(that is, related to her through godparenthood), had requested it.31 At the lowest levels of delegation, the vicarious exercise of lordship rights was a matter of sharing responsibility among the family or the household, or was a part of the everyday exchange of reciprocal assistance among acquaintances.
Official activities could also be performed for a share in the accompanying earnings by people who were neither especially familiar with their direct employer nor aware of the legal basis of his assignment. In a witness deposition from 1413 about the tithe in Vernaz near Apples, two different witnesses affirmed that, years ago, they had collected sheaves on behalf of Ludovicus Rat without knowing on behalf of which lordship he had hired them.32 Perhaps they did not want to know. But for assistants at this level, the person to whom the proceeds of the tithe ultimately went would in fact have been of secondary importance.33 The less glamorous duties that accompanied lordship rights were even more often assigned as contract work. A witness deposition from 1396 investigated which lordship was responsible for judging claims to the skins of animals that had died along the road in different villages, which served as an indicator of the practice of higher judicial rights. Most witnesses who had taken animal skins to a lordly headquarters were not actual officeholders but rather had taken on this assignment as contract labor. Thus Borcardus Rocual saw to the dead horse of a German-speaking man who was passing through the area. He had already received eighteen pennies and some wine for skinning the animal. Then he brought the pelt to the local official, the maior of the lords of Oron, who instructed him to take it to the lord’s castle. There he was served a memorable meal in the entrance hall. When Cuanetus de Perla brought to the castle the pelt of an ox that had broken its leg on the bridge, the lordship offered to sell it to him at a reduced price.34
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