What do we call the payment peasants owed for using the lord’s mill or oven?

The story behind the answer

They were the manorial fees charged when peasants used the lord’s monopolized facilities—especially the mill, oven, or winepress. Lords compelled tenants to grind grain or bake bread there and pay either a slice of the output (like multure) or a money fee. By contrast, the tithe went to the Church (about a tenth), merchet was a marriage fee, and heriot was a death duty on a tenant’s best beast.

These dues, called banalités in much of medieval France (from “ban,” the lord’s authority), exemplified how seigneurial power shaped daily life. Avoiding the mill or oven could bring fines, so households factored these charges into subsistence strategies. Resentment of such monopolies fed rural unrest, and they were among the burdens abolished during the French Revolution’s August Decrees of 1789, though versions persisted elsewhere for centuries.