PICTURE OF LIFE IN NORMAN ENGLAND

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3309, 1 April 1926, Page 10

PICTURE OF LIFE IN NORMAN ENGLAND

Historical View of Everyday Economics IN AU GURAT AL W.E.A. LECTURE IN FEILDINGr The W.E.A. classes in Feilding opened last evening "at the. Technical College, Fergusson street. The course chosen is “Everyday Economics From An Historical Standpoint.” The lecturer,. Mr. A. C. T. Brotherton, in the course of his remarks, said: “The many difficult problems with which we are faced at the present day can be much more easily understood if studied in the light of what has gone before. “The object of these lectures is to show how there gradually developed from the isolated and more or less self-sufficing village—and later town — a more complex economy—first national and then world-wide. “The village of the Norman period represented a very simple stage of civilisation. Man’s wants were few, and he had learned to do without such things as he could not easily obtain.

"Next we come to the more complex system, including the whole country in one ecohomic system, rather than regarding each town as a separate unit, and finally we see the world as a single unit, responsive to an action in any part of it. “When once this is realised it becomes obvious that the dislocation caused by war will be infinitely greater at the present day than it was in the past, aitd when we examine the economic conditions following the Napoleonic War we find a very similar state of things to the conditions of the present day, only on a smaller scale. But to examine these condi'tions in the light of the past it is necessary to see how they themselves are descendants of this past. Feudalism Develops. “When the Barbarians overran the Roman Empire they established nation States in its'place. These States, however, were losoely knit and had t weak central government, and, as a natural development, decentralisation began, and this by the 11th century had taken the form of Feudalism. On the Continent of Europe this meant that the “lord,”-be he king, duke, or knight, gave land to his 'tenants in return for military service by way of rent, and they in turn could sub-let it to others; and on the Continent; though not in England, these tenants owed allegiance first to their immediate lord and then to the king, or original grantor. “This was indeed decentralisation, and William the Conqueror, having suffered from it in Normandy, decided, on reaching England, that the new distribution of land should be made always "saving allegiance to the King.” Thus, since the Norman Conquest, England has been spared the anarchy of uncontrolled baronial rule, except where under a weak King the system has been allowed to decay.

“Feudalism thus created a military and land-owning class, with a unit refered to as a “manor.” .This was variable in size, and more than one was usually held by anyone of 1m-

portance, but by taking as an example the organisation of a typical manor we have the organisation of England, in miniature in the 11th century. Villeins, Duties and Eights.

“Every man was supposed to owe allegiance to some lord, and if he coud not find one he was regarded as an outlaw. Normally, by what was called commendation, •he put himself under some neighbouring magnate, and was in turn protected by him. Protection in return for service was the. essence of the system. It existed before the Conquest, but was consolidated and systematised by it. It was an inevitable development for a period when the King's authority was not felt in the remote parts of his dominions, and the Courts granted to the lords were in reality an alienation of Hoyal rights. “The manor consisted of the lord’s demesne, in which stood the manor house, the tenants’ holdings, and the common and waste.

"The most numerous class on the manor were the villeins or serfs; 108,000 out of 283,000 landholders in Domesday Book were held by villein tenure. The normal villein’s holding was a virgate or 30 acres, and the villein was the absolutely essential part of the manorial system. “In the same way as land was let to the lords in return for military service, so they let out their land to the villeins in return for labour rents, carriage duty, and various other dues and charges. In this connection it must be noted that, owing to the bad roads, carriage duty was no sinecure. In some cases, the. lord made a circuit of the manors he possessed and ate up the stores there, and then passed on—a necesary precaution in an insanitary age; but this was not usual in the case of. a monastery, which would hold land in the , same way as a lay lord, and in this case produce had to be carried over roads better imagined than described. “The villein performed boon work, generally at harvest time; veek work, that is, so many days per week for the lord; and “small works,” which might include almost anyth! :/g. Norm, ally, this meant that one member of the household had to be present; but for boon work, when free meals were provided, the entire family had to be present, and no substitute Was allowed. This system of getting work done on the lord’s farm was necessary, as there was little or no money, and even had that been forthcoming, there was little floating population to work for wages, “The villein had a hereditary right to his holding, provided the due entrance fine was paid, and he was not a landless labourer, as he contrived to support himself and his family on his 30-acre holding. Legally, his ten-' ure’ was insecure, but he was protected by custom from any arbitrary exaction of his lord, anil it was usually advantageous to keep the villeins, as labour was difficult to obtain. "However, the villein was under a number of disabilities. He was attached to the soil, and could not alienate his holding. He could sell neither ox nor horse without permission. When his daughter married he paid a “Merchet” fine, and he could not set his son to letters, apprentice him ,to a craft, or send him to school without permission: but his life and limb Were’ protected in the King’s Court, and the lord was greatly limited by. custom. Moreover, he was a serf, not a slave; he was freQ,,against all but the lord ,and by Magna Charta he could sue even his lord, if his plough and oxen were seized unlawfully, for without these he could not live. Grades ol Workers. “Another similar class was the cottars. These were really inferior villeins.- They held only- five acres, which was not enough to employ all their time or support them entirely, so they hired themselves to others who wanted casual labour, and in this way materially assisted the manorial economy.

