WEEK-WORK 103
that he often had a nucleus of servants who lived all the year at
his house,1 and also that sooner or later most lords allowed their
serfs to make an additional money payment in place of some or all
of their works. Nevertheless, for a long time, and over large
areas of England, many hundred thousands of peasants were
forced throughout the year to leave their own affairs from time to
time in order to do work of various kinds for their lord.
We cannot generalise very exactly as to what such a demand
meant. It varied on various manors, in various areas, and at
various times. It was not even the same on all the manors held
by any one lord. This we may say, however: in general it was a
distinguishing mark between bond and free. A number of in-
stances can be quoted which show free men rendering week-
works, but they must be regarded as exceptional, and were so
regarded by the lawyers of the thirteenth century, who more
and more tended to consider the uncertainty which attached to
week-works as one of the stigmata of the serf. Hence Bracton's
famous definition: "For that is an absolute villainage, from
which an uncertain and indeterminate service is rendered, where
it cannot be known in the evening, what service is to be rendered
in the morning."2 Further, we may note that the work required
by the lord was roughly commensurate with the size of the
holding. Everything depended upon this, and the number of
mouths to be fed, or of young sons eager for work who resided
on each holding, was of no account to the lord. He was concerned
only with the due render of what had been determined to be the
burden of such a holding. Hence a virgate-holder Js duties, which
look so formidable at first sight, become far less onerous when
we reflect that in all probability he was married, and had sons
and daughters, and even servants of his own to help him. Thus
he was able to plough his own acres and those of his lord, and to
carry on a hundred and one other jobs without undue strain, by
the simple method of sending one or more of his own family or
helpers to the manor house, while the rest of the household
carried on at home.
It is true, as we have already seen, that he was expected on a few
1 See below, p. iBz.
2 Bracton, op. cit. I, 207. But see below, p. 139 n1., which shows this to be
an undue simplification.