Villainage in England Part 8

[Customary duties of the lord in regard to the peasantry.]

I ought perhaps to treat here of the different and interesting forms a.s.sumed by services and rents as consequences of manorial organisation.

But I think that this subject will be understood better in another connexion, namely as part of the agrarian system. One side only of it has to be discussed here. Everywhere customs arise which defend the villains from capricious extortions on the part of the lord and steward.

These customs mostly get 'inbreviated[360],' described in surveys and cartularies, and although they have no legally binding power, they certainly represent a great moral authority and are followed in most cases.

A very characteristic expression of their influence may be found in the fact that the manorial rolls very often describe in detail, not only what the peasants are bound to do for the lord, but what the lord must do for the peasants; especially when and how he is to feed them. Of course, the origin of such usage cannot be traced to anything like a right on the part of the villain; it comes from the landlord's concessions and good-will, but grace loses its exceptional aspect in this case and leads to a morally binding obligation[361]. When the villain brings his yearly rent to his lord, the latter often invites him to his table[362]. Very common is the practice of providing a meal for the labourers on the _boon-days_, the days on which the whole population of the village had to work for the lord in the most busy time of the summer and autumn. Such boon-work was considered as a kind of surplus demand; it exceeded the normal distribution of work. It is often mentioned accordingly that such service is performed out of affection for the lord, and sometimes it gets the eloquent name of 'love-bene.' In proportion as the manorial administration gets more work done in this exceptional manner, it becomes more and more gracious in regard to the people. 'Dry requests' (siccae precariae) are followed by 'requests with beer' (precariae cerevisiae). But it was not beer alone that could be got on such days. Here is a description of the customs of Borle, a manor belonging to Christ Church, Canterbury, in Ess.e.x. 'And let it be known that when he, the villain, with other customers shall have done cutting the hay on the meadow in Raneholm, they will receive by custom three quarters of wheat for baking bread, and one ram of the price of eighteen pence, and one pat of b.u.t.ter, and one piece of cheese of the second sort from the lord's dairy, and salt, and oatmeal for cooking a stew, and all the morning milk from all the cows in the dairy, and for every day a load of hay. He may also take as much gra.s.s as he is able to lift on the point of his scythe. And when the mown gra.s.s is carried away, he has a right to one cart. And he is bound to carry sheaves, and for each service of this kind he will receive one sheaf, called "mene-schef." And whenever he is sent to carry anything with his cart, he shall have oats, as usual, so much, namely, as he can thrice take with his hand[363].'

All such customs seem very strange and capricious at first sight. But it is to be noticed that they occur in different forms everywhere, and that they were by no means mere oddities; they became a real and sometimes a heavy burden for the landlord. The authorities, the so-called 'Inquisitiones post mortem' especially, often strike a kind of balance between the expense incurred and the value of the work performed. By the end of the thirteenth century it is generally found that both ends are just made to meet in cases of extra work attended by extra feeding, and in some instances it is found that the lord has to lay out more than he gets back[364]. The rise in the prices of commodities had rendered the service unprofitable. No wonder that such 'boon-work' has to be given up or to be commuted for money.

[Customs in the arrangement of agricultural work.]

These regularly recurring _liberationes_ or _liberaturae_ as they are called, that is, meals and provender delivered to the labourers, have their counterpart in the customary arrangement of the amount and kind of services. I shall have to speak of their varieties and usual forms in another connexion, but it must be noticed now, that these peasants unprotected at law were under the rule of orderly custom. We have seen already that the payments and duties which followed from the subjection of the villains were for the most part fixed according to constant rules in each particular case. The same may be said of the economical pressure exercised in the shape of service and rent. It did not depend on the caprice of the lord, although it depended theoretically on his will. The villains of a manor in Leicesters.h.i.+re are not bound to work at weeding the demesne fields unless by their own consent, that is by agreement[365]. A baker belonging to Glas...o...b..ry Abbey is not bound to carry loads unless a cart is provided him[366]. A survey of Ely mentions that some peasants are made to keep a hedge in order as extra work and without being fed. But it is added that the jurors of the village protest against such an obligation, as heretofore unheard of[367]. All these customs and limitations may, of course, be broken and slighted by the lord, but such violent action on his part will be considered as gross injustice, and may lead to consequences unpleasant for him--to riots and desertion.

