166 MANORIAL ADMINISTRATION
an account of his stewardship, asked for his discharge. But there
were often details still awaiting settlement and rents not fully
accounted for, and these could lead to infinite trouble for the
bailiff in future years. So, if he were wise, he got a chirograph
acquittance from the auditors setting forth the state of affairs on
his leaving office. Such documents usually set out that on the
day the bailiff relinquished office there were on the manor so
many horses, so many ploughs, etc. Two copies of this document
were written on one piece of parchment which was then divided
by cutting it into two by a wavy line. The one part was given to
the bailiff: the other was sewn to the account roll for that year,
so that in any dispute there it was on record, and could be
appealed to, both by lord and by bailiff.1
The influence ofFleta and Walter of Henley on our knowledge
of the working arrangements of the manor has already been dis-
cussed, and the version they give must be regarded as a Utopian
rather than as a realist view. But, whether we are dealing with
manors which form part of a vast organisation necessitating
steward and bailiff, or with manors which are much more simply
managed, one important fact emerges. However elemental the
organisation, or however complex, we find universally present
one official, and it may be doubted whether sufficient importance
has hitherto been attached to this man—the reeve—as an essential
unit in the manorial machine. Et erit prepositus ad voluntatem
domtni: these well-known words, which occur in almost every
extent, would appear to have misled students into minimising the
importance of the reeve's office because of its servile implication.
It is perfectly true that to acknowledge liability to serve as reeve
usually implied acknowledgement of servile status; but, neverthe-
less, these serf-ministers were of enormous importance in the
effective working of the manor. The bailiff is characterised by
Vinogradoff as an "outsider", a man imposed from without on
the peasants; the reeve, on the contrary, was one of themselves,
a man of the manor, knowing every field in it, and acquainted
from boyhood with the eccentricities and habits of every person
inhabiting its cots. Therefore, is it not reasonable to suppose
that the working of the manor was more effectively aided by the
1 For specimens of chirograph acquittances, see Min. Ace. 842/21,958/26,
1297/23. See also below, p. 192.