Tenants, Tenures and Transfers: the Landholding Experience of Rural
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Tenants, Tenures and Transfers: the landholding experience of rural customary tenants in some Hampshire downland manors, 1645-1705 Submitted by Juliet Dorothy Gayton to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History In June 2013 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University Signature: ………………………………………………………….. i Abstract This thesis examines the impact of different customary manorial tenures on the land transfer activities of rural tenants between 1645 and 1705. The study of land transfer has formed part of the attempt by historians to establish how and why England developed from family-based subsistence farming into large-scale commercialised agriculture before many of its Continental neighbours. A key element in any study of land transfer is the property rights of those undertaking the transfers. England had a variety of customary tenures, and little research has focussed on how they operated and impacted on rural tenant transfer behaviour in the early modern period. This study uses evidence from eight manors in Hampshire with four different types of tenure to explore how they affected what land transfer options the tenants had, and how transfers were used to further family and economic objectives. The types of tenure were copyhold of inheritance; copyhold for three lives; copyhold for three lives where the first could act alone; and a form of customary freehold. The main documentary sources are manorial records augmented by parish, probate, survey and taxation material. The tenurial and landholding structure of the manors is established for 1645 using the Cromwellian Parliamentary Surveys of confiscated ecclesiastical estates. The analysis of subsequent tenant land transfers through to 1705 then examines their volume and any correlation with prices and population movements. The permanent transfers of death/inheritance and the inter vivos land market are analysed to assess the extent to which tenants were attached still to family, or taking part in an active extra-familial investment and sales market; and whether this led to changes over time in farm holding size and distribution. The temporary transfers of sub-letting of land and sub-tenure of dwellings are then analysed. The latter has not been studied before, and uses the Hearth Tax returns to compare occupiers of dwellings with formal tenants. Finally a detailed study of mortgages is made. Previous studies of the use of land as collateral for a mortgage loan have often overlooked the rural tenant as a participant in the credit market, and changes in the laws of usury at the end of the sixteenth century produced a significant uptake of mortgaging in the seventeenth, which makes this study timely. The research reveals that the tenants were very active with their transfers, but that the way in which they were active was determined by tenure. Those with copyhold of inheritance tenure had many options including inheritance, sale, mortgaging, sub-letting, splitting holdings, and conditional surrenders to provide for old age or several children. Those with copyhold for lives were restricted to after-death transfers, shuffling of reversion lives, or sub-letting. However, they adapted, and while Inheritance-tenured tenants adopted mortgages with enthusiasm, Lives tenants sub-let on a large scale. Both thereby acquired financial support from their lands, so that although the land-family bond was not absent, the bond was strongest in terms of using the land as an economic asset. The sub-letting of dwellings enabled Lives tenants to accommodate a landless workforce, where their tenure prevented the splitting of parcels for sale as manorial smallholdings. Aggressive accumulation of land was largely absent, and purchasers of land and mortgage lenders were overwhelmingly local. Some polarisation of holding size was found, but sub-tenure meant that actual farmed units were probably very different. It is concluded that differences in tenure significantly shaped the transfer behaviour of the tenants, so that any future research involving customary tenants must take tenure into account. However, their economic ambitions were found to be similar whichever tenure they had, so that they had to take different means to the same end. ii List of Contents Summary Page Title Page with declaration i Abstract ii List of contents summary iii List of