Chapter V: Manors and Serfdom Under Saxon Rule (2)

Now, comparing the services on the manor of Tidenham at these dates 300 years apart, at which period was the service most complete serfdom? at the later date, when the week-work of the villeins was limited to two and a half or three days a week, and in addition he made _precariæ_ or extra works; or at the earlier date, _when his week-work was unlimited_ [p158] as to the days, and therefore there was no room for the extra work?

«Saxon services more complete.»

Surely the unlimited week-work marked the most complete serfdom. Surely the later services, limited in their amount and commutable into money payments, were clearly a mitigated service fast growing into a fixed money rent. In fact, the _gebur_ or _villanus_ was fast growing into a mere customary tenant in the time of Edward I. Indeed, he is not called in the 'Inquisition' a '_villanus_,' but a '_custumarius_,' and such he was. He was halfway on the road to freedom. Another sign of the times was this, that at the later date, side by side with the customary tenants on the land in villenage, a whole host of _libere tenentes_ had already grown up upon the lord's demesne, not, as we have more than once observed, necessarily _liberi homines_ at all, but some of them villein tenants or _custumarii_ holding additional pieces of free land of the lord's demesne. Of these free tenants there were none at the earlier period. So that the _gebur_, with his _weorc-ræden_ 100 years and more before the Norman Conquest, was much more clearly a serf, and rendered far more complete and servile services than his successor in the thirteenth century, with the Black Death and Wat Tyler's rebellion in the near future before him.

Finally, let us look backward and ask how long this more complete serfdom had lasted on the manor of Tidenham.

«They probably go back to near the first conquest.»

If in the laws of King Ine are found, as we have seen, the '_geset land_' and '_gyrd lands_,' and the '_gafol_,' and the '_weorc_,' and the '_geneat_,' and the '_gebur_,' and the obligation not to leave the lord's [p159] land; and if all those were incidents of what in the '_Rectitudines_' and in the charter of King Edwy just examined was in fact serfdom--if the laws of Ine are good evidence that this serfdom existed in full force in the seventh century _anywhere_--they must surely be good evidence that it existed on the manor of Tidenham. For it was, as we have seen, a royal manor of King Edwy, and most probably he had received it through a succession of royal holders from King Ine. There is no evidence of its having ceased to be folcland, and so to be in the royal demesne of the kings of Wessex or of Mercia, from Ine's time to Edwy's. And if it was a royal manor of King Ine's, surely the laws of King Ine may be taken to interpret the serfdom on his own estate. Lastly, looking further back still, as King Ine probably held the manor in direct succession from Ceawlin, or whoever conquered it from the Welsh, and cut it from the diocese of Llandaff in A.D. 577 or thereabouts, the inference is very strong indeed that the _weorc-ræden_ had remained much the same ever since, 100 years before the date of King Ine's laws, it first fell under Saxon rule.

«Changes in local customs very slow.»

The lesson to be learned from a careful tracing back of the customs of such a manor as Tidenham, and we might add also the methods of fishing, and the construction of the '_cyt_' and '_hæcweras_,' surely is, that in those early times changes in custom and habit were slow, and not easily made. It would be as unlikely that between the days of King Ceawlin and those of King Ine great changes should have been made in the internal economic structure of a Saxon manor, as that in the same period bees should have changed the shape of their hexagonal cells. [p160]

VII. SERFDOM ON A MANOR OF KING ALFRED.

«Manor of Hysseburne, which had belonged to Egbert, Ethelwulf, and Alfred.»

The second example of a Saxon manor is that of 'Stoke-by-Hysseburne,' a royal estate in Hampshire.[188] It had belonged in succession to King Egbert, King Ethelwulf, and King Alfred, and was by his son Edward given over to the monks of the 'old minster' at Winchester under the following curious circumstances.

King Alfred, towards the close of his reign, in his anxiety for the better education of the children of his nobles, called to his aid the monk Grimbald, from the monastery of St. Bertin, near St. Omer in Picardy, in which he himself had spent some time in his childhood on his way to Rome. It was the plan of Grimbald and King Alfred to build a new monastery (the 'new minster') at Winchester where Grimbald should carry out the royal object. But King Alfred died before this wish was fully accomplished. He had bought the land for the chapel and dormitory in [p161] the city, but the building and endowment of the monastery was left for his son King Edward to complete. Grimbald, then eighty-two years old, was the first abbot, but within a year died and was canonised. The body of King Alfred lay enshrined in Winchester Cathedral, in the 'old minster' of the bishop; but the canons of the old foundation having, according to the Abbey Chronicle, conceived 'delirious fancies' that the royal ghost, roaming by night about their cloisters, could not rest in peace, the remains of Alfred and his queen were removed to the 'new minster.'[189]

«Granted to the 'old minster' at Winchester.»

Now, King Ethelwolf, when dying, having left to King Alfred his son certain lands at '_Cyseldene_' and elsewhere, with instructions when he died to give them over to the refectory of the old minster, King Alfred in his will gave his land at that place to the proper official at Winchester accordingly. In other words, the body of King Alfred lay in the 'new minster,' and this land given for the good of his soul belonged to the 'old minster.' So it came to pass--whether this time the 'delirious fancies' of the superstitious canons had anything to do with it or not cannot be told--that this property at Cyseldene, like the royal donor's body, could not rest in the hands of the 'old minster,' but must be transferred to the 'new minster.' So King Edward in the year 900 made an arrangement with the monks, whereby the lands at Cyseldene were transferred to the 'new minster,' and by charter he gave instead of them to the 'old minster' ten holdings (_manentes_) at [p162] _Stoke-be-Hisseburne, with all the men who were thereon, and those at 'Hisseburne,' when King Alfred, died_.

