(Vol. vii., p. 39.)
The tenure in _drengage_ was common in, if it was not confined to, the
territory which was comprised in the ancient kingdom of Northumbria.
_Drenghs_ are mentioned in Domesday on the lands between the Ribble and the
Mersey, which then formed part of Northumbria. They occur in Yorkshire; and
they are mentioned in the survey, called the _Boldon Book_, compiled in
A.D. 1183, by order of Hugh Pudsey, the great Bishop of Durham, which may
be termed the Domesday of the palatinate. Sir Henry Ellis, in his _General
Introd. to Domesday_, says, "The _drenchs_ or _drenghs_ were of the
description of allodial tenants ... and from the few entries in which they
occur, it certainly appears that the allotments of territory they possessed
were held as manors." (_Domesd._, tom. i. fo. 269.) But as menial services
(to be rendered, nevertheless, by the villans of the tenant in _drengage_)
were attached to the tenure, at all events in the county of Durham, it was
inferior to military tenure; and the instance in the Pipe Rolls of
Westmoreland, 25 Henry II., of the enfranchisement of _drenghs_, together
with the particulars {138} given in records of the palatinate of Durham and
the county of Northumberland, as to the services attached to _drengage_,
show that it was far from being a free tenure. Yet Spelman (_Gloss._, ed.
1687, p. 184.) speaks of _drenges_ as "tenantes per servitium militare;"
and Coke calls them "free tenants of a manor."[8] From the _Boldon Book_ we
learn, however, that the services of the _drengh_ were to plough, sow, and
harrow a portion of the bishop's land, to keep a dog and horse for the
bishop's use, and a cart to convey his wine; to attend the chase with dogs
and ropes; and perform certain "precaria," or harvest works. To take an
example from the roll of Bishop de Bury in 1336:--We find Nicholas de
Oxenhale held of the bishop in capite the manor of Oxenhale, performing,
amongst other services, "the fourth part of a _drengage_; to wit, he was to
plough four acres, and sow the land with seed of the bishop's, and harrow
it, and do four days' work in autumn." And in the Pipe Roll for
Westmoreland, already mentioned, we find eighteen _drenghs_ in the honour
held by Hugh de Morvill, who had not been enfranchised by him, and who
remained paying a fine to be exempt from foreign service. In Northumberland
the tenants in _drengage_ paid a fixed money-rent, and were subject to
tallage, heriots, merchet, &c. So, in the palatinate, in 25th Bishop
Hatfield (A. D. 1369), John Warde, of Hoton, died seised in his demesne of
a messuage and sixty acres which were held of the bishop in capite, by
homage and fealty in _drengage_, rendering six bushels of oats and three
bushels of barley, at the manor of Middleham. But the agricultural and
menial services were lighter than those of the villan, and, as already
stated, were not performed by the tenant in person, or by those of his
household. This tenure existed in Tynedale at the close of the thirteenth
century, as appears from _Rot. Orig. 20 Edw. I._, vol. i. p. 70., where the
"consuetudinem partium prædictarum" are mentioned. "A _drengage_," says
Blount, in his _Fragmenta Antiquitatis_, "seems to have consisted of
sixteen acres, to be ploughed, sown, and harrowed." The word _drengage_ is
derived, by the Rev. Wm. Greenwell, in the glossary to his recent valuable
edition of _Boldon Book_, from the Anglo-Saxon _dreogan_, to do, work,
bear; the root, according to Tooke, of our English word _drudge_.
_Drengage_ is, in Kelham's _Norman-French Dictionary_, explained to be "the
tenure by which the _drenges_ held their lands." In Lye's _Saxon
Dictionary_ I find "_Dreng_, miles, vir fortis."