in strips to equalize the
best and worst land and their distance from the village where the
villeins lived. There was three-way rotation of wheat or rye, oats
or barley, and fallow land. Cows, pigs, sheep, and fowl were kept.
The meadow was allocated for hay for the lord's household and each
villein's. The villeins held land of their lord for various
services such as agricultural labor or raising domestic animals.
The villeins worked about half of their time on their lord's
fields [his demesne land], which was about a third of the
farmland. This work was primarily to gather the harvest and to
plough with oxen, using a yoke over their shoulders, and to sow in
autumn and Lent. They threshed grain on barn floors with flails
cut from holly or thorn, and removed the kernels from the shafts
by hand. Work lasted from sunrise to sunset and included women and
children. The older children could herd geese and pigs, and set
snares for rabbits. The young children could gather nuts and
berries in season and other wild edibles, and could pick up little
tufts of wool shed by sheep. The old could stay in the hut and
mind the children, keep the fire going and the black pot boiling,
sew, spin, patch clothes, and cobble shoes. The old often suffered
from rheumatism. Many people had bronchitis. Many children died of
croup [inflammation of the respiratory passages]. Life expectancy
was probably below thirty-five.

The villein retained his customary rights, his house and land and
rights of wood and hay, and his right in the common land of his
township. Customary ways were maintained. The villeins of a manor
elected a reeve to communicate their interests to their lord,
usually through a bailiff, who directed the labor. Sometimes there
was a steward in charge of several of a lord's manors, who also
held the manorial court for the lord. The steward held his land of
the lord by serjeanty, which was a specific service to the lord.
Other serjeanty services were carrying the lord's shield and arms,
finding attendants and esquires for knights, helping in the lord's
hunting expeditions, looking after his hounds, bringing fuel,
doing carpentry, and forging irons for ploughs. The Woodward
preserved the timber. The Messer supervised the harvesting. The
Hayward removed any fences from the fields after harvest to allow
grazing by cattle and sheep. The Coward, Bullard, and Calvert
tended the cows, bulls, and calves; the Shepherd, the sheep; and
the Swin