THE MONASTIC TENANTS
When the religious houses were possessed of manors--and all save the
smallest houses held at least one or two and frequently many--it
was incumbent upon them to discharge the obligations that rested on
manorial lords; nor was there any difficulty about this, for the
technical obligations of presiding at courts and fulfilling other like
duties were almost invariably discharged, even on secular manors,
by the lord’s steward. Still the lord was responsible, and held
responsible, in the same fashion as a modern landowner and his agent,
and the difference between a good and a bad or careless landlord had
even more striking results in the feudal and sub-feudal days than
in our own. The tenants of the monastic estates were of every kind,
from those who held under the obligation of military service to the
Crown and so many knight’s fees, to the humblest customary tenants or
villeins, who were tied to the soil. The abbot or prior had to carry
out the obligations resting on landholders of the days in which he
lived; he could not, if he would, have upset the land system, but by
just and conscientious administration each manor might become a centre
of comparative content.
If the student of manorial records and customaries compares any
considerable number of manors that were in monastic, or Church,
hands, with those that were in lay control, it will be found, broadly
speaking, that the lot of the tenants generally, and more especially
that of the villeins, was decidedly superior when under monastic
administration. True, tenants of ecclesiastical manors had their
difficulties with the lord from time to time, and were, perhaps,
all the more ready now and again to show dissatisfaction in a more
marked way than they would have dared to do against the more severe
secular lords; but the easy terms on which the assarts or clearings
made by the monks and their lay-brothers were conferred on their
tenants, the commuting of labour customs for quite small sums of
money, the generally light character of the labour for the lord, the
better harvest fare provided, and, more particularly, the far greater
opportunity for manumission or freedom that pertained to the clerical
estates, all these were noticeable in so many instances, that there can
be no doubt it was as a rule far better for each class of tenants to be
on a monastic rather than on a secular estate.
In the valuable chartulary of the abbey of Burton-on-Trent, preserved
at Beaudesert, there are full accounts of the tenantry on their
Staffordshire and Derbyshire manors drawn up about the year 1100, as
well as some like entries of the year 1114. It would be very difficult
to find such easy tenures on any secular manors of approximate date. In
a variety of cases a house was held for which a single day’s harvest
work per week for the lord was the only charge. The proportion of _ad
opus_ tenants on these estates was unusually small; thus at Mickleover,
out of a total of seventy-eight only twenty-two had to make any return
in labour, and in each of these cases the villein held two bovates or
oxgangs of land in return for two days’ labour a week at harvest-time,
the occasional carrying of a load to the lord’s garden, and ploughing
once in the winter and twice in the spring. Their position, too, is
also shown by the fact that they were cowkeepers; for time was allowed
them, when working for the lord, to drive home and milk their cows, and
generally to attend to their stock. In two other Mickleover cases _ad
opus_ tenures of two bovates of land had recently (1100) been commuted
by the abbot for 2_s._ a year, a sum which gives a good idea of the
comparatively small amount of exacted labour.
In the adjoining township of Littleover there were twenty-two villeins,
including Goderic the reeve, the majority of whom held two bovates of
land; but in only four cases did they make recompense to the lord by
labour. On the same manor there were, in 1114, five men in charge of
the plough oxen (_bovarii_); each of them held one bovate of land and
two acres of marsh in return for making or providing the irons of three
ploughs, the amount of demesne land being sufficient for three ploughs.
On another of the abbot’s Derbyshire manors, Willington, there was no
“inland” or demesne land, but there were thirty-two bovates, seven of
which, sufficient for two ploughs, were held by the lord. The remaining
twenty-five bovates were thus held:--One, with part of the church
meadow, by Goderic the priest; Unifred, six bovates for 6_s._; Soen,
four bovates for 6_s._; Serlo, two bovates for 2_s._; Lewin, the reeve,
one bovate for 1_s._; Hotin, one bovate for 2_s._; Godwin, half bovate
for 11_d._; Lewric and Lewin, each two bovates for 32_d._ and two days’
work a week from July to Martinmas; Edwin and three others, each one
bovate for 16_d._ and two days’ work for the like period; Godric, half
bovate for 8_d._ and half day’s work for the like period; and Lewin,
the smith, one bovate by the service of two ploughs, or for 16_d._ and
work as above.