«The '_hiwisc_,' or family holding, equal here to yard-land.»

It is in the charter[190] effecting this object that the services are described. 'Here are written the _gerihta_ 'that the ceorls shall do at Hysseburne.' From every '_hiwisc_' such and such services. The _hiwisce_ or _family holding_ seems from the services to have been a yard-land of 30 acres. The services were as follows:--

«Services.»

Hér synd gewriten ða gerihta ðæ ða ceorlas sculan dón tó Hysseburnan.

Ærest æt hilcan hiwisce feorwerti penega tó herfestes emnihte: and vi. ciricmittan ealað; and iii. sesðlar hláfhwétes: and iii. æceras ge-erian on heora ægenre hwíle, and mid heora ágenan sæda gesáwan, and on hyra ágenre [h]wíle on bærene gebringan: and þréo pund gauolbæres and healfne æcer gauolmǽde on hiora ágienre hwíle, and ðæt on hreace gebringan: and iiii. fóðera áclofenas gauolwyda tó scidhræce on hiora ágenre hwíle: and xvi. gyrda gauoltininga eác on hiora ágenre hwíle: and tó Eástran twó ewe mid twam lamban, and we [talað] twó geong sceap tó eald sceapan: and hí sculan waxan sceap and scíran on hiora ágenre hwíle.

Here are written the services that the ceorls shall do at Hysseburne.

From each _hiwisc_ (family) 40d. at harvest equinox, and 6 church-mittans of ale, and 3 sesters of bread-wheat: and plough 3 acres in their own time, and sow it with their own seed, and in their own time bring it to the barn: and 3 pounds of gafol-barley, and a half-acre of gafol-mowing in their own time, and to bring it to the rick: and split 4 fothers (loads) of gafol-wood and stack it in their own time, and 16 yards of gafol-fencing in their own time; and at Easter two ewes with two lambs, and two young sheep may be taken for one old one: and they shall wash sheep and shear them in their own time.

«Gafol and gafol-_yrthe_.»

Here we have clearly, as in the '_Rectitudines_,' the _gafol_, including the three acres of _gafol-yrth_ or ploughing, as well as other gafol-work and payments in [p163] kind. And if the services had stopped here, we might have concluded that the 'ceorls' of Hysseburne were gafolgelders, and not serfs. But there is another clause which forbids such a conclusion--which shows that, in the words of the laws of King Ine, they were 'set to _work_ as well as to _gafol_.' It is this:--

«Week-work.»

And ǽlce wucan wircen ðæt hí man háte bútan þrim, án tó middan-wintra, oðeru tó Eástran, þridde to Gangdagan.

And every week do what work they are bid, except three weeks--one at midwinter, the second at Easter, and the third at 'Gang days.'

«Unlimited.»

Comparing these services with the other examples, they do not seem to be any more the services of freemen, or any less those of serfs. They seem to plainly bear the ordinary characteristics of what is meant by serfdom wherever it is found. There is the _gafol_ and there is the _week-work_; and the latter is not limited to certain days each week, as in the '_Rectitudines_,' but '_each week, except three in the year, they are_ TO WORK AS THEY ARE BID.'

And these are the services--this is the serfdom--on a manor which was part of the royal domain of King Alfred, which for three successive reigns at least, and probably for generations earlier, had been royal domain, and now by the last royal holder is handed over, with the men that were upon it, to the perpetual, never-dying lordship of a monastery, as an eternal inheritance.

«The chain of evidence complete.»

Finally, the evidence of these Saxon documents--the '_Rectitudines_' and the charters of Tidenham and Hysseburne--read in the light of the later evidence and of the earlier laws of King Ine, is so clear that it seems needful to explain how it has happened that [p164] there has ever been any doubt as to the servile nature of the services of the holders of yard-lands in Saxon times. The explanation is simple. Mr. Kemble quotes from all these documents in his chapter on '_Lænland_;'[191] but for want of the clear knowledge what a yard-land was, it never seems to have occurred to him that in these services of the _geburs_ or holders of yard-lands we have the services of the later _villani_ of the Domesday Survey--the services of the holdings embracing by far the greater part of the arable land of England. Dr. Leo, in his work on the '_Rectitudines_,' confesses that he does not know what is meant by the yard-land of the gebur.[192] It is only when, proceeding from the known to the unknown, we get a firm grasp of the fact that the yard-land was the normal holding of the _gebur_ or _villanus_, that it was a bundle of normally thirty scattered acres in the open fields, that it was held in villenage, and that these were the services under which it was held of the manorial lord of the _ham_ or _tun_ to which it belonged--it is only when these facts are known and their importance realised, that these documents become intelligible, and take their proper place as links in what really is an unbroken chain of evidence.

VIII. THE THEOWS OR SLAVES ON THE LORD'S DEMESNE.

«The _theows_, or slave class.»

