Family, Land and the Village

FAMILY, LAND AND THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN LATER MEDIEVAL ENGLAND* Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/past/article/93/1/3/1464019 by guest on 27 September 2021 IT HAS BEEN ARGUED THAT IN THE PERIOD AFTER THE BLACK DEATH rural society underwent a number of structural changes as a result of the demographic decline and stagnation, the greater mobility of the population, the abundance of land and the high level of real wages. In her study of the inheritance customs in medieval England, Dr. Faith has observed that "the family claims to land were disregarded, or seldom pressed, and in place of the strict and elaborate arrange- ments which had previously governed the descent of land there came to be no laws but those of supply and demand".1 Similarly, Miss Harvey has noted that the family sense of inseparable association with a particular holding, which had been so marked a feature of rural society in the early middle ages, weakened, indeed in some places it more or less disappeared.2 Some historians, notably Professor Raftis and Dr. Dewindt, have claimed that the loosening of the ties between peasant famines and their holdings after the Black Death coincided with the weakening of communal bonds;3 "the old cohesive and deeply interpersonal and interdependent aspect of village life was fading, as private and independent interests and activities took pre- cedence over those of groups".4 All these and similar observations have recently been mobilized by Dr. Macfarlane to support his origi- nal thesis that rural England in the middle ages was not populated by peasants but by individualistic farmers who, free from any familial and communal restraints, were able to pursue a quasi-capitalistic sys- tem of production.5 In this paper I will try to test the above-men- tioned observations against the data available in the Halesowen court rolls. However, in order to find out the nature of the bonds between the peasant family and its land, between the villager and his neigh- bour, and how ties changed after the Black Death, it is useful to look first at these bonds during the pre-plague period. * The comments and suggestions of Professors M. M. Postan and R. H. Hilton and Drs. R. Smith and R. J. Faith have been of great assistance in the preparation of this article. 1 R. J. Faith, "Peasant Famines and Inheritance Customs in Medieval England", Agric. Hist. Rev., xiv (1966), pp. 86-7. 2 B. Harvey, Westminster Abbey and its Estates in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1977), pp. 318-19. 3 J. A. Raftis, Warboys (Toronto, 1974), pp. 216-23; E. B. Dewindt, Land and People in HofyweU-cum-Needlevxmh (Toronto, 1972), pp. 263-75. * Dewindt, Land and People, p. 274. 5 A. Macfarlane, The Origins of English Individualism (New York, 1979), pp. 131- 64. 4 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 93 The manor of Hales, or Halesowen as it was later called, is located west of Birmingham, upon which it now borders. The parish of Hales- owen was coterminous with the manor, which was eight miles long and about two and a half at its greatest width: its area amounted to some 10,000 acres. The manor is situated in a broken hilly terrain of mixed heavy and light clays. The hilly terrain of the parish shaped the structure of the local settlement which was not concentrated in Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/past/article/93/1/3/1464019 by guest on 27 September 2021 large nucleated villages but scattered in small hamlets. In addition to the small market town of Halesowen there were twelve rural settlements or townships in the manor: Oldbury, Langley-Walloxhall, Warley, Cakemoor, Hill, Ridgeacre, Lapal, Hawne, Hasbury, Hun- nington, Illey and Romsley. Oldbury in the north and Romsley in the south were the largest settlements in the parish; each had about 30 to 35 famines in circa 1300. The other hamlets had only between 10 and 20 families each, and Illey no more than six. The villagers of Halesowen practised, as in many other contemporary places, mixed agriculture. They sowed in the open fields of the parish cereals and leguminous crops: wheat, rye, barley, oats, beans, peas and vetches. The peasants also reared cattle, horses, pigs, sheep and poultry. As in other rural settlements there were in Hales- owen villagers who engaged in non-agricultural activities: manufac- ture of textiles, metal-working, leather-working, wood-working, building, food production and ale-brewing. These activities played an important role in the economy of Halesowen. However, the court rolls clearly indicate that agriculture was the major economic activity during the period under study. Although legally land in Halesowen, as in other contemporary villages, was