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Kitabı oku: «Villainage in England: Essays in English Mediaeval History», sayfa 11

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CHAPTER VI.
FREE PEASANTRY

I hope the heading of this chapter may not be misunderstood. It would be difficult to speak of free peasantry in the modern sense at the time with which we are now dealing. Some kind or form of dependence often clings even to those who occupy the best place among villagers as recognised free tenants, and in most cases we have a very strong infusion of subjection in the life of otherwise privileged peasants. But if we keep to the main distinctions, and to the contrast which the authorities themselves draw between the component elements of the peasant class, its great bulk will arrange itself into two groups: the larger one will consist of those ordinarily designated as villains; a smaller, but by no means an insignificant or scanty one, will present itself as free, more or less protected by law, and more or less independent of the bidding of the lord and his steward. There is no break between the two groups; one status runs continuously into the other, and it may be difficult to distinguish between the intermediate shades; but the fundamental difference of conception is clearly noticeable as soon as we come to look at the whole, and it is not only noticeable to us but was noticed by the contemporary documents.

General condition of England.

In very many cases we are actually enabled to see how freedom and legal security gradually emerge from subjection. One of the great movements in the social life of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is the movement towards the commutation of services for money rents. In every survey we find a certain number of persons who now pay money, whereas they used to do work, and who have thus emancipated themselves from the most onerous form of subjection369. In the older documents it is commonly specified that the lord may revert to the old system, give up the rents, and enforce the services370. In later documents this provision disappears, having become obsolete, and there is only a mention of certain sums of money. The whole process, which has left such distinct traces in the authorities, is easily explained by England's economic condition at that time. Two important factors co-operated to give the country an exceptionally privileged position. England was the only country in Europe with a firmly constituted government. The Norman Conquest had powerfully worked in the sense of social feudalism, but it had arrested the disruptive tendencies of political feudalism. The opposition between the two races, the necessity for both to keep together, the complexity of political questions which arose from conquest and settlement on the one hand, from the intercourse with Normandy and France on the other,—all these agencies working together account for a remarkable intensity of action on the part of the centripetal forces of society, if I may use the expression: there was in England a constant tendency towards the concentration and organisation of political power in sharp contrast with the rest of Europe where the state had fallen a prey to local and private interests. One of the external results of such a condition was the growth of a royal power supported by the sympathy of the lower English-born classes, but arranging society by the help of Norman principles of fiscal administration. Not less momentous was the formation of an aristocracy which was compelled to act as a class instead of acting as a mere collection of individuals each striving for his own particular advantage; as a class it had to reckon with, and sometimes represent, the interests and requirements of other classes. In all these respects England was much ahead of Germany, where tribal divisions were more powerful than national unity, and the state had to form itself on feudal foundations in opposition to a cosmopolitan Imperial power; it was not less in advance of France, where the work of unification, egotistically undertaken by the king, had hardly begun to get the upper hand in its conflict with local dynasties; not less in advance of Italy, so well situated for economic progress, but politically wrecked by its unhappy connexion with Germany, the anti-national influence of the Papacy, and the one-sided development of municipal institutions. By reason of its political advantages England had the start of other European countries by a whole century and even by two centuries. The 'silver streak' acted already as a protection against foreign inroads, the existence of a central power insured civil order, intercourse between the different parts of the island opened outlets to trade, and reacted favourably on the exchange of commodities and the circulation of money.

Another set of causes operated in close alliance with these political influences. The position of England in relation to the European market was from the first an advantageous one. Besides the natural development of seafaring pursuits which lead to international trade, and always tend to quicken the economic progress, there were two special reasons to account for a speedy movement in the new direction: the woollen trade with Flanders begins to rise in the twelfth century, and this is the most important commercial feature in the life of North-Western Europe; then again, the possession of Normandy and the occupation of Aquitaine and other provinces of France by the English opened markets and roads for a very brisk commercial intercourse with the Continent. As an outcome of all these political and economical conditions we find the England of the thirteenth century undoubtedly moving from natural husbandry to the money-system.

Commutation.

The consequences are to be seen on every side in the arrangements of state and society. The means of government were modified by the economic change. Hired troops took the place of feudal levies; kings easily renounced the military service of their tenants and took scutages which give them the means of keeping submissive and well-drilled soldiers. The same process took place all through the country on the land of secular and ecclesiastical lords. They all preferred taking money which is so readily spent and so easy to keep, which may transform itself equally well into gorgeous pageants and into capital for carrying on work, instead of exacting old-fashioned unwieldly ploughings and reapings or equally clumsy rents in kind.

