Besides the land regularly used for pasture, the cattle of the village were sent grazing along the roads[566] and in the woods[567]. These last were mostly used for feeding swine. In other respects, also, the wood was subjected to a treatment analogous to that of the pasture land. The right of hunting was, of course, subjected to special regulations, which have to be discussed from the point of view of forest law. But, apart from that right, the wood was managed by the village community according to certain customary rules. Every tenant had a right to fell as many young trees as he wanted to keep his house and his hedges in order[568]. It sometimes happens, that the lord and the homage enter into agreement as to the bigger trees, and for every trunk taken by the lord the tenantry are entitled to take its equivalent[569]. Whenever the right had to be apportioned more or less strictly, the size of the holdings was always the main consideration[570]. It would be strange to my purpose to discuss the details of common of estovers, of turbary[571], or of fishery. The chief points which touch upon the problems of social origins are sufficiently apparent in the subject of pasture. The results of our investigation may, I think, be summed up under the following heads:-- 1. Rights of common are either a consequence of the communal husbandry of the manor, or else they proceed from special agreement or long use. 2. The legal arrangement of commons depends on a customary arrangement, in which free and unfree tenants take equal part[572]. 3. The feudal theory of the lord's grant is insufficient to explain the different aspects assumed by rights of common, and especially the opposition between lord and free commoners. CHAPTER III. RURAL WORK AND RENTS. [Arrangement of work and rent.] Our best means of judging of the daily work in an English village of the thirteenth century is to study the detailed accounts of operations and payments imposed on the tenants for the benefit of a manorial lord. Surveys, extents, or inquisitions were drawn up chiefly for the purpose of settling these duties, and the wealth of material they afford enables us to form a judgment as to several interesting questions. It tells directly of the burden which rural workmen had to bear in the aristocratical structure of society; it gives indirectly an insight into all the ramifications of labour and production since the dues received by the lord were a kind of natural percentage upon all the work of the tenants; the combination of its details into one whole affords many a clue to the social standing and history of the peasant classes of which we have been treating. [Operations:] [Ploughing.]