28 BOROUGH OF LEWISHAM. 
(Brockley), met in the township of Lewisham and quarrelled. 
Henry struck Matthew with a club so that he died the same night. 
Henry fled, was proclaimed and outlawed. His goods, which were 
valued at 6s. od., were forfeited. Lewisham was fined for allowing 
him to escape and ‘‘Elteham, Ketebroc and Wolwich” for not 
joining in the pursuit—which indicates the route of the assassin. 
It will be seen from these cases that rough as the times were 
and ready as men were to lift up their weapons against one another 
the law was so devised that the wrong-doer was not likely to 
escape if those responsible for order did their duty. Another 
custom—the aim of which was to assist in detecting murder—was 
that of attaching the four next neighbours of a man for his death. 
The general proceedings for keeping the peace known as the 
View of Frankpledge will give us several examples of their working 
when we come to the period covered by the early Court Rolls of 
the Manor. 
CHAPTER II. 
THE 14TH AND I5TH CENTURIES. 
N order to understand the local life of Lewisham 
in the Middle Ages it will be necessary to explain, 
if only very briefly, the arrangement of land 
within the manor. This may be classed under 
four heads—(i) the lord’s demesne; (ii) the land 
held by the various classes of tenants; (iii) the 
common fields; (iv) the waste. Of these the first-named needs 
little explanation: it included the manor house and the gardens 
and home farm immediately around it. This at Lewisham is 
generally believed to have stood at Rushey Green, although the 
site is not now the property of the lord cf the manor. The pound, 
an indispensable adjunct, is, however, close at hand, and the land 
to the rear of this belongs to the Earl of Dartmouth. 
The land held by the various tenants included their houses 
with the adjoining crofts, and these were generally grouped 
together in the village not far from the church and manor house. 
The houses for the most part were built of timber and wattle, and 
consisted of a hall open to the rafters of the roof, with a central 
fire, the smoke of which found its way out either by a louvre in 
the roof, or, in the smaller houses, as best it could. At one end 
of the hall, or both ends in the larger houses, were small chambers, 
the upper stories of which overhung the lower. The furniture was 
of the simplest description: a trestle table with benches in the hall, 
and a bedstead with a locker or two in the rooms. 
But the chief point in the medizval economy was the old 
custom of cultivation in vogue in the fields. Each free tenant 
