Life in a Medieval Village

by Frances Gies

  A statistical picture of the pattern was compiled by Soviet economic historian E. A. Kosminsky, who analyzed the landholding information supplied by the Hundred Rolls survey of 1279 of seven Midland counties, including Huntingdonshire. He found that 32 percent of all the arable land formed the lord’s demesne, 40 percent was held by villeins, and 28 percent by freeholders. About a fifth of the peasantry held approximately a virgate and more than a third held half-virgates. A few highly successful families had accumulated 100 acres or more. In general, the size of holdings was diminishing as the population grew. Out of 13,500 holdings in 1279, 46 percent amounted to 10 acres or less, probably near the minimum for subsistence.11

  The Hundred Rolls data for Elton are in rough accord with the overall figures. The survey lists first the abbot’s holdings; then the tenants, their holdings and legal status, and their obligations to abbot and king.12

  The abbot’s demesne contained the curia’s acre and a half, his three hides of arable land, his sixteen acres of meadow and three of pasture, his three mills, and the fishing rights he held on the river.

  The list of tenants was headed by “John, son of John of Elton,” a major free tenant who held a hide (6 virgates, or 144 acres) of the abbot’s land, amounting to a small estate within the manor, with its own tenants: one free virgater and nine cotters (men holding a cottage and a small amount of land).

  Next were listed the abbot’s other tenants, twenty-two free men, forty-eight villeins, and twenty-eight cotters; and finally the rector and four cotters who were his tenants.

  These 114 names of heads of families by no means accounted for all the inhabitants of the village, or even the male inhabitants; at least 150 other identifiable names appear in the court rolls of 1279-1300, representing other family members, day laborers, manorial workers, and craftsmen.

  John of Elton—or “John le Lord,” as he is referred to in one court record—was the village’s aristocrat, though devoid of any title of nobility. His miniature estate had been assembled by twelfth-century ancestors by one means or another.* Of his hide of land, thirty-six acres formed the demesne. He owed suit (attendance) to the abbot’s honor court at Broughton, the court for the entire estate, as well as “the third part of a suit” (attendance at every third session) to the royal shire and hundred courts. His one free tenant, John of Langetoft, held a virgate “by charter” (deed), and paid a token yearly rent of one penny. Half a virgate of the hide belonged to the abbot “freely in perpetual alms.” The rest was divided among nine cotters (averaging out to eight acres apiece).

  The abbot’s twenty-two other tenants listed as free in the Hundred Rolls survey held varying amounts of land for which they owed minor labor services and money rent ranging from four shillings one penny a year to six shillings. Among them were three whose claim to freedom was later rejected by the manorial court, an indication of the uncertainty often surrounding the question of freedom.

  The size of the holdings of these twenty-two tenants and the duties with which the holdings were burdened suggest a history that illustrates the changeable nature of manorial landholding. A given piece of land did not necessarily pass intact from father to son through several generations. Divided inheritance, gifts to younger sons, dowries to daughters, purchase and sale, all produced a shifting pattern which over time subdivided and multiplied holdings. In 1160 the twenty-two free tenants had been only nine, and in 1279 nine principal tenants still held the land from the lord abbot. But five of the nine had given (as dowry or inheritance) or sold parcels of their land to thirteen lesser tenants, who paid the principal tenants an annual rent.

  One of these lesser tenants was Robert Chapman, listed in the rolls as a cotter on John of Elton’s land, but whose name, meaning merchant, suggests his status as a rising parvenu. Evidently a newcomer to Elton, Robert in 1279 held in addition to his cottage three parcels of land totaling eighteen acres which he had undoubtedly purchased. On the other side of the social ledger was Geoffrey Blundel, whose ancestor in 1160 had held three virgates (seventy-two acres), but who in 1279 retained only a virgate and a half, and that divided among five lesser tenants. In the fluctuations of peasant landholding, as in that of their betters, some rose, some sank.

