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Notes on the Lancaster Estates in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

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Notes on the Lancaster Estates in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries NOTES ON THE LANCASTER ESTATES IN THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES BY DOROTHEA OSCHINSKY, D.Phil., Ph.D. Read 24 April 1947 UR knowledge of mediaeval estate administration is O based mainly on sources which relate to ecclesiastical estates, because these are easier of access and, as a rule, more complete. The death of an abbot affected a monastic estate only in so far as his successor might be a better or a worse husbandman; the estate was never divided between heirs, was not diminished by the endowment of widows and daughters, and was not doubled by prudent marriages as were seignorial estates. Furthermore, the ecclesiastics had frequently been granted their lands in frankalmoin, and no rent or service was rendered in return. With few exceptions their manors lay near the centre of the estate; and, finally, the clerics had sufficient leisure to supervise their estates themselves and little difficulty in providing a staff trained to work the estates intensively and profitably. Therefore we realise that any conclusions which are based on ecclesiastical estates only must necessarily be one-sided, and that before we can draw a general picture of the estate administration in the Middle Ages, we have to work out the estate adminis­ tration on at least some of the more important seignorial estates. The Lancaster estates with their changing fate are well able to reveal the chief characteristics of a seignorial estate, its extent, management and administration. The vastness of the estates of the Earls of Lancaster, and the importance of the family in the political history of the country, accen­ tuated and multiplied the difficulties of the estate adminis­ tration. The estate contained a far greater number of components than any ordinary seignorial estate since it represented in itself a composition of several large seignorial estates brought together and divided again by political 9 10 NOTES ON THE LANCASTER ESTATES IN THE events. The management and organisation of the local units, however, were much the same whether the estate was in the hands of Henry de Lacy, Thomas of Lancaster, or Queen Isabella. The Earldom of Lancaster was created in 1267 when Henry III granted it to his younger son Edmund. The components of the estate of this new earldom were the Earldom and Honour of Leicester, the castles and lands of the Earl of Derby, both forfeited to the king after the Barons' War of 1265, and the Honours of Lancaster, Newcastle- under-Lyme, and Pickering. (1) When Edmund of Lancaster died in 1297 he owned the Honours of Leicester, Tutbury (Staffs, and Derby), Lancaster, and the bailiwicks of Pickering (Yorks.), Higham Ferrers (Northants), and Dunstanburgh (Northumberland). (2) His son, Thomas, added (by his marriage with the heiress of the Earl of Lincoln, Henry de Lacy) the Honours of Clitheroe (Lanes.), Halton (Ches.), Pontefract (Yorks.), and Bolingbroke (Lines.). <3) The estates which the Earls of Lancaster owned in Wales had been acquired partly by Henry de Lacy (e.g. Denbigh), and partly by grants in reward to Edmund for his services against the Welsh (e.g. Monmouth, Grosmont, White Castle, Sken- frith). (4) In the early 14th century the Lancaster estates consisted of seven honours, three bailiwicks, the Welsh estates, and some smaller estates in Norfolk, Suffolk, Middle­ sex, London, etc. The survey of the knights' fees granted by the Earls of Lancaster gives the names of thirty-one counties; 15' that is to say the estates were scattered all over England. <6) The estates included large forests in Derbyshire, Stafford­ shire, Lancashire, and Denbighshire, fenland in Lincolnshire, moorland in Yorkshire and good arable land and pasture all over England. But the estate administration had also to 111 See W. E. Rhodes, " Edmund Earl of Lancaster " (English Historical Review, Vol. X, 1895). <2) Calendar of Inquisitions post mortem (Public Record Office), Vol III, No. 423. I am indebted for information on this subject to Mr. R. Somer- ville who has allowed me to use some of his notes. '" Calendar of Inquisitions post mortem, Vol. V, No. 279. '" W. E. Rhodes, op. tit, pp. 31ff. <"' Duchy of Lancaster Knight's Fees (P.R.O.), Bundle I, No. 11. '" For this essay we need not consider the estates in France. THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES 11 be adapted to such widely different types of habitation as were to be found in Denbigh and in Yorkshire or Lincoln­ shire. In Denbigh there were groups of small villages, each nothing more than a hamlet formed by the Celtic