I78 MANORIAL ADMINISTRATION
house throughout that period. In some cases this is defined
vaguely as "in autumpno"; other customals state that the reeve
may be ad mensam dommi1 a Gula Augtisti usque festum S.
Michaelisf others cut the period down to five weeks only,3 while
some emphasise the temporary nature of the arrangement by the
emphatic words "from beginning of autumn to the end and no
more*5,4 or "and afterwards at his own table throughout the rest
of the year".5
Our examination of the duties and rewards of the reeve, as
well as the circumstances of his election, have shown us a multi-
plicity of local variations governing the general principle, et erit
prepositus ad voluntatem domini. Custom was strong, here as
everywhere on the manor, and no lord could exact more than the
course of time had determined as the proper amount, nor could
he wisely withhold the customary rewards. The reeve was a
valuable servant, and a good reeve was a treasure not lightly to
be thrown on one side. Hence it is that we find certain men re-
maining in office year after year, for it was obviously to every-
one's advantage that they should continue to act as reeves. So
long as a man could be found willing to undertake the arduous
and invidious task, and so long as he did it to the satisfaction of
all on the manor, neither lord nor peasants were likely to ask for
any change.
But the lord had not finished with his serf once he had served
as reeve. There were still several other manorial offices which
he might call on him to fill. The chief of these were those of
messor (or hayward as he was often called) and that of beadle or
constable. Although in many cases it is possible to separate the
duties of these two officers, we so often find them exercised by
one person that any insistence on a very rigid differentiation
would be pedantic. It is a convenience to separate them, but we
must beware of making things too clear and of insisting on
classifications which the medieval mind did not make. And it is
worth our notice in passing to recall that even the idealised
systems of Walter of Henley and others do not set out in detail
1 Battle Customals, 66; Wilts Arch. Mag. xxxii, 326; Clutterbuck, Hertford,
m, 618.
* Ramsey Cart, i, 496; Stapledon's Register, 347.
8 Sussex Arch. Soc. Coll. LIII, 48, 66, 78.
4 Comb. Antiq. Soc. Proc. xxvn, 169. * Ramsey Cart, i, 496.