Abstracts of Feet of Fines Relating to Wiltshire for the Reign of Edward Iii
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
%iItsbire ikernrh énrietp (Formerly the Records Branch of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society) VOLUME XXIX FOR THE YEAR I973 Impression of 425 copies ABSTRACTS OF FEET OF FINES RELATING TO WILTSHIRE FOR THE REIGN OF EDWARD III EDITED BY C. R. ELRINGTON DEVIZES 1974 © Wiltshire Record Society 1974 ISBN: 0 901333 06 9 THIS VOLUME IS PUBLISHED WITH THE HELP OF A GRANT FROM THE LATE MISS ISOBEL THORNLEY’S BEQUEST TO THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Set in Times New Roman 10/1 lpt. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY GLEVUM PRESS LTD., GLOUCESTER CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE vii ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS viii INTRODUCTION Feet of fines The documents Form and content of feet of fines uJl\JI--v—- Abbreviated marks on the face IO Editorial method ll Divers counties fines already published 13 ABSTRACTS OF FEET OF FINES I4 INDEX 151 LIST OF MEMBERS 217 PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY 223 V PREFACE This volume continues the publication of abstracts of feet of fines relating to Wiltshire to the year 1377. It follows the Calendar of the Feet of Fines relating to . Wiltslzire . 1195 to . I272 edited by E. A. Fry, published by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society in 1930 and now perhaps a little in need of revision, and Abstracts of Feet of Fines relating to Wiltslrire for the Reigns of Edward I and Edward ll edited by R. B. Pugh, published by the Society (or, as it was called until 1967, the Records Branch of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society) in 1939. Mr. Elrington took up the work in 1967 while Honorary Editor of the Society and completed it after resigning that post in I972. The Society is indebted to him not only for his labour in editing this volume but also for the time and energy he employed so fruitfully as its Honorary Editor. The Society gratefully expresses its thanks to the trustees of the Isobel Thornley Bequest for a most generous grant towards the cost of printing. Mr. Elrington wishes to record his special thanks to Professor R. B. Pugh, President of the Society, for encouragement, example, and help in many ways. He would also like to thank Miss Elizabeth Crittall, Editor of the Victoria History of Wiltshire, for making available notes made for the Victoria History, and Miss Susan Reynolds for making valuable suggestions about the introduction. DOUGLAS CRowLEY August 1973 vii ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS cons. consideration def. deforciant Eas. Easter Hil. Hilary imp. impedient Mic. Michaelmas oct. octave [the day a week later] pl. plaintiff quin. quindene [the day a fortnight later] S.J.B. St. John the Baptist (nativity of) Trin. Trinity A forename set in italic type indicates the person whose heirs or inheritance are specified when it would not otherwise be clear from the abstract. A place-name set in italic type shows that the name has been translated from Latin. For further discussion of editorial method see pp. ll—l2. INTRODUCTION Feet of Fines are a group of documents recording transactions in land. They extend over a period from the end of the l2th century to the earlier l9th with relatively little change in form, and their importance, both for conveyancing and for historical and genealogical research, has been so large that many accounts of them have been published.‘ It is not intended therefore in the present introduction to do more than provide such explanation as will make the abstracts printed below intelligible. FEET OF FINES The foot of a fine records a final agreement made in a court of law between the parties to an action brought in that court about the tenure of land. The agreement, sometimes called a final concord by historians,1 was commonly known as a fine; that word was not used in any penal sense, nor even because ofthe money payment that was made for the licence to compromise the action, but because the agreement brought an end to the dispute. In the l2th and l3th centuries fines were often settlements of genuine legal disputes, but by the time of Edward III all fines followed from actions that were brought to the court not because the parties were in disagreement but because they wished to have a pre-existing agreement corroborated by the court. As a method of conveying or settling land it may seem devious and cumbersome, but it was an effective and therefore much used instrument for cutting through the complexities of the feudal land law. A fine afforded incontestable evidence of the transaction, was