POLITICAL FREEMEN
Under the reign of Ethelred II. the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxons had
already passed away. As a people they sank, and left only a part of
their civilisation and institutions to their successors, the Danes
and Normans. The development of a maritime skill unknown before, of a
bold manly spirit of enterprise, and of a political liberty which, by
preserving a balance between the freedom of the nobles and of the rest
of the people, ensured to England a powerful and peaceful existence.
Danish settlers in England conferred a great benefit on the country,
from a political point of view, by the introduction of a numerous class
of independent peasantry. These people formed a striking contrast to
the oppressed race of Anglo-Saxons. Turner says: "The Danes seem to
have planted in the colonies they occupied a numerous race of freemen,
and their counties seem to have been well peopled." The number of these
independent landowners was consequently greatest in the districts which
were earliest occupied by the Danes, where they naturally sprung up
from the Danish chiefs parcelling out the soil to their victorious
warriors. Twenty years after the Norman Conquest there was a greater
number of independent landed proprietors, if not, in the strictest
sense of the word, freeholders, in the districts occupied by the Danes,
and under "Danelag," than in any other of the Anglo-Saxon parts of
England. The smaller Anglo-Saxon agriculturists were frequently serfs,
while the Danish settlers, being conquerors, were mostly freemen, and
in general proprietors of the soil.
Domesday Book mentions, under the name of "Sochmanni," a numerous class
of landowners or peasants in the Danish districts of the north, while
in the south they are rarely to be found. They were not freeholders in
the present sense of the term. They stood in a feudal relation to a
superior lord, but in such a manner that the "Sochmanni" may best be
compared with our present "hereditary lessees." Their farm passed by
inheritance to their sons, they paying certain rents and performing
certain feudal duties; but the feudal lord had no power to dispose of
the property as he pleased.
The following is an abstract of a paper on Tithe and Tenure in the
North, by the Rev. J. H. Colligan:--
DANISH INFLUENCE ON LAND TENURE
was originally a military one. In Westmorland the manors were
granted round several great baronies or Fees. The barons held
their estates "in capite" from the king, upon conditions that
were mainly military, while the lords of the manors held of
the barons, their chief duty being, to keep a muster-roll of
their tenants for the discharge of the military claims of the
barons. The tenants held of the lord by fines and services,
the latter being, until the close of the XVIth century, of a
military character. This baronial system, perfected by William
the Conqueror, gave enormous power into the hands of the barons.
The Hudlestons, of Millum Castle, Lancashire, exercised the
prerogative of "jura regalia" for twenty-two generations. They
also had the privileges of "wreck of the sea." Some of the
barons had the power of capital punishment, others, again, had
the right to nominate sheriffs. They held their own courts and
could be either friends or rivals of the king, to whom alone
they owed homage, with service at home or abroad. The authority
thus obtained by the barons was distributed to the knights and
lords of the manors, who, in their turn, levied conditions upon
their dependants.
This system of devolution of power received from the king was
enjoyed also by the church, and kept the counties always ready
for war. When the martial spirit began to forsake the land,
and peaceful and sporting pleasures arose, we find a new form
of tenure. Lands and tenements are given for the apparently
trifling conditions of keeping up eyries of hawks for the
baron, or of providing a gilt spur, or of producing a rose,
sometimes out of season but generally in the time of roses, or
of making presents of pepper, ginger, cloves, or some other
tasty trifle. A number of these rents require no explanation,
as they are only the reflex of the passion of the age. Horses,
dogs and hawks for the knight, pepper, ginger and cloves for
the monks, are easily understood. The reasons for the rose and
stirrup, the spur and the glove are not so apparent. It is
possible that originally they were symbolical of real rent or
service. The transition from the actual to the symbolical must
have taken place in the XIVth and XVth centuries.
We have hitherto been speaking of the relationship between
the barons and the monks, the knights and the lords of the
manor. There is no reference to tenants, because there was no
such thing as a free individual tenure before the middle of
the XVIth century. The soldier-tenants clung round the barony
of the manor, and their position was defined as "tenantes ad
voluntatem." It was only in Elizabeth's reign that the demands
of the tenants began to be formulated, and the unique form of
tenure called "tenant right" appeared on the border. It is
difficult to discover when and how the movement for freedom on
the part of the tenants began, but it certainly is associated
with the Reformation, and is seen plainly in those places where
protestantism was vigorous.
