barons of the whole kingdom of England I have been crowned king of this
realm. And because the kingdom has been oppressed by unjust
exactions, I now, being moved by reverence towards God and by the love I
bear you all, make free the Church of God; so that I will neither sell
nor lease its property; nor on the death of an archbishop or a bishop or
an abbot will I take anything from the demesne of the Church or from its
vassals during the period which elapses before a successor is installed.
I abolish all the evil customs by which the kingdom of England has
beunjustly oppressed. Some of those evil customs are here set forth.
[2.] If any of my barons or of my earls or of any other of my tenants
shall die his heir shall not redeem his land as he was wont to do in the
time of my brother, but he shall henceforth redeem it by means of a
just and lawful 'relief`. Similarly the men of my barons shall redeem
their lands from their lords by means of a just and lawful 'relief`.
[3.] If any of my barons or of my tenants shall wish to give in
marriage his daughter or his sister or his niece or his cousin, he shall
consult me about the matter; but I will neither seek payment for my
consent, nor will I refuse my permission, unless he wishes to give her
in marriage to one of my enemies. And if, on the death of one of my
barons or of one of my tenants, a daughter should be his heir, I will
dispose of her in marriage and of her lands according to the counsel
given me by my barons. And if the wife of one of my tenants shall
survive her husband and be without children, she shall have her dower
and her marriage portion [that given to her by her parents], and I will
not give her in marriage unless she herself consents.
[4.] If a widow survives with children under age, she shall have her
dower and her marriage portion, so long as she keeps her body chaste;
and I will not give her in marriage except with her consent. And the
guardian of the land, and of the children, shall be either the widow or
another of their relations, as may seem more proper. And I order that
my barons shall act likewise towards the sons and daughters and widows
of their men.
[5.] I utterly forbid that the common mintage [a forced levy to prevent
loss to the King from depreciation of the coinage], which has been
taken from the towns and counties, shall henceforth be levied, since it
was not so levied in the time of King Edward [the Confessor]. If any
moneyer or other person be taken with false money in his possession, let
true justice be visited upon him.
[6.] I forgive all pleas and all debts which were owing to my brother,
except my own proper dues, and except those things which were agreed to
belong to the inheritance of others, or to concern the property which
justly belonged to others. And if anyone had promised anything for his
heritage, I remit it, and I also remit all 'reliefs' which were promised
for direct inheritance.
[7.] If any of my barons or of my men, being ill, shall give away or
bequeath his movable property, I will allow that it shall be bestowed
according to his desires. But if, prevented either by violence or
through sickness, he shall die intestate as far as concerns his movable
property, his widow or his children, or his relatives or one his true
men shall make such division for the sake of his soul, as may seem best
to them.
[8.] If any of my barons or of my men shall incur a forfeit, he shall
not be compelled to pledge his movable property to an unlimited amount,
as was done in the time of my father [William I] and my brother; but he
shall only make payment according to the extent of his legal
forfeiture, as was done before the time of my father and in the time of
my earlier predecessors. Nevertheless, if he be convicted of breach of
faith or of crime, he shall suffer such penalty as is just.
[9.] I remit all murder fines which were incurred before the day on
which I was crowned King; and such murder fines as shall now be incurred
shall be paid justly according to the law of King Edward [by
sureties].
[10.] By the common counsel of my barons I have retained the forests in
my own hands as my father did before me.
[11.] The knights, who in return for their estates perform military
service equipped with a hauberk [long coat] of mail, shall hold their
demesne lands quit of all gelds [money payments] and all work; I make
this concession as my own free gift in order that, being thus relieved
of so great a burden, they may furnish themselves so well with horses
and arms that they may be properly equipped to discharge my service and
to defend my kingdom.
[12.] I establish a firm peace in all my kingdom, and I order that this
peace shall henceforth be kept.
[13.] I restore to you the law of King Edward together with such
emendations to it as my father [William I] made with the counsel of his
barons.
[14.] If since the death of my brother, King William [II], anyone shall
have seized any of my property, or the property of any other man, let
him speedily return the whole of it. If he does this no penalty will be
exacted, but if he retains any part of it he shall, when discovered, pay
a heavy penalty to me.
