The last item, which also occurs in the services of Boldon, is interesting in connexion with a passage in a letter of Pope Gregory the Great to the Abbot [p072] Mellitus (A.D. 601), in which he requests the Bishop Augustine to be told that, after due consideration of the habits of the English nation, he (the Pope) determines that, 'because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for them on this account, as that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer beasts to the devil, but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating, it being impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds: because he who tries to rise to the highest place rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps.'[98] The villeins of St. Cuthbert's successor are found 500 years after Pope Gregory's advice still, as a portion of their services, yearly putting up the booths for the fairs held in honour of their patron saint--a fact which may help us to realise the tenacity of local custom, and lessen our surprise if we find also that for the origin of other services we must look back for as long a period. XI. THE 'LIBER NIGER' OF PETERBOROUGH ABBEY, A.D. 1125. Fifty or sixty years earlier than the Boldon Book, was compiled the 'Liber Niger'[99] of the monastery of St. Peter de Burgo, the abbey of Peterborough. [p073] This record is remarkably exact and full in its details. Its date is from 1125 to 1128; and its evidence brings up our knowledge of the English manor and serfdom--the open field and its holdings--almost to the threshold of the Domesday Survey, _i.e._ within about 40 years of it. The first entry gives the following information:[100]-- In Kateringes, which is assessed at 10 hides, 40 villani held 40 yard-lands (_virgas terræ_, or virgates), and there were 8 cotsetes, each holding 5 acres. The services were as follows: