In earlier times the classification depends primarily on the economic relation between the manorial centre and the tributary household, labour is deemed servile, rent held to be free. It is only by keeping these two periods clearly distinct, that one is enabled to combine the seemingly conflicting facts in our surveys. If we look at the most ancient of these documents, we shall have to admit that a rent-paying holding is free, nevertheless it would be wrong to infer that when commutation became more or less general, classification was settled in the same way. A servile tenement no longer became free because rent was taken instead of labour; it was still held 'at the will of the lord,' and conveyed by surrender and admittance. When all holdings were fast exchanging labour for rent, the old notions had been surrendered and a new basis for classification found in those legal incidents just mentioned. The development of copyhold belongs to the later period, copyhold being mostly a rent-paying servile tenure. Again, if we turn to the earlier epoch we shall have to remember that the contrast between labour and rent is not to be taken merely as a result of commutation. Local distinctions are fitted on to it in a way which cannot be explained by the mere assumption that every settlement of a rent appeared in the place of an original labour obligation. The contrast is primordial, as one may say, and based on the fact that the labour of a subject appears directly subservient to the wants and arrangements of the superior household, while the payment of rent severs. the connexion for a time and leaves each body to move. In its own direction till the day when the tributary has to pay again.
There can be no doubt also that the more ancient surveys disclose a difference in point of quantity between free and servile holdings, and this again is a strong argument for the belief that free socage must not be considered merely as an emancipated servile tenancy. Where there has been commutation we must suppose that the labour services cannot have been more valuable than the money rent into which they were changed. The free rent into which labour becomes converted is nothing but the price paid for the services surrendered by the lord. It must have stood higher, if anything, than the real value of the labour exchanged, because the exchange entailed a diminution of power besides the giving up of an economic commodity. No matter that ultimately the quit-rents turned out to the disadvantage of the lord, inasmuch as the buying strength of money grew less and less. This was the result of a very long process, and could not be foreseen at the time when the commutation equivalents were settled. And so we may safely lay down the general rule, that when there is a conspicuous difference between the burdens of assessment of free and unfree tenants, such a difference excludes the idea that one class is only an emancipated portion of the other, and supposes that it was from the first a socially privileged one. The Peterborough Black Book, which, along with the Burton Cartulary, presents the most curious instance of an early survey, describes the services of socmen on the manors of the abbey as those of a clearly. privileged tenantry.(106*) The interesting point is, that these socmen are even subjected to week-work and not distinguishable from villains so far as concerns the quality of their services. Nevertheless the contrast with the villains appears throughout the Cartulary and is substantiated by a marked difference in point of assessment: a socman has to work one or two days in the week when the villain is made to work three or four.
Three main points seem established by the survey of rural work and rents.
1. Notwithstanding many vexatious details, the impositions to which the peasantry had to submit left a considerable margin for their material progress. This system of customary rules was effectively provided against general oppression.
2. The development from food-farms to labour organisation, and lastly to money-rents, was a result not of one-sided pressure on the part of the landlords, but of a series of agreements between lord and tenants.
3. The settlement of the burdens to which peasants were subjected depended to a great extent on distinctions as to the social standing of tenants which had nothing to do with economic facts.
NOTES:
1. Domesday of St. Paul's, 93: 'Potest wainnagium fieri cum 12bobus et quatuor stottis cum consuetudinibus ville.' 75: 'Item (juratores) dicunt quod potest fieri wainnagium totius dominici cum 2 carucis bonis habentibus 20 capita in jugo et 2herciatoribus cum consuetudinibus operariorum.'
2. Add. MSS. 61 59, f 44, a: '(Leyesdon)... debet quelibet caruca coniuncta arrare unam acram et habebunt 3 denarios pro acra et quadrantem.'
3. Glastonbury Inqu. of 1189 (Roxburghe Ser.), 64: '(Virgatarius)a festo Sti Michaelis qualibet ebdomada arat unam acram donec tota terra domini sit culta.'
4. Ely Inqu., Cotton MSS. Claudius, c. xi. f 185: 'Unusquisque arabit per tres dies, si habeat *** boves; per duos, si habeat quatuor boves; per unum, si habeat duos boves; per dimidium, si habeat unum bovem.'
5. Add. MSS. 6159, f. 53, a: 'Item debent predicte 22 virgate terre arrare ad frumentum, ad auenam et ad warectum 113 acras et valent 56 solidos 6 denarios.'
6. Gloucester Cart. iii. 92: 'Et quicquid araverit debet herciare tempore seminis. Et faciet unam hersuram que vocatur landegginge et valet 1 den.' iii. 194: 'Et debet herciare quotidle si necesse fuerit quousque semen domini seminetur, et allocabitur ei pro operacione manuali, et valet ultra obolum. Et quia non est numerus certus de diebus herciandis, aestimant juratores 40dies.'
7. Ramsey Cart. I. 345: 'Qualibet autem septimana, a festo Sti Michaelis usque ad tempus sarclationis tribus diebus operatur, quodcunque opus sibi fuerit injunctum; et quarto die arabit unum sellionem, sive jungatur cum alio, sive non.'
