We now proceed to the several services. _Grass-erth_, or the service of
Tillage, was in return for the privilege of feeding cattle in the lord's
open pastures. The Saxon boor ploughed two acres, and might be allowed
to plough more if he required more pasture.
At Sturminster Newton in Dorsetshire, certain tenants came upon the
lord's grass-land on the morrow of St. Martin's Day with as many teams
of oxen as they could bring, and they ploughed four acres of the land
with each team; they brought seed from the hall to sow the land, and
afterwards harrowed it. This service entitled them to feed their oxen
with the lord's oxen, from the time that the meadows were mown until the
cattle were housed. The lord might, in the meantime, raise no hedge, and
might make no several pasture in the fallow-field, to exclude the cattle
of the tenantry.
The Saxon boor, in addition to grass-erth, ploughed three acres of
gafolyrthe: that is, ploughing alone in satisfaction of his gayfol, or
rent; as well as three acres of benyrthe, or optional tillage, done as a
_boon_ to the lord,--done out of grace and kindness, not in the way of
duty.
A large part of the lord's arable land was entirely cultivated by the
tenantry. The customary tenants at Cokefield, near Bury, ploughed 200
acres; or rather, they ploughed each acre more than once, and their
labour was equal to the single tillage of 200 acres.
In large manors, it was the duty of the reeve to ascertain whether a
tenant intended to do the service, or chose rather to pay for a
substitute. The reeve had to deal with persons of both sexes, and of all
conditions. Some of the contributors of labour were knights, and
gentlemen, and ladies of quality; others were independent yeomen, surly
farmers, and poor widows. This arrangement was called an _arable
precation_. The _gathering of the ploughs_ must have been a remarkable
sight. Soon after dawn, on the appointed day the tenants met the lord's
officers in the field. Tenants who came without oxen, were employed in
delving and in making fences; tenants who came with single oxen or with
less than an entire team, were associated with others; and thus all the
oxen and cart-horses present were sorted in teams of about eight
animals. The teams were marshalled by a beadle, who carried his wand of
office, not quite a bare symbol of authority, for, we dare say, it was
used upon inert husbandmen as well as upon inert oxen. The reeve took
care that each team did its full work: that the ploughmen worked as well
for the lord as they would work for themselves; and that the teams were
not unyoked until the work had been fairly done. The day's work was
supposed to be completed at the ninth hour,--three in the afternoon,
according to our reckoning. This hour was called high noon, and the meal
then taken was called a noonshun or nuncheon. Some of the ploughmen had
a meal from the lord, but there was no regular feast; a tenant employed
in the lord's service was not usually entitled to a meal, unless the
service kept him occupied an entire day. A boon-harrowing, with horses,
succeeded; each horse that harrowed was allowed two or three handfuls of
oats. In due time there followed a bedweding, or weeding boon.
There were small services, such as threshing, thatching, delving,
building, and enclosing. A tenant made two perches, or eleven yards, of
dyke. A tenant at Darent, near Rochester, in the thirteenth century, did
two perches of enclosure around the court, and seven perches of Racheie
around the lord's corn. Then there was the service of enclosing the
hall-garth or courtyard. The tenants are still obliged to keep up a
stone wall round the site of the manor-house at Brotherton, in Norfolk;
the mansion itself disappeared long ago. The fencing of a park was in
some places distributed among a number of townships, each undertaking to
maintain so many rods of paling; this was the custom at Pilton, in
Somerset, where there was a deer-park belonging to the Abbot of
Glastonbury. The churchyard at Bradley, in Staffordshire, is said to be
still enclosed by the parishioners associated in this manner,--that is,
each person is bound to finish a certain portion of paling. The tenants
also made or maintained the lord's sheepfold. Each hyde at Thorpe in
Essex had to make a certain number of rods for the fold out of the
lord's wood.
At times, the tenants had to spread composts in the lord's field. They
also collected stubble out of the corn-fields, and reeds out of the
marsh; reeds and straw were strewn in apartments, and used for thatching
or fuel. In many places they were required to gather nuts in the woods
for the lord; the nuts were for making oil, and a quarter of nuts
answered to a gallon of oil. Nutting was rather a pastime, or holiday
task, than a service. The nutting expeditions at Wickham, in Essex, were
to be made on three feast days, which are not named, but Holyrood Day,
the 14th of September, may have been one of them:
"This day, they say, is called Holy-Rood Day,
And all the youth are now a nutting gone."
_Grim, the Collier of Croydon._
To make malt for the lord was usually the chief service of the poorer
tenants in the immediate neighbourhood of a monastery, as at Darent and
other places near Rochester, and at Battle; tenants at a distance,
instead of making malt, in some places paid a tax called _malt-silver_.
The cottagers carried their lord's malt to the flour mill to be crushed,
for they were not allowed to keep hand-mills or mortars, which might be
used in grinding corn. The malt might be dried at home, for kilns were
common in old houses; but in some manors the lord had a public kiln,
which the tenants were bound to make use of.