It was easy, too, on most monastic manors, for the native tenant
or villein to obtain leave to live elsewhere on payment of a small
acknowledgment, which was a privilege very rarely granted by a secular
lord. Thus, on the manor of Inkpen, Berkshire, in the time of Richard
I., the Abbot of Titchfield, as lord, licensed three of his native
tenants to dwell outside the manor in return for 6_d._ a year apiece
at Michaelmas; in another case the annual acknowledgment for a like
permission took the shape of a ploughshoe (or iron tip for a wooden
share), then worth about 2_d._; and in a third case, the more costly
service of a pair of cart-wheels, probably worth about 1_s._
The same abbot, according to the customary of the Hampshire manor where
the abbey stood, had an extraordinarily generous scale of dietary for
those tenants who worked at the lord’s autumn harvesting. Those who
worked one day a week for the whole day received at three o’clock a
supply of food (_unum pastum_) consisting of bread, with beer or cider,
broth (_potagium_), and two sorts of flesh or fish, as well as drink
once after dinner. For supper the fortunate labourer also received a
wheat loaf weighing forty ounces, and two herrings, or four pilchards,
or one mackerel. As such a _pastum_ by itself seems to have been
considered as worth 4_d._, this food allowance was certainly remarkably
generous. If three days’ labour was the service to be rendered, the
last of the three was recompensed in a like generous fashion, whilst
on the two first days the _pastum_ was a loaf of barley bread, water
to drink, and two kinds of fish, whilst the change in the supper
consisted merely of the substitution of a forty-ounce barley loaf for
one of wheat. When the customary tenants had to wash sheep or do a
day’s work on the meadows at the lord’s will, they received nothing,
save that they had wheat bread and beer when they had finished; but the
shearers of sheep had cheese in addition to the bread and beer. Those
who dressed the meadows had no food allowance, but when haymaking they
received bread and beer, with flesh or fish. In short, it is admitted
that on several monastic estates the harvest payment in food for
villein labour cost more than the labour was worth.
We have looked in vain through many a customary of secular manors to
find a parallel to this; the only approach to it is in other manors in
monastic hands. As a broad rule there was no food or drink given to
the secular lord’s villeins for labour on the demesne, save at corn
harvest, and then only on a somewhat meagre scale.
One other point of the generous treatment of the tenants on the lands
of Titchfield Abbey may be named. Those who have studied riverside
manorial customs on manors that bordered on the Thames, Trent, Severn,
Ouse (Yorks.), and elsewhere, know that not only the free ferrying of
the lord’s household and his goods by the tenants was usually expected,
but also the water-transit of himself or his property to quays or
places at a considerable distance. But the waterside tenants of
Titchfield, who were boat owners--although they had to take the abbot,
canons, or members of the household and their horses free across the
estuary of the Hamble when necessary--if they had to convey them up the
water to Southampton were always to be recompensed by a _pastum_, or by
4_d._ in money, whichever they preferred.
It may also be mentioned as still further showing the condition of the
_natives_ on these monastic lands that they were forbidden to sell
their horses or oxen that had been bred on the manor without the lord’s
leave. The very statement of this small restriction shows that they
were at liberty to trade in cattle or horses outside those of manorial
breed. Nor were they to fell any oak or ash growing on their holding
without the lord’s leave, save in the case of wood required for the
repair of their houses or the strengthening of their hedges. As a rule
timber, for even these purposes, could not be taken without a permit.
The licence fee for marriage with anyone within the manor was two
shillings, with anyone outside, according to the lord’s discretion.
The reeve elected by the homage was to be free of all service of every
kind, and from payment of churchset, pannage-fee, etc., during his term
of office.
