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Manorial Records Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies Manorial Records Map of the manor of Dunton in 1653 (CBS ref Ma292) Records of Buckinghamshire’s manor courts span 750 years and provide unparalleled insight into rural life at ground level. The system that they reflect used a vocabulary all of its own and bears little resemblance to modern social structures. In this leaflet a brief account of the composition of a manor and the development of its courts is given together with an outline of the sort of records they produced and what you might expect to find in them. All examples are drawn from Buckinghamshire. 1 Lords of the manor and their courts Following the Norman Conquest in 1066 a system of land tenure and local government developed that was based on the manor. A manor could be small or large, based in one geo- graphic locality or with different parts (called members) scattered across a larger area. At the head of a manor was a lord who might be a local knight or one of the king’s chief barons. The lord had rights over the people within his manor, but he also had responsibilities to protect them against marauders and enemies - a situation that was a reality in much of 11th and 12th century England. The lord drew income from the people under him and the land that they worked for him; the manor court de- veloped as the forum for interaction between the lord and his tenants. Before the fifteenth century almost any lord could hold a manor court if he had sufficient tenants, or sufficient business, to make the exercise worthwhile and it became the normal mode of running a landed estate. The court lay at the heart of each manor and it was here that officers were appointed, disputes settled, land transferred and all fines, dues and rents paid to the lord of the manor. The lord might live locally in the manor house or he might not; the court was run by his steward or reeve and met locally, perhaps in the manor house or an inn or a purpose built courthouse. Rules were drawn up within each manor as to how land was inherited, where animals could be grazed, what payments the lord should expect from his tenants etc. These were called the Customs of the manor and, although they were broadly the same from manor to manor, there were distinctive local variations. Illustrations of medieval agricultural life: ploughing and pasturing sheep Free and unfree tenants Between 1066 and the mid 14th century the tenants of a manor were broadly speaking free or unfree. The free tenants comprised as much as 40% of the manor’s population. They paid rent to the lord, were required to attend his court, and might be required to perform certain tasks. More importantly they could also dispose of their land as they pleased, although any incoming tenant had to pay homage to the lord and swear fealty to him in the court as well as paying an entry fine. 2 There were several classes of unfree tenant called serfs, cottars, borders and villeins. Their status was inherited and they were expected to do onerous labour services in farming the lord’s personal land –called his demesne- as well as farming their own strips of land. They could not dispose of their land to whom they wanted nor defend their title outside the manor court, although in practise it did descend through the family according to the custom of the manor which bound the lord almost as much as did the tenant. The services required varied from manor to manor according to the custom there, but generally as well as weekly labour services on the lord’s land they included: a list of payments at different times, in kind or, as time passed, in cash; attendance at the manor court; tenure of office, eg reeve, hayward, constable. Their property could only be passed on to another by surrendering it in the manor court. For a villein his land was not free; for a serf, he himself was not free:in effect a slave. Serfdom was inherited but could be broken by manumission (ie set free), whether granted or purchased. The late 14th and 15th century saw the disappearance of serfdom and the demise of villeinage. As well as shedding many of the hated and onerous physical services, villeins sought greater security of tenure and this led to the recognition of Copyhold tenure by the courts of Chancery. From this time the court roll entry recording the transfer of property was regarded as a title, and a copy of it (hence copy of court roll) was given to the incoming tenant as such. In the 18th and 19th centuries the distinctions between free and unfree tenants became increasingly blurred, both having much the same rights over their lands. Converting copyhold into freehold in 1922 recognised an existing state in terms of rights of tenure, although the loss of income to the lord in monetary payments could be considerable. This is the opening page of a book of in- structions on how to hold courts and the correct forms of words as a guide for would -be stewards (CBS ref D/BASM/88/254 ) The rise and fall of the manor court Manor courts were at their most active and influential from the 13th to the 16th centuries when the lords were at their most powerful (as shown by the Wars of the Roses). The Tudor monarchs removed much of the power of the manor courts, thereby affecting the lords who benefitted from them, by instituting magistrates, Quarter Sessions and the parish vestry, who were all answerable to the king. Manor courts continued but dwindled and in the 17th and 18th centuries many disappeared altogether. The way in which landowners managed their estates also changed, many preferring to employ a single land agent to collect rents and oversee an estate rather than using the cumbersome machinery of a manorial court to regulate agricultural routine. 3 By the close of the 19th century the main purpose of the manor and its remaining courts was the transfer of the particular type of land that belonged to the lord called copyhold. By this time copyhold land could be sold, mortgaged or inherited like freehold land, but it still had to be done through the manor court. This changed in 1922 when the Law of Property Act finally rendered manorial courts obsolete by converting all the lands held as copyhold into freehold. The court house at Long Crendon was built for holding manorial courts in the fifteenth century (CBS ref PhLong Crendon 63) Different types of manor court In the medieval period there were three types of manor court operating in Buckinghamshire: the honour court, the court leet, usually with View of Frankpledge, and the court baron. After the 16th century the honour court generally died out and the courts leet and baron were increasingly held together. In theory the court baron was supposed to be held every few weeks, but in practise it was often less frequent. The court leet, often referred to a the View of Frankpledge, was held once or twice a year. A. The Honour Court An honour was a group of manors and smaller non-court holding units usually termed as fees or fiefs. They were normally held by the king’s tenants in chief and in the feudal hierarchy came between the king and the individual manor. Most operated between the 11th and 15th century and few survived beyond the Tudor period. A medieval honour normally had a castle as its caput or centre; no honours had their caput in Buckinghamshire. The Victoria County History identifies which honour an individual manor belonged to. The following honours had five or more Buckinghamshire manors attached to them: Berkhampstead, Giffard, Gloucester, Dudley, Leicester, Peveral and Wallingford. Just when the old honours were dying out, Henry VIII created some new honours out of the dissolved monastic lands he had acquired. Windsor and Hampton Court honours had one Bucks manor each, but several in North Bucks were attached to the Bedfordshire Honour of Ampthill. An honour court might not always meet in the same place, rather rotating around its members. Although it did occasionally receive presentments for misdemeanours in the same way that normal manor courts did, on the whole it did not. It was more concerned with receiving certainties (a fixed amount of money raised from each of its manors or fiefs) and recording the appointment of officers like constables, ale tasters and haywards. A very few honour records are held at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, but many more are to be found at the National Ar- Detail from one of the Chesham court rolls. Is it a doodle chives and in other record offices. or a portrait of one of the officials? (CBS ref D/BASM 18/201) 4 B. Court Leet with View of Frankpledge Held only once or twice a year the core business of the leet court was to review the tithings within its jurisdiction, called View of Frankpledge. Originating in Anglo Saxon times this meant submitting the names of men over the age of 12 who guaranteed the behaviour of those within their jurisdiction and presenting miscreants and reporting misdeeds. The tithings were usually small parts or members of an individual manor which held both courts leet and baron. In theory the leet courts dealt with more serious matters like crime, affray, assize of bread and ale, and appointment of officers.
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