88 Urlestoke and its Manor Lords. 



to their catt e when the mead was ploughed, and m return the 

 cattle of the former were to go in the mead and common when 

 Skimcroft was broken. Many of the free-tenants were freeholders 

 in other places, as, for example, Alexander, the son of John de 

 Cheverell, who was patron of the Church of Little Cheverell in 

 1299,^ and Adhelm Lambe, a free-tenant in 1544, who was the 

 owner of Baynton Manor, formerly the property of Edington 

 Priory, and had thus probably acquired a small holding in Erlestoke 

 that had been granted to the priory by John de Edington in 1361.^ 

 The only service that they owed to the lord, besides their rent, 

 was " suit," or attendance at the manor courts, and at the time of 

 their admission they performed homage, the " symbolic ceremony" 

 by which in early times they entered into an alliance with the 

 lord for mutual defence. The manor had also to be represented 

 at the meetings of the county court and the hundred court, and 

 it is probable that this duty fell primarily on the free tenants 

 unless the terms of their tenure made the lord alone responsible. 

 The customary tenants also owed suit at the manor court, but 

 whereas the amercement for the absence of a free-tenant was in 

 1544 three-pence, in the case of a customary tenant it was one 

 penny only. In later times this had risen to one shilling, but on 

 special occasions, such as the first court of a new lord, it was 5s., 

 and absence from the first court following a tenant's admission 

 involved a fine of £5. The rustic services due from these tenants 

 could, as has been seen, be redeemed in cash, and in 1309 their 

 value was 5s. l^d. per annum, as compared with an average rent 

 of 8s. Qd. per virgate, but in 1546 — 1552 the services are not re- 

 ferred to, so that it is evident that at that period the composition 

 had been merged in the rent. It is generally supposed that this 

 had followed as a result of the plague of 1349, when the great 

 reduction in the population and the consequent scarcity of labour 

 had increased the independence of this class, but customary services 

 were still mentioned as part of the profits of the manor when 

 Henry Brouncker purchased it from Edward VI. in 1552, and in 



' Inst. Glericorum. 

 • Chanc. Inq. p.m., 35 Edw. III., pt. 2, No. 44, of 2nd numbers. 



