f the services
they owed in haymaking.[79] Frequently when services were commuted for
money, the record of the fact is accompanied by the statement that the
change was made on account of the poverty of the tenants. At Witney,
for instance, the

works and services of all the native tenants were commuted at
fixed payments (_ad certos denarios_) by favour of the lord as
long as the lord pleases, on account of the poverty of the
homage.[80]

The reduction in rent in this case was at least a third of the total.
The value of the customary services commuted was at least ten
shillings six pence per acre, and they were commuted at six shillings
eight pence. Other explicit references to the poverty of the tenants
as the cause of commutation are quoted by Page:

At Hinton, Berks, the Bailiff reports in 1377, that the former
lord before his death had commuted the services of the villains
for money, "eo quod customarii impotentes ad facienda dicta opera
et pro eorum paupertate" ... At Stevenage, 1354, S. G. "tenuit
unam vergatam reddendo inde per annum in serviciis et
consuetudinibus xxii solidos. Et dictus S. G. pauper et impotens
dictam virgatam tenere. Ideo concessum est per dominum quod S. G.
habeat et teneat predictam terram reddendo inde xiii solidos iv
denarios pro omnibus serviciis et consuetudinibus."[81]

In connection with the matter of heriots, also, evidences of extreme
poverty are frequent. Frequently when a tenant died there was no beast
for the lord to seize.

The heriot of a virgate was generally an ox, or money payment of
its value. But the amount as often reduced "propter paupertatem,"
and sometimes when a succeeding tenant could not pay, a half acre
was deducted from the virgate and held by the lord instead of the
heriot.[82]

The rate at which the value of these holdings declined when their
tenants possessed too few cattle was rapid. Land without stock is
worthless. The temptation to sell an ox in order to meet the rent was
great, but when the deficiency was due to declining productivity of
the soil, there was no probability that it would be made up the
following year even with all the stock, and with fewer cattle the
situation was hopeless. After this process had gone on for a few years
nothing was left, not even a yoke of oxen for plowing. Whatever means
had been taken to keep up the fertility of the land, atten