We shall examine the growth of this form of tenure as it
appeared in a Cumberland manor. In the neighbourhood under
consideration we find three kinds of tenants. At the one
extreme were the Drenges, who were probably Saxon slaves; at
the other were tenants by right, who were probably equal in
dignity and privilege in the early days to the lord of the
manor himself. In Cumberland and Westmoreland traces of the
Drengage tenements may be found, and the Bondgate, Appleby, is
an illustration of Drengage dwellings. The tenants by right are
found in Cumberland, where they are now called yeomen, and in
Westmorland, where they are known as statesmen (steadsmen), and
in North Lancashire, where, to the regret of the writer in the
Victoria County History, the yeomen are gradually disappearing.
Mr. J. Brownbill says that tenant right was frequently urged
all over Furness and Cartmel and in Warton and the northern
border of Lancashire. He refers to the particulars in West's
"Antiquities of Furness."
We have not been able to ascertain the origin of the tenure as
it applies to North Lancashire, but on the borders it is the
outcome of an interesting and unique form of service called
Cornage. It is still a disputed point as to the origin of the
word. Some holding it to from the fact that the lord gave
notice of the enemies' approach by winding a horn; others that
it was much earlier in its origin, and arises from the horn or
cattle tax, still known in Westmorland as neat- or nowt-geld.
Whichever origin be taken, it is clear that, from the time of
Queen Elizabeth, the keeping of the borders was an important
service, and is seen from the fact that the tenant could not
hire another to take his place.
In regard to this border service, known as Cornage, the lord
had several privileges which included wardship or control
over the heir, until he was 21 years of age; marriage, which
gave him the right of arranging a marriage if the inheritance
had devolved upon a female; and relief, which was the payment
of a certain sum by the heir upon taking possession of the
inheritance. The chief privilege which the "tenant-by-right"
possessed for his border service was that of devising his
tenement by _will_, a privilege which is much prized until
this day. At the Restoration the "Drengage tenure" was raised
into a Socage tenure, and it was under this tenure, with that
of Cornage, and sometimes with a combination of these forms,
that most of the tenements of the manors of Cumberland and
Westmorland were held. These holders came to be described
as customary tenants. The customary tenant is distinguished
from the freeholder, and the copyholder, in that he is not
seised of his land in fee simple, as is the freeholder, and
is not subject to the disabilities of the copyholder, nor
are his customary dues considered derogatory to the nobility
of his tenure. The customary tenant is therefore between the
freeholder and the copyholder, with a number of well defined
privileges. The two most important duties of the average tenant
in Cumberland and Westmorland were those of warfare and the
watching of the forests. The former depended entirely upon the
attitude of the other kingdoms, especially Scotland; the latter
was a long and laborious service laid upon the tenant until
the middle of the XVIth century. The counties of Cumberland
and Westmorland were dense forests until long after the Norman
Conquest, and the timber for the royal shipyards was grown in
these highlands of England. The forests were full of game, and
the regulations in connection with the preservation of game and
the upkeep of the forests were most exacting upon the people.
From the middle of the XVIth century, however, these ancient
laws and services began to lose their force, and a new set
of regulations arose to meet the new environment. Slowly but
surely the feudal system had passed away. Here and there a
relic remained, but it was impossible to ignore the rights of
men who could no longer be bought and sold with a tenement.