On the other hand, the peasants were equally anxious to get out of the customary system: through its organisation of labour it involved necessarily many annoyances, petty exactions and coercion; it involved a great waste of time and energy. The landlord gained by the change, because he received an economic instrument of greater efficiency; the peasant gained because he got rid of personal subjection to control; both gained; for a whole system of administration, a whole class of administrators, stewards, bailiffs, reeves, a whole mass of cumbrous accounts and archaic procedure became unnecessary.

In reality the peasantry gained much more than the lord. Just because money rents displaced the ploughings and reapings very gradually, they assumed the most important characteristic of these latter—their customary uniformity; tradition kept them at a certain level which it was very difficult to disturb, even when the interests of the lord and the conditions of the time had altered a great deal. Prices fluctuate and rise gradually, the buying strength of money gets lowered little by little, but customary rents remain much the same as they were before. Thus in process of time the balance gets altered for the benefit of the rent payer. I do not mean to say that such views and such facts were in full operation from the very beginning: one of the chief reasons for holding the Glastonbury inquest of 1189 was the wish to ascertain whether the rents actually corresponded to the value of the plots, and to make the necessary modifications. But such fresh assessments were very rare, it was difficult to carry them into practice, and the general tendency was distinctly towards a stability of customary rents.

Social results of commutation.

The whole process has a social and not merely an economical meaning. Commutation, even when it was restricted to agricultural services, certainly tended to weaken the hold of the lord on his men. Personal interference was excluded by it, the manorial relation resolved itself into a practice of paying certain dues once or several times a year; the peasant ceased to be a tool in the husbandry arrangements of his master. The change made itself especially felt when the commutation took place in regard to entire villages371: the new arrangement developed into the custom of a locality, and gathered strength by the number of individuals concerned in it, and the cohesion of the group. In order not to lose all power in such a township, the lords usually reserved some cases for special interference and stipulated that some services should still be rendered in kind372.

Again, the conversion of services into rents did not always present itself merely in the form just described: it was not always effected by the mere will of the lord, without any legally binding acts. Commutation gave rise to actual agreements which came more or less under the notice of the law. We constantly find in the Hundred Rolls and in the Cartularies that villains are holding land by written covenant. In this case they always pay rent. Sometimes a villain, or a whole township, gets emancipated from certain duties by charter373, and the infringement of such an instrument would have given the villains a standing ground for pleading against the lord. It happened from time to time that bondmen took advantage of such deeds to claim their liberty, and to prove that the lord had entered into agreement with them as with free people374. To prevent such misconstruction the lord very often guards expressly against it, and inserts a provision to say that the agreement is not to be construed against his rights and in favour of personal freedom375.

Molmen.

The influence of commutation makes itself felt in the growth of a number of social groups which arrange themselves between the free and the servile tenantry without fitting exactly into either class. Our manorial authorities often mention mol-land and mol-men376. The description of their obligations always points one way: they are rent-paying tenants who may be bound to some extra work, but who are very definitely distinguished from the 'custumarii,' the great mass of peasants who render labour services377. Kentish documents use 'mala' or 'mal' for a particular species of rent, and explain the term as a payment in commutation of servile customs378. In this sense it is sometimes opposed to gafol or gable—the old Saxon rent in money or in kind, this last being considered as having been laid on the holding from all time, and not as the result of a commutation379. Etymologically there is reason to believe that the term mal is of Danish origin380, and the meaning has been kept in practice by the Scotch dialect381. What immediately concerns our present purpose is, that the word mal-men or mol-men is commonly used in the feudal period for villains who have been released from most of their services by the lord on condition of paying certain rents.Improvement of condition. Legally they ought to remain in their former condition, because no formal emancipation has taken place; but the economical change reacts on their status, and the manorial documents show clearly how the whole class gradually gathers importance and obtains a firmer footing than was strictly consistent with its servile origin382.

