The great landholders let out part of their estates to tenants on similar terms to those on which they held their own, and in this way the entire country was divided up.  The lowest class of tenants were the common agricultural laborers called villeins,—­a name derived from the Latin villa, meaning a country house or farm.  These villeins, or serfs, held small pieces of land on condition of performing labor for it.  They were bound to the soil and could be sold with it, but not, like slaves, apart from it.  They were not wholly destitute of legal rights.

Under William I and his successors, all free tenants, of whatever grade, were bound to uphold the King,[2] and in case of insurrection or civil war to serve under him (S122).  In this most important respect the great landholders of England differed from those of the Continent, where the lesser tenants were bound only to serve their own masters, and might, and in fact often did, take up arms against the King.  William removed this serious defect.  By doing so he did the country an incalculable service.  He completed the organization of feudal land tenure, but he never established the Continental system of feudal government. (See, too, the Constitutional Summary in the Appendix, p. v, S6.)

[2] See the Constitutional Summary in the Appendix, pp. iii-v, SS5, 6.

The building is Ludlow Castle, Shropshire.  Manor houses proper, as distinct from castles, existed in England at least from the thirteenth century

(See Gibbin’s “Industrial History of England” and Cheyney’s “Industrial and Social England”)

The inhabitants of a manor, or the estate of a lord, were:  (1) the lord himself, or his representative, who held his estate on condition of furnishing the King a certain number of armed men (SS113, 150); (2) the lord’s personal followers, who lived with him, and usually a parish priest or a number of monks; (3) the farm laborers, or villeins, bound to the soil, who could not leave the manor, were not subject to military duty, and who paid rent in labor or produce; there might also be a few actual slaves, but this last class gradually rose to the partial freedom of villenage; (4) certain free tenants or “sokemen,” who paid a fixed rent either in money or service and were not bound to the soil as the villeins were.

Next to the manor house (where courts were also held) the most important buildings were the church (used sometimes for markets and town meetings); the lord’s mill (if there was a stream), in which all tenants must grind their grain and pay for the grinding; and finally, the cottages of the tenants, gathered in a village near the mill.