  The forty-eight villeins of Elton—“customary tenants,” subject to the “custom of the manor,” meaning its labor services and dues—included thirty-nine virgaters and nine half-virgaters. Growth of population had turned some family virgates into half-virgates, a process that had advanced much farther elsewhere, often leaving no full virgaters at all. No Elton villein held more than a virgate, though land-rich villeins were a well-known phenomenon elsewhere.14

  Elton’s villeins performed substantial labor services, which were spelled out in detail in the survey, the half-virgaters owing half the work obligations of the virgaters. This work had a monetary value, and exemption could be purchased by the tenant, with the price paid going to pay hired labor.

  Every “work,” meaning day’s work, owed by the villein was defined. One day’s harrowing counted as one work; so did winnowing thirty sheaves of barley or twenty-four sheaves of wheat; collecting a bag of nuts “well cleaned”; or working in the vineyard; or making a hedge in the fields of a certain length; or carrying hay in the peasant’s cart; or if he did not have a cart, hens, geese, cheese, and eggs “on his back.”15

  The time of year affected the price of the work. Works done between August 1 and Michaelmas (September 29), the season of intensive labor, were more expensive. One Elton account records the price of a single work at a halfpenny for most of the year (September 29 to August 1), 21/2 pence from August 1 to September 8, and a penny from then to September 29.16 Later, works were simply priced at a halfpenny from Michaelmas to August 1 and a penny from August 1 to Michaelmas.17

  In 1286, sixteen of the forty-eight customary tenants had all their year-round works commuted to money payments, and owed only the special works at harvest time.18 From the annual fee paid by these tenants, called the censum (quit-rent), they were said to be tenants ad censum, or censuarii. The other customary tenants were ad opus (at work [services]) and were operarii. Though such substitution of money payments for labor services was convenient for the villein in many ways, in other ways it was a disadvantage. Much, obviously, depended on the size of the payment. J. A. Raftis has calculated that the amount of the censum paid by a Ramsey Abbey villein was substantially larger than the total sum of the prices of his individual works.19 The Elton court rolls imply that it was not desirable to be placed ad censum, and in fact that tenants were so classed arbitrarily. In 1279 two villagers accused the reeve of “taking the rich off the censum and putting the poor on it,” apparently in exchange for bribes.20

  In addition to work services or the censum, the customary tenants were subject to a long list of special exactions not imposed on the free tenants. These fell into four categories: charges paid only by the villeins ad opus; those paid only by the censuarii; those paid by both groups; and the monopolies held by the lord.

  The first category included several fines or fees that seem to be relics of services or of contributions in kind: “woolsilver,” probably a substitute for a shearing service; “wardpenny” for serving as public watchman; “maltsilver” for making malt for the abbot’s ale; “fishsilver” for supplying fish for his Lenten meals; and “vineyard silver” for work in the vineyard. “Foddercorn” was a payment in kind of a ring of oats from each virgate. “Filstingpound” seems to have been an insurance premium paid by the villeins to protect themselves against corporal punishment or against excessive fines in the manorial court. If a villein’s daughter had sex out of wedlock, she or her father paid leirwite or legerwite.

  The second category consisted of a special charge owed only by the censuarii: 120 eggs from each virgater, 60 at Christmas and 60 at Easter.21

  In the third category were “heushire,” or “house hire,” rent for the house on the holding, and several charges whose French names indicate importation t
o England by the Conquest. Tallage was a yearly tax at Elton, set at eight pence,22 but on some manors it was levied “at the lord’s will”—whenever and however much he chose. When the villein succeeded to a holding, he paid an entry fine or gersum, in effect a tax on land. On most manors, when the villein died his family paid heriot, usually his “best beast,” the “second best beast” commonly going to the rector of the church; this was a tax on chattels. If the villein’s daughter married, she or her father paid merchet.