In the Bury St. Edmund's case just quoted in a foot-note the fundamental principle of servility is stated emphatically, but the statement was occasioned by gradual encroachments on the part of the molmen, who were evidently becoming hardly distinguishable from freeholders383. And in many Cartularies we find these molmen actually enumerated with the freeholders, a very striking fact, because the clear interest of the lord was to keep the two classes asunder, and the process of making a manorial 'extent' and classifying the tenants must have been under his control. As a matter of fact, the village juries were independent enough to make their presentments more in accordance with custom than in accordance with the lord's interests. In a transcript of a register of the priory of Eye in Suffolk, which seems to have been compiled at the time of Edward I, the molmen are distinguished from villains in a very remarkable manner as regards the rule of inheritance, Borough English being considered as the servile mode, while primogeniture is restricted to those holding mol-land384. Borough English was very widely held in medieval England to imply servile occupation of land385, and the privilege enjoyed by molmen in this case shows that they were actually rising above the general condition of villainage, the economical peculiarities of their position affording a stepping-stone, as it were, towards the improvement of their legal status. It is especially to be noticed, that in this instance we have to reckon with a material difference of custom, and not merely with a vacillating terminology or a general and indefinite improvement in position. An interesting attempt at an accurate classification of this and other kinds of tenantry is displayed by an inquisition of 19 Edward I preserved at the Record Office. The following subdivisions are enumerated therein:—

 
Liberi tenentes per cartam.
Liberi tenentes qui vocantur fresokemen.
Sokemanni qui vocantur molmen.
Custumarii qui vocantur werkmen.
Consuetudinarii tenentes 4 acras terre.
Consuetudinarii tenentes 2 acras terre386.
 

The difference between molmen and workmen lies, of course, in the fact that the first pay rent and the second perform week-work. But what is more, the molmen are ranged among the sokemen, and this supposes a certainty of tenure and service not enjoyed by the villains. In this way the intermediate class, though of servile origin, connects itself with the free tenantry.

Censuarii and gavelmen.

The same group appears in manorial documents under the name of censuarii387. Both terms interchange, and we find the same fluctuation between free and servile condition in regard to the censuarii as in regard to molmen. The thirteenth-century extent of the manor of Broughton, belonging to the Abbey of Ramsey in Huntingdonshire, when compared with Domesday, shows clearly the origin of the group and the progress which the peasantry had made in two hundred years. The Domesday description mentions ten sokemen and twenty villains; the thirteenth-century Cartulary speaks in one place of liberi and villani, sets out the services due from the latter, but says that the Abbot can 'ponere omnia opera ad censum;' while in another place it speaks as though the whole were held by liberi et censuarii388.

A similar condition is indicated by the term gavelmanni, which occurs sometimes, although not so often as either of the designations just mentioned389. It comes evidently from gafol or gafel, and applies to rent-paying people. It ought to be noticed, however, that if we follow the distinction suggested by the Kentish documents, there would be an important difference in the meaning. Rent need not always appear as a result of commutation; it may be an original incident of the tenure, and there are facts enough to show that lands were held by rent in opposition to service even in early Saxon time. Should mal be taken as a commutation rent, and gafol strictly in the sense of original rent, the gavelmen would present an interesting variation of social grouping as the progeny of ancient rent-holding peasantry. I do not think, however, that we are entitled to press terminological distinctions so closely in the feudal period, and I should never enter a protest against the assumption that most gavelmen were distinguished from molmen only by name, and in fact originated in the same process of commutation. But, granting this, we have to grant something else. Vice versa, it is very probable indeed that the groups of censuarii and molmen are not to be taken exclusively as the outcome of commutation. If gafol gets to be rather indistinct in its meaning, so does mal, and as to census, there is nothing to show whether it arises in consequence of commutation or of original agreement. And so the Kentish distinction, even if not carried out systematically, opens a prospect which may modify considerably the characteristic of the status on which I have been insisting till now. Commutation was undoubtedly a most powerful agency in the process of emancipation; our authorities are very ready to supply us with material in regard to its working, and I do not think that anybody will dispute the intimate connexion between the social divisions under discussion and the transition from labour services to rent. Yet a money rent need not be in every case the result of a commutation of labour services, although such may be its origin in most cases. We have at least to admit the possibility and probability of another pedigree of rent-paying peasants. They may come from an old stock of people whose immemorial custom has been to pay rent in money or in kind, and who have always remained more or less free from base labour. This we should have to consider as at all events a theoretic possibility, even if we restricted our study to the terminology connected with rent; though it would hardly give sufficient footing for definite conclusions. But there are groups among the peasantry whose history is less doubtful.

Hundredarii.