chapter sub-contents iv List of Figures viii List of Tables ix List of Annexes xii Abbreviations xiii Acknowledgements xiv Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Sources and methodology 35 Chapter 3 The manors of study: their tenures and customs 55 Chapter 4 The manors and their customary tenants in 1645 75 Chapter 5 Permanent transfers of land and dwellings 97 Chapter 6 Temporary transfers : The sub-letting of land 171 Chapter 7 Temporary transfers : The sub-letting of dwellings 195 Chapter 8 Temporary transfers : The use of land in mortgages 213 Chapter 9 Conclusions 253 Annexes 269 Bibliography 279 iii List of Chapter sub-contents Page Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.0. Introduction 1 1.1. Tenants and tenures 2 1.1.1. Development of the tenures 3 1.1.2. Geographical distribution of the tenures 6 1.1.3. Security of tenure and the lords 7 1.1.4. Comparative studies 10 1.2. Land transfer 11 1.2.1 The development of transfer options 13 1.2.2 Inheritance and the family attachment to land 15 1.2.3. The size of holdings and farms 17 1.2.4. Land transfer in the rural economy 21 1.3. External pressures: prices, population, enclosure and politics 25 1.4. Temporary transfers - subleasing 28 1.5. Temporary transfers - mortgages 30 1.6. Hampshire 32 1.7. Plan of the thesis 33 Chapter 2 Sources and methodology 35 2.0 Introduction 35 2.1. The selection of manors 35 2.2 Sources 39 2.2.1 Manorial Court Rolls, Court Books and Presentment registers 40 2.2.2 Estate Management records 42 2.2.4 Surveys : Parliamentary, Manorial, Enclosure and Tithe. 45 2.2.5 Customs 48 2.2.6 Taxation returns – the Hearth Tax 50 2.2.7. Records of individuals – parish registers 51 2.2.8 Probate Records 52 2.2.9 Diaries and Letters 54 Chapter 3 The manors of study: their tenures and customs 55 3.0. Introduction 55 3.1. Distribution of tenures in the manors 58 3.2 The tenures : Lordship 58 3.2.1. The Bishop and the Dean and Chapter 59 3.2.2. The Winchester College manors 62 3.2.2.1. Meonstoke lordship 62 3.2.2.2. Vernham Dean lordship 63 3.3. The tenures : Leasehold 64 3.4. Freehold tenures 66 3.5. The tenures : Customary tenures 67 3.5.1. Copyhold for three lives 67 iv List of chapter sub-contents 3.5.2. Copyhold for 3 lives, but with rights for the first life to act alone 68 3.5.3. Copyhold of inheritance 68 3.5.4. Customary freehold 69 3.6. Rectories 69 3.7. Women, widows and minors 70 3.8 Rights, Appurtenances, and Orders 71 3.9. Heriots, rents and fines, and licences 72 3.10. Forfeits 73 3.11. Conclusions 74 Chapter 4 The manors and their customary tenants in 1645 75 4.0. Introduction 75 4.1. Tenant holding size profiles 76 4.2. Female tenants 80 4.3. Enclosure 81 4.4. Rents, Fines and Heriots 84 4.4.1. Rents 88 4.4.2. Heriots 92 4.4.3. Fines 92 4.5. Transfer costs 93 Chapter 5 Permanent transfers of land and dwellings 97 5.0. Introduction 97 5.1. Types of transfer available to customary tenants 98 5.2. Overall pattern of all permanent transfers 1645-1705 100 5.3. Permanent transfers and relationship to prices 104 5.4. Turnover 107 5.5. Numbers of transfers per tenant 112 5.6. Death/Inheritance transfers : all manors 114 5.6.1. Heirs and inheritors 117 5.6.2. Addition of the next new life in Lives manors 120 5.6.3. Death of a reversioner life 123 5.7. Inter vivos permanent transfers in all manors 124 5.7.1. New grants 127 5.7.2. Splits and finishes of holdings 127 5.7.3. Forfeits 128 5.7.4. Surrenders and exchanges inter vivos 129 5.8. Types of transfer and motivation for inter vivos surrenders in 133 Inheritance manors 5.8.1. Familial and extra-familial surrenders in manors with inheritance tenure 133 5.8.2. Entails 134 5.8.3. Conditional surrenders in manors of inheritance tenure 136 5.8.4. Inter vivos surrenders to family in Inheritance manors 137 v List of chapter sub-contents 5.8.5. Inter vivos surrenders to unrelated persons in Inheritance manors 139 5.8.6. Motivation of ‘Sellers’ in Inheritance manors 141 5.8.7. Motivation of ‘purchasers’ in Inheritance manors 142 5.9. Inter Vivos transfers – in the manors with lives tenure 144 5.9.1 Motives for giving and receiving surrenders and exchanges in Lives manors 147 5.9.2. ‘Purchasers’ of lives 151 5.10. The Baker Family: a case study of the influence of tenure on transfer behaviour. 155 5.11. Outcomes of the permanent transfers 159 5.11.1. How far holdings remained in the same family 159 5.11.2. Residency in the manors 160 5.11.3. Changes in the size of holdings 162 5.12.