226 " Bowlesse Thing " — " Rowlese Tenement " — " Roioley." 



Any of these elements might be wanting ; but I suggest that 

 where there was no messuage to a holding it was called a roofless 

 tenement, which phrase was variously corrupted according to the 

 fancy of lawyers' clerks, who did not know the history of the term. 



That " Eoof " and " Eow " are etymologically equivalent can be 

 shown without going outside the parish of Melksham. 



A tithing of Melksham is called Woodrow, or Woodrew. In 

 Stuart times a lane running through it was called Woodroofe Lane, 

 Moreover (though I have lost the reference) this very same tithing 

 is itself called Woodroofe at the same date — I saw it lately in a 

 number of the Wilts Archceological Magazine. 



There is a farm at Melksham called Bezzles (variously spelt, but 

 probably recalling an ancient family of Bradford named Besyl, &c.) 

 When this farm changed hands in 1669 it consisted inter alia of 

 two closes named Bessells and Rouihessells. Now I suggest that, 

 according to an old-fashioned terminology Eowbessells meant that 

 part of the estate on which the roof or house stood. 



This of course is conjecture, but what I have said about Woodrow 

 is fact. 



Referring now to the cases first cited : under the headings of A 

 and B it is to be noted that out of the sixteen holdings there 

 mentioned \hQonly one tvithout a messuage is the one styled Eovelesse 

 or Eowlesse. 



With regard to C, it appears that here also a messuage has been 

 suppressed : for in a fine levied of the premises the description is 

 one messuage, two oxhouses, two gardens, two orchards, &c., which 

 seems to indicate that two holdings had been thrown together, and 

 a house destroyed. 



D. The " Eoofless Tenement " in Somerset cannot mean, as some 

 might suppose, a tumble-down cottage, for it is stated to be worth 

 £32 per annum. 



To account for the fuller form of the phrase found in Somerset in 

 1800 as compared with the mutilated forms in Melksham indentures 

 in 1630, &c., it may be supposed that the extinction of copyhold 

 estates was already far advanced in Melksham before the Common- 

 wealth, whereas it was only beginning in the Somerset manor in 1800. 



