Much has been written in recent years about the community in medieval and early modern England. It has been seen, on the one hand, as a homogeneous group co-operating in the arduous business of living; on the other, as a group differing in wealth and status and torn by its internal feuds. The term ‘community’, it has been said, is devoid of precise meaning and is better avoided. Nevertheless, it is difficult to find another word to designate the group of people accidentally thrown together in parish or vill. The village was a structured institution. From Saxon times it had been made up of free men and bondmen, and among the latter there were ‘degrees of unfreedom’. Bondage disappeared in the later Middle Ages, and in its place came an increasing range of wealth, with rich peasants approximating the gentry and, at the bottom of the social ladder, the landless labourers who scarcely lived above subsistence level. Such were the men who were called upon to share amongst themselves the burdens of running their village affairs, apportioning their tax obligations, organising ploughing and commoning routines, raising money for their church, and, no doubt, presenting a common front to their lord.