394 Outlines of European History Section 65. The Serfs and the Manor Obviously the owner of the castle had to obtain supplies to support his family and servants and armed men. He could not have done this had he not possessed extensive tracts of land. A great part of western Europe in the time of Charlemagne appears to have been divided into great estates or plantations. These medieval estates were called vils, or manors^ and closely resembled the Roman villas described in an earlier chapter.^ The peasants who tilled the soil w^ere called viUains, a word derived from vit. A portion of the estate was reserved by the lord for his own use ; the rest of the plowed land was divided up among the peasants, usually in long strips, of which each peasant had several scattered about the manor. The peasants were generally serfs, who did not own their fields, but could not, on the other hand, be deprived of them so long as they worked for the lord and paid him certain dues. They were attached to the land and went with it when it changed hands. The serfs were required to till those fields which the lord reserved for himself and to gather in his crops. They might not marry without their lord's permission. Their wives and daughters helped with the indoor work of the manor house. In the women's buildings the women serfs engaged in spinning, weaving, sewing, baking, and brewing, thus producing clothes, food, and drink for the whole community. We get our clearest ideas of the position of the serfs from the ancient descriptions of manors, which give an exact account of what each member of a particular community owed to the lord. For example, we find that the abbot of Peterborough held a manor upon which Hugh Miller and seventeen other serfs, mentioned by name, were required to work for him three days in each week during the whole year, except one week at Christmas, one at Easter, and one at Whitsuntide. Each serf was to give the lord abbot one bushel of wheat and eighteen i See above, p. 290.
