Читать книгу The English Village Community - Frederic Seebohm - Страница 31

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We are now in a position to creep up one step nearer to the time of the Domesday Survey, and in the Boldon Book to examine earlier examples of North Country manors.

The Boldon Book is a survey of the manors belonging to the Bishop of Durham in the year 1183, nearly a century earlier than the date of the Hundred Rolls.

Survey of Boldon.

The typical entry which may be taken as the common form used throughout the record relates to the village of Boldon, from which the name of the survey is taken.

It is as follows:89—

The services of villani.

 In Boldon there are 22 villani, each holding 2 bovates, or 30 acres, and paying 2s. 6d. for 'scat-penynges' [being in fact 1d. per acre], a half 'shaceldra' of oats, 16d., for 'averpenynges' [in lieu of carrying service], 5 four-wheel waggons of 'woodlade' [lading of wood], 2 cocks, and 10 eggs.They work 3 days a week throughout the year, excepting Easter week and Pentecost, and 13 days at Christmas.In autumn they do 4 dayworks at reaping, with all their family except the housewife. Also they reap 3 roods of 'averype,' and plough and harrow 3 roods of 'averere.'Also each villein plough-team ploughs and harrows 2 acres, with allowance of food ('corrodium') once from the bishop, and then they are quit of that week's work.When they do 'magnas precationes,' they have a food allowance (corrodium) from the bishop, and as part of their works do harrowing when necessary, and 'faciunt ladas' (make loads?). And when they do these each receives 1 loaf.Also they reap for 1 day at Octon till the evening, and then they receive an allowance of food.And for the fairs of St. Cuthbert, every 2 villeins erect a booth; and when they make 'logiæ' and 'wodelade' (load wood), they are quit of other labour. [p069]There are 12 'cotmanni,' each of whom holds 12 acres, and they work throughout the year 2 days a week except in the aforesaid feasts, and render 12 hens and 60 eggs.Robertus holds 2 bovates or 36 acres, and renders half a mark.The Punder holds 12 acres, and receives from each plough 1 'trave' of corn, and renders 40 hens and 500 eggs.The Miller [renders] 512 marks.The 'Villani' are, if need be, to make a house each year 40 feet long and 15 feet wide, and when they do this each is quit of 4d. of his 'averpenynges.'The whole 'villa' renders 17s. as 'cornagium' (i.e. tax on horned beasts), and 1 cow 'de metride.'The demesne is at farm, together with the stock for 4 ploughs and 4 harrows, and renders for 2 ploughs 16 'celdræ' of corn, 16 'celdræ' of oats, 8 'celdræ' of barley, and for the other 2 ploughs, 10 marks.

They hold yard-lands of two bovates, or single bovates.

Here then at Boldon were 22 villani, each holding two bovates or 30 acres, equivalent to a virgate or yard-land. In another place (Quycham) there are said to be thirty-five 'bovat-villani,' each of whom held a bovate of 15 acres, and performed such and such services.90 These correspond with holders of half-virgates.

Below these villani, holding one or two bovates, as in all other similar records, were cottage holdings, some of 12 acres, some of 6 acres each. There seems to have been a certain equality in some places, even in the lowest rank of holdings.

Here then, within about 100 years of the Domesday Survey, are found the usual grades of holdings in villenage. The services, too, present little variation from those of later records and other parts of England.

From the Boldon Book may be gathered a few points of further information, which may serve to complete the picture of the life of the village community in villenage. [p070]

Manor sometimes farmed by villani.

The unity of the 'villata' as a self-acting community is illustrated by the fact that in many instances the services of the villani are farmed by them from the monastery as a body, at a single rent for the whole village91—a step in the same direction as the commutation of services and leasing of land to farm tenants, practices already everywhere becoming so usual.

Village officials: the faber.

The corporate character of the 'villata' is also illustrated by frequent mention of the village officials. The faber,92 or blacksmith, whose duty it was to keep in repair the ironwork of the ploughs of the village, usually held his bovate or other holding in respect of his office free from ordinary services. The carpenter93 also held his holding free, in return for his obligation to repair the woodwork of the ploughs and harrows.

The punder.

The præpositus.

The punder94 (pound-keeper) was another official with a recognised position. And, as a matter of course, the villein tenant holding the office of præpositus for the time being was freed by virtue of his office from the ordinary services of his virgate or two bovates,95 but resumed them again when his term of [p071] office ceased, and another villein was elected in his stead.

Cornage.

In addition to the ordinary agricultural services in respect of the arable land, there is mention, in the services of Boldon and other places, of special dues or payments, probably for rights of grazing or possession of herds of cattle. This kind of payment is called 'cornagium,' either because it is paid in horned cattle, or, if in money, in respect of the number of horned cattle held.

Drengage.

There are also services connected with the bishop's hunting expeditions. Thus there are persons holding in 'drengage,' who have to feed a horse and a dog, and 'to go in the great hunt' (magna caza) with two harriers and 15 'cordons,' &c.96

Hunting services.

Booths at the fairs of St. Cuthbert.

So of the villani of 'Aucklandshire' 97 it is recorded that they are 'to furnish for the great hunts of the bishop a "cordon" from each bovate, and to make the Bishop's hall (aula) in the forest, sixty feet long and sixteen feet wide between the posts, with a buttery, a steward's room, a chamber and "privat." Also they make a chapel 40 feet long by 15 wide, receiving two shillings, of charity; and make their portion of the hedge (haya) round the lodges (logiæ). On the departure of the bishop they have a full tun of beer, or half a tun if he should stay on. They also keep the eyries of the hawks in the bailiwick of Radulphus Callidus, and put up 18 booths (bothas) at the fairs of St. Cuthbert.'

The last item, which also occurs in the services of Boldon, is interesting in connexion with a passage in a letter of Pope Gregory the Great to the Abbot [p072] Mellitus (A.D. 601), in which he requests the Bishop Augustine to be told that, after due consideration of the habits of the English nation, he (the Pope) determines that, 'because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for them on this account, as that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer beasts to the devil, but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating, it being impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds: because he who tries to rise to the highest place rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps.' 98

The villeins of St. Cuthbert's successor are found 500 years after Pope Gregory's advice still, as a portion of their services, yearly putting up the booths for the fairs held in honour of their patron saint—a fact which may help us to realise the tenacity of local custom, and lessen our surprise if we find also that for the origin of other services we must look back for as long a period.