EXCUSES FOR ABSENCE 113
carry wheat, at first would not come, and when he did, flung his
first load on the tithe heap, and his second on the ground, so
that all the sheaves were broken, and the carts had to pass over
them to get into the grange.1 On the other hand, we read of a
lord who " wickedly slew William Bright with a dung fork, be-
cause he found him idling in his service! "2 The mere enumeration
of these few incidents of the harvesting will doubtless be sufficient
to suggest to the reader the ever-present possibilities of drama
which were part of the life of the fields.
Little wonder that Walter of Henley again and again insists on
the necessity of watching over these workers:
Let the bailiff and the messor, be all the time with the ploughmen,
to see that they do their work well and thoroughly, and at the end of
the day see how much they have done... .And because customary
servants neglect their work it is necessary to guard against their
fraud; further, it is necessary that they are overseen often; and besides
the bailiff must oversee all, that they all work well, and if they do not
well, let them be reproved.3
Such in brief were the various types of service which were
commonly demanded by lords throughout England. They ad-
mitted of the utmost variation, and, no doubt, were enforced
with very various degrees of severity: but there they were, an
inseparable part of the peasant's life, and one of the most
obvious signs of his serfdom. He could not avoid them; and
since, as we have seen, it was the custom to exact work through-
out the year, it was necessary to make arrangements for sickness
or other causes of absence. This we find done in a variety of ways:
sickness was generally considered a sufficient cause for absence,
and a man was allowed a period of sick-leave varying on different
manors and at different times of the year. On one of the Ramsey
manors we find a man allowed three weeks' absence most of the
year, but only fifteen days in autumn;4 on others he can take a
year and a day before he need attend;5 on others again he has a
year and a day but must plough.6 On the manors of the Bishop
of Chichester something between a fortnight and a month was
1 V.C.H. Middlesex, II, 85. 2 Cal. Inquis. Misc. II, 8.
8 Op. cit. n; cf. 17, 21, 29, 33, 69, etc.
* Op. cit. i, 464; cf. Sussex Rec. Soc. xxxi, 83.
5 Op. cit. i, 312, 325-
6 Op. cit. I, 290, 300, 347, 370, 384, 395.
BL 8