"De hac terra [Longedune] tempore Regis Edwardi tenebant ix liberi homines xviii hidas et secabant uno die in pratis domini sui et faciebant servitium sicut eis precipiebatur." Much would depend on the capital possessed by the free tenant, who might elect to make good any deficiency by corporal labour. The villein had no capital, and was simply an instrument, like the cattle of which he had charge, in the working of the estate. He was bound to the soil with which all his interests were linked; and he was regarded in the light of an investment, in which the lord had a perpetual stake. It was the lord who furnished him with the means of gaining a livelihood, and, in return for this accommodation, the lord demanded from him, and his children after him, lifelong service. From the "Rectitudines Singularum Personarum," an eleventh-century document, we learn that the _cotsetle_, for his holding of about five acres, was required to labour for his lord on one day a week all through the year,[17] and this was known as _week-work_. He had also to give what was called _boon-work_--namely, three days a week in harvest. Another type of unfree tenant was the _gebur_, who held a yardland of some thirty or forty acres, which, upon his entrance, was stocked with two oxen, one cow, six sheep, tools and household utensils. His week-work amounted to two or three days a week, as the season required; in winter, he had "to lie at his lord's fold," when bidden; and he had to contribute his quota of boon-work. Certain payments also had to be made. The first attempt to regulate wages was made in the statute of 12 Richard II., cc. 3-7, the preamble of which affirms that "the servants and labourers will not, nor by a long season would, serve and labour without outrageous and excessive hire, and much more hath been given to such servants and labourers than in any time past, so that for scarcity of the said servants and labourers the husbands and land tenants may not pay their rents nor unnethes live upon their lands, to the great damage and loss as well of their lords as of all the commons; also the hires of the said servants in husbandry have not been put in certainty before this time." The "hires" were now defined, and this act penalized masters who paid labourers at a higher rate than was allowed under it. The scale of wages varied in different reigns. Here we may confine ourselves to the provisions of the statute of 11 Henry VII., which not only determined the maximum payments, but sanctioned reductions on legitimate grounds. Thus regard was had to the current wages in the locality, which the employer was under no obligation to exceed. Less was to be paid at holiday than at other times; and if a man were lazy in the morning or lingered over his meals, he might be mulcted at his master's discretion.