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The Demographic Transparency of Manorial Court Rolls

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

Zvi Razi
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Extract

All historical sources reflect reality in a partial and distorted way. The past, therefore, can be understood only when the limitations of particular sources are recognized and the methods employed in making historical observations, as well as the observations themselves, are constantly tested and refined. Drs. Poos and Smith, in an earlier issue of the Law and History Review, have undertaken such a task when they thoroughly examined my use of manorial court rolls' data for demographic analysis of a medieval English parish.

Type
Essays
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , Fall 1987 , pp. 523 - 535
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 1987

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References

1. Poos, L. R. and Smith, R. M., ‘“Legal Windows onto Historical Population”, Recent Research on Demography and Manor Court in Medieval England’, Law and History Review, 2 (1984) 128–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar [hereinafter cited as Poos and Smith, ‘Legal Windows onto Historical Population’].

2. Razi, Zvi, ‘The Use of Manorial Court Rolls in Demographic Analysis: A Reconsideration’, Law and History Review 3 (1985) 191–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar [hereinafter cited as Razi, ‘The Use of Manorial Court Rolls’].

3. Poos, L. R. and Smith, R. M., ‘Shades Still on the Window: A Reply to Zvi Razi’, Law and History Review 3 (1986) 409–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar [hereinafter cited as Poos and Smith, ‘Shades Still on the Window’].

4. Ibid. at 415–16.

5. Razi, Zvi, Life, Marriage and Death in a Medieval Parish (Cambridge, 1980) 24–26Google Scholar [hereinafter cited as Razi, Life, Marriage and Death].

6. Poos and Smith, ‘Shades Still on the Window’, supra note 3 at 413–14.

7. Ibid.

8. Poos and Smith, ‘Legal Windows onto Historical Population’, supra note 1 at 135 and ‘Shades Still on the Window’, supra note 3 at 413–14.

9. Poos and Smith, ‘Legal Windows onto Historical Population’, supra note 1 at 135.

10. Ibid. at 136. It is difficult, without conducting a further research, to discover why the frequency of court appearances of Redgrave and Halesowen villagers was much higher than that of Waltham and Easter tenants. However, a tentative answer can be offered. The monastic landlords of Redgrave and Halesowen exercised their seignorial juris-diction more thoroughly and more fully than the landlords of the two Essex manors. Moreover, in Redgrave and Halesowen the percentage of unfree tenants, who had to attend the court more frequently than free tenants, was much higher than in Waltham and Easter.

11. Razi, ‘The Use of Manorial Court Rolls’, supra note 2 at 194. Poos and Smith, ‘Shades Still on the Window’, supra note 3 at 416–18.

12. Poos and Smith, ‘Legal Windows onto Historical Population’, supra note 1 at 131, no.11.

13. Razi, ‘The Use of Manorial Court Rolls’, supra note 2 at 194.

14. Poos and Smith, ‘Shades Still on the Window’, supra note 3 at 418–24.

15. Wrigley, E. A., ‘Fertility, Strategy for the Individual and the Group’, in Tilly, C., ed., Historical Studies of Changing Fertility (Princeton, 1978) 133–54Google Scholar.

16. Poos and Smith, ‘Shades Still on the Window’, supra note 3 at 418.

17. An example of a ‘non-criminal' presentment which cannot be possibly identified as such unless one reads all the court records, can be found in the court rolls of late October 1281. Walter Archer brought an action against four villagers because they wrongly presented him in the court held in August for putting his beasts upon the common pasture of Romsley. These four villagers were not merely neighbours but the jurymen of the township of Romsley. This fact can be discovered only by a careful reading of all the court records. See Amphlett, J., Court Rolls of the Manor of Hales, 1270–1307 (Worcestershire Historical Society, 1912) 162Google Scholar.

18. For the year 1307 the full records of 15 court sessions survived, 14 were published and the record of the last court held in December remained unpublished. I tabulated the data available in this court record as well. I chose the year 1280 for comparison, because for this year all the records of 16 court sessions survived. See ibid. at 121–60, 555–93; Wilson, R. A., Court Rolls of the Manor of Hales, 1276–1301, (Worcestershire Historical Society, 1933) 60–76Google Scholar.

19. Poos and Smith, ‘Shades Still on the Window’, supra note 3 at 417.

20. This change is related to the long struggle between the Abbots of Halesowen and their customary tenants. During the 1270s the 1280s, when both sides tried to resolve the conflict by legal as well as by violent means, the seignorial regime in Halesowen was especially harsh. One of the measures taken by the abbots against the tenants was to compel them to attend personally each court session. As a result, in the rolls of each session during this period, a large number of essoins were recorded. In the 1290s, when the customary tenants gave up their demand for a status of privileged tenants of the ancient demesne, the Abbots on their part relaxed various seignorial exactions. Consequently, instead of personally attending each court, those tenants who had no legal business in the court, were allowed to pay a fine of 2d. See also Razi, Z., ‘The Struggles between the Abbots of Halesowen and their Tenants in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries’, in Aston, T. A., Coss, R. R, Dyer, C. C. and Thirsk, J., eds., Social Relations and Ideas, Essays in Honour of R.H. Hilton (Cambridge, 1983) 169–91Google Scholar.

21. Razi, Life, Marriage and Death, supra note 5 at 25.

22. Poos and Smith, ‘Shades Still on the Window’, supra note 3 at 424–25.

23. Razi, Life, Marriage and Death, supra note 5 at 55.

24. Ibid. at 60–64.

25. Poos and Smith, ‘Legal Windows onto Historical Population’, supra note 1 at 144–48; Razi, ‘The Use of Manorial Court Rolls’, supra note 2 at 198–99.

26. Poos and Smith, ‘Shades Still on the Window’, supra note 1 at 425–26.

27. One can use the method for estimating age of marriage from court rolls only on second generation children of local villagers. If an immigrant appears in the court rolls as a land holder, it does not mean that he never held land before.

28. In my first essay I wrote that the genealogical method for estimating age of marriage picks up second as well as first born daughters. (Razi, ‘The Use of Manorial Court Rolls’, supra note 2 at 199). This was a mistake, since by including in the sample only daughters who paid marriage fines less than twenty years after the first appearance of their fathers as tenants, I excluded second-born daughters.

29. Ibid.

30. Poos and Smith, ‘Shades Still on the Window’, supra note 3 at 426–27.

31. Ibid.

32. Razi, Life, Marriage and Death, supra note 5 at 64–71.

33. Ibid. at 63.

34. Poos and Smith, ‘Shades Still on the Window’, supra note 3 at 428.

35. See, for example, Hatcher, J., ‘Mortality in the Fifteenth Century: Some New Evidence’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., xxxix (1986) 19–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.