A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



that the leases comprised, besides the common-fields, ' meadows, feedings, 

 pastures, works and other usual customs, and all other appurtenances.' ^ There 

 is nothing said in any of the holdings as to tenant-right, although these leases 

 were renewed as a matter of course even if the rent was a little increased.'' 

 One important condition, however, must be mentioned in the 1510 lease of 

 Harton — not only is the rent raised 3^., but the significant addition is made 

 that death voids the lease.'* Whether these isolated conditions applied to all 

 leases cannot be determined at this date, but it is submitted that even before 

 the sixteenth century or the advent of the dean and chapter, the system of 

 renewable leaseholds had deprived the tenantry of legal copyhold right with- 

 out, so far as we know, a protest on their part.' 



The precarious tenure of the prior's lessees in the sixteenth century is the 

 more remarkable when we find that the system made very little headway 

 among the bishop's tenants. We do meet with lessees for a term of years, 

 especially in the case of whole vills,* but as early as 1458 we find that the 

 halmote recognized a ' right and estate ' of certain tenants in their holdings 

 which they could transfer or sub-let (tabernate) in the halmote subject to the 

 usual fine.^ 



Our materials for describing the social history of the Palatinate in the 

 fifteenth century are very meagre, but the main outlines are clear. It was a 

 time of misery and poverty and oppression for lord and tenant, freeholder and 

 bondager. Pestilence or war raged more or less all the time, and the con- 

 sequent depopulation left its mark for over two hundred years. The Black 

 Death never really died out in the land ; its recrudescence is referred to again 

 and again. Several times the assizes had to be postponed ' because of the 

 pestilence,' ° and what the pestilence left the Scots or the greedy Nevilles and 

 their henchmen devoured. 



The prevalence of the plague in its various forms was largely due to the 

 insanitary habits of the people, their wretched dwellings and their polluted 

 water supply. Even the Black Death had not taught wisdom. The peasant 

 drank of the brook into which the filth of kitchen-middens drained, he 

 allowed cess-pools and dung-heaps to stand in the streets,^ and he cleaned his 

 plough-irons and washed his clothes in the well from which he drew his 

 drinking water. Orders were made in the halmote which betokened a dawn- 

 ing recognition of the evils,^ and possibly there was improvement in places. 

 In Durham city attempts were made in 1451 to obtain an adequate and pure 

 water supply,^ and even the little vill of Nether Heworth set apart one 

 brook for brewing and baking bread. ^° The clergy were not behindhand in 

 taking precautions, and we find the parson at Ryton arranging for a private 

 and unpolluted water supply.^' However, there was in some vills a reckless dis- 



' MS. Prior's Halmote Bks. iii, fol. 122 is'. 



' A comparison of the Halmote Books with the Bursar's Rental for 1539 shows a general tendency to a 

 slight rise in rent. 



' Strictly speaking there could not be copyhold of demesne lands, and in these joint leases demesne and 

 bondage strips were taken without any distinction being made. 



* Dur. Curs. No. 1 3, fol. 144 ; cf. No. 16, fol. 238, where we learn that five men ' conjunctim et divisim ' 

 leased the vill of Tunstall in 1470. There are a few other cases. 



' Dur. Curs. No. 1 6, fol. 2 I . 



' Dur. Halmote R. e.g. Dur. Curs. No. 35, m. 10, ibid. No. 38, m. 8 d. and No. 46, m. 2. 



' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ix.xxii), 158. * Ibid. 143, 146. " Dur. Curs. No. 44, m. 9. 



'" Cf. Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 38 and 176. " Dur. Curs. No. 32, mm. 4 <z'. 5 d'. 



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