A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



representative appears of the serfs who, in 1 407, were dwelling at Pickering, 

 Redcar, AUerton, York, and across the Tyne. In 1469 the serfs enumerated 

 lived, as a rule, in the south-eastern corner of the bishopric, but there were 

 others at York or in the vague 'south country.' Perhaps, like the serfs of an 

 earlier date,^ they came back at intervals to see their parents, but when these 

 died they returned no more. It is possible that serfs were to be found in the 

 Palatinate as late as 1575, when Elizabeth manumitted the serfs of the 

 Palatinate of Lancaster,* but no traces remain in any of the Durham 

 records. 



IV — The Age of Transition 



The Black Death gave the final blow to an economic system which was 

 already fast decaying. Sufficient emphasis cannot be laid upon the fact that 

 serfdom and labour rents were an anachronism even before 1349. After that 

 date circumstances forced men to admit that a new organization was necessary, 

 but as there was no master mind to suggest a scheme, landlord and peasant 

 blundered on for nearly two hundred years in mutual hatred and distrust. 

 There was no peasant revolt in Durham, but nowhere was the spirit of silent 

 defiance stronger than in the Palatinate during the late fourteenth and early 

 fifteenth centuries. The prince bishop and the lordly prior were too power- 

 ful from their spiritual position to be resisted openly, but all possible petty 

 annoyances that could suggest themselves to the peasant mind were inflicted 

 upon the luckless steward and his assistants. 



Reference has been made already to the indifferent way in which services 

 were performed when they were not shirked entirely. When the steward and 

 his men arrived at a village weary after a long journey they were refused 

 accommodation by the peasantry, although by custom they were entitled to 

 beds in the cottages.' So common was this refusal that it must have been the 

 result of a general understanding among the villagers. At another time we 

 find the lord's rights of purveyance resisted, and the steward or terrarer was 

 unable to buy the fowls or other victuals he required.* A reference under 

 Billingham suggests that the peasantry found certain itinerant traders had 

 been taking advantage of their simplicity and reverence to obtain fish at a 

 cheap rate,^ but when we find that the peasants were selling their standing 

 crops in defiance of the lord's rights of pre-emption,* a less favourable 

 interpretation of the former transaction is possible. Before the fourteenth 

 century was over the terrarer or other official who held the halmote was 

 unable to obtain carriage for his victuals and other impedimenta from some 

 of the vills.'' 



One of the most striking symptoms of the passive rebellion of the 

 peasants was their growing hostility to the halmote as an institution and to 

 the village community as the symbol of restraint. Before the Black Death 

 neglect of suit of court was rare, but after 1 349 it becomes increasingly 

 common, both in the bishop's' and prior's vills.' Often those who did come 



' Dur. Halmote R. (Surlees Soc. lixxii), 169, 170. 



' Tram. Roy. Hist. Soc. (New Ser.), xvii, 235. Mr. Savigne mentions that so late as 1 61 7 there 

 were on the manor of Falmer in Sussex three persons who were apparently legally serfs. See also the Lau>' 

 Quarterly Rev. ix, 348, for an article by Mr. I. S. Leadam on 'The Last Days of Bondage in England.' 



' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 72, loi, 118, 140, 146. * Ibid. 49, 50. 



' Ibid. 51. ° Ibid. 90-93 passim. ' Ibid. 125, 144. 



• Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. i^J d.; No. 16, fol. 243. " Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 43, 44.. 



222 



