THE FEUDAL LAND SYSTEM 235 to his lord. The master could not sell his serf's wife or daughter and so break up the family, but he could require that the daughter should marry some fellow serf so that the [children of the marriage might also be serfs of the same 'estate. The lord also compelled his peasants to observe a jnumber of other petty and annoying usages and restrictions. They must grind their flour at his mill and pay the miller a ifee; they must use the lord's wine- press; they must drive their sheep at night into his fold so that he would get the
- manure. In general they had to have everything done, and
I buy everything that they got, on the estate. However, to be able to grind their flour and shoe their horses on the spot was a certain advantage when robbers and plunderers were about and when there were no towns near. The peasants also had to settle their questions of property or of personal injury at a little court which the lord maintained. King and count and bishop had other fish to cook and paid little at- tention to such small fry as they. Needless to say, the fines and costs levied at this little court went into the lord's pocket, while most of the judicial work there was done by the peasants themselves. A lord of course might not treat his serfs too badly or they would starve or perhaps succeed in escaping to some other lord who would treat them better. On the other hand, the lord had a natural inclination to I squeeze out of his serfs all that he could get. This service (rendered by serfs to their masters and the profits acquired by the lords from the peasants may be summed up by the phrase "seigneurial exploitation," " seigneur" or "senior" being the name for the lord or "old man." "Villa" was still the name in most of medieval France for a large estate, as it had been in Roman times. In England the Norman word "manor" came to be used for _. .„ . . . . I he villa or the same thing. It varied greatly in size and not manor: dis- i every villa or manor was large enough to support fancTand ° f a lord. Some lords had several manors, some had method of hundreds. The mansusov hufe was the usual unit of land measurement on the Continent, to which roughly 'corresponded the hide or smaller virgate in England; but
