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I. The Customary Poor-Law of Three Cambridgeshire Manors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

Frances M. Page
Frances M. Page
Affiliation:
Research Student of Girton College, Cambridge
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Extract

It is perhaps not surprising that the central thread of manorial land law should be found in the pauper problem; for one of the most urgent needs of any age or society is the prevention of destitution. The “sturdy beggar” and “such as walk by night and sleep by day” were the terror of Plantagenet as well as Tudor, while the distress of the aged and impotent was as bitter in the thirteenth as in the sixteenth century, though voiced by no popular poet or press. The Court rolls of the Abbot of Crowland's manors of Oakington, Cottenham and Drayton give constant evidence of the effort consciously or unconsciously made to obviate these unproductive elements of the population, which might become a burden upon the efficient classes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , 1930 , pp. 125 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1930

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References

1 The property of Queens' College, Cambridge, and examined through the courtesy of the President and Fellows.

2 See “Customs of Hereford” (A. T. Bannister, E.H.R. Apr. 1928, pp. 219, 220), right of “free bench “given “without fyne…dum sola et innupta manserit”; Durham Hallmoot Rolls (Surtees Soc. I), “Ius vidue “; Crondal (Hampshire Rec. Soc.); Bishop of Ely's manor of Littleport (Maitland, Court Baron, p. 121); Abbot of Bee's manors of Weedon and Atherstone (Maitland, Select Pleas, pp. 21, 25); Standon (E. Salt, Standon, p. 84).

3 Ad. 36, m. 8 r.

4 X, m. 1 r. (a).

5 At Littleport and Atherstone the question was even raised whether the widow had a right to resume land alienated by her husband in his lifetime if she had opposed, or not expressly recognised, such surrender. (Maitland, C.B. p. 147; S.P. p. 40.)

6 See Wrest Park Ms (property of the Gentlemen's Society of Spalding), fol. 241, where Matilda Giffard quitclaims a third part of Reginald Giffard's lands in Drayton, which was hers “ratione dotis sue.” And ibid. fol. 43 d (27), where the widow of William de Camera quitclaims a third part of his lands in Addington.

7 There are instances where the heir of a free man was a minor, of the widow making fine for the whole land, with wardship and marriage of the heir.

8 Ad. 36, m. 23 d.

9 See Ad. 36, m. 16 d. (b) for a dispute between a half-brother and sister.

10 Dd. 1, m. 16 r. (b) (Rob. Pepiz).

11 Ad. 16, m. 10 d. (a) (John Serle).

12 E.g. infra. Ad. 35, m. 25 r. (b) (the Hargers).

13 Ad. 35, m. 26 r. (J. le Revesson). Ad. 36, m. 13 r. (J. Kycche).

14 Dd. 4, m. 16 r. (T. Speed v. T. Hervy); Dd. 3, m. 5 r. (T. de Gedeney v. J. Wryght).

15 Ad. 35, m. 2 d. (b) (H. Vaveneys). Ad. 27, m. 2 r. (T. Speruer, bailiff, v. A. Phipson and Juliana his wife).

16 Ad. 25, m. 25 d.

17 The only indication of a similar arrangement comes from High Furness (Tawney, Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century, p. 127).

18 This condition may offer some explanation of the late marriages noted by Tawney (op. cit. p. 104, n. 3).

19 Ad. 35, m. 25 r. (b).

20 Ad. 35, m. 24 r.

21 Ad. 36, m. 7 r. (W. Cosyn).

22 Ad. 36, m. 8 r.

23 For instances of a similar practice upon other manors see: Durham Hallmoot Rolls, p. 8—incomer required “to sustain” the former occupants; ibid. p. 10—incomer required to give “a lodgement and 3 rods,” i.e. one rod in each field; ibid. p. 115—incomer required to give a cottage and garden and do the repairs; abbot of Bec's manor of Weedon (Maitland, S.P. p. 32)—incomer required to give food, and a garment, a pair of linen hose, and a pair of boots and slippers every year; bishop of Winchester's manors (Oxford Studies, v, 125, 126)—a somewhat different system, taking the form of a rent-charge upon a lease, difficult to distinguish from ordinary rent-paying. The fourth example quoted by Miss Levett, where a room, garden and croft quit of services, were given on the surrender of a messuage and virgate, seems to be parallel to the Crowland method of dower. These are the only cases I have discovered in printed records.

24 Ad. 35, m. 23 d.

25 Ad. 36, m. 44 r. (b).

26 Dd. 1, m. 16 r. (b).

27 Ad. 36, m. 23 r.

28 Dd. 1, m. 14 r.

29 X. m. 42 d. (T. Cosyn).

30 X. m. 11 d. (Mat. Russell).

31 Dd. 2, m. 12 d. (a).