"Oh, my lord, hard do I work. I go out at daybreak, driving the oxen to field, and I yoke them to the plough. Nor is it ever so hard winter that I dare loiter at home, for fear of my lord, but the oxen yoked, and the ploughshare and the coulter fastened to the plough, every day must I plough a full acre, or more." "Hast thou any comrade?" "I have a boy driving the oxen with an iron goad, who also is hoarse with cold and shouting." "What more dost thou in the day?" "Verily then I do more. I must fill the bin of the oxen with hay, and water them, and carry out the dung. Ha! Ha! hard work it is, hard work it is! because _I am not free._" Evidently the ploughman's want of freedom was his great hardship; his work in ploughing, feeding, and watering his cattle, and in cleansing their stable, was not harder than that of an ordinary carter in the present day; but servitude galled his spirit, and made the work intolerable. Let us hope that his lord was a kind-hearted man, and gave him some cattle for his own, as well as some land to cultivate, and then he would not feel the work so hard, or the winter so cold. Frequently men were thus released from slavery; sometimes also freemen sold themselves into slavery under the pressure of extreme want. A man so reduced was required to lay aside his sword and lance, the symbols of the free, and to take up the bill and the goad, the implements of slavery, to fall on his knees and place his head, in token of submission, under the hands of his master. [Illustration: SMITHY From the Cotton MS., B 4] Each trade was represented in the village community. There were the _faber_, or smith, and the carpenter, who repaired the ironwork and woodwork of the ploughs and other agricultural implements, and in return for their work had small holdings among the tenants free from ordinary services. There was the _punder_, or pound-man, who looked after the repair of the fences and impounded stray cattle; the _cementarius_, or stonemason; the _custos apium_, or bee-keeper, an important person, as much honey was needed to make the sweetened ale, or mead, which the villagers and their chiefs loved to imbibe; and the steward, or _prepositus_, who acted on behalf of the lord, looked after the interests of the tenants, and took care that they rendered their legal services. The surnames Smith, Baker, Butcher, Carter, and many others, preserve the remembrance of the various trades which were carried on in every village, and of the complete self-dependence of the community.