The villein retained his customary rights, his house and land and rights of wood and hay, and his right in the common land of his township. Customary ways were maintained. The villeins of a manor elected a reeve to communicate their interests to their lord, usually through a bailiff, who directed the labor. Sometimes there was a steward in charge of several of a lord's manors, who also held the manorial court for the lord. The steward held his land of the lord by serjeanty, which was a specific service to the lord. Other serjeanty services were carrying the lord's shield and arms, finding attendants and esquires for knights, helping in the lord's hunting expeditions, looking after his hounds, bringing fuel, doing carpentry, and forging irons for ploughs. The Woodward preserved the timber. The Messer supervised the harvesting. The Hayward removed any fences from the fields after harvest to allow grazing by cattle and sheep. The Coward, Bullard, and Calvert tended the cows, bulls, and calves; the Shepherd, the sheep; and the Swineherds the pigs. The Ponder impounded stray stock. There were varieties of horses: war horses, riding horses, courier horses, pack horses, and plough horses. The majority of manors were coextensive with a single village. The villeins lived in the village in one-room huts enclosed by a wood fence, hedge, or stone wall. In this yard was a garden of onions, leeks, mustard, peas, beans, parsley, garlic, herbs, and cabbage and apple, pear, cherry, quince, and plum trees, and beehives. The hut had a high-pitched roof thatched with reeds or straw and low eaves reaching almost to the ground. The walls are built of wood-framing overlaid with mud or plaster. Narrow slits in the walls serve as windows, which have shutters and are sometimes covered with coarse cloth. The floor is dirt and may be covered with straw or rushes for warmth, but usually no hearth. In the middle is a wood fire burning on a hearthstone, which was lit by making a spark by striking flint and iron together. The smoke rose through a hole in the roof. At one end of the hut was the family living area, where the family ate on a collapsible trestle table with stools or benches. Their usual food was beans and peas, oatmeal gruel, butter, cheese, vegetables, honey, rough bread made from a mixture of wheat, barley, and rye flour, herrings or other salt fish, and some salted or smoked bacon. Butter had first been used for cooking and as a medicine to cure constipation. For puny children it could be salted down for the winter. The bread had been roasted on the stones of the fire; later there were communal ovens set up in villages. Cooking was done over the fire by boiling in iron pots hung from an iron tripod, or sitting on the hot stones of the fire. They ate from wood bowls using a wood spoon. When they had fresh meat, it could be roasted on a spit. Liquids were heated in a kettle. With drinking horns, they drank water,