From the first year of the reign of Elizabeth the border
service is well defined and the claims of the tenants became
fixed. Several years before, Lord Wharton, as Deputy-General
of the West Marches, drew up a series of regulations for the
protection of that part of the border. In an interesting
article by Mr. Graham, we find how the men of Hayton, near
Carlisle, turned out every night with their spears, and
remained crouched on the river bank in the black darkness or
the pouring rain. It is a typical example of borderers engaged
upon their regular service. This system had superseded the
feudal system. The feudal tenure survived in many instances
where a power. Like one of their own tumultuous forces, when
once directed into the right stream, they went to form that new
product which we call an Englishman. The documents, which were
discovered at Penruddock in the township of Hutton Soil--the
"kist" is in the possession of Mr. Wm. Kitchen, Town Head,
Penruddock--relate to a struggle between the lord and the
tenants of Hutton John, Cumberland, on the subject of tenant
right. So far as we are aware these documents are unique. The
various authorities on Cumberland history give reference to a
number of these disputes but no mention is made of the Hutton
John case, so that we have here for the first time a full
knowledge of what was probably the most important of all these
trials. In addition, while there are no documents relating to
the other cases, we have here every paper of the Hutton John
case preserved. The story of the discovery is that the writer
(the Rev. J. Hay Colligan) was searching for material for a
history of the Penruddock Presbyterian Meeting House when he
came across a kist, or chest, containing these documents. (A
calendar of these documents may be found in the Cumberland
and Westmorland Transactions for 1908.) The manor of Hutton
John had long been in the possession of the Hutton family when
it passed in 1564 to a son of Sir John Hudleston of Millum
Castle by his marriage with Mary Hutton. Her brother Thomas
had burdened the estate on account of his imprisonment lasting
about fifty years. It was the son of this marriage, Joseph by
name, who became the first lord of the manor, and most of the
manorial rights still remain with the Hudleston family. After
Joseph Hudleston came three Andrews--first, 1603-1672; second,
1637-1706; third, 1669-1724--and it was with these four lords
that the tenants carried on their historical dispute. The death
of Thomas Hutton took place some time after 1620 and was the
occasion for raising a number of questions that agitated the
manor for almost a century afterwards. It flung the combustible
topic of tenure into an atmosphere that was already charged
with religious animosity, and the fire in the manor soon was as
fierce as the beacon-flare on their own Skiddaw.
The position of the parties in the manor may be summed up by
saying that Joseph Hudleston insisted that the tenants were
tenants-at-will, and the tenants on the other hand claimed
tenant right. Whatever may have been the origin of cornage,
it is clear that by the XVIIth century it was synonymous
with tenant right. The details in the dispute cannot here be
treated, but the central point was the subject of a general
fine. This fine, frequently called gressome, was the entrance
fine which the tenant paid to the lord upon admittance. In
some manors it was a two years' rent, in others three. An
unusual form in the manor of Hutton John was a seven years'
gressome, called also a running fine or a town-term. This was
the amount of two years' rent at the end of every seven years.
The contention of the tenants was, that as this was a running
fine, no general fine was due to the lord of the manor on the
death of the previous lord. From this position the tenants
never wavered, and for over seventy years they fought the
claim of the lord. Upon the death of Thomas Hutton the tenants
claiming tenant right refused to pay the general fine to Joseph
Hudleston. After wrangling with the tenants for a few years,
Joseph brought a Bill against them in 1632. He succeeded in
obtaining a report from the law lord, Baron Trevor, which
plays an important part in the case unto the end. He apparently
disregarded the portion which applied to himself, and pressed
the remainder upon the tenants. The tenants thereupon decided
to send three of their number with a petition to Charles I.
and it was delivered to the king at Newmarket. He ordered
his judges to look into the matter. The civil war, however,
had begun, and the whole country was about to be filled with
smoke and flame. Needless to say the tenants took the side of
Parliament, while the lord of the manor, the first Andrew, was
described in the records as a Papist in arms. During the civil
war the whole county of Cumberland was in action. The manor of
Hutton John was mainly for the Parliament. Greystoke Castle,
only two miles from the manor, surrendered to the Parliamentary
troops. The termination of the civil war in 1651 was the date
for the beginning of litigation between the Hudleston family
and the Parliament on the subject of the manor. After this was
over the struggle between the lord and the tenants began again.
In their distress the tenants sent a letter to Lord Howard
of Naworth Castle, whose Puritan sympathies were well known.
This is a feature of the case that need not be dwelt upon,
but without which there can be no complete explanation of the
story. The struggle was in fact a religious one. The occasion
of it was the entrance into a Cumberland manor of a Lancashire
family, and the consequent resentment on the part of the
adherents of the manor, who boasted that they had been there
"afore the Hudlestons." The motives which prompted each party
were those expressed in the words Puritan _v._ Papist. The
year 1668 was a memorable one in the history of the dispute.
