Manorial Officeholding in Late Medieval and Early Modern England, 1300-1600
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Manorial Officeholding in Late Medieval and Early Modern England, 1300-1600 Alex Spike Gibbs Trinity College September 2018 This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Alex Spike Gibbs – Manorial Officeholding in Late Medieval and Early Modern England, 1300-1600 Abstract This thesis investigates the role and identity of manorial officers, individuals drawn from a lord’s tenants who were vital in administering his manor court and directly-farmed lands. It analyses officeholding from a social and political standpoint, examining the role of officers in governing village communities, and how this was affected by the decline of lordship and development of the state. The study deliberated bridges the medieval/early modern divide, analysing the period 1300-1600. The evidence base for this investigation relies on the reconstruction of officeholding from the court rolls of three case-study manors. These consist of Little Downham (Cambs.), Horstead (Norf.) and Worfield (Salop.). The first part of the thesis utilises quantitative methodologies to analyse the change in presentments made by officers (chapter one) and patterns in participation in office (chapter two). The second part adopts a qualitative approach to examine the role of officers in governing village communities (chapter three), attitudes to office among manorial tenants (chapter four), and the interaction of officeholding with the state and especially with the emergent civil parish (chapter five). Four central conclusions emerge from this work. Firstly, manorial officeholding remained an important institution in the English countryside across the period 1300-1600. Secondly, this was achieved via support from tenants who were invested in manorial office rather than pressure from lords or the crown. Thirdly, officeholding worked to create and reinforce social stratification, helping maintain the position of a village elite. Fourthly, the officeholding system was robust enough to survive the expansion of the state into local communities under successive English monarchs. These conclusions in turn have implications for the wider historical literature concerning late medieval and early modern England. They reinforce the revisionist argument that lord-tenant relations were not inevitability hostile and that many wealthier tenants benefitted from seignorial structures. More significantly, they add weight to the notion of a medieval equivalent to the early modern ‘middling sort’, suggesting that the emergence of a local elite was operative through manorial structures long before 1600. Contents Declaration iii Acknowledgements iv List of Tables v List of Figures vii List of Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 - Historical Approaches to Manorial Officeholding 1 - Case Studies 9 - Plan of the Study 21 Part I Chapter 1: The Function of Officers 23 - Two Views of Manorial Officeholding 23 - Overall Pattern 28 - Seigniorial Presentments 41 - Serfdom Presentments 46 - Community Presentments 54 - Royal Presentments 56 - Land Presentments 60 - Other Officials 62 - Conclusion 63 Chapter 2: The Selection of Officers 65 - Oligarchy and Community 65 - Selected Officials 68 - Impanelled Officials 89 - Overall Pattern 110 - Officeholding and Population 113 i - Officeholding Elites 120 - Conclusion 128 Part II Chapter 3: Governing the Village 130 - The Concerns of Village Governors 130 - Nuisance 133 - Landscape and Community Cohesion 140 - Landscape and Community Differentiation 149 - Conclusion 159 Chapter 4: Attitudes to Officeholding 162 - The Mediating Officer 162 - Choosing Officials 165 - Monitoring and Corruption 171 - Resistance to the Lord 178 - Resistance to Officers 181 - Conclusion 188 Chapter 5: Manorial Officeholding and the State 191 - State ‘Incorporation’ 191 - Legislation 196 - Worfield’s Churchwardens 202 - Constables 226 - Conclusion 245 Conclusion 248 Appendix 1: Identifying Individuals 262 Appendix 2: Population Estimates 265 Bibliography 269 ii Declaration This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration. It is not substantially the same as any work that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other university. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other university or similar institution. It does not exceed the prescribed word limit of 80,000 words. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Master and Fellows of Trinity College for three years of funding which have made the researching of this PHD possible. In conducting the archival research, I am grateful to the staff of Cambridge University Library, King’s College Archives and the Shropshire Archive Centre for all their help. I am grateful for innumerable suggestions received in both general conversations and in feedback after giving papers which have been incorporated in this thesis but for which there is not space to discuss individually here. In the selection of case studies, I owe special thanks to Tom Johnson, who first suggested Little Downham had interesting information about manorial officeholding, and Matt Tompkins, whose valuable advice about Worfield’s court rolls led to them been included in the study. I have been lucky to be a member of the Cambridge Group for the History of Social Structure during my PHD. I am extremely grateful to group members for providing a stimulating academic environment and incisive feedback, but also for providing a congenial atmosphere to study both in the office and at many favoured Cambridge pubs. My greatest academic debt is of course to my supervisor Chris Briggs. I hope his attention to detail and high standards are visible in the following work, whilst I am exceedingly grateful for his tireless patience, constant enthusiasm, and generosity with his time throughout the PHD process. Finally, I owe a great deal of thanks to those outside the world of academic history. Several friends, both in Cambridge and elsewhere, were invaluable in reminding me of the world beyond the medieval manor. As the beneficiary of two families, I have been lucky to enjoy their unstinting support throughout both my masters and PHD, and am indebted to them for fostering and encouraging my interest in history more generally. Without their help I would not have been able to produce this piece of work. Finally, I am grateful to Tabby Hayman, for living with manorial officeholding for the last three years, and indeed medieval history even longer, and remaining a source of encouragement throughout. iv List of Tables 0.1: Population estimates 12 0.2: Officers found on each case-study manor with periods of appearance in court rolls 13 1.1: Number of presentments of servile incidents per decade 50 2.1: Rotation of beadleship as recorded in 1557 memorandum at Worfield 70 2.2: Reconstruction of careers as messors for individuals named in presentment of 1434 at Little Downham 83 2.3: Capital pledge and juror leet lists and numbers 93 2.4: Juror baron lists and numbers 94 2.5: Rate of services of capital pledges and jurors leet 105 2.6: Rate of services of jurors baron 108 2.7: Length of services of capital pledges, jurors leet and jurors baron 109 2.8: Adult male population estimates 114 2.9: Mean numbers of officers per year for select periods compared to reconstructed population estimates 116 2.10: Ratios of individuals serving as capital pledge, jurors leet and jurors baron per decade compared to reconstructed adult male populations 117 4.1: Number of ‘resistance actions’ and mean amercement per offender by decade at Little Downham and Worfield 183 5.1: Reconstruction of the careers of churchwardens holding manorial office at Worfield 212 v 5.2: Comparison of service of impanelled officers who served as churchwarden to their general cohorts of impanelled officers at Worfield 215 5.3: Comparison of lay subsidy assessments of manorial officers and churchwardens at Worfield 220 5.4: Reconstruction of the careers of constables holding manorial office 234 A2.1: Methodology of population estimates 265 vi List of Figures 0.1: Map of locations of three case-study manors 10 0.2: Sessions surviving and analysed for Little Downham 14 0.3: Map of Norfolk hundreds with location of villages 16 0.4: Sessions surviving and analysed for Horstead 17 0.5: Map of townships making up Worfield manor 20 0.6: Sessions surviving and analysed for Worfield 21 1.1: Model of presentment system 32 1.2: All presentments by categories for Horstead 36 1.3: All presentments by categories for Little Downham 37 1.4: All presentments by categories for Worfield 38 2.1: Proportion of total selections to reeveship by number of times selected at Worfield 79 2.2: Proportion of total selections to reeveship and messorship as candidate by number of times selected at Little Downham 81 2.3: Proportion of total selections to tastership by number of times selected at Horstead and Worfield post 1409 85 2.4: Proportion of total selections to bylawmanship by number of times selected at Little Downham 88 2.5: Number of individual capital pledges and jurors leet by proportion of list appearances by decade 98 2.6: Number of individual jurors baron by proportion of list appearances by decade 99 vii 2.7: Number of new capital pledges and jurors leet compared to total services they performed