Witness: Maurice, bishop of London; William, bishop-elect of
Winchester; Gerard, bishop of Herefore; Henry the earl; Simon the earl;
Walter Giffard; Robert of Montfort-sur-Risle; Roger Bigot; Eudo the
steward; Robert, son of Haimo; and Robert Malet.
At London when I was crowned. Farewell."
Henry took these promises seriously, which resulted in peace and
justice. Royal justice became a force to be reckoned with by the
multiplication of justices. Henry had a great respect for legality and
the forms of judicial action. He became known as the "Lion of Justice".
The payment of queen's gold, that is of a mark of gold to the queen out
of every hundred marks of silver paid, in the way of fine or other
feudal incident, to the king, probably dates from Henry I's reign.
A woman could inherit a fief if she married. The primary way for a man
to acquire control of land was to marry an heiress. If a man were in a
lower station than she was, he had to pay for his new social status as
well as have royal permission. A man could also be awarded land which
had escheated to the King. If a noble woman wanted to hold land in her
own right, she had to make a payment to the King. Many widows bought
their freedom from guardianship or remarriage from the King. Women whose
husbands were at war also ran the land of their husbands.
Barons were lords of large holdings of farmland called "manors". Many
of the lesser barons left their dark castles to live in semi- fortified
stone houses, which usually were of two rooms with rug hangings for
drafts, as well as the sparse furniture that had been common to the
castle. There were shuttered windows to allow in light, but which also
let in the wind and rain when open. The roof was of thatch or narrow
overlapping wood shingles. The stone floor was strewn with hay and there
was a hearth near the center of the floor, with a louvered smoke hole in
the timber roof for escape of smoke. There were barns for grain and
animals. Beyond this area was a garden, orchard, and sometimes a
vineyard. The area was circumscribed by a moat over which there was a
drawbridge to a gatehouse.
The smaller room was the lord and lady's bedroom. It had a canopied
bed, chests for clothing, and wood frames on which clothes could be
hung. Life on the manor revolved around the larger room, or hall, where
the public life of the household was passed. There, meals were served.
The daily diet typically consisted of milk, soup, porridge, fish,
vegetables, and bread. Open hospitality accompanied this communal
living. There was little privacy. Manor household villeins carried the
lord's sheaves of grain to the manor barn, shore his sheep, malted his
grain, and chopped wood for his fire. At night some slept on the floor
of the hall. Others, who were cottars and bordars, had their own
dwellings nearby.
The manor house of lesser lords or knights was still built of wood,
although it often had a stone foundation.
About 35% of the land was arable land, about 25% was common pasture
land (for grazing only) or meadow land (near a stream or river and used
for hay or grazing), and about 15% was woodland. There were these types
of land and wasteland on each manor. The arable land was allotted to the
villeins in strips to equalize the best and worst land and their
distance from the village where the villeins lived. There was three-way
rotation of wheat or rye, oats or barley, and fallow land. Cows, pigs,
sheep, and fowl were kept. The meadow was allocated for hay for the
lord's household and each villein's. The villeins held land of their
lord for various services such as agricultural labor or raising domestic
animals. The villeins worked about half of their time on their lord's
fields [his demesne land], which was about a third of the farmland. This
work was primarily to gather the harvest and to plough with oxen, using
a yoke over their shoulders, and to sow in autumn and Lent. They
threshed grain on barn floors with flails cut from holly or thorn, and
removed the kernels from the shafts by hand. Work lasted from sunrise to
sunset and included women and children. The older children could herd
geese and pigs, and set snares for rabbits. The young children could
gather nuts and berries in season and other wild edibles, and could pick
up little tufts of wool shed by sheep. The old could stay in the hut and
mind the children, keep the fire going and the black pot boiling, sew,
spin, patch clothes, and cobble shoes. The old often suffered from
rheumatism. Many people had bronchitis. Many children died of croup
[inflammation of the respiratory passages]. Life expectancy was probably
below thirty-five.