In that year the tenants brought a Bill of complaint against
the lord at Carlisle Assizes. The judge, at the opening of
the court, declared that the differences could be compounded
by some gentlemen of the county. All the parties agreed, and
the court made an order whereby Sir Philip Musgrave, Kt. and
Bart., and Sir John Lowther, Bart., were to settle the case
before September 21st. If they could not determine within that
time they were to select an umpire within one week, who must
make his award before Lady-day. Sir Philip Musgrave and Sir
John Lowther accepted the responsibility placed upon them by
the court and took great pains to accommodate the differences,
but finding themselves unable to furnish the award within the
time specified they elected Sir George Fletcher, Bart., to be
umpire. Sir George Fletcher made his award on March 3rd, 1668.
The original document, written, signed and sealed with his own
hand, is here before us. Its tattered edges prove that it has
been frequently referred to. Sir George Fletcher's award was
on the whole in favour of the tenants, and especially on the
subject of the general fine, which he declared was not payable
on the death of the lord. Other important matters were dealt
with, including heriots, widows' estates, the use of quarries
on the tenements, the use of timber, the mill rent, together
with the subject of boons and services. All the tenants
acquiesced in the award, and the lord paid the damages for
false imprisonment to several of the tenants.
In the year 1672 Andrew Hudleston the first died, and
Andrew the second, 1637-1706, succeeded to the lordship. He
immediately began to encroach. He demanded the general fine
in addition to rents and services, contrary to the award.
The struggle therefore broke out afresh as fiercely as ever,
and both parties returned to the old subject of tenure. The
matter became a religious one owing to the Restoration and the
rigid acts which followed between 1662-1689. An extraordinary
incident occurred at this time in the conversion of the lord
to the protestant cause, but this did not affect the dispute
between him and the tenants. In 1699 the tenants moved again.
They requested the court to put into operation the award of
Sir George Fletcher. From that year until 1704 the strife
was bitterer than ever, and the kist contains more documents
relating to this period than to any other. In the year 1704,
after several judgments had previously been made against the
third Andrew Hudleston and his late father, the former appealed
to the House of Lords, and the case was dismissed in favour of
the tenants.
Although the struggle lasted until the year 1716, the climax
was reached in 1704. The historical value of the case is the
way in which it illustrates the conditions of tenure in the
North-West of England, and at the same time pourtrays the
pertinacity in spite of serious obstacles of the yeoman class
in asserting its rights.
_Tithe._ The subject of Tithe is one that can only be dealt
with in a restricted way and from one point of view. It
is well known that, through the influence of George Fox
in North Lancashire, Quakerism spread with frenzied force
through Westmorland and Cumberland. Many of those who had
been previously content with Puritan doctrines seceded to
the Quakers. The practice of declining to pay the tithe, in
the case which the documents before us illustrate, was of a
different character. It occurs in the parish of Greystoke,
in which the manor of Hutton John was situated. Five years
after the award of Sir George Fletcher on the tenure case, the
nonconforming section of the tenants of Hutton John raised
another question of a tithe called "Bushel Corn." This had
been regularly paid to the Rector of Greystoke from time
immemorial. Even the Puritan rectors had received this tithe
down to that great Puritan, Richard Gilpin, who was ejected
from the Rectory of Greystoke in 1661. The point in dispute was
not a deliberate refusal of the tithe, it was a declaration
of the parishioners that the _measure_ was an unjust one. The
contest was carried on by John Noble, of Penruddock, and Thos.
Parsons, the steward of the Countess of Arundel and Surrey,
Lady of the Barony of Greystoke. Associated with Parsons was
John Robson, a servant and proctor of the rector. Parsons and
Robson were farmers of the tithe, but the case had the full
consent of the rector, the Rev. Allan Smallwood, D.D.
The immediate cause of the dispute was the question of the
customary measure. It resulted in the settlement of a vexatious
subject which was as to the size of a _bushel_. The matter was
one of contention throughout the country until standard weights
and measures were recognised and adopted. In Cumberland the
most acute form was upon the subject of the corn bushel. The
deviations in quantity were difficult to suppress, and several
law cases upon this matter are on record. In the Parish of
Greystoke the case was first begun in 1672. The bushel measure
had been gradually increased from sixteen gallons, which amount
the parishioners acknowledged and were prepared to pay, until
it reached twenty-two gallons. The case passed through the
assizes of three counties, being held at Carlisle, Lancaster
and Appleby, and a verdict for the parishioners was eventually
given.
