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Some Thoughts on ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Proprietary’ Rights in Land under Customary Law in Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

R. M. Smith
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A recent polemical essay by Alan Macfarlane constructed a picture of the social structure of medieval rural England premised on the notion that there was little difference in the nature of family attachment to land between freeholders and those who held their property ‘according to the customs of the manor.’ This essay has received severe criticism from R. H. Hilton, who argues that it ‘ignores the implications of the considerable predominance in many areas of customary land held in villein (i.e. servile) tenure, attempting to assimilate it to freehold as though it were equivalent to sixteenth century copyhold.’ The scale of the difference between these two positions may be attributed to the current state of research into the operation of customary law and its tribunals.

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Law and History Review , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , Spring 1983 , pp. 95 - 128
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 1983

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References

1. Macfarlane, Alan, The Origins of English Individualism; The Family, Property and Social Transition (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar.

2. Hilton, R. H., ‘Individualism and the English Peasantry,’ New Left Review 120 (1980) 110Google Scholar.

3. Raftis, J. A., Tenure and Mobility; Studies in the Social History of the Medieval English Village (Toronto, 1964) 60Google Scholar.

4. Howell, C., ‘Peasant Inheritance Customs in the Midlands, 1280–1700,’ in Goody, Jack, Thirsk, Joan, and Thompson, E. P., eds., Family and Inheritance; Rural Society in Western Europe 1200–1800 (Cambridge, 1976) 119Google Scholar.

5. Hilton, R. H., ‘Freedom and Villeinage in England,’ in Hilton, R. H., ed., Peasants, Knights and Heretics: Studies in Medieval English Social History (Cambridge, 1976) 185–90Google Scholar; Hyams, Paul, King, Lords and Peasants in Medieval England; The Common Law of Villeinage in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Oxford, 1980) 255–65Google Scholar.

6. Hyams, Kings, Lords and Peasants, supra note 5, 49.

7. Ibid. 268.

8. Searle, E., ‘Seigneurial Control of Women's Marriage: The Antecedents and Function of Merchet in England,’ Past and Present 82 (1979) 3–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Milsom, S. F. C., The Legal Framework of English Feudalism (Cambridge, 1976) 174CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Ibid. 120.

11. Ibid. 40.

12. Ibid. 39.

13. Ibid. 131.

14. Searle, ‘Seigneurial Control,’ supra note 8, 35.

15. Hatcher, J., ‘English Serfdom and Villeinage: Towards a Reassessment,’ Past and Present 90 (1981) 3–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Ibid. 23.

17. Hyams, King, Lords and Peasants, supra note 5, ch. 13.

18. Ibid. 267.

19. Ibid. 268.

20. See the succinct discussion in Miller, E., ‘The English Economy in the 13th Century: Implications of Recent Research,’ Past and Present 28 (1964) 23–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For examples, see Chibnall, M., ed., Charters and Custumals of the Abbey of Holy Trinity, Caen, Records of Social and Economic History, new series v (Oxford, 1982Google Scholar).

21. Maitland, F. W., ed., Select Pleas in Manorial and other Seigneurial Courts, Selden Society 2 (London, 1888) xliiGoogle Scholar; The court books of St. Albans described in Levett, A. E., Studies in Manorial History (Oxford, 1938) 75–96Google Scholar contain extracts of rolls from 1231 but no trace has been found of the rolls from which they were presumably copied. Furthermore, Professor Ault argues convincingly that although copies of proceedings in a manor court of Brancaster and Ringstead in Norfolk, which were in the possession of the Abbey of Ramsey, have survived in a cartulary they did so only because the lord chose to have a record made of items of particular importance to himself; Ault, W. O., ‘The Earliest Rolls of Manor Courts,’ Studia Gratiana 15 (1972) 511–18Google Scholar.

