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The pattern of rural migration in a Midlands county: Leicestershire, c. 1270–1350

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

David Postles
David Postles
Affiliation:
Department of English Local History, University of Leicester.
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Continuity and Change , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , August 1992 , pp. 139 - 161
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

ENDNOTES

1 For a recent overview, see Clark, P. and Souden, D. eds., Migration and society in early modern England (London, 1987).Google Scholar

2 Raftis, J. A., ‘Geographical mobility in lay subsidy rolls’, Medieval Studies 38 (1976), 385–403CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Poos, L. R., ‘Population turnover in medieval Essex: the evidence of some early-fourteenth-century tithing lists’, in Bonfield, L., Smith, R., and Wrightson, K. eds., The world we have gained: Histories of population and social structure (Oxford, 1986), 1–22Google Scholar; Smith, R. M., ‘Hypothèses sur la nuptialité en Angleterre au XIIIe–XIVe siècles’, Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 38 (1983), 128–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An older study is Davenport, F. M., ‘The decay of villeinage in East Anglia’, repr. in Carus-Wilson, E. M. ed., Essays in economic history, vol. 2 (London, 1962), 112–24.Google Scholar

3 Field, R. K., ‘Migration in the later middle ages: the case of the Hampton Lovett villeins’, Midland History 8 (1983), 29–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Raftis, J. A., Tenure and mobility studies in the social history of the medieval English village (Toronto, 1964).Google Scholar Chevage could also be collected from those unfree peasants remaining on the manor, but not holding land, in recognition of lordship, who were often called garciones. Dr H. S. A. Fox has been considering these garciones for a decade and the publication of his research is eagerly awaited.

5 Raftis, ‘Geographical mobility’.

6 Ekwall, E., Studies on the population of medieval London (Stockholm, 1956)Google Scholar; Carus-Wilson, E. M., ‘The first half-century of the borough of Stratford-upon-Avon’, repr. in Holt, R. and Rosser, G., eds., The medieval town: a reader in English urban history 1200–1540 (London, 1990), 49–70Google Scholar; Reaney, P. R., The origin of English surnames (London, 1967, repr. 1987), 331–49.Google Scholar

7 McClure, P., ‘Patterns of migration in the late middle ages: the evidence of English place-name surnames’, Economic History Review 2nd ser., 32 (1979), 167–82, esp. pp. 177–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Penn, S. A. C., ‘The origins of Bristol migrants in the early fourteenth century: the surname evidence’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 101 (1984), 123–30Google Scholar; work by Dr M. Kowaleski in progress, to whom I am grateful for sharing her conclusions on the distribution of the origins of migrants to Exeter.

8 McClure, , ‘Patterns of migration’, 175–6.Google Scholar

9 Willard, J. F., Parliamentary taxes on personal property 1290–1334: a study in mediaeval English financial administration (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), 81–5Google Scholar; Gaydon, A. T., The Taxation of 1297 (Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 39; 1959 for 1958) xxxiii.Google Scholar

10 See Fletcher, W. G. D., ‘The earliest Leicestershire lay subsidy roll 1327’, Associated Architectural Societies Reports 19 (1888–1889), 130–78, 209–312, 447–8.Google Scholar

11 Clark, G. T., ‘The customary of the manor and soke of Rothley in the county of Leicester’, Archaeologia 47 (1882), 89–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Clark assigns the custumal to the midthirteenth century (p. 90). A dispute between lord (the Templars) and the tenants of the soke in 1245 seems contemporary with the custumal: see Public Record Office C260/86.

12 Merton College Oxford MM (hereafter ‘MM’ only), 6376–6406 and 6556–6573. See pages 151–153, below.

13 Bodleian Library Oxford Rawl. MS 350, pp. 1–51.Google Scholar

14 In other studies, bynames have been designated as toponymic, habitative, or placename surnames. The terminology adopted here is that of the English Surnames Survey, which is based in the Department of English Local History in the University of Leicester. For the use of toponymic synonymously, see, for example, Holt, J. C., What's in a name: family nomenclature and the Norman Conquest (University of Reading, Stenton Lecture, 1981).Google Scholar

15 McKinley, R., The surnames of Lancashire (English Surnames Series, hereafter ESS), IV; (London, 1981), 30–49Google Scholar; Lomas, T., ‘South-east Durham: late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’, in Harvey, P. D. A. ed., The peasant land market in medieval England (Oxford, 1984), 291–3Google Scholar; McKinley, R., The surnames of Oxfordshire (ESS, III; London, 1977) 109–29.Google Scholar

16 Postles, D., The surnames of Devon (ESS, VII; forthcoming).Google Scholar

17 For the terms polyphyletic and monophyletic, see Lasker, G., Surnames and genetic structure (Cambridge, 1985).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