It is curious that the influence of custom makes itself felt slowly but surely among the most debased of the villains. The Oxfords.h.i.+re Hundred Roll treats for instance of the _servi_ of Swincombe. They pay merchet; if any of them dies without making his will the whole of his moveable property falls to the lord. They are indeed degraded. And still the lord does not tallage them at pleasure--they are secure in the possession of their waynage (_salvo contenemento_)[368].

We may sum up the results already obtained by our a.n.a.lysis of manorial doc.u.ments in the following propositions:--

1. The terminology of the feudal period and the treatment of tenure in actual life testify to the fact that the chief stress lay more on tenure than on status, more on economical condition than on legal distinctions.

2. The subdivisions of the servile cla.s.s and the varieties of service and custom show that villainage was a complex mould into which several heterogeneous elements had been fused.

3. The life of the villain is chiefly dependent on custom, which is the great characteristic of medieval relations, and which stands in sharp contrast with slavery on the one hand and with freedom on the other.

CHAPTER VI.

FREE PEASANTRY.

I hope the heading of this chapter may not be misunderstood. It would be difficult to speak of free peasantry in the modern sense at the time with which we are now dealing. Some kind or form of dependence often clings even to those who occupy the best place among villagers as recognised free tenants, and in most cases we have a very strong infusion of subjection in the life of otherwise privileged peasants. But if we keep to the main distinctions, and to the contrast which the authorities themselves draw between the component elements of the peasant cla.s.s, its great bulk will arrange itself into two groups: the larger one will consist of those ordinarily designated as _villains_; a smaller, but by no means an insignificant or scanty one, will present itself as _free_, more or less protected by law, and more or less independent of the bidding of the lord and his steward. There is no break between the two groups; one status runs continuously into the other, and it may be difficult to distinguish between the intermediate shades; but the fundamental difference of conception is clearly noticeable as soon as we come to look at the whole, and it is not only noticeable to us but was noticed by the contemporary doc.u.ments.

[General condition of England.]

In very many cases we are actually enabled to see how freedom and legal security gradually emerge from subjection. One of the great movements in the social life of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is the movement towards the commutation of services for money rents. In every survey we find a certain number of persons who now pay money, whereas they used to do work, and who have thus emanc.i.p.ated themselves from the most onerous form of subjection[369]. In the older doc.u.ments it is commonly specified that the lord may revert to the old system, give up the rents, and enforce the services[370]. In later doc.u.ments this provision disappears, having become obsolete, and there is only a mention of certain sums of money. The whole process, which has left such distinct traces in the authorities, is easily explained by England's economic condition at that time. Two important factors co-operated to give the country an exceptionally privileged position. England was the only country in Europe with a firmly const.i.tuted government. The Norman Conquest had powerfully worked in the sense of social feudalism, but it had arrested the disruptive tendencies of political feudalism. The opposition between the two races, the necessity for both to keep together, the complexity of political questions which arose from conquest and settlement on the one hand, from the intercourse with Normandy and France on the other,--all these agencies working together account for a remarkable intensity of action on the part of the centripetal forces of society, if I may use the expression: there was in England a constant tendency towards the concentration and organisation of political power in sharp contrast with the rest of Europe where the state had fallen a prey to local and private interests. One of the external results of such a condition was the growth of a royal power supported by the sympathy of the lower English-born cla.s.ses, but arranging society by the help of Norman principles of fiscal administration. Not less momentous was the formation of an aristocracy which was compelled to act as a cla.s.s instead of acting as a mere collection of individuals each striving for his own particular advantage; as a cla.s.s it had to reckon with, and sometimes represent, the interests and requirements of other cla.s.ses. In all these respects England was much ahead of Germany, where tribal divisions were more powerful than national unity, and the state had to form itself on feudal foundations in opposition to a cosmopolitan Imperial power; it was not less in advance of France, where the work of unification, egotistically undertaken by the king, had hardly begun to get the upper hand in its conflict with local dynasties; not less in advance of Italy, so well situated for economic progress, but politically wrecked by its unhappy connexion with Germany, the anti-national influence of the Papacy, and the one-sided development of munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions. By reason of its political advantages England had the start of other European countries by a whole century and even by two centuries. The 'silver streak' acted already as a protection against foreign inroads, the existence of a central power insured civil order, intercourse between the different parts of the island opened outlets to trade, and reacted favourably on the exchange of commodities and the circulation of money.