There are at the British Museum two most curious Surveys of the possessions of Ely Minster, one drawn up in 1222 and the other in 1277390. In some of the manors described we find tenants called 'hundredarii.' Their duties vary a good deal, but the peculiarity which groups them into a special division and gives them their name is the suit of court they owe to the hundred391. And although the name does not occur often even in the Ely Surveys, and is very rare indeed elsewhere392, the thing is quite common. The village has to be represented in the hundred court either by the lord of the manor, or by the steward, or by the reeve, the priest, and four men393. The same people have to attend the County Court and to meet the King's justices when they are holding an eyre394. It is not a necessary consequence, of course, that certain particular holdings should be burdened with the special duty of sending representatives to these meetings, but it is quite in keeping with the general tendency of the time that it should be so; and indeed one finds everywhere that some of the tenants, even if not called 'hundredarii,' are singled out from the rest to 'defend' the township at hundred and shire moots395. They are exempted from other services in regard to this 'external,' this 'forinsec' duty, which was considered as by no means a light one396.

Hundredors as villains.

And now as to their status. The obligation to send the reeve and four men is enforced all through England, and for this reason it is prima facie impossible that it should be performed everywhere by freeholders in the usual sense of the word. There can be no doubt that in many, if not in most, places the feudal organisation of society afforded little room for a considerable class of freeholding peasants or yeomen397. If every township in the realm had to attend particular judicial meetings, to perform service for the king, by means of five representatives, these could not but be selected largely from among the villain class. The part played by these representatives in the Courts was entirely in keeping with their subordinate position. They were not reckoned among the 'free and lawful' men acting as judges or assessors and deciding the questions at issue. They had only to make presentments and to give testimony on oath when required to do so. The opposition is a very marked one, and speaks of itself against the assumption that the five men from the township were on an equal standing with the freeholders398. Again, four of these five were in many cases especially bound by their tenure to attend the meetings, and the reeve came by virtue of his office, but he is named first, and it does not seem likely that the leader should be considered as of lower degree than the followers. Now the obligation to serve as reeve was taken as a mark of villainage. All these facts lead one forcibly to the conclusion that the hundredors of our documents represent the village people at large, and the villains first of all, because this class was most numerous in the village. This does not mean, of course, that they were all personally unfree: we know already, that the law of tenure was of more importance in such questions than personal status399. It does not even mean that the hundredors were necessarily holding in villainage: small freeholders may have appeared among them. But the institution could not rest on the basis of legal freehold if it was to represent the great bulk of the peasantry in the townships.

Hundredors as free tenants.

This seems obvious and definite enough, but our inquiry would be incomplete and misleading if it were to stop here. We have in this instance one of those curious contradictions between two well-established sets of facts which are especially precious to the investigator because they lead him while seeking their solution to inferences far beyond the material under immediate examination. In one sense the reeve and the four men, the hundredors, seem villains and not freeholders. In another they seem freeholders and not villains. Their tenure by the 'sergeanty' of attending hundreds and shires ranks again and again with freehold and in opposition to base tenure400. Originally the four men were made to go not only with the reeve but with the priest; and if the reeve was considered in feudal times as unfree, the priest, the 'mass-thane,' was always considered as free401. It is to be noticed that the attendance of the priest fell into abeyance in process of time, but that it was not less necessary for the representation of the township according to the ancient constitution of the hundred than the attendance of the reeve. This last fact is of great importance because it excludes an explanation which would otherwise look plausible enough. Does it not seem at first sight that the case of the hundredors is simply a case of exemption and exactly on a parallel with the commutation of servile obligations for money? We have seen that villains discharged from the most onerous and opprobrious duties of their class rise at once in social standing, and mix up with the smaller freeholders. Hundredors are relieved from these same base services in order that they may perform their special work, and this may possibly be taken as the origin of their freedom. Should we look at the facts in this way, the classification of this class of tenants as free would proceed from a lax use of the term and their privileges would have to be regarded as an innovation. The presence of the priest warns us that we have to reckon in the case with a survival, with an element of tradition and not of mere innovation. And it is not only the presence of the priest that points this way.

The Hundred Courts.

