ii6 RENTS AND SERVICES
hire on holy-days, or after noon on the vigils of holy-days.1 The
serf, however, did not come under any such act, for his work was
not for hire but in return for his holding. The Church preached
what we have seen Langland advocating, but it was a counsel of
perfection, not one of common use. Even the ecclesiastical
authorities themselves did not expect such devotion (and neglect
of their own interests) from the peasant. Simon Meopham,
Archbishop of Canterbury, in prohibiting any servile work in-
consistent with the devout celebration of Good Friday, adds:
"Nevertheless, we do not by this law mean to lay a burden
on the poor, nor put any obstacle in the way of the rich to prevent
them affording the customary assistance for charity's sake to
help on the tillage of their poorer neighbours."2 The canon
lawyer Lyndwood in his gloss on this says that "the poor" are
"those who have not animals and beasts to plough with, and
who lack means to hire the assistance of others", and goes on to
adopt the opinion of another canon lawyer, that though it would
not be lawful to plough a poor man's holding on Sunday itself,
or on the greater feasts, nevertheless this is permissible on the
minor feasts wherever the relaxation is tolerated by the custom
of the country.3
This is exactly the point of view expressed by the author of
Dives and Pauper, who tells us that on the lesser feasts needful
works like "erynge and sowynge, repyng, mowynge, cartyng"
were not reckoned servile or a breach of the holy-day, if they
were done in a right spirit and not for avarice; but Sundays and
the great feasts must be observed more punctiliously; "suche
workes shudde natt be done but ful grete nede compelle men
thereto".4
Such, in brief, was the theory. What of the practice? A general
survey of the evidence available can only lead to one conclusion:
the law of the Church was violated on all sides, often by church-
men themselves. On the Bishop of Chichester's manors, for
example, the Sunday itself was used as a day on which to hold
1 Statutes of the Realm, 4 Henry IV, cap. 14,
2 Lyndwood, Prwinciale (Bk. 2, Tit. 3, De Feriis), 100,
8 Ibid. 101.
4 Dives and Pauper, in, 7, 3, as quoted by B. L. Manning in his People's
Faith in the Time of Wyclif, 329. The whole of chapter IX of Mr Manning's
book should be consulted on this subject.