A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



etc. Observe that it is not the tenant Hugh who is described as paying the 

 cornage and the proportion of the milch cow, but the two parts of the vill 

 which he holds. This corroborates our inference that cornage had become a 

 burden on realty. Sheraton, again, is a case similar to Herrington. John 

 holds one-half of the vill ' pro iii. marcis, et est quietus de operationibus et 

 servitiis,' in return for Crawcrook, which he had quit-claimed to the bishop. 

 ' Thomas tenet aliam medietatem de Shurutona et reddit 30^. de cornagio, et 

 dimidiam vaccam de metride,' etc. Finally, there is a curious case at Whit- 

 well. 'Whitewell, quam Willelmus tenet in escambium pro terra quam 

 Merimius tenebat in Querindune, reddit dimidiam marcam.' Now the group 

 of vills known as Quarringtonshire had pasture and paid cornage, and it is 

 probable, therefore, that when the exchange was made this incident would be 

 reckoned in the composition at which William was holding the new land. 

 On turning to Hatfield's Survey we find this expectation confirmed. The 

 manor of Whitwell there figures as a member of Quarrington. The Master 

 of Sherburn Hospital holds the manor and the pasture and renders inter alia 

 2s. for cornage. 1 



We may conclude, then, that as early as the time of Bishop Pudsey's 

 survey cornage had begun to lose its original character as an incident of unfree 

 tenure, and to assume that of a burden on realty, so that where a freeman 

 received from the bishop a holding in a cornage-paying manor, or the whole 

 of the manor, he would be responsible to his lord for a proportion or the 

 whole of the cornage of the manor. Fortunately, we have a case illustrating 

 this change. In the middle of the twelfth century Laurence, prior of 

 Durham, conveyed to a certain Roger the land known as Pache, a member of 

 Monkton, one of the most ancient parts of the ' patrimonium S. Cuthberti.' 

 One of the conditions of tenure was, ' quod pro tota hac terra . . . pro 

 cornagio dabit 2s. in anno, scilicet, ad festum Sancti Cuthberti, et pro metreth 

 quantum ad eandem terram pertinet, ad festum Sancti Martini.' * This land 

 was returned to the convent in 1347 by a certain Walter Smyth. 8 In 1373 

 Thomas Willi was holding of the prior in Monkton eighty acres of land 

 ' quondam Walteri Smyth de Monkton quas solebant reddere scaccario 2s. et 

 pro cornagio 2od.' * 



Here, then, the cornage payment has fastened to the soil, has become a 

 burden on the land, a part of the ' forinsecum servicium,' the obligation, that 

 is, which the land owed to the king (in this case to the bishop), regardless of 

 what other tenurial relations might have been established in connexion with 

 it. In that phrase lies the key to the later history of cornage in the bishopric. 

 The changes which occurred after the Norman Conquest acted on cornage as 

 on other institutions, fastening it to the soil. In such vills as remained in the 

 bishop's hand cornage continues to be paid by the villeins. 6 In the vills that 

 were granted out by him it became a part of the forinsec service which his 

 tenants rendered him and which, no doubt, they collected for themselves from 

 their unfree tenants. This point also may be illustrated by texts. In 1183 

 the vill of Great Usworth was in the bishop's hand ; the villeins rendered 



1 Hatf ells Surv. (Surtees Soc.), 150. FetJ. 11411. 



8 Ibid. The editor, Canon Greenwell, cites but does not print the charter. 

 4 Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc.), i. 119. 

 6 e.g. Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees Soc.), 100, 129, 142, 183. 



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