Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/722

 A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK rent 33J quarters of oats at od. a quarter, 79 hens, 340 eggs, 89 days' carry- ing, and 80 mornings' work ; while another 40 molmen at the same place had each to do three ploughings, receiving from the lord 4 loaves, 8 herrings, and 24 eggs as food, and also to do among them 140 weeding works. At Fornham 10 cottagers who held an acre apiece rendered od. for each acre as bedrep-silver and had to weed 30 acres of corn {^d. an acre) and reap 30 acres (at yl. an acre), which works out at the extraordinary rate of s. %d. an acre. The average value which is assigned to the arable land in the demesne of these twelve manors is 4^/. an acre. Meadow is commonly valued at s. 6d. and pasture at is. Of the wood a portion varying from a seventh to a fif- teenth is allowed to be cut each year, and this is valued at from is. bd. to 2j. an acre. It appears to be implied in the language of the ' extent ' that the demesne in several cases was actually rented out at these prices. This would seem to have been a necessity when the demesne comprised, as in several cases, more than half the land of the manor. Even if all the services due from the villeins had been exacted they would not have sufficed. Such renting out of the demesne must have played a large part in the break-up of the manorial system. Wind and water-mills contributed a not inconsiderable amount to the manorial receipts. The mill of Saxham was worth ioj., that of Fornham 20J., that of Rickinghall 30J., and that of Redgrave ^6 13;-. The market of Botesdale, which was attached to Redgrave, brought in £^, and that of Bungay was valued in 1 270 at ^d i y. A^d.^ and its two fairs at j^4 1 3J. 4^." The annual value of pleas and perquisites was on the average about loj., but at Melford it was 40j-., and at Redgrave 6oj. A striking example of the action of the economic forces which were gradually remoulding the status of the population as exhibited in the condi- tions of land tenure is furnished in the account which the Hundred Rolls give of the manor of Gorleston, which was included in the half-hundred of Lothingland, and was reckoned as ' ancient demesne.' In Edward the Con- fessor's time, when the Earl Gurth held it, there were twenty villeins attached to the manor, but when the Domesday Survey was made these had been reduced to twelve." The manor remained in the King's hands from the Conquest till the reign of Henry III, by which time the villeins had again increased to twenty. The total amount of land held by them was 258 acres, and it would seem to have been originally divided into lots of 1 2 acres, since fifteen of the holdings were still of this size, while one was of 24 acres, another of 35, two others of 8j and 4I, and one of 6 acres. The King's bailiff received 29J. 3d', as annual rent from these ' bondmen,' but this hardly represented half the value of the land to the King. The villeins also paid 2 2 J. 4^'. every year in place of the customary services which they owed on the royal demesne.'" Before the middle of the 13th century they had ceased to perform these services, and were giving their whole attention to their own land, much as if they were freemen. What still marked them as villeins was the equality of their holdings, which passed undivided from father to son or to whatever successor the lord might appoint. There can be no doubt that the holdings were divided into strips, probably of half an acre each, dis- tributed over several large open fields which were cultivated according to a course common to the whole village. But each holding of 1 2 acres, though » Suckling, Hist. o/Suff. i, 120. » Dom. Bk. ii, 283. * Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 161. 642