The villein retained his customary rights, his house and land and
rights of wood and hay, and his right in the common land of his
township. Customary ways were maintained. The villeins of a manor
elected a reeve to communicate their interests to their lord, usually
through a bailiff, who directed the labor. Sometimes there was a steward
in charge of several of a lord's manors, who also held the manorial
court for the lord. The steward held his land of the lord by serjeanty,
which was a specific service to the lord. Other serjeanty services were
carrying the lord's shield and arms, finding attendants and esquires for
knights, helping in the lord's hunting expeditions, looking after his
hounds, bringing fuel, doing carpentry, and forging irons for ploughs.
The Woodward preserved the timber. The Messer supervised the harvesting.
The Hayward removed any fences from the fields after harvest to allow
grazing by cattle and sheep. The Coward, Bullard, and Calvert tended the
cows, bulls, and calves; the Shepherd, the sheep; and the Swineherds the
pigs. The Ponder impounded stray stock. There were varieties of horses:
war horses, riding horses, courier horses, pack horses, and plough
horses.
The majority of manors were coextensive with a single village. The
villeins lived in the village in one-room huts enclosed by a wood fence,
hedge, or stone wall. In this yard was a garden of onions, leeks,
mustard, peas, beans, parsley, garlic, herbs, and cabbage and apple,
pear, cherry, quince, and plum trees, and beehives. The hut had a
high-pitched roof thatched with reeds or straw and low eaves reaching
almost to the ground. The walls are built of wood-framing overlaid with
mud or plaster. Narrow slits in the walls serve as windows, which have
shutters and are sometimes covered with coarse cloth. The floor is dirt
and may be covered with straw or rushes for warmth, but usually no
hearth. In the middle is a wood fire burning on a hearthstone, which was
lit by making a spark by striking flint and iron together. The smoke
rose through a hole in the roof. At one end of the hut was the family
living area, where the family ate on a collapsible trestle table with
stools or benches. Their usual food was beans and peas, oatmeal gruel,
butter, cheese, vegetables, honey, rough bread made from a mixture of
wheat, barley, and rye flour, herrings or other salt fish, and some
salted or smoked bacon. Butter had first been used for cooking and as a
medicine to cure constipation. For puny children it could be salted down
for the winter. The bread had been roasted on the stones of the fire;
later there were communal ovens set up in villages. Cooking was done
over the fire by boiling in iron pots hung from an iron tripod, or
sitting on the hot stones of the fire. They ate from wood bowls using a
wood spoon. When they had fresh meat, it could be roasted on a spit.
Liquids were heated in a kettle. With drinking horns, they drank water,
milk, buttermilk, apple cider, mead, ale made from barley malt, and bean
and vegetable broth. They used jars and other earthenware, e.g. for
storage of salt. They slept on straw mattresses or sacks on the floor or
on benches. The villein regarded his bed area as the safest place in the
house, as did people of all ranks, and kept his treasures there, which
included his farm implements, as well as hens on the beams, roaming
pigs, and stalled oxen, cattle, and horses, which were at the other end
of the hut. Fires were put out at night to guard against fire burning
down the huts. The warmth of the animals then helped make the hut warm.
Around the room are a couple of chests to store salt, meal, flour, a
broom made of birch twigs, some woven baskets, the distaff and spindle
for spinning, and a simple loom for weaving. All clothes were homemade.
They were often coarse, greasy wool and leather made from their own
animals. The man wore a tunic of coarse linen embroidered on the sleeves
and breast, around with he wore a girdle of rope, leather, or folded
cloth. Sometimes he also wore breeches reaching below the knee. The
woman wore a loose short-sleeved gown, under which was a tight fitting
garment with long loose sleeves, and which was short enough to be clear
of the mud. If they wore shoes, they were clumsy and patched. Some wore
a hood-like cap. For really bad weather, a man wore on his head a hood
with a very elongated point which could be wrapped around his neck.
Sometimes a short cape over the shoulders was attached. Linen was too
expensive for commoners.