At first sight the line seems drawn very sharply between the reeve and the four men on the one hand, and the freehold suitors of the hundred court on the other: while these last have to judge and to decide, the first only make presentments. But the distinction, though very clear in later times, is by no means to be relied upon even in the thirteenth century. In Britton's account of the sheriff's tourn the two bodies, though provided with different functions, are taken as constituted from the same class: 'the free landowners of the hundred are summoned and the first step is to cause twelve of them to swear that they will make presentment according to the articles. Afterwards the rest shall be sworn by dozens and by townships, that they will make lawful presentment to the first twelve jurors402.' The wording of the passage certainly leads one to suppose that both sets of jurors are taken from the freeholder class, and the difference only lies in the fact that some are selected to act as individuals, and the rest to do so by representation. The Assize of Clarendon, which Mr. Maitland has shown to be at the origin of the sheriff's tourn403, will only strengthen the inference that the two bodies were intended to belong to the same free class: the inquiry, says the Assize, shall be made by twelve of the most lawful men of the county, and by four of the most lawful men of every township. What is there in these words to show that the two sets were to be taken from different classes? And does not the expression 'lawful,' extending to both sets, point to people who are 'worthy of their law,' that is to free men? The Assize of Clarendon and the constitution of the tourn are especially interesting because they give a new bearing to an old institution: both divisions of the population which they have in view appear in the ordinary hundred and county court, and in the 'law day' of the 'great' hundred instituted for the view of frankpledge. In the ordinary court the lord, his steward, and the reeve, priest, and four men, interchange, according to the clear statement of Leg. Henrici I. c. 7, that is to say, the vill is to be represented either by the lord, or by his steward, or again by the six men just mentioned. They are not called out as representing different classes and interests, but as representing the same territorial unity. If the landlord does not attend personally or by his personal representative, the steward, then six men from the township attend in his place. The question arises naturally, where is one to look for the small freeholders in the enactment? However much we may restrict their probable number, their existence cannot be simply denied or disregarded. It does not seem likely that they were treated as landlords (terrarum domini), and one can hardly escape the inference that they are included in the population of the township, which appears through the medium of the six hundredors: another hint that the class division underlying the whole structure did not coincide with the feudal opposition between freeholder and villain. Again, in the great hundred for the view of frankpledge, which is distinguished from the ordinary hundred by fuller attendance, and not by any fundamental difference in constitution, all men are to appear who are 'free and worthy of their wer and their wite404:' this expression seems an equivalent to the 'free and lawful' men of other cases, and at the same time it includes distinctly the great bulk of the villain population as personally free.

Results as to hundredors.

I have not been able, in the present instance, to keep clear of the evidence belonging to the intermediate period between the Saxon and the feudal arrangements of society; this deviation from the general rule, according to which such evidence is to be discussed separately and in connexion with the Conquest, was unavoidable in our case, because it is only in the light of the laws of Henry I that some important feudal facts can be understood. In a trial as to suit of court between the Abbot of Glastonbury and two lay lords, the defendants plead that they are bound to appear at the Abbot's hundred court personally or by attorney only on the two law-days, whereas for the judgment of thieves their freemen, their reeves and ministers have to attend in order to take part in the judgment405. It is clearly a case of substitution, like the one mentioned in Leg. Henrici, c. 7, and the point is, that the representatives of the fee are designated as reeves and freemen. Altogether the two contradictory aspects in which the hundredors are made to appear can hardly be explained otherwise than on the assumption of a fluctuation between the conception of the hundred as of an assembly of freemen, and its treatment under the influence of feudal notions as to social divisions. In one sense the hundredors are villains: they come from the vill, represent the bulk of its population, which consists of villains, and are gradually put on a different footing from the greater people present. In another sense they are free men, and even treated as freeholders, because they form part of a communal institution intended to include the free class and to exclude the servile class406. If society had been arranged consistently on the feudal basis, there would have been no room for the representation of the vill instead of the manor, for the representation of the vill now by the lord and now by a deputation of peasants, for a terminology which appears to confuse or else to neglect the distinction between free and servile holding. As it is, the intricate constitution of the hundred, although largely modified and differentiated by later law, although cut up as it were by the feudal principle of territorial service, looks still in the main as an organisation based on the freedom of the mass of the people407. The free people had to attend virtually, if not actually, and a series of contradictions sprang up from the attempt to apply this principle to a legal state which had almost eliminated the notion of freedom in its treatment of peasantry on villain land. As in these feudal relations all stress lay on tenure and not on status, the manorial documents seem to raise the hundredors almost or quite to the rank of freeholders, although in strict law they may have been villains. The net results seem to be: (1) that the administrative constitution of hundred and county is derived from a social system which did not recognise the feudal opposition between freeholder and villain; (2) that we must look upon feudal villainage as representing to a large extent a population originally free; (3) that this original freedom was not simply one of personal status, but actually influenced the conception of tenure even in later days408.