18 Postles, D., ‘Topographical bynames in the English medieval borough’, Names (forthcoming).Google Scholar

19 Raftis, , ‘Geographical mobility’, 386.Google Scholar

20 McClure, , ‘Patterns of migration’.Google Scholar

21 Postles, Surnames of Devon; Padel, O., ‘Cornish surnames in 1327’, Nomina 9 (1985), 81–8.Google Scholar

22 McKinley, , Surnames of Oxfordshire, 109–29.Google Scholar

23 Willard, , Parliamentary taxes, 81–5Google Scholar; Maddicott, J. R., ‘The English peasantry and the demands of the crown 1294–1341’, repr. in Aston, T. H. ed., Landlords, peasants and politics in medieval England (Cambridge, 1987), 290–9.Google Scholar

24 . R. M. Smith, ‘Hypotheses sur la nuptialité; Goldberg, P. J. P., ‘Female labour, service and marriage in the late medieval urban north’, Northern History 22 (1986), 18–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘Marriage, migration, servanthood and life-cycle in Yorkshire towns of the late middle ages’, Continuity and Change 1 (1986), 141–69Google Scholar, and ‘Urban identity and the poll taxes of 1377, 1379, and 1381’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 43 (1990), 208.Google Scholar

25 Holly, D., ‘Leicestershire’, in Darby, H. C. and Terrett, L. B. eds., The Domesday geography of Midland England (Cambridge, 1954), 315–53Google Scholar; Fox, H. S. A., ‘The people of the Wolds in English settlement history’, in Aston, M., Austin, D., and Dyer, C. eds., The rural settlements of medieval England (Oxford, 1989), 77–101.Google Scholar

26 Based on the phonemic analysis in McIntosh, A., Samuels, M. L., and Benskin, M., A linguistic atlas of late mediaeval English (4 vols., Aberdeen 1986)Google Scholar; see also Hjertstedt, I., Middle English nicknames in the lay subsidy rolls for Warwickshire (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia 63; Uppsala, 1987), 26–7Google Scholar, which does not, however, take into account phonemic evidence east of the A5; nor does, based on Wakelin, M., English dialects (London, 1977), 10.Google Scholar Phonemes are simply sounds; lexis consists of words; isoglosses are lines on maps dividing areas where these different patterns are observed. For migration in the other direction, from Leicestershire to Warwickshire, across Watling Street, see, for example, de Hinkelay, John, de Hinkelay, William, and de Hinkelay, Ralph, all in Atherstone in the early to mid-thirteenth century: Chibnall, M. ed., Select documents of the English lands of the Abbey of Bec (Camden 3rd series, 73; London 1951), 104–5.Google Scholar The fact that all three were cottagers emphasizes the problems of using lay subsidies since all three would probably have been exempted from that sort of taxation.

27 Fox, ‘People of the Wolds’.

28 MM 6382: ‘Unde Inquisicio dicit quod nichil dedit nee aliquid exigunt [sic[ nisi j.d. pro capite suo.’ Later entries relating to the payment of capitales denarii (or an equivalent term) have the qualification: ‘et non plus quia non sunt pluria capita’. Other entries confirm the nature of the payment as being on males aged over 12 in tithing at the rate of 1d per head. The data are discussed more fully in Postles, D., ‘Demographic change at Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, 1280–1450’, Local Population Studies (forth coming).Google Scholar

29 Howell, C., Land, family and inheritance in transition: Kibworth Harcourt 1280–1700 (Cambridge, 1983), 29–30 and 209–10.Google Scholar

30 MM 6399.

31 MM 6398 and 6404.

32 Bodleian Library Rawl. MS 625 fos. 191r–211r.

33 Illingworth, W. and Caley, J. eds., Rotuli Hundredorum temp Hen III ' Land' et in Curia Scaccarij asservati, vol. II (Record Commission, London, 1818)Google Scholar; Stone, E. ed., Oxfordshire Hundred Rolls of 1279 vol. I: The Hundred of Bampton (Oxfordshire Record Society, 46, 1968).Google Scholar

34 McClure, , ‘Patterns of migration’, 176–82Google Scholar; see also n. 7, above.

35 McClure, , ‘Patterns of migration’, 175–6.Google Scholar Compare also statistics for the vill of Gaddesby, derived from charters in the Brokesby cartulary: Bodleian Library MS Wood, empt. 7, fos. 105r–140r: seven locative bynames from different places; mean distance 7.29 miles (standard deviation 10.26); median 3 miles; minimum one mile; maximum 30 miles; first quartile 2 miles; third quartile 8 miles. Since they were involved in charters, all these subjects must have been of free status.

36 Bodelian Library MS Wood, empt. 7, fos. 4v–91r. All the actors were probably of free status.

37 Ibid., fo. 20v.

38 Ibid., fos. 12r, 13r–v, 14r–v, 17r–v, 29v–30r.

39 Ibid., fos. 29v–30r, 80v–84r, 83v–84r (charter of Margery Orger referring to lands quondam Ade de Rameseye viri mei; charter of Ralph de Rameseye referring to Margery Orger as uxor quondam Ade patris mei; charters describing Adam and Ralph as sons of Adam senior and as brothers).

40 Ibid., fos. 9v, 73r–v.

41 Thome, S. E., ed. and trans., Bracton on the laws and customs of England, vol. III (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 198–9.Google Scholar