30 Bradford-upon-Avon. 
whether ecclesiastics or laymen, alienating without licence,—or 
usurping the right of holding courts, and other Jura Regalia,—or 
by divers exactions under the colour of law. Like others, our Ab- 
bess was summoned to give anaccount of the way in which she had 
“administered the affairs of her manor at Bradford. 
Now we do not mean to say that the Abbess, our Lady of the 
Manor, claimed more than her rights, but she certainly took care 
to get no /ess. No doubt, up to the confirmation of her rights by 
King John, the proceeds from her manor, if indeed she got any- 
thing at all, must have been very precarious. Evidence produced 
before the commissioners seemed to imply that one king (Richard 
I.) had been polite enough to relieve her of the trouble of manag- 
ing her business matters, and with the trouble, no doubt, took some 
little share of the profit. However, complaint was made against 
the Abbess on two grounds :— 
1st. That the men who lived in the suburbs of Bradford (so I 
understand the term “forinseci homines’’') used to attend twice a 
year at the Hundred Court of the King at Melksham, but that, in 
the time of King John, the Abbess Mary caused them to withdraw 
themselves from that hundred, and attached them to her own hun- 
dred of Bradford. 
Qnd. That the Abbess had usurped rights‘which belonged to the 
King over the manor of Bradford. 
On the former point the commissioners seem to have acquiesced 
in the decision of the Lady Abbess, but on the second an inquiry 
took place at Wilton. The King’s attorney, William de Giselham, 
pleaded that King Richard had exercised all the rights of chief 
lord, and put in evidence to that effect. The Abbess, through her 
attorney, however, demanded that the whole matter should be fairly 
tried before a jury of twelve men (whose names are given to us), 
as to whether she or the king had the greater right to the manor 
1 ¢ Forinsect homines.’ Jacob (Law Dictionary.) defines ‘ Forinsecum 
Manerium’ as ‘the manor as to that part of it which is without the town, 
and not included within the liberties of it. ‘ Placita forinseca’ are, in similar 
manner, pleadings in other counties. 