369.Rot. Hundred. ii. 528, b: 'Et modo omnia illa arrentata sunt et dant per annum 14 sol. 8 d.'
370.Exch. Q.R. Min. Acc., Bundle 510, No. 13: 'Et solebant facere servicia consueta, sed per voluntatem et ad placitum domini extenta sunt in denariis.' Cf. Abingdon Cartulary, ii. 303. Rot. Hundred. ii. 453, a: 'Omnes isti prenominati nomine villenagii sunt ad voluntatem domini de operibus eorundem,' Cf. Ibid. 407, b.
371.Worcester Cartulary (Camden Series), 54, b: 'Haec villa tradita est ab antiquo villanis ad firmam, ad placitum cum omnibus ad nos pertinentibus.' Cf. Gloucester Cartulary, iii. 37.
372.Worcester Cartulary (Camden Series), l. c.: 'Praeterea percipimus medietatem proventuum et herietum, praeterea debent metere, ligare et compostare bladum de antiquo dominico de Hordewell … et gersummabunt filias.'
373.Glastonbury Cartulary, Bodleian MSS., Wood, i., f. 241, a: 'Jocelynus dei gratia Bathoniensis episcopus.... Noveritis nos quietos clamasse omnes homines abbatie Glastonie de Winterburne in perpetuam de arruris et aliis operacionibus quas facere debebant castro Marleberghe de terra de Winterburne, quos homines nostros Henricus illustris rex Anglie nobis concessit.'
374.Wartrey Priory Cartulary, Fairfax MSS. f. 19, a: 'Et Adam dicit quod predictus Prior villenagium in persona ipsius Ade allegare non potest quia dicit quod dudum convenit inter quemdam Johannem dudum priorem de Wartre … et quendam Henricum de W … patrem ipsius Ade videlicet quod isdem Prior … per quoddam scriptum indenturam concesserunt Henrico … quoddam toftum simul cum duabus bovatis terre.'
375.Malmesbury Cartulary (Rolls Series), ii. 199: 'Nos tradidisse … Roberto le H. de K. et Helenae uxori suae, et Agneti filiae eorum primogenitae nativis nostris, omnibus diebus vitae eorum, unam domum. Ita quod non licet praedicto Roberto alicui vendere nec occasione istius traditionis aliquam libertatem ipsis vendicare.'
376.As to molmen, I shall follow in substance my article in the English Historical Review, 1886, IV. p. 734. We already find the class in Cartularies of the twelfth century, in the Burton Cartulary, and in the Boldon Book. See Round in the English Historical Review, 1886, V. 103, and Stevenson, ibidem, VI. 332.
377.Any number of examples might be given. I referred in my article to a Record Office document, Exch. Treas, of Rec. Min. Acc. 32/8: 'Rogerus prepositus tenet 28 acras pro 13 solidis solvendis ad 4 terminos principales. Et dat 2 gallinas at Natale domini de precio 3 den., et 18 ova ad Pascham, et debet 2 homines ad 2 precarias ad cibum domini et non extenduntur eo quod nihil dabunt in argento si servicium illud dominus habere noluerit. Item idem adiuvabit leuare fenum ad precariam domini quod nihil valet ut supra. Item idem faciet 2 averagia Londinium que valent 2 d. … Custumarii. Johannes Cowe tenet 13 acras et dimidiam pro 27 d.... Et debet 3 opera qualibet septimana, scilicet per 44 septimanas videlicet a festo Natali beate Marie usque ad gulam Augusti que continet in operibus per predictum tempus vixxxii (i.e. 132) et valet in denariis 5 sol.' etc.
378.Black Book of St. Augustine, Canterbury, Cotton MSS. Faustina, A. i. 31: 'De quolibet sullung (ploughland) 20 solidos de mala ad quatuor terminos quos antecessores nostri dederunt pro omnibus iniustis et incausacionibus (sic) quas uobis ore plenius exponemus.'
