Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/281

 THE FEUDAL LAND SYSTEM 237 forth their pigs to feed on acorns under the charge of the swineherd of the villa, to whom every one had to give a loaf of bread for his support. Enough has perhaps been said to make it clear that the great estate with its group of servile peasants constituted a little world by itself, rather sharply severed from Iso i ation of the rest of society. A large villa usually had a the villa few artisans in the employ of the lord, so that the peasants could satisfy almost all of their simple needs without going off the estate. On a smaller manor they might have to make their own clothing and mend their tools themselves, or wait for a chance peddler or a neighboring fair. Little spare time, indeed, had they for wandering, nor did the lord encourage it. They would be too apt to run jaway for good. The villa was not only an economic and 'judicial unit; it was usually identical with the local reli- I gious unit, the parish, and had its own little church, whose J priest was nominated by the lord, and whose edifice, humble • enough, but larger and finer than any of the huts of the peasants, served as the center of social life for the wretched community. Not all who tilled the soil were in absolute serfdom. Some are called ''villeins," or "men of the vill," instead of servi, or serfs. There are many other appellations social and applied to them which show that there were dif- economic 1 erent classes and varying gradations of per- among the sonal subjection or freedom, and much disparity P easants in the size of their holdings and in the amount of service and payment which they owed their lords. Some could marry their daughters to whom they pleased ; some could leave the manor if they wished ; some did very little work for the lord, but made payments instead ; some did not do much more for the lord than attend his manorial court. But most of our, records of medieval estates are from later centuries when the peasants had won greater freedom from their lords and had made definite bargains with them as to what services and payments they must render. Otherwise there perhaps would have been no record set down in writing. Earlier, in