One word must be said of the _theows_ or slaves on the lord's demesne--the thane's _inland_--lest we should [p165] forget the existence of this lowest class of all, in contrast with whose slavery the _geburs_ and cottiers on the _geneat_ land, notwithstanding their serfdom, were '_free_.' These latter were prædial serfs 'adscripti glebæ,' but not slaves. The _theows_ were slaves, bought and sold in the market, and exported from English ports across the seas as part of the commercial produce of the island. Some of the _theows_ were slaves by birth. But it seems to have been a not uncommon thing for freemen to sell themselves into slavery under the pressure of want.[193]

«The servi of the Domesday Survey.»

The 'servi' of the Domesday Survey were no doubt the successors of the Saxon _theows_. And as in the Survey the _servi_ are mostly found on the demesne land of the lord, so probably in Saxon times the _theows_ were chiefly the slaves of the manor-house. Most of the farm work on the thane's _inland_, especially the ploughing, was done no doubt by the services of the villein tenants; but as, in addition to the villein ploughs, there were the great manorial plough teams, so also there were _theows_ doing slave labour of various kinds on the home farm of the lord, and maintained at the lord's expense.

In the bilingual dialogue of Ælfric,[194] written in Saxon and Latin late in the tenth century as an educational lesson, in the reply of the '_yrthling_' or ploughman to the question put as to the nature of his daily work, a touching picture is given of the work of a theow conscious of his thraldom:-- [p166]

«Feelings of the theow.»

Hwæt sægest þu yrþlinge?

Hu begæst þu weorc þin?

Eala leof hlaford þearle ic deorfe ic ga ut on dægræd þywende oxon to felda and iugie hig to syl. Nys hyt swa stearc winter þæt ic durre lutian æt ham for ege hlafordes mines ac geiukodan oxan and gefæstnodon sceare and cultre mit þære syl ælce dæg ic sceal erian fulne æþer (æcer) oþþe mare.

Hæfst þu ænigne geferan?

Ic hæbbe sumne cnapan þywende oxan mid gad isene þe eacswilce nu has ys for cylde and hreame.

Hwæt mare dest þu on dæg?

Gewyslice þænne mare ic do. Ic sceal fyllan binnan oxan mid hig and wæterian hig and sceasn (scearn) heora beran ut. hig hig micel gedeorf ys hyt geleof micel gedeorf hit ys forþam ic neom freoh.

What sayest thou, plowman?

How dost thou do thy work?

Oh, my lord, hard do I work. I go out at daybreak driving the oxen to field, and I yoke them to the plough. Nor is it ever so hard winter that I dare loiter at home, for fear of my lord, but the oxen yoked, and the ploughshare and coulter fastened to the plough, every day must I plough a full acre, or more.

Hast thou any comrade?

I have a boy driving the oxen with an iron goad, who also is hoarse with cold and shouting.

What more dost thou in the day?

Verily then I do more. I must fill the bin of the oxen with hay, and water them, and carry out the dung. Ha! ha! hard work it is, hard work it is! because _I am not free_.

Perhaps some day his lord will provide him with an outfit of oxen, give him a yard-land, and make him into a _gebur_ instead of a _theow_. This at least seems to be his yearning.

IX. THE CREATION OF NEW MANORS.

We have hitherto spoken only of the manors. Are we therefore to conclude that there was no land extra-manorial?

«Folkland, or _terra regis_, included royal _hams_ or manors.»

It may be asked whether 'folkland' was not extra-manorial.

Now in one sense all that belonged to the ancient demesne of the Crown was folkland and extra-manorial. All estates with the villages and towns upon them, which had no manorial lord but the king, [p167] were in the demesne of the Crown, as also were the royal forests.

Formerly, while there were many petty kings in England, and before the kingship had attained its unity and its full growth, _i.e._ before it had, as we are told by historians, absorbed in itself exclusively the sole representation of the nation, the term _folkland_ was apparently applied to all that was afterwards included in the royal demesne. All that had not become the _boc-land_ or private property either of members of the royal house or of a monastery or of a private person was still folkland. And it would appear that the kings had originally no power to alienate this folkland without the consent of the great men of their witan.

But inasmuch as the royal demesne or folkland included an endless number of manors as well as forest, it cannot properly be said that it was necessarily extra-manorial. More correctly it was in the manor of the king. The king was its manorial lord, and the _geburs_ and cottiers upon it were _geneats_ or _villani_ of the king. The Tidenham and Hysseburne manors were both of them manors of the royal demesne until they were granted by charter to their new monastic owners.

Now, it is clear that in the course of time, after that in a similar way grant after grant had been made of 'ham' after 'ham,' with its little territory--its _ager_ or _agellus_, or _agellulus_, as the ecclesiastical writers were wont to describe it in the charters--to the king's thanes or to monasteries, as _boc-land_ or private estate, the number of 'hams' still remaining folkland would grow less and less. [p168]

«These were granted as lænland to thanes in reward for services.»

In the meantime the royal forests were managed by royal foresters under separate laws and regulations of great severity, whilst the royal _hams_ or manors were put under the management of a resident steward, _præpositus_ or _villicus_--in Saxon '_tun-gerefa_,'--or were let out for life as _lænland_ to neighbouring great men or their sons, or to thanes in the royal service.

