TOWNS AND VILLAGES IN THE TIME OF CNUT THE DANE
1. Now let us see what an ordinary village was like in the time of King
Cnut, when Saxon and Dane were living pretty comfortably together, side
by side, under good government.
2. We find that each vill or tun had a =lord=, an eorl, or thane, who
practically owned the place and everything in it, though he could not
do entirely as he liked. There was the land which belonged to him, and
which was in his own hands, or occupation, as we say; that was called
his =demesne=. The rest of the land was also his, but it was let out to
people who had lived on the land from time out of mind--the =cheorls=
or =villeins=. The lord's house was on his demesne. The villeins'
houses were all together in the tun, with the grass yards for the
cattle close to them, and the open fields and pasture-lands outside the
tun, just as they had been in the olden days.
3. There seem to have been two classes of villeins--=geburs= and
=cottiers=.
4. The geburs were the higher class. They seem very frequently to have
held about 120 acres of land; they had to work on the lord's home farm
two or three days a week, or pay him certain produce of the land as a
rent; and they had to provide one or more oxen for the village plough,
when there was ploughing to be done on the lord's farm, or in the
common field.
5. In the Danish part of the country there appears to have been a class
of freeholders in some places, called =socmen=, but there were not very
many of them. They, no doubt, had had their rights granted to them for
distinguished service in the Danish wars.
6. The =cottiers= held only about 5 acres of land. They had to work
for the thane or lord on certain days of the week; but, as they had no
oxen, they had no ploughing to do for him.
7. Below the geburs and the cottiers were the =theows=, =thralls=, or
=slaves=, who could be bought and sold. They were captives taken in
war; or men who, for their crimes, had been doomed to slavery.
[Illustration: Serf or Theow]
8. We must remember that the overlord might be the king, or a bishop; a
monastery, or a thane. Their rights over their vills and tuns were much
the same in each case, and their duties to those vills and tuns were
also similar.
9. A very large number of vills and tuns were under the lordship of the
various bishops and monasteries. It was so with towns like Winchester,
Reading, Bury St. Edmund's, and St. Alban's. The custom had grown up
quite naturally and in the course of many years.
10. It is pretty clear that the overlord did not always reside in his
vill or tun. The tuns or vills of the bishopric of Winchester, for
instance, were scattered about in various parts of the diocese. It was
the same with other overlords. But we find in every place a =steward=,
and in each town the =king's reeve= or the =lord's reeve=. These
acted for the overlord, whoever he was, and saw that the villeins and
cottiers did their proper proportion of work at the right time; they
saw that the lord's tolls at the markets, fairs, and ferries, were
properly enforced. The steward was a most important officer in every
town and village, and a great deal of power was in his hands.
11. Then in the ordinary country vill there was the =faber=, or smith;
the =mason=; the =pundar=, or man who looked after the fences and
hedges and drove stray cattle into the pound. The simple ordinary
trades were found in the country villages then, as they are now; but
the craftsmen, the most skilled workmen, had become for the most part
dwellers in the towns. Even in very early times we find craftsmen in
towns formed into trades' unions or =guilds=, to protect their special
trades.
12. Now the land was shared amongst the villeins and cottiers in
strips, usually containing an acre or a half-acre, in the common fields
of which we have heard before. The villein did not have all the strips
belonging to his holding set out side by side--they lay in different
parts of the great open field. Crops had to be sown according to the
custom of the vill or tun, and according to a fixed order. Wheat and
rye would be sown one year on a part of the great field; barley, oats,
and beans the next year; and the third year the land must be left
fallow. The lord's land had to be treated in the same way.
13. On the pasture-land and in the meadows the villein and cottier had
the right to turn out a certain number of cattle, according to the size
of their holdings. The crops, whether of hay or corn, had to be cleared
from the fields by certain fixed days, so that cattle might be turned
out to graze. You will still find, in some towns, that certain of the
freeholders, or burgesses, have the right to turn a certain number of
cattle on certain lands for a part of the year between fixed dates.
14. Then, on the rough commons or heaths, there were also grazing
rights for the lord and his tenants. The tenants might "top and lop"
the trees growing there at certain times, but they might not cut the
trees down--that was the lord's right. There were also rights of
cutting turf and heather, and the turning of hogs into the forest; all
these rights were ruled by "custom", which bound both the lord and the
tenants.
15. The lord, or steward, or reeve, held =courts= or meetings at
regular intervals. At first these took place in the open air, like the
old folk-moots; but in time they came to be held in a court-house.
The court was a meeting, presided over by the lord or his steward, to
see that the customs of the place were kept up; to call to account
those tenants who had failed to do their share of the work; to put new
tenants into the places of those who had removed or died; and to punish
offenders.
16. This last right, of punishing offenders, was one thought to be
of vast importance. In the early days the men of the tun were bound
together to keep the peace, and to see that it was kept; and they were
strong enough to keep evil-doers in check. In the trading tuns or towns
especially, the right was valued very highly; but, at the time we are
now treating of, the right to exercise punishment was in the hands of
the overlord, though the men of the place had still some voice in the
government of their town. The right to have a =gallows= was one eagerly
sought for, and held very firmly; not because people particularly
wanted to hang one another, but because the gallows represented to
them the highest power of government. The towns had lost most of their
rights in this respect, but they had never forgotten those they had
had, and were always on the alert to get back any lost right, or to
gain a new one, which should help them to obtain the privilege of
self-government.
=Summary.=--Each vill had an overlord, who might be the king,
a bishop, a noble, or a monastery. Land held by the lord was
his _demesne_. Those who lived on the land were _villeins_ or
_cheorls_. Villeins were divided into _geburs_ and _cottiers_.
Geburs held about 120 acres each, did so many days' work on the
lord's land, and supplied an ox for the village plough. Cottiers
had only 5 acres. In Danish districts there were some _socmen_, or
freemen. The _thralls_, or serfs, were a lower class still. Each
vill and tun had a steward, who looked after the lord's interests,
and courts were held regularly in each. The right of a gallows was
a sign of right to govern, and so it was much valued, especially
by the trading towns. The faber or smith, mason, and pundar were
the common trades in the vills.