379.Rochester Costumal (ed. Thorpe), 2, b: 'F. habet 21 jugum terre te Gavelland unius servicii et unius redditus. Unumquodque jugum reddit 10 solidos ad 4 terminos—hoc est Mal. In media quadragesima 40 d. Hoc est Gable.' The Cartulary of Christ Church, Canterbury, in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 6159) always gives the rents under the two different headings of Gafol and Mal.
380.The etymology of the word is traced by Stevenson, l. c.
381.Ashley, Economic History, i. pp. 56, 57.
382.Registrum Album Abbatiae Sancti Edmundi de Burgo, Cambridge University, Ee. iii. 60 f.; 188, b: 'Memorandum quod anno regni Regis Edwardi filii Regis Henrici 18—dominus Johannes de Norwold abbas Sti. Edmundi ad ulteriores portas manerii sui de Herlawe, ad instanciam Cecilie le Grete de Herlawe hereditatem suam de mollond infra campum dicte ville jacentem post mortem viri sui a pluribus tenentibus Abbatis petentis coram eodem Abbate, eo pretextu quod vir suus adventicius dictam hereditatem suam ipsa invita vendidit et alienauit, per subscriptos inquisivit, utrum ipse seu alii quicumque infra villam predictam mollond tenentes libere tenuerunt seu tenent, et per cartas aut alio modo.... Qui omnes et singuli jurati dixerunt per sacramentum suum quod omnes tenentes de molland solebant esse custumarii et fuerunt, sed Abbas Hugo primus et Abbas Sampson posterum et alii Abbates relaxarunt eis seruicia maiora et consuetudines pro certa pecunia; modo arentati in aliquibus operibus ceteris, sed nihil habent inde nec tenent per cartas, sed per virgam in curia. Et sunt geldabiles in omnibus inter custumarios et quod omnes sunt custumarie et servilis condicionis sicut et alii.'
383.Exch. Treas. of Rec. 59/66. The classes follow each other in this way: 'Liberi tenentes, Molmen, Custumarii.' Cf. Rot. Hundred, ii. 425, a.
384.Harl. MSS. 639, f. 69, b: 'Inquisicio facta per totam socam de Badefeud dicit quod si aliquis servus domini moritur et plures habuerit filios, si tota terra fuerit mollond primogenitus de iure et consuetudine debet eam retinere; si tota fuerit villana iunior; si maior pars fuerit mollond primogenitus, is maior pars fuerit villana iunior eam optinebit.'
385.I cannot surrender this point (cf. Stevenson, l. c.). That Borough English existed in many free boroughs and among free sokemen is true, of course, and there it had nothing to do with servile status. It would have been wrong to treat the custom of inheritance as a sure test from a general point of view. But as a matter of fact it was treated as such a test from a local point of view by many, if not most, manorial arrangements. I refer again to the case from the Note-book of Bracton, pl. 1062. The lord is adducing as proof of a plea of villainage: 'Hoc bene patet, quia postnatus filius semper habuit terram patris sui sicut alii villani de patria.' I have said already that the succession of the youngest son appears with merchet, reeveship, etc., as a servile custom.
386.Q.R. Min. Acc. Box 587.
387.Ramsey Cartulary (Rolls Series), i. 267: 'Decem hidae, ex quibus persona, liberi et censuarii tenent tres hidas et dimidiam, et villani tenent sex hidas.'
388.Domesday Book, i. 204; Ramsey Cartulary, i. 270, 330-40.
389.Rochester Cartulary (Thorpe), 2, a: 'Gavelmanni de Suthflete.'
390.Cotton MSS. Tiberius B. ii, and Claudius C. xi.
391
  Cotton MSS. Claudius C. xi, f. 49, a: 'De hundredariis et libere tenentibus. Philippus de insula tenet 16 acras de wara et debet sectas ad curiam Elyensem et ad curiam de Wilburtone et in quolibet hundredo per totum annum,' etc. For a more detailed discussion of the position of hundredors, see Appendix.