not held by family groups but by individuals who could alienate it, between 1270 and 1348 the bulk of the land in the parish was transmitted through blood and marriage. During this period 1,125 transfers of land were recorded in the court rolls; 713 (63 per cent) were intra-familial and 412 (37 per cent) were extra-familial. These figures do not give a true measure of the amount of land transferred among family members, since the inter-tenant land market in pre-plague Halesowen, as in many other contemporary manors, was concerned primarily with small plots, a few selions and odd acres. It is quite difficult to find out the exact size of the plots transferred inter vivos, as well as the size of some holdings bequeathed post mortem or granted by the lord. However, I estimated that 6,916 acres (80 per cent) were transferred intra-familially while 1,383 acres (20 per cent) were transferred outside the family. Although my estimate is quite crude it indicates that only a small part of the land transferred in pre-plague Halesowen was taken outside the family. In such circumstances it is not surprising to find that in Halesowen, probably as in many other rural areas, large numbers of landholdings FAMILY, LAND AND THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY 5 remained in the hands of the same famines over several generations. In the court rolls between 1270 and 1282, 174 landholding families are identified; 124 (71 per cent) of them still kept their holdings on the eve of the Black Death. Fifty families failed to maintain their hold on their land, not because they had a different attitude to the land or to their own family members, but because they were pushed out of landholding as a result of the unfavourable economic conditions Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/past/article/93/1/3/1464019 by guest on 27 September 2021 which existed in pre-plague Halesowen. Among the 174 families identified in the records between 1270 and 1282,40 (23 per cent) famines were rich, 64 (37 per cent) were middling, and 70 (40 per cent) were poor. While 40 (100 per cent) of the rich families and 58 (90 per cent) of the middling families kept their farms continuously until the Black Death, only 25 (35 per cent) of the poor families were able to do so. The court records show clearly that many of the families who lost their holdings sold them piecemeal to their wealthier neighbours, while other families were entirely wiped out in the subsistence crises which hit the parish in the first quarter of the fourteenth century. Some lost their holdings probably because their descendants were too poor to pay entry fines and had to emigrate. The history of these unfortunate families is well documented in the court rolls and would fill many pages. Therefore, only one case will be discussed here. Thomas ColLin, a bond tenant from Hawne, ap- pears in the records for the first time in 1270.6 The size of his holding was about half a virgate. In addition to arable land he had livestock and geese, and he also engaged in ale-brewing. As a solid member of the community Thomas frequently acted as a pledge and was elected a few times as a juryman.7 As the court records between 1282 and 1292 are missing, we do not know what went wrong with Thomas Collin, but it is clear that in the early 1290s he was heavily in debt. In 1294 he recognized in the-court that he owed 5s. to Walter, a rich villager from Oldbury. Thomas failed to fulfil his commitment and therefore, in October, his pledges were given three weeks to induce him to pay his debts. In the same court the abbot prosecuted him for failure to render his dues.8 It seems that he had other creditors as well, since all his crops were mortgaged. Thomas was pressed so hard that he had no choice but to sell some land. In February 1295 he sold a plot of land and thirteen strips to Master Richard of Hawne, and two months later he sold to the abbot for £2 all his land in Hawne with the exception of his house and a curtilage.9 Only his land in Lapal, which his wife brought as a dower, remained in his hands. In 1297 his economic situation improved considerably as his wife inher- 6 Court Rolls of the Manor of Hales, 1270-1307, ed. J. Amphlett, S. G. Hamilton and R. A. Wilson, 3 vols. (Worcs. Hist. Soc., Worcester, 1910-33), i, p. 13. 7 Ibid., pp. 48-112. 8 Ibtd.,pp. 292, 301. 9 Ibid., p. 330. 6 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 93 ited more land in Lapal after the death of her sister. Thomas ex- changed this land with the abbot for thirty-two strips in two fields and two crofts.10 In 1306 he was even able to reclaim and enclose a piece of wasteland.l * However, in his last years, between 1308 and 1312, he fell again on hard times.

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