66 THE MANORIAL POPULATION
virgater with no children, the widow left with a young family, .
the holder of land burdened with difficult or onerous services—
, all these, as well as the lord himself, whose demesne lands cried
out for daily, as also for seasonal labour, were ready enough to
make use of the small tenant; and without his presence life on the
medieval manor would have been very much more difficult.1
These smaller tenants steadily grew in number as lords allowed
more and more new land to be assarted, or as new-comers to the
manor were given an odd corner here for a small money rent, or a
pytel there in exchange for a few minor services.2 Little by little
we may imagine the growth of a body of men standing almost
apart from the rigid compulsions of communal ploughings and
other works,3 as well as the presence in the countryside of those
who had the fortune to live on manors where labour services
were small or non-existent.4 Their lack of shares in the common
fields, which was part of their lot, also left them freer than
many of their fellows, and this freedom they used in many ways.
Some of them found a livelihood by supplying needs which their
neighbours had but little time to fulfil for themselves: they be-
came the village carpenters, or smiths, or weavers, or miller's
assistants, and so on. For example, on the Bishop of Chichester's
manor of Amberley, in Sussex, as well as the great tenants, who
held virgates and the like, we find Benet Smith (Faber) who holds
only ''four acres belonging to the smithy ", and in return for this
his duties and obligations are as follows: "He shall mend with
the lord's iron all the iron-gear belonging to two ploughs, but
do nothing new. He shall shoe two horses, and the sergeant's
horses with the lord's iron, and receive nothing___He shall
grind all the scythes used in the lord's meadows, and all the
shears while they shear the lord's sheep ", etc.5
Another small tenant, Alexander Carpenter, held only a house
and half an acre, and for this he paid but sixpence a year. His
living was evidently made by means of his craft, for every village
1 Lipson, op. cit. 44, 45; Medieval East Anglia, 121 n. 3; V.C.H. Berks, II,
182; Herts, iv, 184, 190; Page, op. cit. 39.
3 See, for example, V.C.H. Durham, n, 209; Hatfield's Survey (Surtees
Soc.), 32.
3 Neilson, Ramsey, 27ff.j Page, op. cit. 41.
4 Econ. Hist. Rev. vol. v, No. 2, passim.
B Sussex Rec. Soc. xxxi, 48; cf. 37, 75, 82, 92.