custom of dividing the land among the heirs ; (1) in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, on the other hand, the Scandinavian settlers had formed large villages. A final word about the fate of this enormous estate. It was forfeited to the king after the decapitation of Thomas of Lancaster in 1322; part of it was a few years later granted to Thomas's brother, Earl Henry of Lancaster, part of it was returned to Alesia, Thomas's widow, and part of it remained for some time in the hands of Queen Isabella to whom the king had given it after it had been escheated to him. m Substantial parts of the estate had been temporarily granted away by Thomas of Lancaster, e.g. the lands which he gave to Robert de Holand in Lancashire, U) and some lands had been assigned in dower to Henry de Lacy's widow in 1311 and to Thomas's widow in 1322. (4) It was a characteristic mediaeval idea that the possession of land was of no value unless profit was derived from it. (6) This made it easier for the lord to grant lands away than if the present day conception prevailed whereby the ground itself is of value. Also the feudal system required every important lord to give sufficient land to his retainers to support them, just as he had received the land from his overlord with the obligation of feudal service in return. Thus the larger part of the land which was in the possession of a lord might be given out to his feudal tenants. The return from these estates would consist of military service, some token rent, a rose, a pair of gloves, a pair of spurs, suit to the lord's courts, and the feudal incidents (aids, reliefs, etc.). Apart from the land handed over to military tenants, the (1) E. Lipson, The Economic History of England, Vol. I, p. 85; H. C. Darby in An Historical Geography of England, pp. 204ff. <" Calendar of Patent Rolls (P.R.O.), 1327-30, p. 32; 1330-34, p. 195; 1343-45, p. 447. 131 Inquisition ad quod damnum, Edward II (see W. Farrer, Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, Vol. 54, p. 34). (4) Calendar of Inquisitions post mortem, Vol. VI, No. 371, Vol. IX, No. 107. 151 E. Lamond, Walter of Henley, p. 18: " e la terre est votre e ne mye alowe ". 12 NOTES ON THE LANCASTER ESTATES IN THE religious zeal of the Middle Ages was the cause of frequent grants of estates in frankalmoin to religious houses which did not bring any return in rent or service to the lord except the prayers of the monks for the donor and his family. The revenues of the lord which actually filled his coffers and from which he paid his expenses were derived from his demesne estates. These demesne estates were by no means all landed estates, nor were they all run by the lord's servants and worked for his profit. We find among them rights and privileges that were rented out for a fixed amount, e.g. the jurisdiction of a hundred court or the advowson of a church, the rent assize of a borough, the profits from tolls, markets and fairs. A substantial part of the rights, privileges and lands which made up these demesne estates of the lord, however, were actually worked " in demesne". Forest rights, for example, were made profitable by the keeping of vaccaries and by the collecting of brushwood; mines were exploited on the lord's account, pastures and meadows were used for the feeding of the lord's sheep and cattle, and, finally, land was ploughed by the lord's tenants or his serfs. These demesne lands, woods and rights sometimes cost more than they brought in, e.g. castles sometimes needed costly repairs which exceeded the profits, mills sometimes were thrown over by storms and were out of action, mines sometimes were not in productive use. It was the merit of the manorial system that it provided administrative, geographical and jurisdictional units which allowed a firm grasp to be kept on the numerous sources of revenue. Token fees, rents and revenues due from the lands of free tenants, thegns or knights, situated between two manors could be included in the account of one or the other manor. A seignorial bailiff or reeve in charge of a manor had to account for the feudal incidents and token fees from tenants just as he had to account for the rents from mills, mines and courts in his district. The management of the manorial inland was only one of his many duties. For the purpose of administration the manors, townships, lands, forests and rights were grouped in bailiwicks or receiverships under the supervision of a bailiff, steward or receiver. The honours, too, acted as such administrative THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES 13 units. They were held of the king in chief against payment of military service. The caput of the honour was usually a castle which had the same name as the honour, and the estates were grouped around it.
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