22. Harvey, P. D. A., ed., Manorial Records of Cuxham, Oxfordshire circa 1200–1359 Oxfordshire Record Society, 50 (1976) 79Google Scholar; Ault, ‘The Earliest Rolls,’ supra note 21, 517–18 where he shows that in the early years of the thirteenth century on the estates of the Bishopric of Winchester the manorial reeves in the compotus rolls accounted for the fines and fees of the manor courts in full detail with names and amounts recorded under the heading of purchasia. In 1262, a change occurred with ‘Fines of lands and marriages’ separated and listed as individual items from the ‘Perquisite of amercements, for futures and defaults’ which from that date onwards were presented as a lump sum. Ault believes that only from 1262 was a written record of the proceedings of the manor court of the bishopric kept.

23. Harvey, Manorial Records of Cuxham, supra note 22, 80.

24. Maitland, Select Pleas, supra note 21, lxviii.

25. Ibid. 9, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21.

26. E.g., Levett, Studies in Manorial History, supra note 21, 302, 303, 307 for cases of inquest by the whole hall-moot and 306, 321, and 326 for jury inquests; for the role of juries in drawing up manorial surveys see Lennard, R. V., ‘Early Manorial Juries,’ English Historical Review lxxvii (1962) 511–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ault, W. O., Private Jurisdiction in England (New Haven, 1923) 168–69Google Scholar; and Chibnall, Charters and Custumals, supra note 20, xlvi.

27. Maitland, Select Pleas, supra note 21, lxvii–lxxiii.

28. Ault, Private Jurisdiction in England, supra note 26, 169.

29. E.g., Dawson, J. P., A History of Lay Judges (Cambridge, Mass., 1960) 201CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30. Beckerman, J. S., ‘Customary Law in Manorial Courts in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London, 1972) 10–11Google Scholar.

31. Ault, Private Jurisdiction, supra note 26, 171; Levett, Studies in Manorial History, supra note 21, 148–49.

32. Beckerman, ‘Customary Law in Manorial Courts,’ supra note 30, 47–58.

33. Curia Regis Rolls (London, 1926) iii, 108–10Google Scholar.

34. Hyams, King, Lords and Peasants, supra note 5, 257; see also on this point, Hatcher, ‘English Serfdom,’ supra note 15, 23; Homans, G. C., English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1941) 270–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. Clanchy's argument is developed fully in From Memory to Written Record; England 1066–1307 (London, 1979)Google Scholar but is put most succinctly in ‘Remembering the Past and the Good Old Law,’ History 55 (1970) 165–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Clanchy stresses the general theory of relativity of time in the remembered past of oral cultures, noting, for instance, that the distance in time between ancestor B and ancester E in a verbally presented genealogy depends on the position of the person recalling the ancestry. Futhermore, he suggests that the illiterate wants history to be meaningful rather than an objective record. Note also Hyams, P. R., ‘Trial by Ordeal: The Key to Proof in the Early Common Law,’ in Arnold, M. S. et al. , , eds., On the Laws and Customs of England; Essays in Honor of Samuel E. Thorne (Chapel Hill, 1981) 96Google Scholar, where he talks of the ‘quiet modification of norms’ as the good old law is continuously adjusted in the context of the current situation. He also notes the possibility that setting down custom in writing might incline those in authority to think of changing it.

36. Beckerman, ‘Customary Law in Manorial Courts,’ supra note 30, 64–5.

37. Maitland, Select Pleas, supra note 21, xxxvi.

38. A useful survey is Turner, R. V., ‘The Origins of the Medieval English Jury: Frankish, English or Scandinavian,’ Journal of British Studies 1 (1968) 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39. Maitland, Select Pleas, supra note 21, xxxvii.

40. Beckerman, ‘Customary Law in English Manorial Courts,’ supra note 30, 67.

41. Ibid. 68.

42. Ibid. 85–95.

43. Ibid. 68.

44. Ibid. 69–72.

45. Maitland, Select Pleas, supra note 21, 45; also Ault, Private Jurisdiction, supra note 26, 172.

46. In the court of the 18th November 1277 at Rickinghall, the first specific reference to presentment by jury concerns individuals who have trespassed in the lord's wood, carried away his peas, sold land without licence and raised their own sheep fold illegally or had more sheep in the fold than the permitted number. In fact all presentments concerned the protection of the lord's interest. British Library, Add. Ch. 63396. By the end of the second decade of the fourteenth century in a typical manorial court, the vast majority of court business originated through presentment by the jury of twelve persons. Business then involved presentments in inter-personal disputes, inter-vivos land transfers, tenant deaths, and successions to property in addition to protection of the lord's demesne.

47. University of Chicago, Bacon MS 1.

48. May, A. N., ‘An Index of Thirteenth-Century Peasant Impoverishment? Manor Court Fines,’ Economic History Review, 2nd series, xxvi (1973) 389–402CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some cautious words are offered by Dr. Post, J. B. concerning May's methodology in ‘Manorial Amercements and Peasant Poverty,’ Economic History Review, 2nd series, xxviii (1975)Google Scholar although his conclusions only alter the absolute totals in May's calculations rather than the trend in fine patterns over the course of the thirteenth century.

49. Ibid. 401–2.

50. It is worth noting, however, Ault's comments about developments in the practice of record keeping; see supra note 22.

51. Smith, R. M., ‘English Peasant Life-cycles and Socio-economic Networks,’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1974) 19–27Google Scholar. In Redgrave, amercements for brewing contrary to the Assize of Ale amounted on average to 60 per annum before 1280. However, the number rose in the first two decades of the fourteenth century, when more than 160 such offences were amerced annually.

52. Beckerman, ‘Customary Law in Manorial Courts,’ supra note 30, 84.

53. Ibid. 112.

54. May, ‘An Index of Thirteenth Century Peasant Impoverishment,’ supra note 48, 397–98.

55. Beckerman, ‘Customary Law in Manorial Courts,’ supra note 30, 89–92.

56. In the 1280s, and 1290s, a concerted effort seems to have been made to root out land transactions that had not been registered in the court and had licence fees unpaid.

57. When presentment juries are listed in the Redgrave and Rickinghall court proceedings at least 80% of those listed were in net surplus in their registered land dealings in a manor court. Similarly, as individuals, the jurors are found to have acted as pledges with greater frequency than they sought the service themselves. This feature has been discovered in other studies; see Britton, E., The Community of the Vill (Toronto, 1977) 94–102Google Scholar and Searle, E., Lordship and Community; Battle Abbey and its Banlieu, 1066–1538 (Toronto, 1974) 432Google Scholar. See also, King, W. J., ‘Leet Jurors and the Search for Law and Order in Seventeenth-Century England: “Galling Persecution” or Reasonable Justice?’, Histoire Sociale: Social History xiii (1980) 305–23Google Scholar, and the valuable comments of Wrightson, K., ‘Medieval Villagers in Perspective,’ Peasant Studies 7 (1978) 33–47Google Scholar.

58. See Hilton, R. H., A Medieval Society: The West Midlands at the End of the Thirteenth Century (London, 1966)Google Scholar and Razi, Zvi, ‘Family, Land and the Village Community in Later Medieval England,’ Past and Present 93 (1981) 12–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It is odd that Dr. Razi is so ready to accept these terms. In another article, Beckerman's work on the growth of presentment and its implications for the decline of pledging (which the latter believes to be a concomitant of the progressive decline of personally initiated plaints as presentment became the dominant means by which business was brought into the court) is cited with approval. Of course, it should be noted that Razi was concerned to question a particular, highly dubious interpretation that has associated the decline of pledging with the loss of spirit of cooperation in the village in the second half of the fourteenth century. See Razi, Z., ‘The Toronto School's Reconstitution of Medieval Peasant Society: A Critical View,’ Past and Present 85 (1979) 150–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59. The classic interpretation is Sir Vinogradoff, P., Villainage in England (Oxford, 1892) 70Google Scholar.

60. Maitland, F. W., ed., Bracton's Note Book (London, 1887) 24, 170, 194bGoogle Scholar.

61. King, E., Peterborough Abbey, 1086–1310; A Study in the Land Market (Cambridge, 1973) 101Google Scholar.

62. Ibid. 101–2.

63. For instance, in a Redgrave court of November 8th 1264, we find the following adjacent entries in the court proceedings: Ricardus le Markant dat ijs jd pro licentia emendi j acram terre de Simoń Jop plegius Thomas Serviern't. Eodem die venit Johnannes Sket et sursum reddit dimidiam acram terre et dimidiam rodam terre ad opus Walteri fratri sui et dimidiam rodam terre ad opus Walteri fratri sui et finem condonatur per Thomam senescallum. University of Chicago, Bacon MS 1.

64. The first instance in the surviving Redgrave court proceedings of the use of the term ‘heredes suis’ comes in 1268 in the decision of a trial jury in a land plea between Adam Mandrake and Alice, his wife, and one Alice Kebbel. The jury reported that: Adam Mandrake et Alicia uxor eius et heres suis habuerunt maius jus in dimidiam messagii iij acras et iij rodas terre cum pertinenciis suis. University of Chicago, Bacon MS 2. In 1284, an effort seems to have been made to employ a standard form for inter vivos transfers. In the court of June 1284, there were 13 such transfers all identical in form with the following: Wallerus Oky et Matilda uxor eius reddunt in manu domini j rodam terre ad opus Walteri Bunting et heredibus suis et dat domino pro seisina habenda vjd faciendo inde etc. plegius Adam Jop (note the absence of any clause specifying the examination of the wife as part of the record of this transaction). University of Chicago, Bacon MS 4.

65. Wallerus But dat domino dimidiam marcam pro licentia emendi totam partem tenementi Galfridi fratri sui sic idem Galfridus venit in plena curia et sursum reddit ad opus dicti Walteri et heredibus suis faciendo inde servicia et consuetudines etc. plegii Walterus Medicus et Edwardus Cat. University of Chicago, Bacon MS 2.

66. Dr. J. Williamson notes that on the Prior of Norwich's manor of Sedgeford in the extreme north-west of Norfolk, in the early rolls (which are suspiciously similar in vintage to those from the Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds manors) from 1259–1265 ‘licences for land transactions were purchased by either the seller or the purchaser of the land involved … by 1273 the licence fee is invariably paid by the purchaser rather than the seller, until approximately 1282, after which date all land is surrendered into the prior's hands for the use of the purchaser or grantee.’ Williamson, J., ‘Peasant Holdings in Medieval Norfolk: A Detailed Investigation of the Holdings of the Peasantry in Three Norfolk Villages in the Thirteenth Century,’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Reading, 1976) 248Google Scholar. Williamson notes that similar changes appear to have taken place at much the same time on the prior's manors of Newton and Hindringham, both in Norfolk. Worthy of our attention is Williamson's findings that on the lay manor of Gressenhall the same change took place between 10 Edward and 11 Edward I (1282–1283) in the form used to record land transfers in court, Williamson, ‘Peasant Holdings in Norfolk,’ 113.

67. Hyams, P. R., ‘The Origins of a Peasant Land Market in England,’ Economic History Review, 2nd ser., xxiii (1970) 24–5Google Scholar.

68. See, for instance, the 1241 court of the manor of Park (Hertfordshire) in Levett, Studies in Manorial History, supra note 21, 303 and further examples, 304, 305, 307, and 312. On the Abbot of Crowland's manors of Oakington, Cottenham, and Drayton (Cambridgeshire), when the first surviving rolls begin reddere sursum terminology is in use although it is not until the early fourteenth century that the land is held by the purchaser or grantee sibi et heredibus suis. See, e.g., Page, F. M., The Estates of Crowland Abbey: A Study in Manorial Organization (Cambridge, 1934) 336, 346Google Scholar. In Waltham and Easter the terms ‘sibi et heredibus’ are not used coincidentally with the form of transfer through surrender into the lord's hands (reddere sursum in manu domini) which becomes widely and regularly employed in the 1280s. Only after 1295 do we have a form of transfer of which this example is typical: ‘Johannes Sweting venit et sursum reddit dominio ij acras terre jacentes juxta messuagium Asgor venit Johnannes Brid et dat domino (ijs) pro ingressa habendo sibi et heredibus suis.’ Court held on Thursday 11 June 1299. P.R.O. DL30/62, 772.

