Reeve

The reeve must cause all the hair of the avers to be gathered to make ropes for which he shall have need, and he must cause hemp to be sown in the court to make ropes for the wagons, for harness and other necessary things, and an allowance must be paid for making them if there is anyone in the court who knows how to do so. For repairing houses, walls, hedges, and ditches, if need be an allowance must be paid according to what is right. And the reeve must not buy, sell, receive, or deliver anything unless by tally and good witness. And the reeve must make all the servants of the court when they come for their labor work in the court in threshing corn or making walls or ditches or hedges or other works in the court to save money. And if there is a servant who knows how to do work in the court for which it would be necessary to pay another highly, let him do the work and pay another in his place. The seneschals or head-bailiffs ought to see all purchases and all sales that the provosts or under-bailiffs make to see that they are well made and to the lord's profit. And the seneschals and chief bailiffs who hold court must, immediately after Michaelmas, give up their rolls to the lord or the auditor of the account that they may be able to charge by these rolls the provosts and bailiffs who must account for the purchases of the court throughout the year.And the reeve must answer for the issue of the mares of the court, that is to say, for each mare one foal in the year, and if there be any which has no foal let it be inquired if it be by bad keeping, or want of food, or too hard work, or want of stallion, or because it was barren, that she bore no foal; and if she could have been changed for another in time and it was not done, let him be charged fully for the issue or the value. And if there be any horse or beast dead in the court, let it be inquired if it was for want of keeping or because the bailiff and reeve could have saved it or made any amendment and did not, let them pay it themselves, and if they died by mishap that they could not help, as murrain which falls sometimes on beasts, the reeve must answer for the skins and hides and flesh and issues, and put it to the profit of the lord | as well as he knows or is able. And if there be anything lost in the court or without, or stolen, whether it be live or dead, small or great, where the lord can have any kind of loss, either by fire or any other way, the lord must take (the value) from the reeveand the reeve must take it from those of the court who may be to blame. And make it known that all the servants of the court, men and women, ought to obey the reeve, because he must answer for their doings, and the reeve must put those in the court for whose doings he will be answerable. And the steward must see that the reeve has good pledges for all those in the court who are put there by him, and if the lord receive any damage by the reeve, and the reeve cannot make good the damage, all those of the township who elected him shall make up for him the amount he cannot pay. And if the lord place any parker or messer or granger or other, whoever he be, and the lord receive damage from any of these he places, he must take the value from them, because he put them there, and nothing from the reeve. Make it known that on the manors which are kept by bailiffs they must answer for the manor, just as the reeve renders account even so must he render account for everything, and move and change nothing as the reeve. All those who hold in villeinage on a manor must elect as reeve such a one as they will answer for, for if the lord suffer any loss by the fault of the reeve, and he have not of his own goods the wherewithal to make it good, they shall pay for him the surplus which he cannot pay.