This granting of life-leases of folkland or _hams_ on the royal demesne seems to have been a usual mode of rewarding special military services, and Bede bitterly complained that the profuse and illegitimate grants which were wheedled out of the king for pretended monastic purposes had already in his time seriously weakened the king's power of using the royal estates legitimately as a means of keeping up his army and maintaining the national defences.[195] To be able to provide some adequate maintenance for the thanes, on whose services he relied, was a king's necessity; for well might King Alfred enforce the truth of the philosophy of his favourite Boethius by exclaiming that every one may know how 'full miserable and full unmighty' kings must be who cannot count upon the support of their thanes.[196]

«Tendency for them to pass into private hands.»

But from the nature of the case it was inevitable that the area of folkland or royal demesne must constantly be lessened as each succeeding grant increased the area of the _boc-land_. In other words, to use the later phrase, the tendency was not only for new [p169] manors to be created out of the royal forests and wastes, but also for more and more of the royal manors to pass from the royal demesne into private hands.

«King Alfred's sketch of the growth of a new _ham_.»

Now there is a remarkable passage in one of King Alfred's treatises[197] which incidentally throws some light upon this process, and explains the way in which new manors may have been created. He describes how the forest or a great wood provided every [p170] requisite of building, shafts and handles for tools, bay timbers and bolt timbers for house-building, fair rods (_gerda_) with which many a house (_hus_) may be constructed, and many a fair _tun_ timbered, wherein men may dwell permanently in peace and quiet, summer and winter, which, writes the king with a sigh, 'is more than I have yet done!' There was, he said, an eternal '_ham_' above, but He that had promised it through the holy fathers might in the meantime make him, so long as he was in this world, to dwell softly in a log-hut on _lænland_ ('_lænan stoclif_'[198]), waiting patiently for his eternal inheritance. So we wonder not, he continued, that men should work in timber-felling and in carrying and in building,[199] for a man hopes that if he has built a cottage on lænland of his lord, with his lord's help, he may be allowed to lie there awhile, and hunt and fowl and fish, and occupy the _læn_ as he likes on sea and land, until through his lord's grace he may perhaps some day obtain _boc-land_ and permanent inheritance. Then finally he completes his parable by reverting once more to the contrast between 'thissa lænena stoclife' and '_thara ecena hama_'--between the log hut on lænland and the permanent freehold '_ham_' on the _boc-land_, or hereditary manorial estate.

It is true that in this passage King Alfred does not suggest distinctly that the lord would make the actual holding of lænland into boc-land, thus converting a clearing in his forest into a new manor for his thane; but, on the other hand, there was a good reason [p171] for this omission, seeing that such a suggestion would have just overreached the point of his parable.

Be this as it may, the vivid little glimpse we get into the _modus operandi_ of the possible growth of a Saxon manorial estate, out of folkland granted first as _lænland_, and then as _boc-land_, or out of the woods or waste of an ealdorman's domain, may well be made use of to illustrate the matter in hand.

«The _rod_, _gyrd_, or _virga_ in the growth of a new _ham_.»

The typical importance in so many ways of the _gyrd_, or _rod_, or _virga_ in the origin and growth of the Saxon 'tun' or 'ham' is worth at least a moment's notice.

The typical site for a new settlement was a clearing in a wood or forest, because of the 'fair rods' which there abound. The clearing was measured out by rods. An allusion to this occurs in Notker's paraphrase of Psa. lxxviii. 55--'He cast out the heathen before them, and divided them an inheritance by line.' The Vulgate which Notker had before him was 'Et sorte divisit eis terram in funiculo distributionis;' and he translated the last clause thus--'teilta er daz lant mit mazseile,'--to which he added, '_also man nu tuot mit_ RUOTO,' as they now do it with _rods_, _i.e._ at St. Gall in the tenth or eleventh century.[200]

So in England the typical holding in the cleared land of the open fields was called _yard_-land, or in earlier Saxon a _gyrd_ landes, or in Latin a _virgata_ terræ; _yard_, _gyrd_, and _virga_ all meaning _rod_, and all meaning also in a secondary sense a yard measure. The holdings in the open fields were of _yarded_ or [p172] _rooded_ land--land measured out with a rod into acres four rods wide, each _rod_ in width being therefore a _rood_, as we have seen.

Again, the whole homestead was called a _tun_ or a _worth_, because it was _tyn_ed or _gird_ed with a wattled fence of _gyrds_ or rods. And so, too, in the Gothic of Ulfilas the homestead was a '_gard_.' So that in the evident connexion of these words we seem to get confirmation of the hint given by King Alfred of the process of the growth of new manors.

«It begins with a clearing in the forest.»

The young thane, with his lord's permission, makes a clearing in a forest, building his log hut and then other log huts for his servants. At first it is forest game on which he lives. By-and-by the cluster of huts becomes a little hamlet of homesteads. He provides his servants with their outfits of oxen, and they become his _geburs_. The cleared land is measured out by rods into acres. The acres ploughed by the common plough are allotted in rotation to the yard-lands. A new hamlet has grown up in the royal forest, or in the outlying woods of an old _ham_ or manor. In the meantime the king perhaps rewards his industrious thane, who has made the clearing in his forest, with a grant of the estate with the village upon it, as his boc-land for ever, and it becomes a manor, or the lord of the old manor of which it is a hamlet grants to him the inheritance, and the hamlet becomes a subject manor held of the higher lord.

So we seem now to see clearly how new _tuns_ and _hams_ or manors were always growing up century after century, on the royal demesne and on private estates or manors, as in a former chapter it became [p173] clear incidentally how new geburs with fresh yard-lands could be added to the village community, and the strips which made up the yard-lands intermixed with those of their neighbours in the village fields.