69. King, Peterborough Abbey, supra note 61, 103–04. For a useful discussion of Quia Emptores and of the ad opus transfer of free land, see Bean, J. M. W., The Decline of English Feudalism (Manchester, 1968) 79–126Google Scholar.

70. For example, a marriage agreement and partial retirement contract from Redgrave in 1301 involving Roger Cutting, his wife Matilda, their daughter Annicia and son-in-law John Docke contained many complexly-woven strands. Annicia's dowry included a messuage and eight acres of land along with a further three acres, the reversionary rights in which were still held until the end of her life by Margaret Bigot. Margaret Bigot came to court to disclaim any reversionary rights she still possessed, but the bride and groom returned to the parents 6 of the 8 acres. In addition, the remaining two acres were returned to the parents but these were to be used specifically to support Annicia their daughter and any offspring she might have while married to John Docke. It seems clear that the two couples were to reside in the messuage on which there were many buildings but the older couple were to continue to inhabit the chief dwelling place and the new household was to be established in any of the remaining buildings except that its location should not inconvenience the parents. See University of Chicago, Bacon MS 9.

71. Gifts in tail with explicit rights of remainder were common and could be quite simple in form. For example, in 1276 Cecilia and Alicia, daughters of Richard the Tannur of Redgrave paid 3 shillings for licence to enter 4 acres of land which was a gift of their brothers Phillip and William. But if both or one of the sisters should die without legitimate heirs then the land should revert to Phillip and his heirs. For examples with six contingent remainders see Beckerman, ‘Customary Law in Manorial Courts,’ supra note 30, 377–78. See also, Razi, ‘Family, Land and the Village Community,’ supra note 58, 26–27 citing such examples from the fifteenth century but suggesting that they might not be safe as ‘villagers … always gave the first priority not to those who held a recorded legal title to land, but to those who had blood right.’ No examples of this disregard for legal title are presented by Dr. Razi.

72. The first instance of such practice is found in Rickinghall in 1293 ‘when Adam filius Walteri reddit in manu ballivi et Agnes uxor eius examinala in plena curia reddit sursum in manu domini j messuagium cum pertinenciis … ad opus Adam filius Henrici messo'r et heredibus suis.’ British Library Add. Ch. 63406. A first such entry in Redgrave comes in 1296. Their significance can be appreciated from evidence bearing upon group participation in land exchanges in Redgrave between 1260 and 1319. Groups of persons containing more than one individual appear in the court proceedings as buyers, grantees or lessees on 275 and as sellers, grantors or lessors on 405 occasions; joint husband-wife transactions constituted 32 and 69% respectively, of all such group-involved conveyances. For further discussion see Smith, R. M., ‘Families and Their Land in an Area of Partible Inheritance: Redgrave, Suffolk 1260–1319,’ in Smith, R. M., ed., Land, Kinship and Life Cycle (London, 1983)Google Scholar.

73. For example, in 1262, Augustus Cristemesse of Redgrave married Mabilia, daughter of John Em concluding an agreement whereby John Em would be supported by his daughter and son-in-law, while they took seisin of the messuage and 2-1/2 acres of land which formed Mabilia's dowry. John agreed to pay the entry fine that his daughter and son-in-law owed the Abbot for this land and also paid his daughter's merchet. In return for this, although the exact terms were not entered onto the court roll, Augustus and Mabilia agreed to sustain John in food and clothing in accordance with the size of the holding to the end of his life and to perform services and payments owed by the land (University of Chicago, Bacon MS 1, court of 6 January 1262). Later in 1262 the two men were in dispute over the arrangements into which they had entered (University of Chicago, Bacon MS 1, court of 8 February 1262). In the June 6th court of 1262, John Em was amerced for trespass in, and damage done to property or land Augustus held independently at the time of his marriage. In 1265 Augustus was amerced for not paying John Em grain that he owed him (University of Chicago, Bacon MS 1, court of 9 March 1265). In 1266 a memorandum was entered in the court roll stating that Augustus Cristemesse owed John Em annually for the remainder of his life one cart load and two bushels of corn and a cash sum of Is 6d (University of Chicago, Bacon MS 2, court of 17 July 1266). This most likely specified the arrangement of 1262. For similar disputes see the Great Waltham and High Easter case of a widow who regained land she had passed to her daughter and son-in-law because of their failure to meet the terms of her maintenance contract (P.R.O. DL 30/63/790). This case is cited by Searle, ‘Seigneurial Control of Women's Marriage,’ supra note 8, 37, who appears to be suggesting that the only reason the widow gained the court's protection was because the son-in-law had not paid his entry fine. There seems to be no evidence that this was why the daughter and son-in-law were evicted and the property returned to the widow, Estrilda Nenour. In fact, she obtained damages set at 6s 8d and in the next court after the trial jury's decision in her favour, transferred the messuage and half virgate to Robert Bowdyn and Alice his wife in return for an annual payment of 26s 8d for the rest of her life with a clause specifying a right to re-enter if the payments were not met (P.R.O. DL 30/63/790, court held on Thursday 30 July 1327). For a further consideration of these contracts and the use of the court to secure their implementation see Clarke, E., ‘Some Aspects of Social Security in Medieval England,’ Journal of Family History 7 (1982) 307–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74. Searle, ‘Seigneurial Control of Women's Marriage,’ supra note 8, 36.

75. Ibid. 36.

76. Hatcher, ‘English Serfdom and Villeinage,’ supra note 15, 16–19, shows how rent differentials could develop between properties held on ‘customary’ and ‘contractual’ terms. King, Peterborough Abbey, supra note 61, 100, emphasizes that the Carte Nativorum survive principally because the Abbey insisted that villein transactions in free land be enrolled and that on entry into such land the tenant paid a fine in addition to an ‘increment of rent’ or ‘new rent.’ It was because this land was outside the customary framework that the rent could be so increased.

77. Baker, J. H., An Introduction to English Legal History, 2nd ed. (London, 1979) 400Google Scholar.

78. See P.R.O. DL 30/63/790 and P.R.O. DL 30/63/792. These are the two documentary citations given by Searle. The person involved was Juliana Aynolf, wife of John Aynolf who first appears when it was ordered in the court of 15 April 1327 that the land should escheat to the lord on account of her bastardy. A trial jury was summoned to consider this matter and reported on 5 January 1331. It is not clear that this land was a gift of her father. The trial jury informed the court that she was a bastard and died without heirs therefore the land should escheat to the lord.

79. British Library Add. Ch. 63400. Hugo le Fuller venit in plena curia et petit totum tenementum in quo Willelmus le Fuller frater eius obiit seysitus quia heredes predicti Willelmus obierunt unde dictus Hugo dicit se esse propinquior heres de tenemento fratris sui et quod habet maius jus in eodem tenemento fratris sui et quod habet maius jus in eodem tenemento sicut petit quam Matilda filia predicti Willelmi quia non matrimonialiter procreata fuit eo quod procreata fuit prius quam predictus Willelmus duxit Tessamam matrem predicte Matilde in uxorem et quod ita est petit ut inquiratur Et dicta Matilda defendit jus euisdem Hugonis et dicit se esse matrimonialiter procreata et quod habet maius jus in eodem tenemento sicut propinquior heres petit sibi inquisitionem xiiij legalium hominum. Jurati dicunt per sacramentum suum quod predicta Matilda procreata fuit antequam nullum matrimonium contractum erat inter eos et ideo consideratum est quod dictus Hugo dat dominus iiij solidos pro seysine habenda in eodem tenemento teń 'sibi et heredibus suis faciendo domino inde per annum servicie etc. Plegii Johannes Yde et Martinus de Sugenhal.