Another set of causes operated in close alliance with these political influences. The position of England in relation to the European market was from the first an advantageous one. Besides the natural development of seafaring pursuits which lead to international trade, and always tend to quicken the economic progress, there were two special reasons to account for a speedy movement in the new direction: the woollen trade with Flanders begins to rise in the twelfth century, and this is the most important commercial feature in the life of North-Western Europe; then again, the possession of Normandy and the occupation of Aquitaine and other provinces of France by the English opened markets and roads for a very brisk commercial intercourse with the Continent. As an outcome of all these political and economical conditions we find the England of the thirteenth century undoubtedly moving from _natural husbandry_ to the _money-system_.

[Commutation.]

The consequences are to be seen on every side in the arrangements of state and society. The means of government were modified by the economic change. Hired troops took the place of feudal levies; kings easily renounced the military service of their tenants and took scutages which give them the means of keeping submissive and well-drilled soldiers. The same process took place all through the country on the land of secular and ecclesiastical lords. They all preferred taking money which is so readily spent and so easy to keep, which may transform itself equally well into gorgeous pageants and into capital for carrying on work, instead of exacting old-fas.h.i.+oned unwieldly ploughings and reapings or equally clumsy rents in kind.

On the other hand, the peasants were equally anxious to get out of the customary system: through its organisation of labour it involved necessarily many annoyances, petty exactions and coercion; it involved a great waste of time and energy. The landlord gained by the change, because he received an economic instrument of greater efficiency; the peasant gained because he got rid of personal subjection to control; both gained; for a whole system of administration, a whole cla.s.s of administrators, stewards, bailiffs, reeves, a whole ma.s.s of c.u.mbrous accounts and archaic procedure became unnecessary.

In reality the peasantry gained much more than the lord. Just because money rents displaced the ploughings and reapings very gradually, they a.s.sumed the most important characteristic of these latter--their customary uniformity; tradition kept them at a certain level which it was very difficult to disturb, even when the interests of the lord and the conditions of the time had altered a great deal. Prices fluctuate and rise gradually, the buying strength of money gets lowered little by little, but customary rents remain much the same as they were before.

Thus in process of time the balance gets altered for the benefit of the rent payer. I do not mean to say that such views and such facts were in full operation from the very beginning: one of the chief reasons for holding the Glas...o...b..ry inquest of 1189 was the wish to ascertain whether the rents actually corresponded to the value of the plots, and to make the necessary modifications. But such fresh a.s.sessments were very rare, it was difficult to carry them into practice, and the general tendency was distinctly towards a stability of customary rents.

[Social results of commutation.]

The whole process has a social and not merely an economical meaning.

Commutation, even when it was restricted to agricultural services, certainly tended to weaken the hold of the lord on his men. Personal interference was excluded by it, the manorial relation resolved itself into a practice of paying certain dues once or several times a year; the peasant ceased to be a tool in the husbandry arrangements of his master.

The change made itself especially felt when the commutation took place in regard to entire villages[371]: the new arrangement developed into the custom of a locality, and gathered strength by the number of individuals concerned in it, and the cohesion of the group. In order not to lose all power in such a towns.h.i.+p, the lords usually reserved some cases for special interference and stipulated that some services should still be rendered in kind[372].