  If the villein wished to leave the manor, he could do so with the payment of a yearly fee, at Elton usually two chickens or capons. This payment, known as chevage, was not always easy to collect. Some villagers paid regularly—Henry atte Water, Richard in the Lane, Richard Benyt who had left “to dwell on a free tenement,” Simon son of Henry Marshal. Others balked, such as Henry Marshal’s son Adam, dwelling at Alwalton with his three sisters in 1300. They were “to be distrained if they come upon the fee,” but in 1308 they were still living outside the manor.23 Another Marshal brother, Walter, refused to pay and in 1308 Robert Gamel and John Dunning, who had stood surety for him, were fined twelve pence and twelve capons “because the same Walter has not yet paid to the lord two capons which he is bound to pay him each year at Easter while he dwells with his chattels outside the fee of the said lord, and because they are in arrears during the four years past.”24

  Even more intractable was John Nolly, who was recorded as living “outside the lord’s fee” in 1307. John was arrested in 1312 “in the custody of the reeve and beadle, until he finds security to make corporeal residence upon the lord’s fee with his chattels, and to make satisfaction to the lord for five capons which are in arrears.” The record added: “And because the bailiff witnesses that he is excessively disobedient and refuses to pay the said capons, and that he owes five capons in arrears for the space of five years, it is commanded that he be arrested until he pays the aforesaid capons, and henceforth he is to make corporeal residence upon the lord’s fee.” In 1322, however, the court was still calling for the arrest of John, “a bondman of the lord, who withdraws himself with his chattels from the lord’s fee without license.” The chattels—in legal theory the lord’s property—were usually mentioned along with the villein himself; he “withdrew himself with his chattels” and was ordered to return and bring them back, or to pay the annual fee.25

  The fourth class of villein obligation, deriving from the lord’s monopolies, included the common mill, the common oven, his sheepfold, and his manorial court.

  Next in the Hundred Rolls’ list of tenants were the abbot’s twenty-eight cotters, who in Elton were also villeins in legal status (though on other manors cotters might be free), but who held little or no land and consequently owed little labor. Each held a cottage and yard theoretically “containing one rod,” in return for which they helped with the haying, harvesting, sheep-shearing, and threshing but not the plowing (they lacked plows and plow beasts), and paid tallage, merchet, and a small rent. Four had besides their cottage and farmyard a croft of half an acre, but eight had only half a rod of yard, two had a sixth of a rod, and one, paying a minimum rent of sixpence a year, only a “messuage,” a house and yard with no specification of its size. Like most cotters, they scraped a precarious livelihood by turning their hand to any kind of labor they could find. Most worked as day laborers, but some had craft skills. Among their suggestive names are Comber, Shepherd, Smith, Miller, Carter, and Dyer.

  Last on the Hundred Rolls’ list came the rector, who held as a free tenant a virgate of land pertaining to the church and another ten acres for which he paid the abbot a yearly rent of half a mark. Four cotters were settled on his land. One was Roger Clerk (Clericus), probably the curate. The other three were all from the same family, and may have been the rector’s servants.

  Not mentioned in the Hundred Rolls survey, though present in the twelfth-century Ramsey Abbey extent, was a special category of tenant in Elton and some of the other abbey villages, the akermen or bovarii, descendants of manorial plowmen of a century earlier who were endowed with land of their own, for which they paid a yearly rent. Very little can be gathered about them from the records, except that their combined rent for five virgates of land, 7 pounds 10 shillings, was high (30 shillings per virgate).26

  Servants of the villagers are omitted from the Hundred Rolls, but are mentioned occasionally in the rolls of the manorial court: Edith Comber, maidservant (ancilla) to William son of Letitia, “carried away some of the lord’s peas”;27 Alice, servant of Nicholas Miller, was fined for stealing hay and stubble;28 John Wagge’s male servant was fined for careless planting of beans in the lord’s field;29 Matilda Prudhomme’s servant Hugh was attacked and wounded by John Blaccalf.30

  Among the tenants listed in the Hundred Rolls were many of the village’s principal craftsmen. In Elton, the two gristmills were kept under the management of the manorial officials and the profits paid to the abbot. The miller was probably recompensed by a share of the “multure,” the portion of flour kept as payment. In most villages the miller “farmed” the mill, paying a fixed sum to the lord and profiting from the difference between that and the multure. The popular reputation of the miller was notorious. Chaucer’s miller

  …was a master-hand at stealing grain.