The documents, apart from their intrinsic worth, have thus
an inestimable value, in that they shed light upon and give
information in regard to the doings in a Cumberland manor
where hitherto there has been but darkness and silence, as far
as the records of the people were concerned. We are able now
to follow with interest and satisfaction a story that is equal
in courage and persistence with the best traditions of English
love of justice and fair play.
The documents in this case were numerous but small, and were in many
cases letters and scraps of paper. As a piece of local history it is
not to be compared with the tenure case, but it contains valuable items
of parish life in the XVIIth century. Perhaps the best of the letters
are those from Sir John Otway, the well-known lawyer. John Noble the
yeoman has several letters full of fine touches. The depositions of the
witnesses at Cockermouth in 1672 are picturesque. The lawyers' bills,
of which there are many, are not so illuminating. There are several
letters of Henry Johnes of Lancaster, who was Mayor of that town on two
occasions.
Public men regard it as a great honour to represent the northern
districts of England in Parliament, merely from the intelligent
political character of the voters; and it was certainly through the
adherence of the love of freedom in the north that Cobden and Bright
were able to struggle so successfully for the promotion of Free Trade
and for financial reform. Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, the great English
writer, says: "Those portions of the kingdom originally peopled by the
Danes are noted for their intolerance of all oppression, and their
resolute independence of character, to wit, Yorkshire, Lancashire,
Norfolk, and Cumberland, and large districts in the Scottish lowlands."
Memorials of the Danes are mixed up with England's freest and most
liberal institutions; and to the present day the place where the
candidate for a seat in Parliament addressed the electors bears
throughout England the pure Danish name of the "Husting." When William
I. began to conquer England, and to parcel it out among his warriors,
it was the old Danish inhabitants who opposed him; who would have
joined him, their kinsman the Norman, especially as he gave it out
that one of their objects in coming to England was to avenge the Danes
and Norwegians who were massacred by Ethelred, but the Normans aimed
at nothing less than the abolition of the free tenure of estates and
the complete establishment of a feudal constitution. This mode of
proceeding was resented, which would rob the previously independent
man of his right to house and land, and by transferring it to the
powerful nobles shook the foundation of freedom. The Danes turned from
them in disgust, and no longer hesitated to join the equally oppressed
Anglo-Saxons. The Normans were obliged to build strong fortifications,
for fear of the people of Scandinavian descent, who abounded both in
the towns and rural districts. What the Normans chiefly apprehended was
attacks from the Danes who, there was good reason to suppose, might
come over with their fleets, to the assistance of their countrymen in
the North of England.
The Norman kings who succeeded William the Conqueror dwelt in perfect
safety in the southern districts, but did not venture north without
some fear, and a chronicler who lived at the close of the twelfth
century assures us that they never visited this part of the kingdom
without being accompanied by a strong army.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.
In those districts where the Danes exercised complete dominion the
custom of slavery was abolished. This fact is established by a
comparison of the population of those districts colonised by the Danes
with that of the older English districts. The population returns given
in Domesday Book prove that no "servi" existed in the counties where
Danish influence was greatest. Both in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire at
this time there is no record of slavery. In the counties where this
influence was less, such as Nottingham, the returns show that one serf
existed to every 200 of the population. In Derbyshire 1 per cent.,
in Norfolk and Suffolk 4 per cent., in Leicestershire 6 per cent.,
in Northamptonshire 10 per cent., in Cambridge, Hertford and Essex
11 per cent. Outside the influence of the Danelagh the proportion is
much greater. In Oxfordshire 14 per cent. were slaves, in Worcester,
Bucks, Somerset and Wiltshire 15 per cent., in Dorset and Hampshire
16 per cent., in Shropshire 17 per cent., in Devonshire 18 per cent.,
in Cornwall 21 per cent., and in Gloucestershire 24 per cent., or
almost one-fourth of the whole population. These records were not made
by Danish surveyors, but Norman officials, and explode the theory
of historians like Green who assert that the English settlers were
Communities of free men. These conditions of tenure were introduced by
the Danes, and became so firmly established that the names given to
such freeholders as "statesmen" in Cumberland, "freemen" and "yeomen"
in Yorkshire, Westmorland and North Lancashire still exist at the
present day.
