Gainagium, in our ancient writers, signifies the draught-oxen, horses, wain, plough, and furniture, for carrying on the work of tillage by the baser sort of folkmen and villains.

Gainage is the same with what is otherwise called wainage. Bracton, lib. i. cap. 9. speaking of lords and servants, says, Ut si eos defiriant, quod salvi non po- sit ei esse wainagium suum. And again, lib. iii. tract. 2. Gainage cap. i. Villanus non amerciabitur, nisi salvo eodemagio suo.

For ancients, as it appears both by Magna Charta and other books, the villain, when amerced, had his gainage or wainage free; to the end his plough might not stand still: and the law, for the same reason, does still allow alike privilege to the husbandman; that is, his draught-horses are not in many cases disfranchised.

Gainage is also used for the land itself, or the profit raised by cultivating it.