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392.In the description of Aston and Cote, a submanor of Bampton, Oxfordshire, hundredarii are mentioned in Rot. Hundr. ii. 689.
393.Leg. Henrici I, c. 7. The point has been lately elucidated by Maitland, Suitors of the County Court, Eng. Hist. Rev., July 1888, and Round, Archaeological Review, iv.
394.Gloucester Cart. iii. 193: 'Et dicunt quod predictus Thomas et socii sui subscripti debent aquietare villam de quolibet hundredo Cyrencestriae et de Respethate praeterquam ad visum franciplegii bis in anno.' Ramsey Inqu., Cotton MSS. Galba E. x, 35: 'Sequebatur comitatum et hundredum pro dominico abbatis.' Madox, Hist. of the Exchequer, i. 74: 'Serviet eis nominatim in omnibus placitis ad quae convenienter summonitus erit et ad defensionem totius villae Estone aderit in hundredis et scyris in quibus erit quantum poterit.' Warwickshire Hundr. Roll, Q.R. Misc. Books, No. 29, f. 73, a: 'Seriancia ad comitatum et hundredum.'
395.Ramsey Cart. i. 438: 'J.R. tenet dimidiam hydam de veteri feoffamento et non reddit per annum aliquem censum abbati, quia est una de quattuor virgatis quae defendunt totam villatam de secta comitatus et hundredi per annum.'
396.Gloucester Cart. iii. 77: 'Henricus de Marwent tenet unam virgatam continentem 48 acras … et facit forinseca [servitia], scil. sectas comitatus et hundredi, et alia forinseca.' Cf. Cart. of Shaftesbury, 65. '… defendebat terram suam de omnibus forinsecis avencionibus.'
397.Seebohm, Village Community, 37, 38; Scrutton, Common Fields, 39.
398.See the instances collected by Maitland, Introduction to Rolls of Manorial Courts, Selden Soc., Ser. II, p. xxix, note 2.
399.Maitland, op. c.
400.A few instances among many: Gloucester Cart. iii. 49: 'Radulfus de E. tenet unam virgatam terrae continentem 48 acras et reddit inde per annum non reditum aliquem, sed sequetur comitatum Warwici et hundredum de Kingtone pro domino, et curiam de Clifforde pro omni servitio.' There are four other 'virgatarii liberi' besides this one. Domesday of St. Paul's (Camden Soc.), 30: 'Thomas arkarius (tenet) iv virgatas pro 28 solidis et debet facere sectam sire et hundredi.' He is a freeholder. Worcester Cart. (Camden Soc.), 64, C: 'De liberis Ricardus de Salford tenet dimidiam hidam de priore, quam Thomas de Ruppe tenuit de eo, et facit regale servitium tantum, et debet esse coram justiciariis itinerantibus pro defensione villae ad custum suum.' The Ely 'hundredarii' are distinguished from the villains, and form by themselves a group which ranks next to the 'libere tenentes' or with them.
401.Ramsey, Inqu. Cotton MSS. Galba, E. x, f. 52: 'Ecclesia ipsius ville possidet dimidiam hidam liberam et presbiter debet esse quartus eorum qui sequuntur comitatum et hundredum cum custamento suo.' Cf. 40, 54. Instead of attending separately the priest comes to be included among the four hundredors.
402.Britton, i. 177 sqq. See Maitland's Introd. to Manorial Rolls, p. xxvii.
403.Maitland, op. c. pp. xxix, xxx.
404.Leg. Henrici I. c. 8.; Cf. Ely Register, Cotton MSS., Claudius, C. xi, 52, a: 'et libere tenentes sui qui tenent per socagium debent unam sectam ad frendlese hundred, scil. ad diem Sabbati proximum post festum St. Michaelis.' The expression 'friendless' is peculiar. It appears in other instances in the Ely Surveys. May it not mean, that all the free tenants, even the small ones, had to attend and could not be represented by their fellows or 'friends'?
405.Glastonbury Cart., Wood MSS., i. f. 233, a: 'et N. et G. veniunt et defendunt vim et iniuriam et talem sectam qualem ab eis exigit et bene cognoscunt quod per attornatos suos debent ipsi facere duas sectas per annum ad duos lagedaios … sed si aliquis latro fuerit ibi iudicandus tunc debent liberi homines sui et prepositi uel seruientes sui debent interesse ad predictum hundredum ad faciendum iudicium et non ipsi in propria persona sua.' Cf. Malmesbury Cart. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 178: 'Item recognouit sectam ad hundredum de Malmesburia per se vel per sufficientem attornatum suum. Item recognouit et concessit quod omnes liberi homines sui de Estleye sequantur de hundredo in hundredum apud Malmesburiam sicut aliquo tempore predecessorum suorum facere consueverunt.'
406.This may possibly account for the curious fact, that in every manor there are some tenants called 'Freeman,' 'Frankleyn,' and the like. They seem to be there to keep up the necessary tradition of the free element. For instance: Eynsham Cart. MSS. of the Chapter of Christ Church, Oxford, xxix. f. 4, a: 'Iohannes Freman de Shyfford tenet unam virgatam per cartam … facit sectam ad comitatum et hundredum et hac de causa tenet tenementum suum.' Cf. Coram Rege 27 Henry III, m. 3: 'Dicunt quod non est aliquis liber homo in eodem manerio nisi Willelmus filius Radulfi qui respondet infra corpus comitatus.' The fact is well known to all those who have had anything to do with manorial records.
407.Cf. Maitland, Suitors of the County Court, Eng. Hist. Review, July, 1888.
408.Is it not possible to explain by the 'hundredor' the following difficult passage in Domesday, ii. 100? 'Hugo de Montfort invasit tres liberos homines … unus ex his jacet ad feudum Sancti Petri de Westmonasterio testimonio hundredi, sed fuit liberatus Hugoni in numero suorum hundredorum (corr. hundredariorum?) ut dicunt sui homines.' It is true that the term does not occur elsewhere in Domesday, but the reading as it stands appears very clumsy, and the emendation proposed would seem the easiest way to get out of the difficulty.
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