As we have seen, records of struggles for tenant rights have come to
light in recent years which prove that feudal conditions were imposed
by successive landlords, and were resisted both before and after the
Commonwealth.
INVASION AND SETTLEMENT.
The Norse settlement at the mouth of the Dee dated from the year 900
when Ingimund, who had been expelled from Dublin, was given certain
waste lands near Chester, by Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians. This
colony extended from the shore of Flint, over the Wirral peninsula
to the Mersey, and it is recorded in Domesday by the name of their
Thingwall or Tingvella. Along with the group of Norse names in the
Wirral is Thurstaston, or Thors-Stone, or Thorstun-tun. This natural
formation of red sandstone has been sometimes mistaken for a Tingmount
or Norse monument. Several monuments of the tenth century Norse colony
are to be found in the district, such as the Hogback Stone in West
Kirby Museum, and the gravestone bearing the wheel-shaped head. A
similar monument was found on Hilbre Island, and other remains of cross
slabs occur at Neston and Bromborough.
The Norse place-names of Wirral prove that these lands were waste and
unoccupied, when names of Danish origin were given, such as Helsby,
Frankby, Whitby, Raby, Irby, Greasby and Pensby. Some Wirral names are
composed of Celtic and Norse, as the settlers brought both Gælic and
Norse names from Ireland. These are found in the Norse Runes in the
Isle of Man and north of Lancaster.
Socmen were manorial tenants who were free in status, though their land
was not held by charter, like that of a freeholder, but was secured to
them by custom. They paid a fixed rent for the virgate, or part of a
virgate, which they generally held; and, taking the Peterborough Socmen
as examples, they were bound to render farm produce, such as fowls and
eggs, at stated seasons; to lend their plough teams thrice in winter
and spring; to mow and carry hay; to thresh and harrow, and do other
farm work for one day ... and to help at the harvest for one or two
days. Their services contrasted with the _week-work_ of a villein, were
little more than nominal and are comparable to those of the Radmanni.
The Peterborough socmen reappear under the "Descriptio Militum" of the
abbey, where it is said they were served "cum militibus," but this
appears to be exceptional. Socmen were like "liber tenentes" frequently
liable to "merchet, heriot and tallage." Their tenure was the origin of
free socage, common in the thirteenth century, and now the prevailing
tenure of land in England. Socmen held land by a fixed money payment,
and by a fixed though trivial amount of base service which would seem
to ultimately disappear by commutation." All socmen as customary
tenants required the intervention of the steward of the manor in the
transfer or sale of their rights. ("Palgrave's Dictionary of Political
Economy," p. 439.)
_Merchet._ Of all the manorial exactions the most odious was the
"Merchetum," a fine paid by the villain on giving his daughter in
marriage. It was considered as a mark of servile descent, and the man
free by blood was supposed to be always exempted from it, however
debased his position was in every other respect.
In the status of socmen, developed from the law of Saxon freemen there
was usually nothing of the kind. "Heriot" was the fine or tax payable
to the lord or abbot on the death of the socman. The true Heriot
is akin in name and in character to the Saxon "here-great"--to the
surrender of the military outfit supplied by the chief to his follower.
In feudal time and among peasants it is not the war-horse and armour
that is meant, but the ox and harness take their place. (Vinogradoff,
"Mediæval Manors": Political Exactions, Chap. V., 153.)
_Mol-men._ Etymologically, there is reason to believe that this term
is of Danish origin, and the meaning has been kept in practice by the
Scotch dialect (_vide_ "Ashley, Economic History," i, pp. 56-87.)
_Tallage._ The payment of arbitrary tallage is held during the
thirteenth century to imply a servile status. Such tallage at will is
not very often found in documents, although the lord sometimes retained
his prerogative in this respect even when sanctioning the customary
form of renders and services. Now and then it is mentioned that tallage
is to be levied once a year although the amount remains uncertain.
("Villianage in England," Chap. v, 163, Vinogradoff.)
Husbandry