Abstract of Feet of Fines Relating to Wiltshire
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ABSTRACTS OF FEET OF FINES RELATING TO WILTSHIRE 1377-1509 EDITED BY _I.L. KIRBY DEVIZES 1986 © Wiltshirc Record Socicty ISBN 0 901333 18 2 Produced for the Socicty by Alan Sutton Publishing Glouccstcr CONTENTS Pagi’ Preface 1x ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS x INTRODUCTION xi Fines already Published XIV ABSTRACTS OF FEET OF FINES I INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES 183 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 239 List of Members 241 Publications of the Society 247 PREFACE This volume was originally undertaken by Miss Elizabeth Crittall, but she unfortunately found herself unable to proceed, whereupon I took over the work of editing. Mr C.R. Elrington, the President of the Society, not only allowed me to quote much of his own Introduction to volume XXIX in the Society's series, but also read my Introduction and made a number of valuable suggestions. To members of the Society's Committee and of the staff of the Wiltshire Victoria County History I owe a number of suggestions for the identification of place—names. To my friends at the Public Record Office I owe more than they realise. _I. L. KIRBY ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS cons. consideration def. deforciant Eas. Easter Hil. Hilary Mic Michaelmas [29 Sept.] oct. octave [the day a week later] pl. plaintiff qum. quindene [the day a fortnight later] S._].B. St. john the Baptist (nativity of) [24 june] 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 part ofa place-name set in italic type shows that the part has been translated from Latin. See below p. xiii. INTRODUCTION This volume is a continuation of the Abstracts o_fFeet ofFiries relating to I/Viltshire in the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, edited by R.B. Pugh, and the Abstracts . .f0r the reign 0_fEdward III, edited by C.R. Elringtoii, volumes I and XXIX in this Record Series, and it follows very closely the pattern set by the latter volume. Feet of Fines, records of the Court of Common Pleas, are preserved in the Public Record Office. Those of earlier date than I509 are known as Series I, and have the class number CP 25(1). They are arranged county by county in files which are grouped in cases. The fines for Wiltshire for the years I377-I509 are in cases 256 and 257 and the files are numbered 54 to 66. All these fines have been abstracted in this volume. In addition there are files relating to more than one county, known as divers counties files. These for the same period are contained in cases 289 to 294, files 52 to 83. All fines relating partly to Wiltshire have also been abstracted here. The reference given at the end of each entry in this volume gives the number of the case, the number of the file and the number within the file. Preceded by the class number, CP 25(1), they form a complete reference to each fine. Since there was little if any difference between the form and content of the fines of the reign of Edward III and those of the fifteenth century it is not necessary to repeat the description given in the introduction to the volume by C.R. Elrington. With only slight modification it may be taken to serve as the introduction to this volume also. In physical form the only difference was that the feet of fines tended to become larger. That was especially the case with ‘divers counties’ fines which very often dealt with extensive holdings in several counties, occasionally comprising nearly half the counties of England. Most of the documents are in good condition, but in a few places words have become illegible or been torn off. Until I489 the only notable change from the fines of Edward lII's reign was the introduction of warranties against one specific person. Until at least I422 the warranty was always ‘against all men'. From early in the reign of Henry VI warranties against individuals began to appear. The persons were invariably the named heads of religious houses and their successors. Most commonly the abbot of Westminster was named, probably because being a close neighbour of the courts of law he was well known to the court if not to the parties. Other abbots and priors, however, were sometimes named, usually from Wiltshire or neighbouring counties. The one thing that such heads of houses had in common was that they had no estate in the premises concerned. The warranty was a fiction, perhaps intended to limit the liability of the grantor by excluding any unexpressed but implied warranty deriving from the conveyance. Another change was introduced in I489. The first Statute of Fines (4 Henry VII, c. 24) strengthened the title of the conusee to the premises conveyed to xii INTRODUCTION him by barring the claims of other persons provided that proclamations ofthe fine were made in open court, and provided that they did not claim within five years of the proclamations. Four proclamations had to be made in the term in which the fine was levied, and four in each of the three following terms. Proclamations came to take up a lot of the court's time, but the only effect on surviving feet of fines was that a number are endorsed with the dates of the sixteen proclamations. Because they add nothing to the information given by the fines no indication of such endorsements has been given in the abstracts. All the fines in this volume dated before 1494 were, like those ofthe reign of Edward III, levied on a writ of covenant. Thereafter, in revival of an earlier practice, seven (nos. 735, 738, 743, 751, 755, 771) were levied under plea of warranty of charter. In each of those cases the plaintiff is described as petent' rather than querent' and in the first case only the deforciant is described as tenent'. Otherwise those seven conform in all respects to the normal pattern, and no differences have been shown in the abstracts. In two instances the extensive lands and tenements covered by the fines were sufficiently important to cause the king to become the plaintiff in his own court. By the first (no. 694) Edward IV secured for himselfthe reversion ofthe estates held by his queen, Elizabeth Woodville. By the second (no. 716) Henry VII secured control of the estates (restored by Act of Parliament in the previous year, 1487) of Anne, countess of Warwick, heiress of the last Beauchamp earl and widow of the ‘I(ingmaker'. These fines like most of the other large ones of the period arose out of the resettlement of property consequent upon the many forfeitures and restorations of the Wars of the Roses. Most noteworthy was the great resettlement of the Daubeney and Beaumont estates (nos. 754-6, 766, 787). Remarkably the clerks who prepared those fines appear to have been uncertain of the counties in which some of the manors and other holdings lay, getting some of the counties wrong, and sometimes covering their uncertainty and ensuring the validity of the fines by listing the same places under more than one county. It is noticeable that as the fifteenth century advanced detailed lists of premises were frequently attached to the manors, amounting apparently to full extents apart from the capital messuage and demesne, thus restricting the meaning of the word ‘manor’ to the Iord’s own holdings. Authorities In addition to the introductions to the two previous volumes in this series, mentioned above, the following works are of value for the understanding of fines: the introductions to A Calendar of Feet of Fines relating to the county Qf Huntingdon, 1194-1603, ed. G._]. Turner, Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1913, and Abstracts of Surrey Feet of Fines, 1509-58, ed. C.A.F. Meekings, Surrey Record Society, vol. xix, 1946; and F. Pollock and F.W. Maitland, History of English Law, 2nd. edn., vol. ii, pp. 94-106, and S.F.C. Milsom, Historical foundations of the Common Law, 1969, pp. 181-3. lNTROl')U(ZTlON xiii Editorial Method All the feet of fines relating wholly or partly to Wiltshire in the above- mentioned files have been abstracted. In the files the fines are arranged by regnal years but not in chronological order within the years. Here they have been placed in strict chronological order, divers counties fines being inserted in the appropriate places and double-dated fines according to the dates on which they were granted and recorded. The dates on which they were made have been added in brackets. Names ofPersons. The surnanies of all persons, whether parties to the fine or incidentally mentioned, are given as in the original. Forenames are given in the modern form, where there is a generally accepted one. Unusual names are given as in the original. Contractions and suspensions are extended where the intention is clear. Names ofplaces which occur in the titles ofpeers, the sees of bishops or the houses of abbots and priors are given in the modern form. Descriptions of the status or trade of persons are translated or modernised. Nantes of Places. Wherever places have been identified with reasonable certainty the modern form ofthe place name is given followed by the spelling in brackets as it appears in the original ifit is different from the modern form, contractions and suspensions being extended as above. The contemporary form is given only once in each fine, provided that it is the same each time that it occurs. Latin parts of names, normally adjectives such as ‘Magnus' or ‘Parvus' are translated and given in italics as Creat, Little etc.