The Decay of Villeinage

Changes on the Manor.—In the previous chapter we regarded the manor as a static, unchanging institution, a procedure which is necessary for the purpose of clear description. Now we must shift our standpoint and examine some of the forces that were transforming the manorial structure in the centuries following the Norman Conquest. The first change we have to note was the extension of the arable area, a consequence of the growth of population. Between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries the population of England increased from 1¾ to 2½ millions. ¹ To provide food for these additional mouths, the area of the waste had to be greatly contracted. Allotments were carved out of it for the younger sons of villeins for whom no place could be found on the patrimonial holding. Significantly, the system of scattered strips was never adopted on land reclaimed from the waste, showing that even at this time the technical defects of the open-field system were clearly recognized. Hand in hand with the extension of the cultivated area went an increase in the output of cereal crops, an increase which was both absolute and relative. On a certain group of Winchester manors, the yield of wheat per acre increased 150 per cent. between 1200 and 1300. ² The capacity of agriculture to produce a surplus supply of food was responsible for further economic developments. It stimulated specialization and promoted the rise of groups of traders and artisans who did not live on the land but obtained the food and raw materials they required by selling manufactured goods to the peasants. Thus there developed that trade between town and country, the significance of which was first explained by Adam Smith in a well-known chapter. ³ From the twelfth century at least, the sale of surplus corn from manors to neighbouring towns became a fairly regular thing. A large part of this trade was naturally in the hands of the lord. He had more grain to dispose of and greater intelligence and capacity for the conduct of commercial transactions. But the villein had a share in it as well. Custom had crystallized his rents and dues into fixed amounts, and when the soil, through greater fertility or the use of better methods, yielded a richer increase, the increment remained with the peasant. He sold this surplus and used the resources thus acquired to improve his social and economic condition.