io8 RENTS AND SERVICES
walls, dug the clay, and fetched water to 'temper' it; pulled
off the old thatch and cut and brought stubble for the new".1
A clear account of the sort of work demanded may be found in
the customal of Pure in Sussex (c. 1250), where men are ordered
to come with carpenter's tools to make a hay barn, if needed, or to
mend it, and they shall help the master carpenters to flaw the timber
and carry it at the precept of the carpenter, but shall make no holes
to put the posts in; they shall find the timber for the said barn from
their own wood, at the lord's will. They shall have the bark and the
top and lop, and the lord shall throw the timber. If the master
carpenter is not content with their work they shall make a fine at the
lord's will and depart home (et recedent]; and [otherwise] they shall
stay until the barn is built.3
Once the land was ploughed and sown there was plenty for the
serf to do (during the lull before the harvest) in order to dis-
charge his weekly obligation. Sometimes, the customals merely
say that he does "whatever the lord wills" on such days, but
often it is more explicit, and we may see exactly how he was
occupied. He carts dung from the stables and cowsheds and
spreads it about his lord's fields; then, after the ploughings he
comes to harrow and to weed from time to time; he tends and
plants in the lord's garden; in the summer cuts the hay, binds
and carries it to the lord's barns. Then in autumn, after cutting
and carrying the corn, he helps to clean, thresh and winnow the
grain, and to collect the best of the straw for use in roofing stacks
and houses. He scours ditches, trims hedges and makes fences;
he gathers reeds and rushes for thatching, or apples for cider.
There was also the care of the animals of the lord and of the vill:
the swineherd drove the pigs to feed in the woods; the shepherd
had the flock to wash and shear and to pasture on the commons
and in the meadows when they were thrown open, as well as to
move the lord's fold from place to place on the demesne; the
oxherd had to plough and work with the lord's oxen and clean
out the byre. Every customal has its variations, but all show us
the bulk of the manorial population performing all the innu-
merable services incident to agriculture as a part of the price they
had to pay for their own holdings.
1 Davenport, op. cit. 22; cf. Sussex Rec. Soc, xxxi, 54.
8 Sussex Rec. Soc* xxxi, 76. Pure is Highfure in Billingshurst.