Again, the conversion of services into rents did not always present itself merely in the form just described: it was not always effected by the mere will of the lord, without any legally binding acts. Commutation gave rise to actual agreements which came more or less under the notice of the law. We constantly find in the Hundred Rolls and in the Cartularies that villains are holding land by written covenant. In this case they always pay rent. Sometimes a villain, or a whole towns.h.i.+p, gets emanc.i.p.ated from certain duties by charter[373], and the infringement of such an instrument would have given the villains a standing ground for pleading against the lord. It happened from time to time that bondmen took advantage of such deeds to claim their liberty, and to prove that the lord had entered into agreement with them as with free people[374]. To prevent such misconstruction the lord very often guards expressly against it, and inserts a provision to say that the agreement is not to be construed against his rights and in favour of personal freedom[375].

[Molmen.]

[Improvement of condition.]

The influence of commutation makes itself felt in the growth of a number of social groups which arrange themselves between the free and the servile tenantry without fitting exactly into either cla.s.s. Our manorial authorities often mention mol-land and mol-men[376]. The description of their obligations always points one way: they are rent-paying tenants who may be bound to some extra work, but who are very definitely distinguished from the 'custumarii,' the great ma.s.s of peasants who render labour services[377]. Kentish doc.u.ments use 'mala' or 'mal' for a particular species of rent, and explain the term as a payment in commutation of servile customs[378]. In this sense it is sometimes opposed to _gafol_ or _gable_--the old Saxon rent in money or in kind, this last being considered as having been laid on the holding from all time, and not as the result of a commutation[379]. Etymologically there is reason to believe that the term _mal_ is of Danish origin[380], and the meaning has been kept in practice by the Scotch dialect[381]. What immediately concerns our present purpose is, that the word mal-men or mol-men is commonly used in the feudal period for villains who have been released from most of their services by the lord on condition of paying certain rents. Legally they ought to remain in their former condition, because no formal emanc.i.p.ation has taken place; but the economical change reacts on their status, and the manorial doc.u.ments show clearly how the whole cla.s.s gradually gathers importance and obtains a firmer footing than was strictly consistent with its servile origin[382].

In the Bury St. Edmund's case just quoted in a foot-note the fundamental principle of servility is stated emphatically, but the statement was occasioned by gradual encroachments on the part of the molmen, who were evidently becoming hardly distinguishable from freeholders[383]. And in many Cartularies we find these molmen actually enumerated with the freeholders, a very striking fact, because the clear interest of the lord was to keep the two cla.s.ses asunder, and the process of making a manorial 'extent' and cla.s.sifying the tenants must have been under his control. As a matter of fact, the village juries were independent enough to make their presentments more in accordance with custom than in accordance with the lord's interests. In a transcript of a register of the priory of Eye in Suffolk, which seems to have been compiled at the time of Edward I, the molmen are distinguished from villains in a very remarkable manner as regards the rule of inheritance, Borough English being considered as the servile mode, while primogeniture is restricted to those holding mol-land[384]. Borough English was very widely held in medieval England to imply servile occupation of land[385], and the privilege enjoyed by molmen in this case shows that they were actually rising above the general condition of villainage, the economical peculiarities of their position affording a stepping-stone, as it were, towards the improvement of their legal status. It is especially to be noticed, that in this instance we have to reckon with a material difference of custom, and not merely with a vacillating terminology or a general and indefinite improvement in position. An interesting attempt at an accurate cla.s.sification of this and other kinds of tenantry is displayed by an inquisition of 19 Edward I preserved at the Record Office. The following subdivisions are enumerated therein:--

Liberi tenentes per cartam.

Liberi tenentes qui vocantur fresokemen.

Sokemanni qui vocantur molmen.

Custumarii qui vocantur werkmen.

Consuetudinarii tenentes 4 acras terre.

Consuetudinarii tenentes 2 acras terre[386].

The difference between molmen and workmen lies, of course, in the fact that the first pay rent and the second perform week-work. But what is more, the molmen are ranged among the sokemen, and this supposes a certainty of tenure and service not enjoyed by the villains. In this way the intermediate cla.s.s, though of servile origin, connects itself with the free tenantry.

[Censuarii and gavelmen.]

