Estate Economy. 30 



O'^O 



of the memories which could alone render it intelligible. The 

 land had long ceased to be viewed in the light of a military fee. 

 The fresh owners had acquired it by purchase, not by descent, 

 and the prosy inducement of commercial speculation had pre- 

 ponderated over the sentimental and social elements of the 

 transaction. It was true, no doubt, that the knight service, the 

 homage, the fealty, the escuage and suit of court might be 

 tolerated for the sake of the ocular evidence that they afforded 

 as to the new man's increased social importance; but his phleg- 

 matic trading spirit called out against the inequality of the 

 various rents. Here was a freeholder who paid according to 

 his charter a minimum in money and a little pepper for his 

 holding ; there was another paying double this for less and in- 

 ferior land. Here was one, who by copy of court roll rendered 

 part payment in money, part in capons, and was liable to a 

 heriot ; another, who held a cottage and curtilage in exchange 

 for an annual sparrow-hawk, and a third who paid as an 

 equivalent something equally useless or insignificant. The 

 town-bred individual who became landlord had known hitherto 

 but one medium of exchange, and it was natural that he should 

 be anxious to convert every one of the above services into its 

 money equivalent. Recourse therefore was constantly had to 

 legal subterfuges. The copyholder was always before the 

 law courts. At one time it was under the pretext that he 

 had omitted a service, or transgressed a right contained in the 

 original court roll. The unlucky wight would produce his 

 cherished copy and prove his case ; but woe betide him if under 

 a skilful cross examination he was entrapped into some con- 

 tradictory and far from intentional admission damaging to his 

 tenure.^ The customs of some manors had become so com- 

 plicated and inconvenient as to have induced the several parties 

 to revise and renew them in a court especially assembled for 

 the purpose. Frequently some new lord, by refusing to be 

 bound thus, not only annulled the later record, but was legally 

 entitled to confiscate the older tenant rights, which, to be 

 binding, must have been of immemorial usage.^ 



^ Mr. Hubert Hall gives manj? instances of these lawsuits. — Society in 

 the Elizabethan A(je, The Tenant, ch. iii. ^ Id., Ibid. 