The Surtees Society in 1889 printed a most interesting volume of
extracts from the Halmote Court or Manor rolls of the prior and convent
of Durham from 1296 to 1384. They supply a vivid picture of the life
of the various classes of tenants on the thirty-five vills under the
control of that monastery, of their comparative independence, and of
the merciful dealing of the conventual lord. Mr. Booth, as editor,
writes in warm praise:
“We see them (the tenants) in their tofts, surrounded by their crofts,
with their gardens of pot-herbs. We see how they ordered the affairs
of the village when summoned by the bailiff of the vill to consider
matters which affected the common-weal of the community. We hear
of their trespasses and wrong-doings, and how they were remedied
or punished; of their strifes and contentions, and how they were
repressed; of their attempts, not always ineffective, to grasp the
principle of co-operation as shown by their bylaws; of their relations
with the prior, who represented the convent and alone stood in relation
of lord. He appears always to have dealt with his tenants, either in
person or through his officers, with much consideration; and in the
imposition of fines we find them invariably tempering justice with
mercy.”
Another book that is very helpful in showing the relationships that
existed between a great abbey and its various tenants is the _Rentalia
et Custumaria_ of Glastonbury, printed a few years ago by the Somerset
Record Society. Some of these West-country tenants had to find part
of their rent in labour, and part in kind or in payment. There are
payments in kind of salmon, eels, and honey, whilst not a few who
worked direct for the abbey had stated wages. Even in cases where the
villein had to do as much as three days’ work a week from Michaelmas to
Midsummer, and five days’ work a week during harvest-time, he held in
recompense several acres of arable land that he cultivated for himself
during the free days, and had a small share of every acre of corn that
he reaped or grass that he cut for the lord. The smaller cottagers had
a variety of curious customary services in lieu of rent, mostly of
a trifling character. Thus a woman named Alice held her cottage and
half-an-acre of land by the service of sharpening the reapers’ sickles
and bringing them water at harvest-time. Whilst at work for the abbot
the labourers were, as a rule, entertained at common meals, and they
met at Christmas in the great hall for a special feast.
It may, in short, be taken as a fact, that the best farming and the
greatest degree of fair dealing and generous treatment were to be found
on the monastic lands. The more this subject is studied, the more
thoroughly are such facts established. Nor are the reasons why this
should be the case far to seek. However unworthy the superior or the
leading officials of an abbey or priory may occasionally have been,
the system at all events secured a succession of resident lords for
the most part of high moral and religious character, or of diligently
supervised granges where the estates were at some distance from the
central house. There were no protracted wardships or minorities;
the lords were not frequently absent at wars, or with the court;
and the actual character of the administration could not possibly
have fluctuated in a like way as on secular estates. The heads of
religious houses, and the chief obedientiaries or officials, had almost
invariably some experience of manual labour as well as of agricultural
farming, and could sympathise with the toil of the one and the anxiety
of the other. Not infrequently in the larger houses special lands were
appropriated to the support of the burdens of a particular part of the
monastic life, and where this was the case, the almoner, the sacrist,
or the cellarer, as the case might be, gave his immediate attention to
the cultivation and the produce of such small estates. Hence came about
a continuous contact between the religious and the tenants of various
classes.
Into all this work and superintendence the true monk brought the
spirit, and often the actual direction, of his rule. Not only did the
monk learn to do field and garden labour as part of his training, but
to enter upon it as a conventual or common work under the direction of
the prior or one deputed by him. The Cluniacs and the Cistercians gave
a dignity to their work by certain defined usages. When the brethren
were gathered for work, the abbot himself, in a Cluniac house, was
expected to meet them at the cloister door, saying, _Eamus ad opus
manuum_, “Let us go forth to the work of our hands.” Thence they went
in procession, saying a psalm, to the assigned place, and when there,
certain suitable collects with the “Our Father” and versicles were said
ere the work was begun, the superior taking his share.
Wide and general as was the dispersion of England’s religious houses,
it was as nothing compared with the number of their granges, and to
every grange a chapel was attached. These chapels were divided by a
screen; the choir was for the brethren, professed and lay, and the
western part for the tenants and labourers. That so vast an amount of
land came by benefaction into the hands of the monasteries throughout
England in mediæval days may have had certain economic objections; but
one result, at all events, was achieved through that fact, namely, the
removal to a great extent of any idea of the degradation of manual
toil, and the linking together of labour and worship. It was impossible
in old days to go many miles in any direction without alighting upon
a humble chapel specially built for those who tilled the soil. In a
single midland county where there were only seven religious houses
(apart from hospitals), traces, either in stone or records, have been
found of upwards of twenty grange chapels. The mere worldling will
doubtless view with some contempt this association of Divine service
and the weary round of agricultural toil; but for such we are not
writing. Those who have any faith in the reality of religious joy will
realise the blessing of such opportunities, which were so largely
multiplied by the monks of England, not only for their own spiritual
advantage, but for those who worked under and with them.
