THE VILLAGES, MANORS, PARISHES, AND PARKS
1. We have seen that in Norman times the whole country was, so to
speak, the king's. There were the great lords who held "fiefs" or
possessions directly from the king, which consisted of manors in
various parts of the country--sometimes a number of manors pretty close
together,--often with big stretches of unoccupied land between them,
over which the king had full control. Out of these unused districts the
king could, and did, often make new grants of land.
2. As years rolled on, the =manors= became more valuable, and new
manors were formed. In the earlier days the manor and the =parish=
meant much the same thing; but in course of time, though the boundaries
of the parish did not alter much, the number of manors increased in
some parishes from one to two or three, or even more.
3. In many cases the mode of life on these manors went on unchanged for
centuries, the tenants of these different manors going to the original
=parish church=, and the parish priest ministering to the people in all
the manors in his parish. In other cases daughter churches, or =chapels
of ease=, were built in the newer manors, and provision was made
for the support of a priest to minister to them. These have in some
instances been erected in the course of time into separate parishes;
but many remained as parts of the mother parish, though they might be
several miles away from the parish church.
4. All through the Norman times there was a tendency to make new
manors, and this gave rise to so many difficulties that the practice
was stopped in the time of King Edward I.
5. In all parts of England to-day we have =parks=, belonging to big
mansions; and our big towns and cities have their =parks= too, which
are usually recreation-grounds for the people. A park in Norman and in
Early English times was very different in appearance from our parks,
whether in town or country. Just as the king had his great forests for
hunting wild beasts, so in the later Norman times the great lords were
anxious to enclose pieces of waste and forest land for the same purpose.
6. As we have seen, there were in early times vast tracts of wild,
uncultivated, unenclosed land, partly wooded and partly heath lands,
between the manors, which belonged to the king. The king alone could
give leave to make a park. In the reign of King Henry III especially we
find many such parks were "empaled". Of course the nobles had to give
something to the king for this privilege.
7. Many of the old parks in England, now celebrated for their fine
timber and beautiful scenery, date back to this period; but they were
at first much wilder, and the trees then were neither so many nor so
fine as they are now. The deer in them to-day just serve to remind us
of the "wild beasts" with which they were stocked.
8. The laws for preserving the wild beasts and the game in these
parks and forests and chases were very strict, harsh, and severe.
Many of these new parks took away from the villeins, who lived in the
neighbourhood, certain rights and privileges which their forefathers
had had "time out of mind".
9. Though the land could not be bought and sold outright, manors became
divided and subdivided, let and underlet, for various terms of years,
and in many curious ways, so that in time the profits, or the income,
of a manor, instead of going straight to the lord of the manor, might
be going to half a dozen different persons and places. For instance,
the half of a manor might be divided amongst several people for, say,
twenty years, or for the lives of three or four people; but at the end
of the twenty years, or on the death of the last of those persons, it
must go back to the lord of the manor, who could keep it in his hands,
or let it out in other ways to quite a different set of people.
10. It is not very difficult to understand that the management of an
estate of many manors, broken up into many small portions, became very
complicated. =Records= of all these various transactions had to be made
in writing and carefully kept, and copied and re-copied time after
time. People who understood all the "ins and outs" of the laws relating
to the possession of land became very important and very busy.
11. There are immense numbers of documents, some of them dating back
to Norman and even earlier times, still in existence. The =Record
Office=, in London, has many thousands of documents connected with the
king's business; the monasteries each had their own records, but most
of them disappeared in the sixteenth century; every old estate has such
documents; and many of the old manors have still records going back
many centuries. Of course thousands more of these old documents have
been lost, some destroyed purposely, and others through carelessness
and ignorance. Some have been burnt in times of danger, when their
owner, knowing that there were documents amongst them which might get
him into trouble, and cost him his head, set fire to bundles of papers
and parchments. Others have been stored away in dark, damp cellars,
and forgotten for years and years; and rats and mice have nibbled them
away, or mildew and damp have caused them to rot.
12. Those that we have left can still be read, and it is surprising to
find in many cases how well they have been preserved all through the
centuries. The letters are very often beautifully formed, and the whole
still clear and distinct. They were written in Norman French and Latin,
the latter being the language in which law business was carried on for
many centuries.
=Summary.=--New grants of land were constantly being made by the
king out of his own land. Manors were divided and new manors made
down to the time of King Edward I. Then a single manor would often
be let out in different portions to various tenants for a term
of years, but they always came back to the lord of the manor. He
could not sell his land outright.
_Parks_ for hunting were portions of "forest" taken in by leave
of the king. They began to be common in the time of King Henry
III. The trees were not as fine as they are now. Only the deer in
them remain to remind us of the "wild beasts".
The manors being let out in so many portions, there was much
writing to be done relating to them. Many of these documents are
still in existence, and can be read. The Record Office in London
is the place where most of the old records belonging to the king
are kept. All towns have their records, and a large number of
manors have them also. The documents of that period were always
written in Latin or Norman French.