure; and suit of mill, by which the tenant was bound to grind his corn in the lord's mill.

With regard to the 'boon days' in harvest, it should be remembered that harvest time in the Middle Ages was a most important event. Agriculture was the great industry, and when the corn was ripe the whole village turned out to gather it, the only exceptions being the housewives and sometimes the marriageable daughters. Even the larger towns suspended work that the townsmen might assist in the harvest, and our long vacation was probably intended originally to cover the whole work of gathering in the corn and hay. On the occasion of the 'boon-day' work, the lord usually found food for the labourers which, the Inquisition of Ardley[26] tells us, might be of the following description: for two men, porridge of beans and peas and two loaves, one white, the other of 'mixtil' bread; that is, wheat, barley, and rye mixed together, with a piece of meat, and beer for their first meal. Then in the evening they had a small loaf of mixtil bread and two 'lescas' of cheese. While harvest work was going on the better-off tenants, usually the free ones, were sometimes employed to ride about, rod in hand, superintending the others.

The services of the villeins were often very comprehensive, and even included such tasks as preparing the lord's bath; but on some manors their services were very light.[27] When the third of the above obligations, the gafol or tribute, was paid in kind it was most commonly made in corn; and next came honey, one of the most important articles of the Middle Ages, as it was used for both lighting and sweetening purposes. Ale was also common, and poultry and eggs, and sometimes the material for implements.

These obligations were imposed for the most part on free and unfree tenants alike, though those of the free were much lighter than those of the unfree; the chief difference between the two, as far as tenure of the land went, lay in the fact that the former could exercise proprietary rights over his holding more or less freely, the latter had none.[28] It seems very curious to the modern mind that the villein, a man who farmed about 100 acres of land, should have been in such a servile condition.

The amount of work due from each villein came to be fixed by the extent or survey of the manor, but the quality of it was not[29]; that is, each one knew how many days he had to work, but not whether he was to plough, sow, or harrow, &c. It is surprising to find, that on the festival days of the Church, which were very numerous and observed as holy days, the lord lost by no work being done, and the same was the case in wet weather.

One of the most important duties of the tenant was the 'averagium', or duty of carrying for the lord, especially necessary when his manors were often a long way apart. He would often have to carry corn to the nearest town for sale, the products of one manor to another, also to haul manure on to the demesne. If he owned neither horse nor ox, he would sometimes have to use his own back.[30]

The holding of the villein did not admit of partition by sale or descent, it remained undivided and entire. When the holder died all the land went to one of the sons if there were several, often to the youngest. The others sought work on the manor as craftsmen or labourers, or remained on the family plot. The holding therefore might contain more than one family, but to the lord remained one and undivided.[31]

In the fourth class came the bordarii, the cotarii, and the coliberti or buri; or, as we should say, the crofters, the cottagers, and the boors.

The bordarii numbered 82,600 in Domesday, and were subject to the same kind of services as the villeins, but the amount of the service was considerably less.[32] Their usual holding was 5 acres, and they are very often found on the demesne of the manor, evidently in this case labourers on the demesne, settled in cottages and provided with a bit of land of their own. The name failed to take root in this country, and the bordarii seem to become villeins or cottiers.[33]

The cotarii, cottiers or cottagers, were 6,800 in number, with small pieces of land sometimes reaching 5 acres.[34] Distinctly inferior to the villeins, bordarii, and cottars, but distinctly superior to the slaves, were the buri or coliberti who, with the bordars and cottars, would form a reserve of labour to supplement the ordinary working days at times when work was pressing, as in hay time and harvest. At the bottom of the social ladder in Domesday came the slaves, some 25,000 in number, who in the main had no legal rights, a class which had apparently already diminished and was diminishing in numbers, so that for the cultivation of the demesne the lord was coming to rely more on the labour of his tenants, and consequently the labour services of the villeins were being augmented.[35] The agricultural labourer as we understand him, a landless man working solely for wages in cash, was almost unknown.

All the arrangements of the manor aimed at supplying labour for the cultivation of the lord's demesne, and he had three chief officers to superintend it:

1. The seneschal, who answers to our modern steward or land agent, and where there were several manors supervised all of them. He attended to the legal business and held the manor courts. It was his duty to be acquainted with every particular of the manor, its cultivation, extent, number of teams, condition of the stock, &c. He was also the legal adviser of his lord; in fact, very much like his modern successor.

2. The bailiff for each manor, who collected rents, went to market to buy and sell, surveyed the timber, superintended the ploughing, mowing, reaping, &c., that were due as services from the tenants on the lord's demesne; and according to Fleta he was to prevent their 'casting off before the work was