The absence of fresh food during the winter made scurvy prevalent; in
the spring, people eagerly sought "scurvy grass" to eat. Occasionally
there would be an outbreak of a nervous disorder due to the ergot fungus
growing in the rye used for bread. This manifested itself in apparent
madness, frightening hallucinations, incoherent shouting, hysterical
laughing, and constant scratching of itching and burning sensations.
The villein and his wife and children worked from daybreak to dusk in
the fields, except for Sundays and holydays. He had certain land to farm
for his own family, but had to have his grain milled at his lord's mill
at the lord's price. He had to retrieve his wandering cattle from his
lord's pound at the lord's price. He was expected to give a certain
portion of his own produce, whether grain or livestock, to his lord.
However, if he fell short, he was not put off his land. The villein, who
worked the farm land as his ancestor ceorl had, now was so bound to the
land that he could not leave or marry or sell an ox without his lord's
consent. If the manor was sold, the villein was sold as a part of the
manor. When his daughter or son married, he had to pay a "merchet" to
his lord. He could not have a son educated without the lord's
permission, and this usually involved a fee to the lord. His best beast
at his death, or "heriot", went to his lord. If he wanted permission to
live outside the manor, he paid "chevage" yearly. Woodpenny was a yearly
payment for gathering dead wood. Sometimes a "tallage" payment was taken
at the lord's will. The villein's oldest son usually took his place on
his land and followed the same customs with respect to the lord. For an
heir to take his dead ancestor's land, the lord demanded payment of a
"relief", which was usually the amount of a year's income but sometimes
as much as the heir was willing to pay to have the land. The usual aids
were also expected to be paid.
A large village also had a smith, a wheelwright, a millwright, a tiler
and thatcher, a shoemaker and tanner, a carpenter wainwright and carter.
Markets were about twenty miles apart because a farmer from the
outlying area could then carry his produce to the nearest town and walk
back again in the daylight hours of one day. In this local market he
could buy foodstuffs, livestock, household goods, fuels, skins, and
certain varieties of cloth.
The cloth was crafted by local weavers, dyers, and fullers. The weaver
lived in a cottage with few and narrow windows and little furniture. He
worked in the main, and sometimes the only, room. First the raw wool was
washed with water at the front door to remove the grease. Then its
fibers were disentangled and made fine with hand cards with thistle
teeth, usually by the children. Then it was spun by a spinning wheel
into thread, usually by the wife. On a double frame loom, a set of
parallel threads was strung lengthwise. A device worked by a pedal
lifted half of these threads --every other thread--while the other half
remained in place. Between the lifted threads and the stationary threads
a shuttle was thrown by the weaver from one hand to another. Then the
threads which had remained stationary were raised by a second pedal and
the shuttle thrown back. The shuttle carried a spool so that, as it
moved, it left a thread behind it running crosswise or at right angles
to the lengthwise threads and in and out between them. The lengthwise
threads were called the "warp"; the shuttle thread was the "woof" or the
"weft".In making cloth, it was the warp which, as the loom moved, took
the worst beating. With the constant raising and lowering, these treads
would wear and break, whereas the weft on which there was little strain
remained intact. None of the cotton yarn which the old-fashioned wheels
had spun was strong enough for warp. So it was necessary to use linen
thread for the warp.
Since one loom could provide work for about six spinners, the weaver
had his wool spun by other spinners in their cottages. Sometimes the
master weaver had an apprentice or workman working and living with him,
who had free board and lodging and an annual wage. Then a fuller made
the cloth thick and dense by washing, soaping, beating, and agitating
it, with the use of a community watermill which could be used by anyone
for a fixed payment. The cloth dried through the night on a rack outside
the cottage. The weaver then took his cloth, usually only one piece, to
the weekly market to sell. The weavers stood at the market holding up
their cloth. The cloth merchant who bought the cloth then had it dyed or
dressed according to his requirements. Its surface could be raised with
teazleheads and cropped or sheared to make a nap. Some cloth was sold to
tailors to make into clothes. Often a weaver had a horse for travel, a
cow for milk, chickens for eggs, perhaps a few cattle, and some grazing
land. Butchers bought, slaughtered, and cut up animals to sell as meat.
