In times of poor harvest the lord was to use his coin and credit to prevent starvation. Small local industry was also a function of the manorial system, and dues owed the estate could include such items as cloth, building materials, and ironware. The payments made by serf and villein varied with the locality. There were usually fixed dues paid at certain times of the year.
In addition to dues for the use of the lands and the use of the lord's mill and oven, there were personal work dues. There were also obligations to supply the lord with services—food, lodging, and the like—when he came to the manor. In addition there were dues for the rights of justice.
The manor was an administrative and political unit. There were manorial courts, and the lord or his agent presided over the administration of justice.
The manor was also the unit for the raising of taxes and for public improvements. Thus the tenants were obliged to repair roads and bridges, maintain the castles, and take care of the military contributions. The manor was almost always under the charge the lord's agent, who might be assisted by provosts or bailiffs. The manor was looked upon as a permanent organization, and even when part of it was transferred to others by the lord, it remained a single manor. Thus one manor might have several direct lords.
It did not necessarily coincide with a single estate; it might be larger or it might be only part of an estate. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Manorialism was an essential element of feudal society and was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire.
Manorialism was widely practiced in medieval Western Europe and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market economy and new forms of agrarian contract.
Manorialism was characterized by the vesting of legal and economic power in the lord of a manor. The lord was supported economically from his own direct landholding in a manor sometimes called a fief , and from the obligatory contributions of the peasant population who fell under the jurisdiction of the lord and his court.
These obligations could be payable in several ways: in labor, in kind, or, on rare occasions, in coin. The main reason for the development of the system was perhaps also its greatest strength: the stabilization of society during the destruction of Roman imperial order. With a declining birthrate and population, labor was the key factor of production. Successive administrations tried to stabilize the imperial economy by freezing the social structure into place: sons were to succeed their fathers in their trade, councilors were forbidden to resign, and coloni, the cultivators of land, were not to move from the land they were attached to.
The workers of the land were on their way to becoming serfs. As the Germanic kingdoms succeeded Roman authority in the West in the 5th century, Roman landlords were often simply replaced by Gothic or Germanic ones, with little change to the underlying situation or displacement of populations.
Thus the system of manorialism became ingrained into medieval societies. Additional sources of income for the lord included charges for use of his mill, bakery, or wine-press, or for the right to hunt or to let pigs feed in his woodland, as well as court revenues and single payments on each change of tenant.
On the other side of the account, manorial administration involved significant expenses, perhaps a reason why smaller manors tended to rely less on villein tenure. Serfdom was the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism. It was a condition of bondage that developed primarily during the Middle Ages in Europe. Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work for the lord of the manor who owned that land, and in return were entitled to protection, justice, and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence.
The manor formed the basic unit of feudal society, and the lord of a manor and his serfs were bound legally, economically, and socially. Serfs formed the lowest class of feudal society. A serf digging the land, c. Many of the negative components of manorialism, and feudalism in general, revolve around the bondage of the serf, his lack of social mobility, and his low position on the social hierarchy.
However, a serf had some freedoms within his constraints. A well-to-do serf might even be able to buy his freedom. The surplus crops he would sell at market. The landlord could not dispossess his serfs without legal cause, was supposed to protect them from the depredations of robbers or other lords, and was expected to support them by charity in times of famine. Many such rights were enforceable by the serf in the manorial court. A villein or villain was the most common type of serf in the Middle Ages.
Villeins had more rights and a higher status than the lowest serf, but existed under a number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from freemen. Villeins generally rented small homes with or without land.
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