80. University of Chicago, Bacon MS 9, court of 30 December 1300; for other examples see British Library Add. Ch. 63407, court held 4 November 1294 at Rickinghall; University of Chicago, Bacon MS 10, court held on 6 February 1303 at Redgrave; Norfolk Record Office ING 8, court held 23 June 1287 at Gressenhall; Norfolk Record Office ING 8, court held 8 July 1288. It should be noted that in certain situations local custom recognized the right of the bastard to inherit. See Beckerman, ‘Customary Law in Manorial Courts,’ supra note 30, 156–57.

81. For a balanced consideration of some of these reasons for the ejection of villeins from customary land, see Ibid. 173–79.

82. Harvey, B., Westminster Abbey and its Estates in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1977) 279Google Scholar.

83. Hatcher, ‘English Serfdom and Villeinage,'supra note 15, 21.

84. Harvey, Westminster Abbey, supra note 82, 302.

85. Ibid. 302–3.

86. Ibid. 317.

87. In fact, the form of transfer on East Anglian manors whose court records survive from the 1250s is easier to detect before the widespread adoption of the reddere sursum ad opus terminology after 1280.

88. University of Chicago, Bacon MS 805.

89. See Smith, ‘Families and Their Land,’ supra note 72.

90. In the decade 1300–19, there were 757 inter vivos transactions recorded in the Redgrave manorial courts; the nearest decadal total to this was 542 (1290s), a figure somewhat underestimated because of documentary losses. Although the quantity of land exchanged in the transactions whose volume was given between 1300–19 amounted to 388 acres, the previous decade saw fewer transfers but each with a larger average size (0.8 compared with 0.6 acres). This most likely marks the entry into the market of the second decade of the fourteenth century of many smallholders selling tiny pieces of land as a desperate measure to deal with their chronic liquidity problems.

91. Some indication of the increased income can be gauged from the estimated annual level of curial income given on the 1289 extent of the manor as £6 0s Od. In the 1280s annual income from inter vivos transactions accounted for approximately 30% of this total. By the second decade of the fourteenth century the annual yield on license fees from such transactions was in excess of total court income in the 1280s.

92. In Table 2 we can see that the 757 inter vivos transactions between 1309–10 yielded £77 7s 2d, a license fee on average of 2s per transaction. In the 1280s the 435 similar transactions yielded £23 16s 3d, an average a little over Is per transaction. Given that the evidence suggested that average size of transaction clearly fell, then the license fee per unit area of land transacted more than doubled in the thirty years prior to 1320.

93. University of Chicago, Bacon MS 805.

94. Ibid. No. 8, court held on 6 June 1300.

95. Ibid. No. 4, court held on 23 January 1284.

96. Ibid. No. 20, court held on 28 June 1343.

97. Ibid. No. 8, court held on 20 April 1297.

98. Ibid. No. 8, court held on 20 April 1297, and court held on 21 October 1297.

99. For fuller discussion of the inheritance practice and its role in the land market see Smith, ‘English Peasant Life-cycles and Socio-economic Networks,’ supra note 51, 134–49 and ‘Families and Their Land,’ supra note 72.

100. Unfortunately, we are dependent upon account rolls from the 1320s, the earliest surviving, for Redgrave; University of Chicago, Bacon MS 325 and 326.

101. King, Peterborough Abbey, supra note 61, 116.

102. Ibid. 124.

103. Ibid. cf. Howell, ‘Peasant Inheritance Customs,’ supra note 3, 135, and Harvey, Westminster Abbey, supra note 82, 296. It is interesting that Razi also argues that the wealthier customary tenants acquired land in Halesowen but did so by colonizing the property sold to them by their poorer villein neighbours, Razi, , Life, Marriage and Death in a Medieval Parish; Economy, Society and Demography in Halesowen 1270–1400 (Cambridge, 1980) 77–98Google Scholar.

