2 - EXTERNAL DEMANDS AND HAVERING'S RESISTANCE, 1265–1500

Summary

With the establishment of routine forms of royal supervision over Havering, the tenants settled down into a comfortable pattern which normally involved very little outside control. The crown's decision to grant Havering at farm rather than trying to extract full profit from the tenants freed local people from the presence of resident royal officials and from the dangers of active, immediate economic exploitation. Financial loss to the crown through administrative ‘slippage’ continued unabated. Even the reforms in accounting introduced by the Yorkist kings brought little change. When in a few cases the queens to whom Havering was assigned tried to tighten their supervision of the manor or to collect their dues aggressively, the tenants protested. Havering was also subject to the operation of certain extra-manorial courts and some forms of central government administration. In practice, however, external authority was usually confined to a narrow range of activity. A series of economic and administrative demands during the generation before 1381 formed the background to Havering's involvement in the Peasants' Revolt. In this chapter we shall consider the restrictions imposed upon Havering by the outside world and the resistance which they evoked.

When Havering's tenants were confronted with demands by the lord of the manor or other external bodies which they felt violated their autonomy, they could express their objection in one of several ways. In the least dramatic but ultimately most successful form of resistance, they simply withdrew their cooperation.