legally binding on the parties, protected the rights of married women, barred the claims of others within certain limits, provided a way of dealing with reversionary interests, and made it possible to direct the future succession to property} When a final agreement was granted by the court it was engrossed as a tripartite indenture, that is to say the record was written out three times on a single parchment, two copies being written head to head and the third at right angles to them across the foot of the parchment. The three copies were then divided from each other by cutting an indented, or wavy, line vertically between the two halves of the upper two-thirds of the parchment and another 1 See e.g. the introductions to Wiltshire Feet of Fines, Edward I and 11 (Wiltshire Archaeo- logical Soc., Records Branch, i); Htmtingdoiishire Feet of Fines (Cambridge Antiquarian Soc., octavo series, xxxvii); Surrey Feet of Fines, 1509-58 (Surrey Record Soc. xix); all of which cite earlier works, including those which discuss fines from a legal rather than an historical point of view. See also S.F.C. Milsom, Historical Foundations of the Common Law (I969), l50—3. 2 ‘Final agreement’ is the better name: R. E. Latham, ‘Banishment of Latin from the Public Records’, Archives, iv (1959-60), I64, I68. 3 F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, History of English Law (2nd edn. 191 I), ii. 94~lO5, where the advantages of the fine are discussed. On the bar see below, p. I0. 2 FEET OF FINES, EDWARD 111 horizontally above the lower one-third. The halves of the upper two-thirds were given, one each, to the parties to the agreement; the lower one-third —the foot of the fine—was kept with the records of the court. THE DOCUMENTS The feet of fines abstracted below are preserved in the Public Record Office in London as part of the records of the Court of Common Pleas. Series I (i.e. those up to the end of the reign of Henry VII) have the c1ass—number C.P. 25(1). They are arranged county by county in files that are themselves grouped in ‘cases’. The fines for Wiltshire for the reign of Edward III are in case 254, files 40—5, and case 255, files 46-53. In addition there are files of fines that relate to more than one county, known as divers counties fines: for them the abstracts below draw on case 286, files 35-8, case 287, files 39-45, and case 288, files 46-50. Within the arrangement county by county the fines are arranged by regnal years, but not in strict chronological order within each regnal year, and are numbered in sequence with a figure stamped on the back. Serial numbers on the front ofeach document, added in comparatively modern times, are evidence of at least two earlier arrangements. The documents are mounted on guards and filed between boards in varying numbers, usually about 40 to a file. Their size is often as small as 9 in. >< 5 in. (229 mm. >< 127 mm.) or as large as 18 in. >< 12 in. (457 mm. :-< 305 mm.). Each foot has a hole towards the upper left-hand corner where it was pierced for filing. The smaller documents are generally in excellent condition; the larger ones tend to be worn where they have extended beyond the rest or have been folded, and the legibility of writing that has become faint has often been further impaired by the use of gallic acid. As might be expected, the handwriting, ink, and parchment vary within fairly narrow limits. A11 medieval fines are written in Latin. The feet of fines are inscribed with some words and figures that are not part of the actual record ofthe agreements. The serial numbers have already been mentioned; endorsements and abbreviated marks near the lower right- hand corner of some feet are discussed below. Along the indented line that forms the upper edge of each foot are parts of the letters forming the word ‘cyrographum’, which was written along the spaces between the parts of the indenture before it was divided.‘ Finally, the name of the county, ‘Wiltes’, is written boldly and with a flourish across the bottom of the foot, as are similarly abbreviated names on divers counties fines. For the purposes of compiling the abstracts below, all the files of feet of fines for Wiltshire and for divers counties in the reign of Edward III were examined. One document (no. 135 below) was badly defective, but a reference to a transcript of the fine made in the 15th century had been put on the file by one of the Staff of the Public Record Office. One abstract (no. 71) is taken from a calendar made about the year 1700.1 A few abstracts and transcripts I The separate indentures are sometimes referred to as chirographs. 1 See note to no. 71. INTRODUCTION 3 have been encountered in other places but have not provided any additional material.