THE FAMULI 183
manent staff was essential, and this seems to have been provided
for in various ways. At first it is probable that men who were
chosen to act as ploughmen or shepherds were excused other
rents or services, and even sometimes had the use of the lord's
team one day a week to plough their own ground, or the right of
folding the lord's cattle on their holding at certain intervals.
Besides this, they pastured their beasts with those of their lord,
and received other privileges in return for their labours.1 On
some manors certain holdings were specially set aside for those
who fulfilled the offices of ploughman or swineherd, such as we
find on one of the Glastonbury manors, where we are told that
4 * there are small portions of lands which belong to the ploughs
called Sulstiche and Goddingchestiche whereof the ploughman
ought to have a portion as the others".2
From the very inception of the manorial system, however,
men were trying to unburden themselves of the constant weekly
work the lord imposed upon them. The more successful they
were in this, the greater the lord's need for additional help. With
the money his peasantry paid for exemption from week-work he
was able to hire labourers who would be entirely at his disposi-
tion. Hence, by the fourteenth century at latest—and much
earlier in many parts—another system was in full working.3 The
lord had a body of servants who had no land of their own—or at
the most a few acres, and who were primarily on the manor to
cultivate his lands, and to tend his flocks and herds. These men
were known as the famuli. Their number, of course, varied from
manor to manor, but we generally find ploughmen, carters and
shepherd or swineherd among them.4
On some manors a large staff gradually became the normal
thing, and the lord recruited them from his own serfs if possible.
1 Glas. Rentalia, 93-5, 122, 138, 204, 217; Battle Customals> 66; Ramsey
Cart. I, 318, 408, 473; Winton Pipe Roll, xxii.
2 Glas. Rentalia, 139; cf. 102; Page, End of Villainage..., 22; Wore. Priory
Reg. 66a; Cust. Rents, 102, 103.
3 Thus at Bray we find (temp. Henry III) the demesne worked by serfs
who held land on privileged terms. By the time of Edward I, the work was
done by men who received a fixed yearly wage, as well as an allowance of the
greater part of the corn grown on the manor. V.C.H. Berks, I, 175.
4 See, for example, Reg. Roff. 132-3, where the various types of men,
ploughmen, carters, etc. are enumerated for each manor. And compare
Wore. Priory Reg. 25 a, 1196.