THE PEASANT'S. RESOURCES 95
generally unwatched save for the sporadic care of one of the
lord's servants. All great houses and large establishments also
had their fishponds, and throughout the year fresh and salt fish
from river as well as from the sea was a constant item in the diet
of the upper classes. Here again the peasant could not be denied:
in the north of England the salmon was a rich prize. If a man
could be lucky enough by a bit of quiet night work to get a
sizeable fish from the waters of his lord, then he and his family
were well provided for during the next few days. Eels again were
everywhere and were eagerly trapped, and so were the ordinary
river fish as we know them to-day. Men were caught fishing
with " Angleroddes ", or setting eel traps, or using nets and other
" engines " against the orders of their lord, and were fined in his
court.1
Our rapid examination of the 3o-acre holder's resources leaves
the impression that, given reasonable harvests, he had no diffi-
culty in producing enough corn and livestock to keep himself and
his family, and to leave something over for sale or exchange. But
we have constantly to be reminding ourselves that no manor was
made up of the " typical" villein—the virgater or 3o-acre holder.
As we have seen, every manor had a number of undermanni—
men holding anything from a little "close" of a rood or two to
seven or eight acres, as well as others who held as much as half a
virgate and so on. The manorial holdings were capable of in-
numerable grades, and the resources of the lowest of these grades
must have been slender. If we assume that some 36-40 bushels
of corn were a minimum requirement for a normal family, it is
clear that this required a holding of between five and ten acres—
and probably nearer ten than five—on which it could be grown.
Those who held less than this were forced to adopt a lower stan-
dard of living, or to seek auxiliary means of augmenting their
incomes by helping on wealthier men's holdings, or by working as
manorial servants, or as communal shepherds or swineherds, or
in one of the village trades.
But whatever means were employed, it seems that a consi-
1 E.g. Hales Rolls,' 135, 284. The men of the monks of Eynsham (Eynshtm
Cart, u, 10) gave them 6d. a year for the right to fish in certain waters, while
three men were fined is. 6d. at Carshalton for using too close a net in the
common water "to the great destruction of the fish" (Surrey Record Soc.
II, 23). For further remarks, see also p. 269.