Some was sold to cooks, who sold prepared foods. The hide was bought by
the tanner to make into leather. The leather was sold to shoemakers and
glovemakers. Millers bought harvested grain to make into flour. Flour
was sold to bakers to make into breads. Wood was bought by carpenters
and by coopers, who made barrels, buckets, tubs, and pails. Tilers,
oilmakers and rope makers also bought raw material to make into finished
goods for sale. Wheelwrights made ploughs, harrows, carts, and later
wagons. Smiths and locksmiths worked over their hot fires.
Games with dice were sometimes played. In winter, youths ice- skated
with bones fastened to their shoes. They propelled themselves by
striking the ice with staves shod with iron. On summer holydays, they
exercised in leaping, shooting with the bow, wrestling, throwing stones,
and darting a thrown spear. The maidens danced with timbrels. Since at
least 1133, children's toys included dolls, drums, hobby horses, pop
guns, trumpets, and kites.
The cold, indoors as well as outdoors, necessitated that people wear
ample and warm garments. Men and women of position dressed in long full
cloaks reaching to their feet, sometimes having short full sleeves. The
cloak generally had a hood and was fastened at the neck with a brooch.
Underneath the cloak was a simple gown with sleeves tight at the wrist
but full at the armhole, as if cut from the same piece of cloth. A
girdle or belt was worn at the waist. When the men were hunting or
working, they wore gown and cloak of knee length. Men wore stockings to
the knee and shoes. The fashion of long hair on men returned.
The nation grew with the increase of population, the development of
towns, and the growing mechanization of craft industries. There were
watermills for crafts and for supplying and draining water in all parts
of the nation. In flat areas, slow rivers could be supplemented by
creating artificial waterfalls, for which water was raised to the level
of reservoirs. There were also some iron- smelting furnaces. Coal mining
underground began as a family enterprise. Stone bridges over rivers
could accommodate one person traveling by foot or by horseback and were
steep and narrow. The wheelbarrow came into use to cart materials for
building castles and cathedrals.
Merchants, who had come from the low end of the knightly class or high
end of the villein class, settled around the open market areas, where
main roads joined. They had plots narrow in frontage along the road and
deep. Their shops faced the road, with living space behind or above
their stores. Town buildings were typically part stone and part timber
as a compromise between fire precautions and expense.
Towns, as distinct from villages, had permanent markets. As towns grew,
they paid a fee to obtain a charter for self-government from the king
giving the town judicial and commercial freedom. They were literate
enough to do accounts. So they did their own valuation of the sum due to
the crown so as not to pay the sheriff any more than that. These various
rights were typically expanded in future times, and the towns received
authority to collect the sum due to the crown rather than the sheriff.
This they did by obtaining a charter renting the town to the burghers at
a fee farm rent equal to the sum thus deducted from the amount due from
the county. Such a town was called a "borough" and its citizens or
landholding freemen "burgesses". The freemen were "free of the
borough", which meant hey had exclusive rights and privileges with
respect to it. Selling wholesale could take place only in a borough.
Burgesses were free to marry. They were not subject to defense except of
the borough. They were exempt from attendance at county and hundred
courts. The king assessed a tallage [ad hoc tax] usually at ten per cent
of property or income. In the boroughs, merchant and manufacturing
guilds controlled prices and assured quality. The head officer of the
guild usually controlled the borough, which excluded rival merchant
guilds. A man might belong to more than one guild, e.g. one for his
trade and another for religion.
Craft guilds grew up in the towns, such as the tanners at Oxford, which
later merged with the shoemakers into a cordwainers' guild. There were
weavers' guilds in several towns, including London, which were given
royal sanction and protection for annual payments (twelve pounds of
silver for London). They paid an annual tribute and were given a
monopoly of weaving cloth within a radius of several miles. Guild rules
covered attendance of the members at church services, the promotion of
pilgrimages, celebration of masses for the dead, common meals, relief of
poor brethren and sisters, the hours of labor, the process of
manufacture, the wages of workmen, and technical education. King Henry
standardized the yard as the length of his own arm.