Life in a Medieval Village - Frances Gies [21]
The reeve in turn had an assistant, known variously as the beadle, hayward, or messor, who served partly as the reeve’s deputy, partly in an independent role. As the reeve was traditionally a villein virgater, his deputy was traditionally a villein half-virgater, one of the middle-level villagers.
The beadle or hayward usually had primary responsibility for the seed saved from last year’s crop, its preservation and sowing, including the performances of the plowmen in their plowing and harrowing, and later, in cooperation with the reeve, for those of the villeins doing mowing and reaping. Walter of Henley warned that villeins owing week-work were prone to shirk: “If they do not [work] well, let them be reproved.”42 The hayward’s job also included impounding cattle or sheep that strayed into the demesne crop and seeing that their owners were fined.43
Many manors also had a woodward to see that no one took from the lord’s wood anything except what he was allowed by custom or payment; some also had a cart-reeve with specialized functions. One set of officials no village was ever without was the ale tasters, who assessed the quality and monitored the price of ale brewed for sale to the public. This last was the only village office ever filled by women, who did most of the brewing.
At Elton the titles “beadle” and “hayward” were both in use. Both offices may have existed simultaneously, with the beadle primarily responsible for collecting rents and the fines levied in court. The beadle’s compensation consisted of partial board at the manor house plus exemption from his labor obligation (half the reeve’s, or 58V2 days a year, since he owed for a half rather than a full virgate). At Elton a reap-reeve was sometimes appointed in late summer to help police the harvest work, a function otherwise assigned to two “wardens of the autumn.”44
The primary aim of estate management was to provide for the lord’s needs, which were always twofold: food for himself and his household, and cash to supply needs that could not be met from the manors. Many lay barons collected their manorial product in person by touring their estates annually manor by manor. Bishop Grosseteste advised careful planning of the tour. It should begin after the post-Michaelmas “view of account,” when it would be possible to calculate how lengthy a visit each manor could support. “Do not in any wise burden by debt or long residence the places where you sojourn,” he cautioned, lest the manorial economy be so weakened that it could not supply from the sale of its products cash for “your wines, robes, wax, and all your wardrobe.”45
For Ramsey Abbey and other monasteries, such peripatetic victualing was not practical. Instead, several manors, of which Elton was one, were earmarked for the abbey food supply and assigned a quota, or “farm,” meaning sufficient food and drink to answer the needs of the monks and their guests for a certain period.46
Whatever the arrangement for exploitation of the manors, the thirteenth-century lord nearly always received his income in both produce and cash. The demesne furnished the great bulk of the produce, plus a growing sum in cash from sales at fair or market. The tenants furnished the bulk of the cash by their rents, plus some payments in kind (not only bread, ale, eggs, and cheese, but in many cases linen, wool cloth, and