Yorkshire Inquisitions of the Reigns of Henry III. and Edward I
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iiar0t|aU lEquttg CCoUcrtton (Stft 0f IE. 3. iiaraljaU. CSI. 1. 1394 3 1924 084 250 590 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924084250590 YORKSHIRE INQUISITIONS. Vol. II. THE YORKSHIRE Ercbaeolootcal Societ^^ RECORD SERIES. Vol. XXIII. FOR THE YEAR 1897. YORKSHIRE INQUISITIONS. Vol. II. EDITED BY WILLIAM BROWN, B.A., Honoraiy Secretary of the Society. PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY. 1898. : LEEDS PRINTED BY J. WHITEHEAD AND SON, TRINITY STREET. I NTRODUCTION. THE period during which the inquisitions printed in this volume were taken is from 1283 to 1295. In addition, two inquisitions omitted from the former series are given at the beginning. The Inquisitiones post mortem, that is, those strictly so called (for the whole series are included under that designation), are inferior in interest to those published in the first volume. The details of the holdings and the services due for them are usually very meagre, and contrast unfavourably with the wealth of information afforded by the surveys made after the death of Edmund de Lascy in 1 248 (Vol. I., p. 47). So far as they go they are valuable as confirming and amplifying the conclusions which were set forth in the Introduction to the former volume. There it is stated that the normal holding of a tenant in bondage (bondus) was a bovate or oxgang of land. This is proved to have been the case by the surveys made at Nidd and Westwick near Ripon, and at Kirkby Knowle (pp. 108, 133), where the bonders each held one bovate. The toft and croft at Hartburn in Holderness probably represented the same amount. Though a bovate was the usual holding of a bonder, there are cases where it was larger. At Everingham (p. 64) it was two bovates, and at Escrick (p. 133) four. In every case the bondman had a messuage as well. A cottar only held an acre of land with his cottage. The most detailed account of what a tenant in bondage owed to his lord in the way of rent and services is given in a survey of the manor of Nidd. In this case there were fifteen bondmen, paying 15^-. a year apiece for their messuage and bovate of land and meadow. Besides the money payment, they all had to render certain services. Whoever had a whole plough, or plough-team,^ as the word caruca i^A plough-team consisted of eight oxen, hence eight oxgangs made one ploughand or carucate. This is confirmed by the complaint of William of Melksham (p. 100) that the bailiff of Richmondshire had distrained him by eight oxen yoked, and another time by six oxen unyoked and two horses, in the latter case taking the ; vi INTRODUCTION. the would be more correctly translated, had to plough two days in year, receiving one meal or twopence from the lord. If two or three had a plough-team among them, they were to plough for two days but if they had no plough, they were to give nothing for the service. They also had to reap for two days, the lord giving them every day a meal or one penny. The cottars, too, had to reap for one day, but did no ploughing, receiving likewise a meal or a penny. At Westwick the cottars had to reap for three days ; but if they did not, each reaping-hook paid a penny instead. Even at Nidd there were both bonders and cottars who made money payments for all services. At Westwick the bonders paid rent and did no services. So it was possible to have in the same small township two classes of bondmen at the same time, one of whom paid rent and did service, whilst the other paid only rent. It is curious that whilst all their holdings were the same size, the ones who paid rent had a cheaper take (ts.) than those who paid rent and did service (15^'.). A very striking instance of what may be termed the enfranchisement of the bondman occurs in No. LVi., where a man holds in bondage nine bovates and nine tofts at Owstwick in Holderness by the free service of one marc yearly. Two other kinds of servile tenure, socage and drengage, are mentioned. They both occurred at Drififield (p. 96), which had till not long before the date of the inquisition formed part of the ancient demesne of the Crown. All we are told about tenants in drengage is that they paid relief, that is, when they succeeded to their land. More information • is given about the socmen, although the size of the individual holdings is not given. The services resemble very much those rendered by bondmen. The socmen had to plough, harrow, hoe, reap, and carry corn in autumn, give merchet for their daughters when they married, and pay relief. It may be as well to remind the reader that whether a man held in knight-service, bondage, drengage, or socage, is here entirely a question of tenure, and not of status. A man might, and often did, hold land in one place as a freeholder, and in another as a bondman, without its having any effect on his personal status. Besides the lands in the manor held in bondage, and by religious corporations in frank almoign, there were the lands held by knight horses to make up the normal mimber of the team. The bovate and carucate were measures of varying size. At Westwick a bovate of arable land contained eight acres, and a bovate of meadow twelve. At Newton near Ripley, the carucate being sixty acres, the bovate was seven and a. half (p. 109). INTRODUCTION. vii or military service, and the demesne land or inland, which the lord kept in his own hands, and cultivated with the help of his tenants holding in bondage. His own house was called the capital messuage, and was of as little value as country houses are now-a-days. Such an important building as Helmsley Castle was only valued at 135. ^d. a year, though Howsham, another seat of Robert de Ros, was worth 20^.' Reginald fitz Peter's capital messuage at Londesborough, with the herbage and fruits, was worth 16^. Gd.; but his manor of Market Weighton, with the same accessories, only came to 10^., whilst a dove-house there was worth half as much. Robert de Everingham's capital messuage at Everingham was only worth 3^. beyond the cost of keeping it up, but his one at Kiplingcotes near Market Weighton did not pay for its repairs. The lord's income of course came from other sources. There were ,the produce of his demesne lands; the custom paid for the use of the public oven, valued at Helmsley at 10//.; the mills, generally water- mills, often worth a large sum ; the dove-cote ; where there was a park, the pasture and pannage would be worth so much ; and if a market, the tolls. In two cases, at and near Helmsley, nuts were a source of income. Then there were the rents of the free-tenants and bondmen, and the perquisites from the manor court, with the chance of the wardship and marriage of unmarried minors and widows. Whilst these tenures of knight-service, bondage, and frank almoign, could exist contemporaneously in the same manor, it as a whole would be holden by the lord of the manor of some superior by some free service, generally knight service. Between this superior and the Crown, of whom all was ultimately holden, there might be one or more mesne tenants. The tenure of the manor of Westwick gives a good example of this succession of mesne lords. The bondman or cottar there, for no free tenants are mentioned, held in bondage of William de Stopham, the lord of the manor, he in his turn by knight -service of William de Vescy, who held by the same tenure of the fee of Albemarle, which was held in chief, that is direct from the Crown. Thus between the cultivator of the soil and the king, three mesne tenants intervened. The burdens on a tenant holding by knight-service were very considerable. He had to pay rent and render services. The rent was often a merely nominal one, such as a penny, a rose, a sparrow- hawk, a pair of white gloves, a horn (p. 7), a goose (p. 54), or some such small acknowledgment of tenure, as the rent was not so important ; viii INTRODUCTION. as the incidents involved. The most important of these was the obligation to render military service, for a longer or shorter period, according to the size of the holding, under his superior lord. On succession to his property he had to pay a relief, generally two years rental (p. 135); and if he died leaving his heir under age and unmarried, the heir's wardship and marriage fell to the lord. Subject to his supporting the heir, all the income of the estates could be appropriated by the lord, who was able to sell the heir's marriage, who could only refuse the lady tendered to him if she were of inferior rank. If the marriage was sine disparagatione, there was no remedy, and if the heir proved obstinate, he had to forfeit two years' income to escape the unwelcome match. This chance of being married as it were by force, made early marriages the rule. We read in this volume of Juliana, wife of Robert de Boby, being married when eleven ; and of John, son of Ingram de Monceus, whose wife was a daughter of William St.