ioo RENTS AND SERVICES
had grown up which became known as "the custom of the
Manor". Vinogradoff asserts that the lords "allowed" such a
custom to grow up,1 but this seems too simple a view of a very
complex matter. The domestic staff of any household to-day
have conditions of labour, and hours "off duty", which would
have seemed impossible to our grandmothers. In a sense our
mothers have " allowed " these conditions to grow up, but in fact
it is only by making such allowances that they have been able to
retain a staff at all. Even the most reactionary employer finds
she must allow "Sundays off", and half-days every week, at
whatever inconvenience to herself. So it was on the manor.
Certainly, in theory, the will of the lord was all-compelling, and
in that sense it may be said that any privilege or relaxation of
strict legal theory was a result of the lord's indulgence. But, in
actual fact, it is much more probable that the lord "allowed"
what he found himself powerless to prevent. A strong steward or
bailiff on the one hand, or a determined body of serfs on the
other, could change things on any one manor in the course of a
very few years, especially before "the custom of the Manor " be-
came sufficiently established and fixed in men's minds to be of
any very great importance, and also before lords had had it
written down formally. For many decades after the Conquest, a
continuous change was taking place: every manor was the scene
of an endless contest in which lord and serf each struggled to
obtain their own ends. On the one hand there was the lord (or
his agents) exercising the power which his ownership of the
manor gave him. This power was often very considerable—
whether by right or by usurpation we need not now consider2—
and naturally it was used to protect and to extend the lord's own
ends. He may at times have been a beneficent patriarch and at
times something considerably less than this; but, in any case,
there he was, controlling the peasant's life to a very great extent.
It is true that gradually there was created "the custom of the
manor", and it is generally correct to say that this was deter-
mined by the verdict of the peasants from time to time. They gave
the "dooms", and these were really determinations of the cus-
toms obtaining on the manor. Yet, even so, a powerful lord or a
harsh steward could do much to force a decision favourable to
1 Econ. Journ. x, 309. 2 For this see below, Chapter VIIL