X. THE LAWS OF KING ETHELBERT--THERE WERE MANORS IN THE SIXTH CENTURY.

«_Tuns_ and _hams_ in the time of Ethelbert,»

We have seen that not only the general description of serfdom contained in the '_Rectitudines_,' but also the two examples we have been able to examine of serfdom upon particular manors in Saxon times, testify clearly to the existence of a serfdom upon Saxon manors as complete and onerous as the later serfdom upon Norman manors. And we have seen that, connecting this evidence with that of the laws of King Ine, the proof is clear of the existence of manors and serfdom in the seventh century, _i.e._ 400 years before the Norman Conquest. There remains to be quoted the still earlier though scanty evidence of the laws of King Ethelbert, A.D. 597–616; which, if genuine, bring us back to the date of the mission of St. Augustine to England.

«in single ownership.»

The evidence of these laws is accidental and indirect, but taken in connexion with that already considered, it seems to show conclusively that the 'hams' and 'tuns' of that early period were already manors. Upon one point at least it is clear. It goes so far as to indicate that they were in the ownership of individuals, and not of free village communities.

The following passages occur:-- [p174]

III. Gif cyning æt mannes ham drincæð, &c.

V. Gif in cyninges túne man mannan ofslea, &c.

XIII. Gif on eorles túne man mannan ofslæhð, &c.

XVII. Gif man in mannes tun ærest geirneð, &c.

3. If the king drink at a man's _ham_, &c.

5. If in the king's _tun_ a man slay another, &c.

13. If in an earl's _tun_ a man slay another, &c.

17. If a man into a man's _tun_ enter, &c.

If there be any doubt as to the manorial character of these 'hams' and 'tuns,' it lies not in the point of the single ownership of them, but in other points, whether they were worked and tilled by the owners' slaves, or by a village community in serfdom.

The only classes of tenants which are mentioned in the laws of King Ethelbert are the three grades of _læts_ referred to in the following passage:

XXVI. Gif [man] læt ofslæhð þone selestan. lxxx. scill. forgelde. Gif þane oðerne ofslæhð. lx. scillingum forgelde. þane þriddan. xl. scillingum forgelden.

26. If [a man] slay a _læt_ of the best [class], let him pay lxxx. shillings: if he slay one of the second, let him pay lx. shillings: of the third, let him pay xl. shillings.

«with _semi_-servile tenants or 'læts.'»

The word _læt_ is of doubtful meaning in this passage. It might have reference to the Roman _læti_, or people of conquered tribes deported into Roman provinces at the end of a war; or it might refer to the _liti_ or _lidi_--the servile tenants mentioned in so many of the early Continental codes. We are not yet in a position to decide. But in any case these _læts_ of King Ethelbert's laws were clearly of a semi-servile class here in Kent, as were the _lidi_ in Frankish Gaul,[201] for their 'wergild' was distinctly less than that of the Kentish freemen.[202] Whether they were a [p175] different class from the _geburs_ or _villani_, or identical with them, it is not easy to decide.

XI. RESULT OF THE SAXON EVIDENCE.

The evidence of the earliest Saxon or Jutish laws thus leaves us with a strong presumption, if not actual certainty, that the Saxon _ham_ or _tun_ was the estate of a lord, and not of a free village community, and that it was so when the laws of the Kentish men were first codified a few years after the mission of St. Augustine.

«The manorial system not of ecclesiastical origin.»

It becomes, therefore, all but impossible that the manorial character of English _hams_ and _tuns_ can have had an ecclesiastical origin. The codification of the laws was possibly indeed the direct result of ecclesiastical influence no less than in the case of the Alamannic, and Bavarian, and Visigothic, and Burgundian, and Lombardic codes. In all these cases the codification partook, to some extent, of the character of a compact between the king and the Church. Room had to be made, so to speak, for the new ecclesiastical authority. A recognised status and protection had to be given to the Church for the first time, and this introduction of a new element into national arrangements was perhaps in some cases the occasion of the codification. This may be so; but at the same time it is impossible that a new system of land tenure can have been suddenly introduced with the new [p176] religion. The property granted to the Church from the first was already manorial. A _ham_ or a _tun_ could not be granted to the Church by the king, or an earl, unless it already existed as a manorial estate. The monasteries became, by the grants which now were showered down upon them, lords of manors which were already existing estates, or they could not have been transferred.

«The holdings in yard-lands implied serfdom,»

«because inconsistent with the equal division of allodial property among heirs.»

Further, looking within the manor, whether on the royal demesne or in private hands, it seems to be clear that as far back as the evidence extends, _i.e._ the time of King Ine, the holdings--the yard-lands--were held in villenage, and were bundles of a recognised number of acre or half-acre strips in the open field, handed down from one generation to another in single succession without alteration.

