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THE THREE O RDERS 95 The Third Order: Peasants, Free and Unfree Let us now turn to the vast majority of people, namely, those who sustained the first two orders. Cultivators were of two kinds: free peasants and serfs (from the verb ‘to serve’). Free peasants held their farms as tenants of the lord. The men had to render military service (at least forty days every year). Peasant families had to set aside certain days of the week, usually three but often more, when they would go to the lord’s estate and work there. The output from such labour, called labour-rent, would go directly to the lord. In addition, they could be required to do other unpaid labour services, like digging ditches, gathering firewood, building fences and repairing roads and buildings. Besides helping in the fields, women and children had to do other tasks. They spun thread, wove cloth, made candles and pressed grapes to prepare wine for the lord’s use. There was one direct tax called ‘taille’ that kings sometimes imposed on peasants (the clergy and nobles were exempted from paying this). Serfs cultivated plots of land, but these belonged to the lord. Much of the produce from this had to be given to the lord. They also had to work on the land which belonged exclusively to the lord. They received no wages and could not leave the estate without the lord’s An English permission. The lord claimed a number of monopolies at the expense ploughman, sixteenth- of his serfs. Serfs could use only their lord’s mill to grind their flour,entury sketch. his oven to bake their bread, and his wine-presses to distil wine and beer. The lord could decide whom a serf should marry, or might give his blessing to the serf’s choice, but on payment of a fee. England Feudalism developed in England from the eleventh century. The Angles and Saxons, from central Europe, had settled in England in the sixth century. The country’s name, England, is a variant of ‘Angle-land’. In the eleventh century, William, the Duke of *The present Queen of England is Normandy*, crossed the English Channel with an army and defeated descended from the Saxon king of England. From this time, France and England William I. were often at war because of disputes over territory and trade. Reprint 2026-27