was almost disregarded by it, households very differently constituted in this respect were assumed to be equal, and the tenacity of custom prevented an increase of rents and labour-services in proportion to the growth of resource and wealth among the peasants. Some attempts to get round these difficulties are noticeable in the surveys: they are mostly connected with the regulation of boon-works. But these exceptional measures give indirect proof of the very insufficient manner in which the question was generally settled. [Stages in the arrangement of duties.] The liabilities of the peasantry take the shape of produce, labour, and money-rents. Almost in every manor all three kinds of impositions are to be found split up into a confusing variety of customary obligations. It is out of the question to trace at the present time, with the help of fragmentary and later material, what the original ideas were which underlie these complicated arrangements. But although a reduction to simple guiding principles accounting for every detail cannot be attempted, it is easy to perceive that chance and fancy were not everything in these matters. The several duties are brought together so as to form a certain whole, and some of the aims pursued in the grouping may be perceived even now. [Farm-system.] The older surveys often show the operation of a system which is adapted by its very essence to a very primitive state of society; it may be called the farm-system, the word _farm_ being used in the original sense of the Saxon _feorm_, food, and not in the later meaning of fixed rent, although these two meanings appear intimately connected in history. The _farm_ is a quantity of produce necessary for the maintenance of the lord's household during a certain period: it may be one night's or week's or one fortnight's farm accordingly. A very good instance of the system may be found in an ancient cartulary of Ramsey, now at the British Museum, which though compiled in the early thirteenth century, constantly refers to the order of Henry II's time. The estates of the abbey were taxed in such a way as to yield thirteen full farms of a fortnight, and each of these was to be used for the maintenance of the monks through a whole month. The extension of the period is odd enough, and we do not see its reason clearly; it followed probably on great losses in property and income at the time of Abbot Walter. However this may be, the thirteen fortnights' farms were made to serve all the year round, and to cover fifty-two weeks instead of twenty-six. A very minute description of the single farm is given as it was paid by the manor of Ayllington (i.e. Elton). Every kind of produce is mentioned: flour and bread, beer and honey, bacon, cheese, lambs, geese, chicken, eggs, butter, &c. The price of each article is mentioned in pence, and it is added, that four pounds have to be paid in money. By the side of the usual farm there appears a 'lent' farm with this distinction, that only