Now let it be fully understood what is involved in this indivisible character of the holding, in its devolution from one holder to another without division among heirs. We have seen that the theory was that as the land and homestead, and also the _setene_, or outfit, were provided by the lord, they returned to the lord on the death of the holder. The lord granted the holding afresh, most often, no doubt, to the eldest son or nearest relation of the landholder on his payment of an ox or other relief in recognition of the servile nature of the tenure, and thus a custom of primogeniture, no doubt, grew up, which, in the course of generations--how early we do not know--being sanctioned by custom, could not be departed from by the lord. The very possibility of this permanent succession, generation after generation, of a single holder to the indivisible bundle of strips [p177] called a yard-land or virgate, thus seems to have implied the servile nature of the holding. The lord put in his servant as tenant of the yard-land, and put in a successor when the previous one died. This seems to be the theory of it. It was probably precisely the same course of things which ultimately produced primogeniture in the holding of whole manors. The king put in a _thane_ or _servant_ of his (sometimes called the '_king's geneat_'), or a monastery put in a steward or _villicus_ to manage a manor. When he died his son may have naturally succeeded to the _office_ or _service_, until by long custom the office became hereditary, and a succession or inheritance by primogeniture under feudal law was the result. The benefice, or _læn_, or office was probably not at first generally hereditary; though of course there were many cases of the creation of estates of inheritance, or _boc-land_, by direct grant of the king. As we have seen from the passage quoted from Bede, the _læn_ of an estate for life was the recognised way in which the king's thanes were rewarded for their services.

Thus it seems that in the very nature of things the permanent equality of the holdings in yard-lands (or double, or half yard-lands), on a manor, was a proof that the tenure was servile, and that the community was not a free village community. For imagine a free village community taking equal lots, and holding these lots, as land of inheritance, by allodial tenure, and with (what seems to have been the universal custom of Teutonic nations as regards land of inheritance) equal division among heirs, how could the _equality_ be possibly maintained? One holder of a yard-land would have seven sons, and another two, and another [p178] one. How could equality be maintained generation after generation? What could prevent the multiplication of intricate subdivisions among heirs, breaking up the yard-lands into smaller bundles of all imaginable sizes? Even if a certain equality could be restored, which is very unlikely, at intervals, by a _re-division_, which should reverse the inequality produced by the rule of inheritance, what would become of the _yard-lands_? How could the contents of the yard-land remain the same on the same estate for hundreds of years, notwithstanding the increase in the number of sharers in the land of the free village community?

We may take it, then, as inherently certain that the system of yard-lands is a system involving in its continuance a _servile origin_. The community of holders of yard-lands we may regard as a community of servile tenants, without any strict rights of inheritance--in theory tenants at the will of their lord, becoming by custom _adscripti glebæ_, and therefore tenants for life, and by still longer custom gaining a right of single undivided succession by primogeniture, or something very much like it.

«Result of the Saxon evidence.»

Now we know that the holdings were _yard-lands_ and the holders _geburs_, rendering the customary _gafol_ and _week-work_ to their lords, in the time of King Ine, if we may trust the genuineness of his 'laws.' There was but an interval of 100 years between Ine and Ethelbert; whilst Ine lived as near to the first conquest of large portions of the middle districts of England as Ethelbert did to the conquest of Kent.

«No room for a system of free village communities, which afterwards sank into serfdom.»

The laws of Ethelbert, taken in connexion with the subsequent laws of Ine, and the later actual [p179] instances of Saxon manors which have been examined, form a connected chain, and bring back the links of the evidence of the manorial character of Saxon estates to the very century in which the greater part of the West Saxon conquests took place. The existence of earl's and king's and men's _hams_ and _tuns_ in the year of the codification of the Kentish laws, A.D. 602 or thereabouts, means their existence as a manorial type of estate in the sixth century; and with the exception of the southern districts, the West Saxon conquests were not made till late in the sixth century. Surely there is too short an interval left unaccounted for to allow of great economic changes--to admit of the degeneracy of an original free village community if a widely spread institution, into a community in serfdom. So that the evidence strongly points to the _hams_ and _tuns_ having been manorial in their type from the first conquest. In other words, so far as this evidence goes, the Saxons seem either to have introduced the manorial system into England themselves, founding _hams_ and _tuns_ on the manorial type, or to have found them already existing on their arrival in Britain. There seems no room for the theory that the Saxons introduced everywhere free village communities on the system of the German 'mark,' which afterwards sank into serfdom under manorial lords.

«The tribal system must be investigated.»

But before we can be in a position to understand what probably happened we must turn our attention to those portions of Britain _which were not manorial_, and where village communities did not generally exist. They form an integral part of our present England, and English economic history has to do with the [p180] economic growth of the whole people. It cannot, therefore, confine itself to facts relating to one element only of the nation, and to one set of influences, merely because they became in the long run the paramount and overruling ones. And, moreover, the history of the manorial system itself cannot be properly understood without an understanding also of the parallel, and perhaps older, _tribal system_, which in the course of many centuries it was destined in some districts to overrule and supplant; in others, after centuries of effort, to fail in supplanting.

FOOTNOTES:

[153] '--_villani uniuscujusque villæ._ Deinde quomodo vocatur _mansio_' (f. 497).

[154] _Liber de Hyda_, p. 63.

[155] _Id._ p. 68.

[156] _Id._ p. 72.

[157] Luke xv. 16.

[158] See _Ancient Laws and Institutes of England_, Thorpe, p. 185. This document was the subject of a special treatise by Dr. Heinrich Leo, Halle, 1842.

[159] _The Cronykil of Scotland_, B. VI. c. xviii.

[160] Matt. viii. 9.

[161] _Ines Domas_, s. 51. Thorpe, p. 58.

[162] _Id._ s. 63. Thorpe, p. 62.

