y during harvest, at
the lord's request, sometimes instead of week work, sometimes in
addition.

3. Gafol or tribute: fixed payments in money or kind, and such
services as 'fold soke', which forced the tenants' sheep to lie on the
lord's land for the sake of the manure; and suit of mill, by which the
tenant was bound to grind his corn in the lord's mill.

With regard to the 'boon days' in harvest, it should be remembered
that harvest time in the Middle Ages was a most important event.
Agriculture was the great industry, and when the corn was ripe the
whole village turned out to gather it, the only exceptions being the
housewives and sometimes the marriageable daughters. Even the larger
towns suspended work that the townsmen might assist in the harvest,
and our long vacation was probably intended originally to cover the
whole work of gathering in the corn and hay. On the occasion of the
'boon-day' work, the lord usually found food for the labourers which,
the Inquisition of Ardley[26] tells us, might be of the following
description: for two men, porridge of beans and peas and two loaves,
one white, the other of 'mixtil' bread; that is, wheat, barley, and
rye mixed together, with a piece of meat, and beer for their first
meal. Then in the evening they had a small loaf of mixtil bread and
two 'lescas' of cheese. While harvest work was going on the better-off
tenants, usually the free ones, were sometimes employed to ride about,
rod in hand, superintending the others.

The services of the villeins were often very comprehensive, and even
included such tasks as preparing the lord's bath; but on some manors
their services were very light.[27] When the third of the above
obligations, the gafol or tribute, was paid in kind it was most
commonly made in corn; and next came honey, one of the most important
articles of the Middle Ages, as it was used for both lighting and
sweetening purposes. Ale was also common, and poultry and eggs, and
sometimes the material for implements.

These obligations were imposed for the most part on free and unfree
tenants alike, though those of the free were much lighter than those
of the unfree; the chief difference between the two, as far as tenure
of the land went, lay in the fact that the former could exercise
proprietary rights over his holding more or less freely, the latter
had none.[28] It seems very curious to the modern mind that the
villein, a man who farmed about 100 acres of land, sho