In the thirteenth century the manorial system may be said to have been in its zenith; the description therefore of Cuxham Manor in Oxfordshire at that date is of special interest.  According to Professor Thorold Rogers[64] there were two principal tenants, each holding the fourth part of a military fee.  The prior of Holy Trinity, Wallingford, held a messuage, a mill, and 6 acres of land in free alms; i.e. under no obligation or liability other than offering prayers on behalf of the donor.  A free tenant had a messuage and 3-3/4 acres, the rent of which was 3s. a year.  He also had another messuage and nine acres, for which he paid the annual rent of 1 lb. of pepper, worth about 1s. 3d.  The rector of the parish had part of a furrow, i.e. one of the divisions of the common arable field, and paid 2d. a year for it.  Another tenant held a cottage in the demesne under the obligation of keeping two lamps lighted in the church.  Another person was tenant-at-will of the parish mill, at a rent of 40s. a year.  The rest of the tenants were villeins or cottagers, thirteen of the former and eight of the latter.  Each of the villeins had a messuage and half a virgate, 12 to 15 acres of arable land at least, for which his rent was chiefly corn and labour, though there were two money payments, a halfpenny on November 12 and a penny whenever he brewed.  He had to pay a quarter of seed wheat at Michaelmas, a peck of wheat, 4 bushels of oats, and 3 hens on November 12, and at Christmas a cock, two hens, and two pennyworth of bread.  His labour services were to plough, sow, and till half an acre of the lord’s land, and give his work as directed by the bailiff except on Sundays and feast days.  In harvest time he was to reap three days with one man at his own cost.

Some of these tenants held, besides their half virgates, other plots of land for which each had to make hay for one day for the lord, with a comrade, and received a halfpenny; also to mow, with another, three days in harvest time, at their own charges, and another three days when the lord fed them.  After harvest six pennyworth of beer was divided among them, each received a loaf of bread, and every evening when work was over each reaper might carry away the largest sheaf of corn he could lift on his sickle.

The cottagers paid from 1s. 2d. to 2s. a year for their holdings, and were obliged to work a day or two in the hay-making, receiving therefor a halfpenny.  They also had to do from one to four days’ harvest work, during which they were fed at the lord’s table.  For the rest of the year they were free labourers, tending cattle or sheep on the common for wages or working at the various crafts usual in the village.  This manor was a small one, and contained in all twenty-four households, numbering from sixty to seventy inhabitants.[65]

On most manors, as in Forncett,[66] which contained about 2,700 acres, from the preponderance of arable, the chief source of income to the lord was from the grain crops; other sources may be seen from the following table of the lord’s receipts and expenses in 1272-3: