A SOURCE-BOOK OF
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
CHAPTER I
SAXON VILLAGE AND MANORIAL SYSTEMS
INTRODUCTORY NOTES
Laws of Ethelbert
These laws are dated A.D. 600, only three years after the coming of St. Augustine. Throughout them and the later dooms the educative effect of Christianity in its Roman form is to be traced. Hitherto law had been oral, traditional, unrecorded; these customary laws are now first reduced to written form and made permanent for the local kingdom.
(5) Compensation, already reckoned in money though not always paid in coin (cf. 59), is the customary quittance for every offence.
(9) Crime, hitherto an offence only against the victim and his kin, is here further treated as an offence against the community represented by the King.
(74, 77) Status of woman high; marriage a business contract.
Laws of Ine
(20, 43) Most of England is still under woodland.
(25) Trade already considerable (cf. Athelstane, 10, 13).
(42) Farming done in common; use of quickset as well as temporary hurdle fences.
(44, 49) Important place of swine in Saxon economy.
Laws of Alfred
Influence of Church supreme in the form and matter of the laws, the Mosaic infused among Saxon customary rules.
(30, 32) Survival of Paganism, possibly reinforced by Danish influence.
(39) Woodland not yet cleared of wild beasts.
Laws of Athelstane
Note here the practice of local minting, now confined to officers of the Church or King; also the use of horses as well as oxen in farm labour.
Legislation is now by the King in council and the whole series of excerpts show the re-establishment of order and royal authority based on the fundamental principle of loyalty to the oath. The sworn bond between man and lord was already in Alfred’s reign the most sacred, its breach constituting treason for which no money penalty might atone.
Growth of Trade
This is apparent in Alfred’s laws (34), in Edward’s (12), and Athelstane’s; it is regulated by royal and not by local authority; and disputes between Dane and Saxon lead to the general imposition of the rule of “Commendation” of landless men to lords, which gave rise to the Saxon system later called manorial.
Boundary Dispute, 896 A.D.
Note the power of the local Witan to try property cases; the co-operation of bishop and chapter in the grant; the instance of commendation; the priest’s position as spokesman of the villagers.
Manorial System
Fitzherbert’s account of the rise of manors ignores the Saxon basis for the grouping of tenants under a lord to whom they paid service for their lands. This system did not begin at the Conquest but earlier (cf. Ine, 67; Alfred, 23; Athelstane, 8, 10, etc.).
It was in most cases a fair, voluntary bargain (cf. Boundary Dispute), in which one party owed protection, military and legal, in return for the labour of the other. This feudal compact enabled the country to pass through the Danish troubles and consequent disorder under the leadership of the lords. Once security had been re-established by the central power of the Angevin kings, both the need for lords and their sense of responsibility for their men faded and their power was abused till the economic forces of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries gave the men a means of resistance.
Custumals of Battle Abbey
It is possible from these details to construct a vivid scene of manorial life. Owners of ecclesiastical manors were usually more liberal to their tenants than lay lords. Interesting features are the work of the lord’s officer, the Reeve; the fact that while a half-hide may support a considerable family, the work of only one member is required to do the services; the ease with which the elaborate details of the services led to disputes; the ranks of the various villeins and the consequent difference in the service each paid; the constant use of barter, goods being paid rather than money.
SAXON LAWS OR DOOMS
(Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes)
ETHELBERT
(King of Kent, 560-610.) (p. 2)
(5) If a man slay another in the king’s tun[1] let him make bot[2] with fifty shillings.
(9) If a freeman steal from a freeman, let him make threefold bot; and let the king have the wite[3] and all the chattels.
(17) If any one be the first to make an inroad into a man’s tun let him make bot with six shillings; let him who follows with three shillings; after, each, a shilling.
(21) If a man slay another, let him make bot with ... a hundred shillings.
(24) If any one bind a freeman, let him make bot with twenty shillings.
(74) Let maiden-bot be as that of a freeman.
(77) If a man buy a maiden with cattle let the bargain stand, if it be without guile, but if there be guile, let him bring her home again, and let his property be restored to him.
OF THE DOOMS OF INE
(Wessex, 688 A.D.) (Ibid. p. 45)
(20) If a far-coming man or a stranger journey through a wood out of the highway, and neither shout nor blow his horn, he is to be held for a thief, either to be slain or redeemed.
(25) If a chapman traffic up among the people, let him do it before witnesses....
(40) A ceorl’s close ought to be fenced winter and summer. If it be unfenced and his neighbours’ cattle stray in through his own gap, he shall have nothing from the cattle: let him drive it out and bear the damage.
(42) If ceorls have a common meadow, or other partible land to fence, and some have fenced their part, some have not, and (stray cattle) eat up their common corn or grass, let those go who own the gap, and compensate to the others who have fenced their part, the damage which there may be done, and let them demand such justice on the cattle as it may be right. But if there be a beast that breaks hedges and goes in everywhere, and he who owns it will nor or cannot restrain it; let him who finds it in his field take it and slay it, and let the owner take its skin and flesh and forfeit the rest.
(43) When anyone burns a tree in a wood, and it be found out against him who did it, let him pay the full wite; let him give sixty shillings because fire is a thief. If anyone fell in a wood a good many trees, and be afterwards discovered; let him pay for three trees, each with thirty shillings. He need not pay for more of them, were there so many of them as might be; because the axe is an informer, not a thief.
(44) But if anyone cut down a tree under which thirty swine may stand, and it be discovered let him pay sixty shillings.
(49) If a man among his mast find unallowed swine, then let him take a wed[4] of six shillings value.... If pannage[5] be taken for swine, of those three fingers thick in fat, the third; of those two fingers, the fourth; of those a thumb thick, the fifth.
(59) A cow’s horn shall be worth two pence; an ox’s tail shall be worth a shilling; a cow’s shall be five pence; an ox’s eye shall be worth five pence; a cow’s shall be worth a shilling. There shall always be given as barley-rent from one wyrhta (a measure of land) six pounds.
(67) If a man agree for a yard of land,[6] or more, at a fixed rent, and plough it; if the lord desire to raise the land to him to service and to rent, he need not take it upon him, if the lord do not give him a dwelling, and let him lose the crop.
(69) A sheep shall go with its fleece until Midsummer, or let the fleece be paid for with two pence.
ALFRED’S DOOMS
(King of England, 871-901.) (Ibid. p. 20)
[Alfred’s Dooms begin with the Ten Commandments and other regulations taken from the Old Testament.]
(15) He who stealeth a freeman and selleth him, and if it be proved against him so that he cannot clear himself; let him perish by death.
(16) If anyone smite his neighbour with a stone or with his fist, and he nevertheless can go out with a staff, let him get a leech, and work his work while that himself may not.
(19) If anyone thrust out another’s eye, let him give his own for it; tooth for tooth; hand for hand; foot for foot; burning for burning; wound for wound; stripe for stripe.
(22) If anyone dig a water-pit, or open one that is shut up, and close it not again; let him pay for whatever cattle may fall therein; and let him have the dead (beast).
(23) If an ox wound another man’s ox, and if it then die, let them sell the (live) ox, and have the worth in common, and also the flesh of the dead one. But if the lord knew that the ox had used to push, and he would not confine it, let him give him another ox for it, and have all the flesh for himself.
(24) If anyone steal another’s ox, and slay or sell it, let him give two for it; and four sheep for one. If he have not what he may give, be he himself sold for the cattle.
(30) The women who are wont to receive enchanters, and workers of phantasms, and witches, suffer thou not to live:
(32) And let him who sacrificeth to gods, save unto God alone, perish by death.
(36) If a man have only a single garment wherewith to cover himself, or to wear, and he give it (to thee) in pledge; let it be returned before sunset.
(39) All the flesh that wild beasts leave, eat ye not that, but give it to the dogs.
(43) Judge thou very evenly: judge thou not one doom to the rich, another to the poor; nor one to thy friend, another to thy foe, judge thou.
(47) To the stranger and comer from afar behave thou not unkindly, nor oppress thou him with any wrongs.
I then, Alfred, king, gathered these together and commanded many of them to be written which our forefathers held, those which to me seemed good; many of those which seemed to me not good I rejected them, by the counsel of my Witan, and in other wise commanded them to be holden; for I durst not venture to set down in writing much of my own, for it was unknown to me what of it would please those who should come after us.
FURTHER SERIES
(12) If a man burn or hew another’s wood without leave, let him pay for every great tree with five shillings, and afterwards for each, let there be as many of them as may be, with five pence, and thirty shillings as wite.
(34) It is also directed to chapmen, that they bring the men whom they take up with them before the king’s reeve at the folk-moot, and let it be stated how many of them there are ... and when they have need of more men up with them on their journey, let them always declare it, as often as their need may be, to the king’s reeve, in presence of the gemot.
(36) Of heedlessness with a spear.
If a man have a spear over his shoulder, and any man stake himself upon it, that he pay the wer[7] without the wite. If he stake himself before his face, let him pay the wer. If he be accused of wilfulness in the deed, let him clear himself according to the wite; and with that let the wite abate. And let this be if the point be three fingers higher than the hindmost part of the shaft; if they be both on a level, the point and the hindmost part of the shaft, be that without danger.
EDWARD AND GUTHRUM
(Ibid. p. 71)
(7) If anyone engage in Sunday marketing, let him forfeit the chattel, and 12 ores among the Danes, or thirty shillings among the English. If a freeman work on a festival day let him forfeit his freedom or pay wite.
(12) If anyone wrong an ecclesiastic or a foreigner through any means, as to money or as to life, then shall the king or the eorl there in the land, and the bishop of the people be unto him in the place of a kinsman and of a protector, unless he have another.
LAWS OF ATHELSTANE, A.D. 925
(Ibid. p. 83)
Of Landless Men
(8) And we have ordained: if any landless man should become a follower in another shire, and again seek his kinsfolk; that he may harbour him on this condition; that he present him to folkright if he there do any wrong, or make bot for him.
(9) He who attaches cattle, let V of his neighbours be named to him; and of the V let him get one who will swear with him that he takes it to himself by folkright: and he who will keep it to himself, to him let there be named X men, and let him get two of them, and give the oath that it was born on his property....
(10) And let no man exchange any property without the witness of the reeve, or of the mass priest, or of the landlord ... or of any other unlying man....
But if it be found that any of these have given wrongful witness, that his witness never stand again for aught, and that he also give XXX shillings as wite.
(12) And we have ordained that no man buy any property out of port[8] over XX pence; but let him buy there within on the witness of the port reeve, or of another unlying man: or further on the witness of the reeves at the folkmoot.
(13) And we ordain that every burh[9] be repaired XIV days over Rogation Days.
Secondly that every marketing be within port.
(14) Thirdly: that there be one money over all the king’s dominions and that no man mint except within port.
And if the moneyer be guilty, let the hand be struck off with which he wrought the offence, and be set up on the money smithy....
In Canterbury VII moneyers; IV the king’s, and II the bishop’s, I the abbot’s.
At Rochester III; II the king’s, and I the bishop’s.
At London VIII.
At Winchester VI.
At Lewes II.
At Hastings I.
Another at Chichester.
At Hampton II.
At Wareham II.
At Exeter II.
At Shaftesbury II.
Else at the other burgs I.
(15) Fourthly: that no shieldwright cover a shield with sheep’s skin; and if he do so, let him pay XXX shillings.
(16) Fifthly: that every man have to the plough two well-horsed men.
(18) Seventhly: that no man part with a horse over sea, unless he wish to give it.
(24) ... And that no marketing be on Sundays; but if anyone do so, let him forfeit the goods, and pay XXX shillings as wite.
(26) But if any one of my reeves will not do this, and care less about it than we have commanded: then let him pay my oferhyrnes[10], and I will find another who will. And let the bishop exact the oferhyrnes of the reeve in whose following it may be....
All this was established in the great Synod of Greatanlea[11]: in which was the archbishop Wulfhelm, with all the noblemen and witan....
Athelstane, king, makes it known: that I have learned that our frith[12] is worse kept than is pleasing to me, or it at Greatanlea was ordained; and my witan say that I have too long borne with it. Now I have decreed with the witan who were with me at Exeter at mid winter; that they [the Frith breakers], shall all be ready, in themselves and with wives and property and with all things to go whither I will (unless from henceforth they shall desist) on this ... condition, that they never come again to the country ... now that is because the oaths, and the weds, and the books[13] are all disregarded and broken which were there given; and we know of no other things to trust in except it be this.
ETHELRED, A.D. 1008
(Ibid. p. 119)
(13) Let Sunday’s festival be rightly kept, as is thereto becoming: and let marketings and folkmotes be carefully abstained from on that holy day.
CHURCH RULES
(Ibid. p. 472)
We have also seen often in the church, corn, and hay, and all kinds of peculiar things kept;
Mass priest[14] ought always to have at their houses a school of disciples, and if any good man desire to commit his little ones to them for instruction, they ought very gladly to receive them, and kindly teach them.... They ought not, however, for that instruction to desire anything from their relations, except what they shall be willing to do for them of their own accord....
Also we command those mass priests, who are subjected to us, that they very earnestly [busy] themselves about the people’s learning: that those who are learned in books frequently and zealously teach their parishioners from these books, who may not be so far learned in books.
BOUNDARY DISPUTE SETTLED, A.D. 896
(Ibid., p. 139)
“In that year Ethelred, alderman, summoned all the witan of the Mercians together at Gloster, bishops and aldermen and all his chief men, and did that with the knowledge and leave of King Alfred.... Then bishop Werferth made known to the ‘witan’ that almost all the woodland had been reft from him that belonged to Woodchester which king Ethelbald gave to Worcester in perpetual alms, as mastland and woodland, to bishop Wilferth ... and then Aethelwald [the occupier] forthwith declared that he would not oppose the right.... And so very mildly gave it up to the bishop, and ordered his ‘geneat’ named Eclaf, to ride with the townsmen’s priest, named Wulfhere; and he then led him along all the boundaries as he read them to him from the old books how king Ethelbald had before increased and given it. Then, however, Aethelwald desired of the bishop and the convent that they would kindly allow him to enjoy it while he lived, and Allmund his son; and they would hold it in fee of him and the convent; and, he never, nor either of them would bereave him of the pannage right, which he had allowed him in Longridge, for the time in which God gave it to him.... So did the witan of the Mercians declare it in the ‘gemot’; and showed him the charters of the land.... And thus the townsmen’s priest rode it, and Aethelwald’s ‘geneat’ with him.... Thus did Aethelwald’s man point out to him the boundaries as the old charters directed and indicated.”
MANORIAL SYSTEM
FITZHERBERT’S ACCOUNT OF THE RISE OF MANORS
(Sir A. Fitzherbert, Book of Husbandry; Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce. App. 1, Edition 1882.)
Customary tenants are those that hold their lands of their lord by copy of court roll, after the custom of the manor. And there be many tenants within the same manor, that have no copies and yet hold by like Custom and service at the will of the lord. And in mine opinion it began soon after the Conquest, when William Conqueror had conquered the Realm he rewarded all those that came with him, in his voyage royal, according to their degree. And to honourable men he gave lordships, manors, lands and tenements with all the inhabitants, men and women, dwelling in the same, to do with them at their pleasure. And those honourable men thought that they must needs have servants and tenants, and their lands occupied with tillage. Wherefore they pardoned the inhabitants of their lives, and caused them to do all manner of service, that was to be done, was it never so vile, and caused them to occupy their lands and tenements in tillage and took of them such rents, customs and services as it pleased them to have. And also took all their goods and cattle at all times at their pleasure, and called them their bondmen, and since that time many noblemen, both spiritual and temporal, of their godly disposition, have made to divers of the said bondmen manumissions and granted them freedom and liberty.... Howbeit, in some places, the bondmen continue as yet the which me seemeth is the greatest inconvenience that now is suffered by the law, that is to have any christian bounden to another and to have the rule of his body, lands or goods, that his wife, children and servants have laboured for all their lifetime to be so taken, like as an it were extortion or bribery.
