SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY There were no tenants paying rent alone without services, and none belonging to the class of wholly unfree cultivators, the ' servi ' of Domesday Book. 16 The smith often held his land in consideration of giving his services to the monks, but at Stretton he had the option of paying i zd. a year instead. 18 A consideration of the surveys shows that on the Burton manors, as else- where, it was customary for the ordinary villein to give two days' work per week to his lord, and to perform a certain number of miscellaneous services. For instance, the villeins on the Wetmoor manor had to plough twice yearly, to reap for three days in August, to attend the hunt, do a certain amount of carting, to make contributions of fowls at Christmas and to pay certain dues, such as 8d. for the use of the lord's fold. 17 The rent-paying tenant was free from the ordinary 'week-work,' but he too had a number of services to perform, e.g., to lend his plough twice a year, as at Branston, Stretton, and Abbot's Bromley, to attend the hunt, to keep up the fences, to reap in harvest usually for three days. Sometimes, as at Bromley, Wetmoor, Appleby, and Finden, to go where the abbot bade him. 18 Sometimes the manor was farmed by a number of the tenants, as at Bromley, 19 who performed certain services however in addition to payment of rent, the abbot keeping the wood and the profits thereof in his own hands. At Branston we get an example of a man holding 8 bovates of land and having seven men under him. 20 Very often one of the monks farmed the manor, as at Winshill, which Edric the monk farmed for 4 ioj. per year, exclusive of the wood, hay, and certain lands reserved to the use and profit of the whole monastic body. 21 Not much is to be gathered from these surveys as to the progress of the villeins towards commutation of services for money payment, for while there are instances of men holding land for services who formerly paid rent, as at Stretton, 22 there are other cases in which the opposite holds good. Later on, however, in the time of Henry III, we hear of an attempt of the ' customary tenants ' to gain their freedom from servile tenure, but un- fortunately they were not successful. The case came up for judgement at Westminster, and the record states that the abbot sued his tenants for customs and services due for the tenements they hold of him in Bromley, inasmuch as they held the tenements in villeinage, and owed villein services, viz., tallage once every year at his will, and merchetum for marrying their daughters and other services, and they owed tallage assessed at eight marks two years ago. The marriage payment here, as elsewhere, seems to have been the distinctive mark of servile status, and the tenants of Bromley denied that they owed either this or the tallage, and asserted that they held their tenements by certain fixed services and a payment of 2os. at Christmas. The final verdict was not given till 1252 at Nottingham, when eight knights and eight freemen who formed the jury stated that all the tenants named, and their ancestors 15 The analysis of the Domesday Survey for Staff, gives only thirty-three servi for the whole hundred of Offlow, fifty-seven for Seisdon, sixty for Cuttlestone, sixty-eight for Pirehill, and thirteen for Totmonslow (R. W. Eyton, Dom. Studies, Staff. 1 5). " The Will. Salt Arch. Sac. Coll. pt. i, v (i), 19. " Ibid. 26. 11 Engl. Hist. Rev. xx, 284-6. The Will. Salt Arch. Sac. Coll. pt. i, v, 20. M Ibid. 25. The usual holding was 2 bovates. ll Ibid. 24. " Ibid. 19. 279