104. King, Peterborough Abbey, supra note 61, 123.

105. University of Chicago, Bacon MS 805.

106. The land purchasing activities of Adam Jop and Adam Pistor in Redgrave can be found in the court proceedings in University of Chicago, Bacon MS 1–11, and evidence of Adam Pistor's dealings in land in Rickinghall can be obtained from British Library Add. Ch. 63394–63407.

107. University of Chicago, Bacon MS 5–9; courts held on 9 July 1288, 26 April 1291, 1 June 1296, 2 June 1298, and 20 June 1301.

108. University of Chicago, Bacon MS 4 and 8, courts held on 4 October 1283 and 2 June 1298.

109. University of Chicago, Bacon MS 5, court held on 23 October 1289.

110. Williamson, ‘Peasant Holdings in Medieval Norfolk,’ supra note 66, 109–11.

111. Ibid. 110.

112. G. C. Homans discusses cases of a change of custom from ultimogeniture (Borough English) to primogeniture in Bookham, Surrey in 1339, and a case from Graveley, Cambridgeshire, suggestive of a change from primogeniture to Borough English in the late thirteenth century, English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century, supra note 34, 126–27. For an interesting change of custom relating to the rights of bastards to inherit customary land see Massingbird, W. O., ed., Court Rolls of the Manor of Ingoldmells in the County of Lincolnshire (London and Ingoldmells, 1902) 112Google Scholar.

113. Cambridge University Library, Queens College 3.

114. For a detailed discussion see J. Ravensdale, ‘Population Changes and the Transfer of Customary Land on a Cambridgeshire Manor in the Fourteenth Century,’ in R. M. Smith, ed., Land, Kinship and Life-cycle, supra note 72.

115. For other examples see Titow, J. Z., ‘Some Differences between Manors and their Effects on the Conditions of the Peasantry,’ Agricultural History Review 10 (1962) 1–13Google Scholar.

116. Page, Estates of Crowland Abbey, supra note 68, 108–09.

117. Titow, ‘Some Differences between Manors,’ supra note 115, 6–9.

118. The Ascension Day Court of 7 Abbot Simon, Cambridge University Library, Queens College 3; see Ravensdale, ‘Population Changes and the Transfer of Customary Land,’ supra note 114.

119. Ibid.

120. Cambridge University Library, Queens College 3, court held on 15 December 1337.

121. Professor Searle, if somewhat hesitantly, seems to be taking cognisance of this factor when she writes, ‘It is this element of public control by the lord, advised by the peasant community that stands out when one assembles the widespread evidence of merchet …’ ‘Seigneurial Control of Women's Marriage,’ supra note 8, 42.

122. See the remarks of Post, ‘Manorial Amercements and Peasant Poverty,’ supra note 48, 311 and Razi, Life, Marriage and Death in a Medieval Parish, supra note 103, 77 n. 145 where he writes referring to the court assessors (affeerors) in the Halesowen's manor court in the 1350s, ‘Each year 2 or 4 villagers were elected to fill this key position and they were always rich peasants.’

123. For instance, DeWindt, E. B., Land and People in Holywell-cum-Needingworth (Toronto, 1971Google Scholar) has used the incidence of personal pledging as an index of the degree of cooperation or ‘community spirit’ and concludes that the decline after 1350 in this institution is a reflection of the dissolution of the community. However, it has been noted by Beckerman, ‘Customary Law in Manorial Courts,’ supra note 30, 240–41, that this decline was largely to be explained by changing legal processes with fewer law suits initiated by individuals with the greater use of jury presentment. Likewise, attempts to use the number of persons appearing in court as a surrogate for crosssectional village censuses would need to devote very considerable attention to both procedural developments in the courts and compositional changes in the business coming before them to avoid the generation of highly ambiguous demographic evidence, e.g., Razi, Life. Marriage and Death in a Medieval Parish, supra note 103. 21–32.

124. For some relevant and thought-provoking considerations on ‘curial integration’ see Palmer, R. C.. The County Courts of Medieval England (Princeton, 1982) especially 263–306Google Scholar.