5 - PATTERNS OF ECCLESIASTICAL ACCESSION

Summary

That mortmain legislation was keenly enforced for much of the period after 1279, and that churchmen were at pains to circumvent its restrictions, is beyond doubt. What may be questioned is whether all this activity resulted in any significant distortion of the pattern of acquisition which would otherwise have prevailed. Statutory obstacles were only one factor governing the church's territorial accessions. Changes were taking place both in the economy and in popular religious expression, so it could be argued that each contributed in some measure towards a diminution of landed accessions. To understand how much real restrictive power was exercised by mortmain legislation, it is necessary to examine its effects in relation to the complex independent pressures already confronting the church as a landlord.

The church had been accumulating property for centuries before the 1279 Statute of Mortmain and indeed owed its greatest wealth to the patrons of the tenth-century monastic revival. Archbishop Dunstan, bishops Aethelwold and Oswald and interested laymen like ealdorman Aethelwine made over whole villages or even districts to their nascent foundations. Professor Raftis calculated that nearly 50% of vills featuring in the Huntingdonshire Domesday changed hands at this date. Although many of these grants were later challenged, particularly following the death of King Edgar and the Norman Conquest, the broad disposition of land achieved by the church before 1066 was maintained until the Dissolution.