168 MANORIAL ADMINISTRATION
similar results have been obtained; and it is reasonable to infer
that, by the fourteenth century at least, the reeve was often as
permanent an officer, despite his servile origin, as was the
sergeant or bailiff. And when once we have admitted his per-
manency, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that such a man
exercised an enormous influence over the working of the manor.
We have seen that the reeve, by reason of his origin, had an
initial advantage over the bailiff in his knowledge of his fellows
and their holdings; and, if we consider what this meant when
enriched by the cumulative experience gained by years of service
in office, the claims of the reeve to be considered as the " pivot
man" of the manorial administrative system are very great. One
last point may be noted. Among the executive officers the reeve
alone is always to be found on the manor among the peasantry.
Stewards come at fixed times and seasons for the most part;
sergeants and bailiffs may, or may not, live in curia from year's
end to year's end; but the reeve is adscriptus glebae, and it is
partly this very immobility which gives him his importance.
He is the man who knows his fellows with a thoroughness
denied to bailiffs and others. However good the bailiff, how-
ever well he conducts the manor from his lord's point of view,
he cannot have that understanding of domestic detail and cir-
cumstance that the reeve has, an understanding coming from
lifelong intimacy in that closest of intimacies—the medieval
village. It was the reeve who knew what was John atte Green's
weak point, or what was the way to get recalcitrant Wat Hordle
to the plough, or where was the place to find the laggardly
William Joye. His fixture to the soil gave him all this, and it also
gave the lord a pledge that in every manor he had one man at
least among the peasantry whom he could hold strictly account-
able for all that concerned the manorial economy. Hence, it is
not the bailiff but the reeve who generally presents the yearly
manorial account, and the reason for this is to be found in the
fact that it is the reeve, and not the bailiff, who has watched over
the manor all the year, and who now has to account for the de-
tailed working of the manor for each one of its 365 days.
At the outset, then, we can see that the office of reeve was not
one lightly to be assumed, and we can easily understand how it
became essential in the lord's interest that he should enforce