In the harvest season extra days, known as
"boon-days," were stipulated on which the serf must leave his own work
in order to harvest for the lord. He also might be called upon in
emergencies to draw a cord of wood from the forest to the great manor-
house, or to work upon the highway (_corvee_). (2) The serf had to
pay occasional dues, customarily "in kind." Thus at certain feast-days
he was expected to bring a dozen fat fowls or a bushel of grain to the
pantry of the manor-house. (3) Ovens, wine-presses, gristmills, and
bridges were usually owned solely by the nobleman, and each time the
peasant used them he was obliged to give one of his loaves of bread, a
share of his wine, a bushel of his grain, or a toll-fee, as a kind of
rent, or "banality" as it was euphoniously styled. (4) If the serf died
without heirs, his holdings were transferred outright to the lord, and
if he left heirs, the nobleman had the rights of "heriot," that is, to
appropriate the best animal owned by the deceased peasant, and of
"relief," that is, to oblige the designated heir to make a definite
additional payment that was equivalent to a kind of inheritance tax.
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