And many times by colour thereof there be many freemen taken as bondmen, and their lands and goods taken from them, so that they shall not be able to sue for remedy to prove themselves free of blood. And that is most commonly when the freemen have the same name as the bondmen, or that his ancestors, of whom he is come, was manumized before his birth. In such case there cannot be too great a punishment.
In many lordships there is a customary roll between a lord and his tenants, and it ought to be indented, one part to remain in the lord’s keeping, the other part with the tenants and divers true copies to be made of the same, that the rents and customs run not out of remembrance. And also a suit roll to call all those by name, that oweth any suit to the lord’s court and then shall there be no concealment of the suitors, but that the steward may know who is not there, and if any suitors decease, the name of his next heir would be entered into the same roll, and an enquiry made, and presented, what he held of the lords and by what rents, customs and services of every parcel by itself, and who is his next heir, and of what age he is of, and this truly done and entered into the roll, it would be a conveyance of descent ... and profitable to the lords and also to the tenants.
BATTLE ABBEY CUSTUMALS
(Custumals of Battle Abbey, Ed., S. R. Scargill-Bird. Camden Society, New Series, 41)
MANOR OF ALSISTUN, SUSSEX (p. XVIII)
The reeve held one virgate for which he rendered no service so long as he kept his office.
CUSTOMARY TENANTS
Services due from each half hide
Every half hide owed to the lord, on every working day, the services of one man, to do whatever should be required of him;
If thrashing was required three men ought to thrash in a day half a seam and half a bushel [i.e. 4½ bushels] of corn, or two men ½ seam of barley, or each man 6 bushels of oats; and of beans and vetches the same quantity as of corn; They were to thrash in whatever barn they might be directed to do (within the manor) and to winnow what they had thrashed and carry it to the granary, and if it were far to the granary to employ their cattle in carrying it;
If ditching was required two men were to make in a day 1 perch of new ditch, 5 feet in width, or each man to repair 1 perch of old;
If other work was required of them they were to work until their fellows had finished their work in the barn;
In ploughing and harrowing they were to work until it was time to unharness the plough.
When they had to break clods, to wash or shear sheep, to hoe corn, and to mow or gather hay, they were to work the whole day except the dinner hour;
In addition to the ordinary daywork each ½ hide was to find a man for one day to gather the hay; and also a man to mow and cock hay for one day; and they were to carry the whole of the hay, each half hide with two oxen;
If necessary each half hide was to find two men to reap in the lord’s field, receiving therefor every tenth sheaf,—or if the lord should prefer it, each half hide was to reap in a day an acre of corn or oats or half an acre of barley or vetches with as many men as they chose, receiving every tenth sheaf;
They were to carry all the corn, each half hide with two oxen;
Also each half hide was to find two men and two oxen to cart manure till it was all carted away;
To plough one acre for corn once and to sow half of it, providing the seed;
To plough one acre for barley twice, and two acres for oats once, to carry the seed for the same from the granary to the field, and to harrow the same;
Every half hide was also to carry 4 loads of wood yearly to the lord’s hearth, and when he was building, a cartload of timber;
If it were necessary to fetch grain from Seford or elsewhere near, each half hide was to go with one beast twice a day or if further, once a day, such service being reckoned as one day’s work;
Each was also to provide and make four rafters with the appurtenances, and the roofing for the lord’s sheepcote except with great timber, this being reckoned as two day’s work;
Also to carry to Battle every Monday; if however the tenant’s mare was dead or foaling, he was to be quit from one averagium but he was to work instead.
DUTIES OF FOUR COTTARS (p. XX)
From Michaelmas to hoeing time to perform two days’ work a week, namely on Monday and Wednesday; and (as they say) do no other works except to thrash, to break clods, and to spread hay when necessary;
At Christmas each was to carry to Battle 12 hens, and at Easter 250 eggs, and they were to be free from work for twelve days at Christmas and “a die Paraceves”, from Holy Friday to the octaves of Easter;
They were to hoe whenever there was anything to be hoed, to attend to the sheepshearing, and at haytime and harvest each to find one man for the whole time.