The great opportunities that the native tenants or villeins had of
securing their freedom, for Holy Orders or otherwise, on the monastic
estates, and the general advantages of all such tenants in the matter
of education, must be left for another chapter, as they both demand
more extended treatment than can be given in a single paragraph or
two. The only other point to be now briefly dealt with is the question
of the tenants of nunneries. Though their numbers were not large, and
many of the houses quite small, still the houses of religious women
suppressed by Henry VIII. were nearly one hundred and fifty.
As to their lands and estates, in their later history they were
sometimes farmed out at mere annual rents with but small control from
the religious, so that they would differ but little from any ordinary
landed property. But this was the exception, and unknown in the earlier
centuries of their existence.
The Gilbertine houses had canons attached to them with the avowed
object of looking after the temporal affairs of the nuns, and in their
elaborate statutes there are the fullest details as to the management
of the granges by the lay-brothers, as lately set forth in English in
Miss Graham’s interesting book on this Order. To most of the older
Benedictine nunneries, as well as to the two large houses of Nuneaton
and Amesbury, dependencies of Fontevrault, special officials were
attached to superintend the tenants.
Nevertheless, the abbess or prioress, if manors pertained to the house,
had all the privileges and responsibilities attached to the position,
notwithstanding her sex, and was the lady of the manor. The abbesses
of Barking, Nunnaminster, Shaftesbury, and Wilton, held of the king an
entire barony, and were actually summoned for a time to parliament as
barons. Now and again the convents had for their superiors ladies who
were as remarkable for their zeal in temporal as in spiritual matters.
In the chartulary of the Hampshire abbey of Wherwell, at the British
Museum, is an interesting and beautiful account of “the blessed mother,
the abbess Euphemia”, who ruled the house from 1226 until her death
in 1257. The following extracts of part of the story of her rule,
written by an inmate of the house shortly after her death, show the
thoroughness of her administration in temporal matters, leaving out the
account of her rebuilding most of the conventual buildings on improved
sanitary lines, and planting and draining the precincts, and doubling
the number of the sisters:
“Euphemia, notwithstanding all her attention to spiritual affairs, and
the good of the actual monastery, so conducted herself with regard to
exterior affairs, that she seemed to have the spirit of a man rather
than a woman. The court of the abbey manor, owing to the useless mass
of squalid buildings, and the nearness of the kitchen to the granary
and old hall, was in much danger of fire; whilst the confined area and
the amount of animal refuse was a cause of offence both to the feet
and nostrils of those who had occasion to pass through. The Mother
Euphemia, realising that the Lord had called her to the rule, not that
she might live at ease, but that she might, with due care and dispatch,
uproot, and destroy, and dissipate all that was noxious, and establish
and erect that which would be useful, demolished the whole of these
buildings, levelled the court, and erected a new hall of suitable size
and height. She also built a new mill some distance from the hall, and
constructed it with great care, in order that more work than formerly
might be done therein for the service of the house. She surrounded the
court with a wall and the necessary buildings, and round it she made
gardens and vineyards and shrubberies in places that were formerly
useless and barren, and which now became both serviceable and pleasant.
The manor house of Middleton, which was close to a public thoroughfare,
and was further disfigured by old and crumbling buildings, she moved
to another site, where she erected permanent strong buildings and a
farmhouse on the bank of the river. She also set to work in the same
way at Tufton, in order that the buildings of both the manor houses in
that neighbourhood might be of greater service and more secure against
the danger of fire.”
A recently published volume on Wroxall Priory, Warwickshire, shows how
admirably that convent managed the affairs of the manor. The tenants
dined with the prioress at Christmas.