A medieval lord prepared lists of customary rents and services that he was owed and generally bound them together in a book known in England as a custumal. The following excerpt is from the Bleadon Custumal, prepared in Bleadon in southwestern England during the early thirteenth century: It describes the duties of an oxherd who worked on the manors of St. Swithin's Priory in Winchester.

[An oxherd] is ordained by office to keep oxen: He feedeth and nourisheth oxen, and bringeth them to leas [pasture] and home again; and bindeth their feet with landhaldes and spanells-[types of hobbles] and nighteth and cloggeth them while they be in pasture and leas, and yoketh and maketh them draw at the plough; and pricketh the slow with a goad and maketh them draw even. And pleaseth them with whistling and with song...