CH. vi] The Tenants and their Land. 1376 — "]%. 71 



hands; while by September, 1378, 18 tenements had reverted and 

 had been leased for money rents. Thus by 1378 the number of 

 tenements from which week-work could be demanded during 35 weeks 

 of the year had been reduced from 25 to 7. The area included 

 within these 7 tenements must have been about 30 acres. 



Of the 18 tenements fallen into the lady's hands, at least three^ 

 and probably four or more had been waived by their former occupiers. 

 The tenants of two other tenements (nos. 1 1 and 14, p. 60) were 

 making annual payments of \s. and 2s. respectively that they might 

 be ' exonerated ' from their holdings. Two tenements (nos. 3 and 

 30) 'had escheated to the countess after the death of their former 

 tenants,' and one (no. 36) had reverted ' for lack of tenants.' Two 

 tenements (nos. 3 and 20), of which one (no. 3) has already been 

 mentioned as escheating to the countess, had been freed from the 

 performance of labour services, while still in the hands of their former 

 tenants. Of these two tenements one had been freed by a charter 

 from the earl, while ' by special favour ' of a former lord of the 

 manor the occupier of the other — a woman— had commuted the 

 ' works and customs ' due from all her lands and tenements by an 

 annual payment of 15^-. Of the remaining eight tenements it is only 

 known that they reverted to the countess, and in apparently every 

 instance had been let again to other than their former occupiers. 



Tenants might ' waive ' their holdings for different reasons. 

 Extreme poverty or insufficient physical strength to work the holding 

 and render the labour services might force them to relinquish their 

 tenements, the rent of which they were no longer able to pay. The 

 only cases of the waiving of tenements that appear in the extant 

 Forncett records before 1350 were due to this cause. These cases 

 are entered in the court roll of May 15, 1333. The two tenants who 

 at that time* waived their holdings did so ob inopiam, but in the 

 latter part of the century the tenants seem to have waived their 

 holdings for other reasons. As the table on pp. 60, 61 shows, the 

 customers' tenements were paying high rents. The average rent per 

 acre at which land was let in Forncett in 1376-8 was lo^d. But the 

 money value of the services and payments due from the S-acre 

 tenements of the customers, even when estimated at the very low 

 rate for which the services and payments in kind might be com- 



^ These were tenements nos. 19, 44 and 69, pp. 60, 61 ; and probably also no. 17, for 

 among the fugitive nativl named in the court roll of 1373 was a John of Fornesete, and it 

 seems probable that he was the same John of Fornesete that held tenement no. 17 before it 

 fell into the lady's hands, and that on fleeing from the manor he had 'waived' this 

 tenement. 