The same group appears in manorial doc.u.ments under the name of _censuarii_[387]. Both terms interchange, and we find the same fluctuation between free and servile condition in regard to the _censuarii_ as in regard to _molmen_. The thirteenth-century extent of the manor of Broughton, belonging to the Abbey of Ramsey in Huntingdons.h.i.+re, when compared with Domesday, shows clearly the origin of the group and the progress which the peasantry had made in two hundred years. The Domesday description mentions ten sokemen and twenty villains; the thirteenth-century Cartulary speaks in one place of _liberi_ and _villani_, sets out the services due from the latter, but says that the Abbot can 'ponere omnia opera ad censum;' while in another place it speaks as though the whole were held by _liberi et censuarii_[388].

A similar condition is indicated by the term _gavelmanni_, which occurs sometimes, although not so often as either of the designations just mentioned[389]. It comes evidently from _gafol_ or _gafel_, and applies to rent-paying people. It ought to be noticed, however, that if we follow the distinction suggested by the Kentish doc.u.ments, there would be an important difference in the meaning. Rent need not always appear as a result of commutation; it may be an original incident of the tenure, and there are facts enough to show that lands were held by rent in opposition to service even in early Saxon time. Should _mal_ be taken as a commutation rent, and _gafol_ strictly in the sense of original rent, the gavelmen would present an interesting variation of social grouping as the progeny of ancient rent-holding peasantry. I do not think, however, that we are ent.i.tled to press terminological distinctions so closely in the feudal period, and I should never enter a protest against the a.s.sumption that most gavelmen were distinguished from molmen only by name, and in fact originated in the same process of commutation. But, granting this, we have to grant something else. _Vice versa_, it is very probable indeed that the groups of _censuarii_ and _molmen_ are not to be taken exclusively as the outcome of commutation.

If _gafol_ gets to be rather indistinct in its meaning, so does _mal_, and as to _census_, there is nothing to show whether it arises in consequence of commutation or of original agreement. And so the Kentish distinction, even if not carried out systematically, opens a prospect which may modify considerably the characteristic of the status on which I have been insisting till now. Commutation was undoubtedly a most powerful agency in the process of emanc.i.p.ation; our authorities are very ready to supply us with material in regard to its working, and I do not think that anybody will dispute the intimate connexion between the social divisions under discussion and the transition from labour services to rent. Yet a money rent need not be in every case the result of a commutation of labour services, although such may be its origin in most cases. We have at least to admit the possibility and probability of another pedigree of rent-paying peasants. They may come from an old stock of people whose immemorial custom has been to pay rent in money or in kind, and who have always remained more or less _free_ from base labour. This we should have to consider as at all events a theoretic possibility, even if we restricted our study to the terminology connected with rent; though it would hardly give sufficient footing for definite conclusions. But there are groups among the peasantry whose history is less doubtful.

[Hundredarii.]

There are at the British Museum two most curious Surveys of the possessions of Ely Minster, one drawn up in 1222 and the other in 1277[390]. In some of the manors described we find tenants called 'hundredarii.' Their duties vary a good deal, but the peculiarity which groups them into a special division and gives them their name is the suit of court they owe to the hundred[391]. And although the name does not occur often even in the Ely Surveys, and is very rare indeed elsewhere[392], the thing is quite common. The village has to be represented in the hundred court either by the lord of the manor, or by the steward, or by the reeve, the priest, and four men[393]. The same people have to attend the County Court and to meet the King's justices when they are holding an eyre[394]. It is not a necessary consequence, of course, that certain particular holdings should be burdened with the special duty of sending representatives to these meetings, but it is quite in keeping with the general tendency of the time that it should be so; and indeed one finds everywhere that some of the tenants, even if not called 'hundredarii,' are singled out from the rest to 'defend' the towns.h.i.+p at hundred and s.h.i.+re moots[395]. They are exempted from other services in regard to this 'external,' this 'forinsec' duty, which was considered as by no means a light one[396].

[Hundredors as villains.]

And now as to their status. The obligation to send the reeve and four men is enforced all through England, and for this reason it is _prima facie_ impossible that it should be performed everywhere by freeholders in _the usual sense of the word_. There can be no doubt that in many, if not in most, places the feudal organisation of society afforded little room for a considerable cla.s.s of freeholding peasants or yeomen[397].