  He felt it with his thumb and thus he knew

  Its quality and took three times his due—

  A thumb of gold, by God, to gauge an oat!31

  At Elton, the miller collected the toll from persons using the mill as a bridge to cross the Nene. One was relieved of his office in 1300 for “letting strangers cross without paying toll,” in exchange for “a gift.”

  Two others, Matefrid and Stephen Miller, successfully sued William of Barnwell in 1294 for slander in saying that they had taken two bushels of his malt “in a wrongful manner.”32 At the same court, however, the jurors found that another miller and his wife, Robert and Athelina Stekedec, had “unjustly detained” one whole ring of barley (four bushels). They were fined sixpence and ordered to make restitution.33

  Two bakers farmed Elton’s communal ovens in 1286, Adam Brid paying an annual rent of 13 shillings 4 pence for one and Henry Smith 33 shillings 4 pence for the other.34 The smithy was not nearly as valuable. Robert son of Henry Smith was recorded as paying an annual rent of two shillings in 1308.35

  Other tradesmen appear in the court rolls: Thomas Dyer was accused by Agnes daughter of Beatrice of “unjust detention of one cloth of linen weave,” for the dyeing of which she had promised him a bushel of barley. The jurors decided that Thomas had “only acted justly,” since Agnes had not paid him the grain, and that he was entitled to hold on to the cloth until she did so.36

  Several villagers were part-time butchers and paid, “for exercising the office,” an annual fee of two capons: Ralph Hubert, Geoffrey Abbot, William of Bumstead, Robert Godswein, William of Barnwell, Thomas Godswein, Robert Stekedec (who was also a miller), and Richard Tidewell.

  Robert Chapman cultivated land while at the same time practicing the trade of merchant. Robert is recorded as selling a bushel of wheat to Emma Prudhomme in 1294,37 and later of suing her for a hood which she agreed to deliver to John son of John of Elton, but Emma “did not undertake to pay” for it.38

  Other villagers whose names suggest that they practiced trades were Ralph and Geoffrey Shoemaker, Elias and Stephen Carpenter, Roger and Robert Taylor (who may have made shoes, built houses, or made clothing), and William and Henry Woolmonger.

  Dwelling uneasily on the fringes of the village, outside its organization, were a shifting set of “strangers.” Several times villagers were fined for “harboring” them. They are characterized as “outside the assize”: day laborers, itinerant craftsmen, and vagabonds, the latter a class who turn up frequently in the royal coroners’ rolls. In 1312 six villagers were fined and commanded to desist from harboring strangers. Richard le Wyse harbored Henry the Cooper and his wife “to the harm of the village”; Robert Gamel harbore
d Gilbert from Lancashire; Margery daughter of Beatrice harbored Youn the Beggar; John Ballard, Geoffrey atte Cross, and Richard le Wyse commonly entertained strangers “to the terror of the villagers.”39

  In addition to these suspect outsiders, the village had its eccentrics and mentally ill. In 1306 John Chapman was admonished by the court to see that his son Thomas “who is partly a lunatic” (in parte lunaticus) should “henceforth behave himself among his neighbors.”40 The coroners’ rolls record other cases involving mental aberration. In 1316 a peasant woman at Yelden, Bedfordshire, afflicted with “an illness called frenzy,” got out of bed, seized an axe, slew her son and three daughters, and “hanged herself in her house on a beam with two cords of hemp.”41

  The peasants of a medieval village were once pictured as coexisting in a state of what might be called mediocre equality. Actually wide differences in wealth existed. Land was the most important kind of wealth, and the distribution of land was far from equal. Furthermore, some tenants, both villein and free, were increasing their holdings by buying or leasing from the others.

  In theory, all land needed to be preserved and transmitted intact to heirs, both to protect the integrity of the holding for the family and to assure the lord of his rents and services. Alienation—sale—was therefore theoretically forbidden. In reality, sale and lease of land were prominent features of the court rolls of the late thirteenth century, and not new phenomena. The lord’s acquiescence reflected the profits to be made from the transaction—the opportunity of raising rents and collecting license fees.