[163] _Id._ s. 63–6. Thorpe, pp. 62–3.

[164] Matt. xxi. 33.

[165] Boethius, c. xvii.

[166] In the _Codex Diplomaticus_, No. MCCCLIV., there is an interesting document early in the eleventh century, the original of which is in the British Museum (_MS. Cott. Tib._ B. v. f. 76 _b_), written on the back of a much older copy of the Gospels, and containing particulars respecting the _geburs_ on the Hatfield estate in Hertfordshire--their _pedigrees_, in fact--showing that they had intermarried with others of the following manors in Hertfordshire, viz.:--_Tæccingawyrde_ (Datchworth), _Wealaden_ (King's or Paul's Walden), _Welugun_ (Welwyn), _Wadtune_ (Watton), _Munddene_ (Mundon), _Wilmundeslea_ (Wymondley), and _Eslingadene_ (Essenden). The fact that it was worth while to preserve a record of the pedigree of the _geburs_ shows that they were _adscripti glebæ_. And there can be no doubt of the identity of the _geburs_ of this document with the _villani_ of the Domesday Survey of these various places. The pedigrees of _villani_ or _nativi_ were carefully kept in some manors even after the _Black Death_.

[167] Cotton MS. _Augustus_, ii. 64. Fac-similes of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, Part II.

[168] This may be read 23d. and a sester of barley; or, perhaps, 20d. and three sestras of barley. But the best reading seems to be that in the text.

[169] This is a word often used in later documents, and seems to mean a certain amount of ploughing done as an equivalent for an allowance of grass. _Grass-yrth_ may be the _gafol_ for the share in the _Lammas meadows_, and the _gafol-yrth_ for the arable in the _yard-land_.

[170] _Laws of Ine_, s. 67. Thorpe, p. 63.

[171] The opening clause of Ine's laws, as republished by King Alfred with his own, states that they were recorded under the counsel and teaching of his father _Cenred_, who resigned his kingship to Ine in A.D. 688.

[172] _Alfred and Guthrum's Peace_, Thorpe, p. 66. 'We hold all equally dear, English and Danish, at viii. half marks of pure gold, except the "ceorle þe on _gafol-lande sit_, and heora _liesingum_" (_lysingon_); they also are equally dear at cc. shillings,' _i.e._ they are '_twihinde men._'

[173] Matt. xvii. 25.

[174] _Beda_, i. c. 34:--

Nemo enim in tribunis, nemo in regibus plures eorum terras, exterminatis vel subjugatis indigenis, aut tributarias genti Anglorum, aut habitabiles fecit.

Ne wæs æfre ænig cyning ne ealdorman ꝥ ma heora landa ute amærde ⁊ him to gewealde underþeodde forþon ðe he hi to gafulgyldum gesette on Angel ðeodde. oþþe of heora lande adraf.

Never was there ever any king nor ealdorman that more their lands exterminated, and to his power subjected, for that he them to gafol set to the English people, or else off their land drove.

[175] Luke xvi.

[176] _Supplement to Edgar's Laws_, i. Thorpe, p. 115.

[177] Thorpe, p. 53, where they are mentioned as sometimes held by even '_Wiliscmen_,' _i.e._ tenants not of Saxon blood.

[178] Thorpe, p. 50.

[179] _Ibid._ p. 46.

[180] For the archæology of Tidenham see _Proceedings of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Field Club_, 1874–5, and Mr. Ormerod's _Archæological Memoirs_ relating to the district adjacent to the confluence of the Severn and the Wye. London, 1861 (not published).

[181] Pp. 374–6.

[182] Kemble's _Cod. Dip._ CCCCLII. (vol. ii. p. 327).

[183] _Codex Dip._ iii. p. 444; App. CCCCLII. 'Ðis synd ða landgemæra tó Dyddenháme. Of Wægemúðan to iwes héafdan; of iwes héafden on Stánræwe; of Stánræwe on hwítan heal; of hwítan heale on iwdene; of iwdene on brádan mór; of brádan mór on Twyfyrd; of Twyfyrd on astege pul ut innan Sæfern.'

[184] _Cod. Dip._ iii. p. 450, where they are evidently misplaced.

[185] _Cod. Dip._ DCCC., XXII.

[186] _Cod. Dip._ iii. p. 450.

[187] Record Office, _Chancery Inquisitions post mortem_, Anno 35 Edw. I. No. 46_b._ Gloucestria, § _Manerium de Tudenham_.

[188] Mr. Kemble identifies this place with Stoke near Hurstbourne Priors, near Whitechurch; but it may possibly be one of the Stokes on the Itchin River near Winchester.

That the upper part of the Itchin was called 'Hysseburne' and 'Ticceburne,' see _Cod. Dip._ MLXXVII., CCCXLII., MXXXIX. & CLVIII. The boundaries in MLXXVII. of 'Hysseburna' (beginning at Twyford) correspond at a few points with those of 'Hisseburne' in Abingdon, i. p. 318, and of Eastune appended thereto, and of Eastune in _Cod. Dip._ MCCXXX. The position of Twyford and Easton seems to fix this locality on the Itchin. The parishes of Itchin Stoke and Titchbourne ('æt Hisseburne') still nearly adjoin those of Twyford and Easton, but the parishes here are intermixed, and the 'Hysseburne' of the charters may have been a district with different boundaries, and may not be the Hysseburne of King Alfred's will. Compare Domesday Survey, i. 40, where _Twyford_, _Eastune_, and _Stoches_ occur together among the '_Terra Wintonensis Episcopi_.'

[189] See _Liber de Hyda_, Mr. Edwards' Introduction.

[190] _Codex Dip._ MLXXVII.; and Dugdale, Winchester Monastery, Num. X. This charter is preserved in a copy of the twelfth century in the Winchester Cartulary (St. Swithin's) now in the British Museum. Add. MSS. 15350, f. 69_b._

[191] _Saxons in England_, pp. 319 _et seq._

[192] H. Leo, _Rectitudines_. Halle, 1842, p. 231. 'Wenigstens weisz ich "on his gyrde landes" (auf seiner rute des gutes, oder des landes) an dieser stelle nicht anders zu erklären.'

[193] See Kemble's _Saxons in England_, i. p. 196.

[194] _British Museum_ Cotton MS. Tib. A. III. f. 58_b._ For the text of this passage I am indebted to Mr. Thompson of the British Museum.

[195] Bede's letter to Bishop Egbert. Smith, p. 309. 'Quod enim turpe est dicere, tot sub nomine monasteriorum loca hi qui monachicæ vitæ prorsus sunt expertes in suam ditionem acceperunt, sicut ipsi melius nostis, _ut omnino desit locus, ubi filii nobilium aut emeritorum militum possessionem accipere possint_,' &c.

[196] King Alfred's Boethius, c. xxix. s. 10.

[197] Alfred's _Blossom Gatherings out of St. Augustine_. British Museum, Vit. A. xv. f. 1:--Gaderode me þonne kigclas ⁊ stuþan sceaftas ⁊ lohsceaftas ⁊ hylfa to ælcum þara tola þe ic mid pircan cuðe ⁊ bohtimbru ⁊ bolt timbru ⁊ to ælcum þara peorca þe ic pyrcan cuðe þa plitegostan treopo be þam dele ðe ic aberan meihte. ne com ic naþer mid anre byrðene ham þe me ne lyste ealne þane pude ham brengan gif ic hyne ealne aberan meihte. on ælcum treopo ic geseah hpæt hpugu þæs þe ic æt ham beþorfte. For þam ic lære ælcne ðara þe maga si ⁊ ma[nigne] wæn hæbbe ꝥ he menige to þam ilcan puda þar ic ðas stuðan sceaftas cearf. Fetige hym þar ma ⁊ gefeðrige hys pænas mid fegrum gerdum þat he mage pindan manigne smicerne pan ⁊ manig ænlic hus settan ⁊ fegerne tun timbrian ⁊ þara ⁊ þær murge ⁊ softe mid mæge oneardian ægðer ge pintras ge sumeras spa spa ic nu ne gyt ne dyde. Ac se þe me lærde þam se pudu licode se mæg gedon ꝥ ic softor eardian ægðer ge on þisum lænan stoclife be þis pæge ða phile þe ic on þisse peorulde beo ge eac on þam hecan hame ðe he us gehaten hefð þurh scanctus augustinus ⁊ sēs gregorius ⁊ scanctus Ieronimus ⁊ purh manege oððre halie fædras spa ic gelyfe. eac ꝥ he gedo for heora ealra earnum ge ægðer ge þisne peig gelimpfulran gedo þonne he ær þissum pes ge hure mines modes eagan to þam ongelihte ꝥ ic mage rihtne peig aredian to þam ecan hame ⁊ to þam ecan are ⁊ to þare ecan reste þe us gehaten is þurh þa halgan fæderas sie spa. Nis hit nan pundor þeah m[an] sp[ylce] on timber gepirce ⁊ eac on þæ[re] lade ⁊ eac on þære bytlinge. ac ælcne man lyst siððan he ænig cotlyf on his hlafordes læne myd his fultume getimbred hæfð ꝥ he hine mote hpilum þar ongerestan. ⁊ huntigan. ⁊ fulian. ⁊ fiscian. ⁊ his on gehpilce pisan to þære lænan tilian ægþær ge on se ge on lande oð oð þone fyrst þe he bocland ⁊ æce yrfe þurh his hlafordes miltse geearnige. spa gedo se pile ga gidfola seðe egðer pilt ge þissa lænena stoclife ge þara ecena hama. Seðe ægþer gescop ⁊ ægðeres pilt forgife me ꝥ me to ægðrum onhagige ge her nytpyrde to beonne ge huru þider to cumane.--For the text of this passage I am indebted to Mr. Thompson.

[198] '_Stoc-lif_,' literally _stake-hut_. The logs were put upright, as in the case of the Saxon church at _Greenstead_ in Essex.

[199] 'Bytlinge;' hence the house was a '_botl_.'

[200] _Schilteri Thesaur. Antiq. Teut._ i. p. 158. Ulm, 1728.

[201] See M. Guérard's _Introduction to the Polyptyque de l'Abbé Irminon_, pp. 250–75.

[202] The _leod-geld_ or _wer-gild_ of a 'man' was 200 shillings (see mention of the half leod-geld of c. shillings, s. 21). As regards the three grades of _læts_, there were also three grades of female _theows_ of the king (see s. 10–11), the _cup-bearer_, the _grinding-theow_, and the _lowest class_. See also s. 16, where again there is mention of three classes of _theows_, each with its value.

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