when they were turned on the common fields or wandered in the waste;
also wardens of the woods and fences, often paid by a share in the
profits connected with their charge; for instance, the swineherd of
Glastonbury Abbey received a sucking-pig a year, the interior parts of
the best pig, and the tails of all the others slaughtered.[38] On the
great estates these offices tended to become hereditary, and many
families did treat them as hereditary property, and were a great
nuisance in consequence to their lords. At Glastonbury we find the
chief shepherd so important a person that he was party to an agreement
concerning a considerable quantity of land.[39] There were also on
some manors 'cadaveratores', whose duty was to look into and report on
the losses of cattle and sheep from murrain, a melancholy tale of the
unhealthy conditions of agriculture.

The supervision of the tenants was often incessant and minute.
According to the Court Rolls of the Manor of Manydown in Hampshire,
tenants were brought to book for all kinds of transgressions. The
fines are so numerous that it almost appears that every person on the
estate was amerced from time to time. In 1365 seven tenants were
convicted of having pigs in their lord's crops, one let his horse run
in the growing corn, two had cattle among the peas, four had cattle on
the lord's pasture, three had made default in rent or service, four
were convicted of assault, nine broke the assize of beer, two had
failed to repair their houses or buildings. In all thirty-four were in
trouble out of a population of some sixty families. The account is
eloquent of the irritating restrictions of the manor, and of the
inconveniences of common farming.[40]

It is impossible to compare the receipts of the lord of the manor at
this period with modern rents, or the position of the villein with the