FORCED HOSPITALITY 143
A remnant of this forced hospitality is seen on some manors at the
coming of the steward to hold the Manor Court. The serfs of the
Prior of Durham had to provide the steward's servants with beds,
and were constantly failing to do so, and being admonished.1 If
house-room and beds were not required on a Sussex manor, then
counterpanes and sheeting had to be sent for use at the manor
house.2 The Hundred Rolls, again, contain some evidence on
this point. Food was requisitioned by officials—bailiffs, foresters,
constables—as they rode from place to place on business. They
demanded hay and corn, poultry "at the will of the giver",
bread and beer—or in their place a money payment, and most of
this came from the peasantry.3 All this, however, is as nothing
compared with the elaborate provisions made in continental
customals for the annual entertainment of the lord, or even for
such of his friends as he cared to send in his place.4 In this, as in
many other ways, the comparatively peaceful and settled state of
England throughout the later Middle Ages made conditions so
much more possible for the serf. His lord did not consistently
wring the utmost out of him, in the fear that to-morrow he might
be displaced by another—either by the fortune of war or by the
loss of his protector's favour. Harsh as some of these exactions
seem to us, they inevitably flowed from the feudal lawyer's theory
that in strictness all the serf possessed was his lord's, and their
harshness seems less outrageous when compared with the ruth-
less provisions of many continental customals.5
The lord's claims on his serf were not confined to the exaction
of rents and services during life. Even after the peasant's death,
the lord still had a claim on his property which was known as a
heriot, and the Church had also another, known as a mortuary.
The first of these was claimed by the lord of the manor on the
death of one of his tenants. It arose from an old custom, whereby
all—both free and bond—were bound to make a return on death
of the hergeat, or war-gear, with which the lord had originally
supplied them. This war-gear—consisting of horse, harness and
1 Durham Halmote Rolls, i, 72, 101, 125, 140, 144, 146; Sussex Rec. Soc.
xxxi, 53.
2 Sussex Rec. Soc. xxxi, 53.
3 Rot. Hund. n, 31, 40, 307. Cf. Oust. Rents, 148.
4 Se"e, op. cit. 362.
5 See Med. Village, passim.