“There were still a few slaves left when Domesday was compiled (10S6), but they were fast becoming extinct, as the Normans seem to have realised that slave labour is the most wasteful kind in existence.

“The other main glasses of landholders on the manor were the freemen or ‘socage tenants.’ They performed some labour rents, but not regular weekly' work; they had more privileges and could usually sell their holdings, and were not tinder all the personal disabilities from which the villein suffered. Roughly speaking, they were equal to their lord at law, but as his tenants, paid him services, many of which to our presentday notions would appear servile. Army of Landholders. The tenants of the manor formed the ‘fyrd’ or national force, as opposed to the feudal army of landholders. William, by a stroke of genius, ■preserved the fyrd as, well as, the feudal army, and was thus able to keep the barons from oppressing their tenants and keep the lower classes loyal to the Crown by his prolection. The unruly baron was a far worse enemy to the ordinary man in England of that day than any foreign foe, and the Norman Kings went far towards controlling these barons, profiting by their own experience as tenants of the Kings of France when they were Dukes of Normandy.

“The manor had its various officials to see that work was performed and dues collected. The most important of these was the seneschal or steward, who would be responsible for the supervision of all the manors under his lord. Next came the bailiff, who was responsible for a single manor, and finally there was the reeve. This official was appointed by the tenants, and it was regarded as a burdensome office, and they generally tried to avoid it. Usually it carried land or the remission of some service, but this did not outweigh its unpopularity. "When it came to the working of the land thc’i'e was a greater equality among the tenants than in status. Tillage was communal, and each man had his rights, whether freeman or villein. Tilling the Soli. “The village must be regarded as primarily waste, parts of which were periodically ploughed up, but not permanently separated from the waste land. There were two or three large, open fields, one of which was always left fallow and ploughed twice during

the year. The other one or -two were subjected to a rough-and-ready rotation of crops ,and then in turn lay fallow. ,

“The three-field- _ system, wliioh is best knowm, became more general ultimately, at any rate in the south; but even in the 14th century, in, some places the three-field system was regarded as advanced farming. “Now, these fields were divided into strips, generally of about an acre. The tenants’ holdings ’were scattered through the fields in different parts of the vilage, as also was the lord’s demesne.

“The origin of this system Was communal ploughing and the desire to give each man an equal holding, including good- or bad land, nearer or farther away. At first ownership of strips changed, annually, but this was found to give, too little self-interest and make for bad farming, and by Norman times fixed ownership was the rule.

"Common rights were another allimportant matter, as the holdings were uneconomic unless common was included. It: was a perennial source ’ of controversy and complaint, as the lords tended either to appropriate portions of common to their own use, or else overstock it so that thetenants could not get enough for their own' needs. It was often allotted in strips for convenience.

"The meadow was an even- more-jealously-guarded right. Strips here were invariably reallotted, as fodder was always very scarce and most of the cattle-had to be killed off before the winter and salted down. Altogether the system was fairly primitive. A great deal of time Was lost ’ moving round the widely-scattered' strips.

“It was useless to clean your , strip, as your neighbour probably did not clean his, and the seeds, .from hia simply drifted on to yours; and even if two adjacent strips were cleaned,, the “baulks” in between would contain weeds. Moreover, there were endless trespass actions, as the baulks Of turf separating the strips were not well defined, and ploughing up the -road was another offence known at law! Lowly idl’e. . t “In addition, because of communal, ownership, the system was utterly unprogressive, as no change could be . made except unanimously; but it , must, however, be said for the system that, owing to the supervision ‘ by the manorial officials, a fair standard of work was maintained. "The manor was roughly self-suffic-ing, but there were a certain number of outside things required, the most important being salt, iron, and mill stones. Life of the period was rude and primitive. The Normans could. • build cathedrals and castles, and they ■ brought some sort of order to Eitg-i land, which was previously in an ah- . archie condition; but wh\n it is'"remembered that William laid waste the country from the Humber northwards, and that three counties are left as a depopulated blank in Domesday, it will be seen that, while a ,: thorough race, they were also a barbaric.one. At that time no one'could . read 'or write, except the monks. Street-lighting was non-existent and house-lighting little better. It was necessary, as a'rule, to go to bed at sunset for Hack'of light;'; The yijleins lived in hovels not unlike the modern pig-style, only not so well-built. There were no drains and no soap, as we know it. They lived on salt meat and 'drank, beer in large quantities. , “The civilisation of Prance, brought, over from Normandy was only skin-, deep, and the Viking pirate appeared • easily enough. But, for all their faults, they gave England order and made her a nation.” ~ , ...... ",