MULTURE 133
tween the monks of St Albans and their tenants (graphically
retold in Froude's Short Studies, "Annals of an English Abbey "),
when the Abbot had successfully carried off the hand-mills, he
used the stones from them to pave the floor of his private parlour.1
The lord took his profit in kind from all those coming to the
mills. Every one had to contribute a certain proportion of his
grain which was known as "multure". No clear figure can be
given to express this proportion: it varied very considerably, and
the Statuta Pistorum* (thirteenth century) assessed it at the
twentieth or twenty-fourth part of the grain, but the details given
in accounts and other documents show it to have averaged some-
thing more like a sixteenth part.3 Now it must be remembered
that the price of corn varied very considerably during these cen-
turies, so that the value of this multure also varied very con-
siderably. The serf, therefore, was not charged a fixed price for
the mill's service, but found himself forced to yield up something
considerably more precious in times of shortage than after a good
harvest. Hence, no doubt, many of the charges of extortion so
commonly levelled against the miller. Added to this was the
galling knowledge that the lord paid no multure, neither did the
parish priest, despite their comparative wealth.4 Then again, the
amount of multure taken varied as between free men and serfs:
on Durham manors we find the free paying only one twenty-
fourth, while the serf gave one thirteenth5—all incidents em-
phasising the differences between class and class, and inevitably
leading to friction and bad blood.
The mill standing by the river bank was fed by water diverted
along a watercourse and into a mill-pond. This was banked up
with clay and turves, and the water was regulated by flood gates,
and by sluices which allowed the miller to control his head of
water. A very full account of the structure of the medieval
Welsh mill may well serve to describe the innumerable water-
mills throughout England at this period.
1 Gesta Abbatum (R.S.), i, 4ioff; n, i4Qff.
2 Statutes of the Realm, I, 203-3.
3 Ouisborough Cart. I, 278; Whitby Cart, n, 367, 370; Yorks Inquis. I, 76;
Cumb. and West. Arch. Soc. Trans. I, 282; Mamecestre, 315; Cust. Rents,,
98.
* Mon. Exon. 256; Glouc. Cart, ill, 180, 193, 197.
5 Durham Halmote Rolls, 134, 135. Cf. Med. Village, 57 n.i.