BOLDON BOOK 



seems to have been a form of military service and a survival of the ancient 

 obligation of the * fyrd.' l Finally, the dreng owed suit at the bishop's 

 court.* Under the second head, money payments, we find two varieties of 

 obligation, the one a fixed charge, like a ferm or rent, the purpose of which 

 is not specified, and the other the render of occasional 'auxilia.' 8 At Whessoe 

 Robert Fitz-Meldred, who held a carucate as the fourth part of a drengage, 

 rendered IQJ. 8</. Finally, under the third head, tenure of this sort was 

 subject to a group of very interesting obligations. The first of these is the 

 familiar feudal incident of wardship, which as we know may be carried back 

 to the Conquest.* At West Auckland 4 bovates which Elstan the dreng had 

 held are in the Bishop's hands, ' donee filius Elstani sit adultus.' The Bishop 

 has allotted to Elstan's wife ' xii acras quietas ad pueros suos alendos.' The 

 rest of the land pays 131. and renders the services which used to be exacted 

 of Elstan.' Then, in striking contrast to the feudal incident of wardship, are 

 merchet, heriot, and metred or metriz, all of them characteristic attributes of 

 villein tenure. The nature of merchet and heriot has been much discussed, 

 many illusions, some of them mischievous ones, have been dispelled, and the 

 truth of the matter seems now pretty well established. Briefly, merchet 

 was a payment made to the lord for leave to marry one's daughter outside the 

 estate, for the lord must be reimbursed for a transaction by which he lost a 

 dependent tenant the possible mother of villeins. Heriot, on the other hand, 

 which commonly consisted of the best beast rendered to the lord by the heir 

 on behalf of his deceased predecessor, looks back to a time when the dependent 

 had received chattels or stock from his lord, and although it attached itself to 

 the soil is quite distinct from feudal relief.' Metred in this connexion has 

 reference to the 'vacca de metride,' the milch cow which the cornage-paying 

 vills were obliged to render to the bishop. The dreng would be required to 

 pay his share of the composition which was generally being substituted for 

 the render of the beast itself. Now these terms do not occur in connexion 

 with drengage in Boldon Book, but we can scarcely doubt, none the less, that 

 the drengs of the bishopric were subject to the obligations which they repre- 

 sent. Across the Tyne the drengs of Northumberland did not escape them. 7 

 Then they occur in a Durham charter, which however lacks the name 

 drengage. In this prior Laurence (A.D. 11491154) conveyed the land of 

 Pache in Monkton to a certain Roger. The passage must be quoted, the 



1 'Willelmus . . . ficit quartam pattern unius dringagii . . . et facit utware quando positum fucrit 

 in episcopatu,' Oxenhall ; cf. Feod., 12911, 132 I33nn, 14.1 ; Neteminster Chartulary (Surtees Soc.), index s. v. 

 Utware. Professor Maitland has discussed the term in Engl. Hist. Rev., v. 625 ff. Professor Vinogradoff, 

 however, takes a different view, arguing that the inland (demesne) was quit of taxation in view of certain 

 specifically aristocratic functions which its lord had to perform, while the outland bore the burden of taxation. 

 Then the king's utware would be what the king got from the inland, i.e. geld. See The Growth of the Manor, 

 pp. 226-7, 284. 



* e.g. Great Usworth, Herrington, Butterwick, Brafferton. 



1 See Prior Bertram's charters, in FeoJ., I I4n, and cf. Testa de Nevill, 752. 



* Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 310. 



8 Cf. Registrant Palatinum Dunelmense (Rolls Ser.), iii. 62. In 1 302 it was provided that the bishop should 

 have wardship of only such tenements in drengage as are held of himself and the prior. This is peculiarly 

 interesting, because there is good reason to believe that in the neighbouring county of Northumberland 

 drengage tenure was not a cause of wardship. See Northumb. Ais'tze R. (Surtees Soc.), 223-224, 237, and 

 the discussion of the case in Amer. Hist. Rev. ix. 680-681. 



* Pollock and Maitland, Hist, of Engl. Law, i. 293-298, 354-356 ; Vinogradoff', Villainage, 153-156; 

 Tear Book, 1 5 Edw. III. (Rolls Ser.), Introd. xv.-xliii. 



1 Teitade Nevill, 389. 



287 