If every towns.h.i.+p in the realm had to attend particular judicial meetings, to perform service for the king, by means of five representatives, these could not but be selected largely from among the villain cla.s.s. The part played by these representatives in the Courts was entirely in keeping with their subordinate position. They were not reckoned among the 'free and lawful' men acting as judges or a.s.sessors and deciding the questions at issue. They had only to make presentments and to give testimony on oath when required to do so. The opposition is a very marked one, and speaks of itself against the a.s.sumption that the five men from the towns.h.i.+p were on an equal standing with the freeholders[398]. Again, four of these five were in many cases especially bound by their tenure to attend the meetings, and the reeve came by virtue of his office, but he is named first, and it does not seem likely that the leader should be considered as of lower degree than the followers. Now the obligation to serve as reeve was taken as a mark of villainage. All these facts lead one forcibly to the conclusion that the hundredors of our doc.u.ments represent the village people at large, and the villains first of all, because this cla.s.s was most numerous in the village. This does not mean, of course, that they were all personally unfree: we know already, that the law of tenure was of more importance in such questions than personal status[399]. It does not even mean that the hundredors were necessarily holding in villainage: small freeholders may have appeared among them. But the inst.i.tution could not rest on the basis of legal freehold if it was to represent the great bulk of the peasantry in the towns.h.i.+ps.

[Hundredors as free tenants.]

This seems obvious and definite enough, but our inquiry would be incomplete and misleading if it were to stop here. We have in this instance one of those curious contradictions between two well-established sets of facts which are especially precious to the investigator because they lead him while seeking their solution to inferences far beyond the material under immediate examination. In one sense the reeve and the four men, the hundredors, seem villains and not freeholders. In another they seem freeholders and not villains. Their tenure by the 'sergeanty' of attending hundreds and s.h.i.+res ranks again and again with freehold and in opposition to base tenure[400].

Originally the four men were made to go not only with the reeve but with the priest; and if the reeve was considered in feudal times as unfree, the priest, the 'ma.s.s-thane,' was always considered as free[401]. It is to be noticed that the attendance of the priest fell into abeyance in process of time, but that it was not less necessary for the representation of the towns.h.i.+p according to the ancient const.i.tution of the hundred than the attendance of the reeve. This last fact is of great importance because it excludes an explanation which would otherwise look plausible enough. Does it not seem at first sight that the case of the hundredors is simply a case of exemption and exactly on a parallel with the commutation of servile obligations for money? We have seen that villains discharged from the most onerous and opprobrious duties of their cla.s.s rise at once in social standing, and mix up with the smaller freeholders. Hundredors are relieved from these same base services in order that they may perform their special work, and this may possibly be taken as the origin of their freedom. Should we look at the facts in this way, the cla.s.sification of this cla.s.s of tenants as free would proceed from a lax use of the term and their privileges would have to be regarded as an innovation. The presence of the priest warns us that we have to reckon in the case with a survival, with an element of tradition and not of mere innovation. And it is not only the presence of the priest that points this way.

[The Hundred Courts.]

At first sight the line seems drawn very sharply between the reeve and the four men on the one hand, and the freehold suitors of the hundred court on the other: while these last have to judge and to decide, the first only make presentments. But the distinction, though very clear in later times, is by no means to be relied upon even in the thirteenth century. In Britton's account of the sheriff's tourn the two bodies, though provided with different functions, are taken as const.i.tuted from the same cla.s.s: 'the free landowners of the hundred are summoned and the first step is to cause twelve _of them_ to swear that they will make presentment according to the articles. Afterwards the _rest_ shall be sworn by dozens and by towns.h.i.+ps, that they will make lawful presentment to the _first twelve jurors_[402].' The wording of the pa.s.sage certainly leads one to suppose that both sets of jurors are taken from the freeholder cla.s.s, and the difference only lies in the fact that some are selected to act as individuals, and the rest to do so by representation.

The a.s.size of Clarendon, which Mr. Maitland has shown to be at the origin of the sheriff's tourn[403], will only strengthen the inference that the two bodies were intended to belong to the same free cla.s.s: the inquiry, says the a.s.size, shall be made by twelve of the most lawful men of the county, and by four of the most lawful men of every towns.h.i.+p.