BOLDON BOOK 



in which he stipulated, 'quod homines mei de Steinitune habebunt communem 

 pasturam cum hominibus de Chettun, secundum consuetudinem, sicut habent 

 aliz vicina? villa? in aliis vicinis locis.' 1 Still the rule was not universal. At 

 Mainsforth, for example, 9 bovates 'jacent cum mora ad pasturam,' and Norton, 

 as we have had occasion to remark, paid no cornage, 'pro defectu pasture, ' 

 which must mean that it had no permanent pasture. For the use of pasture 

 of this kind, whether in moor or forest, the villeins appear to have paid a due 

 known as herbage, 8 and a similar due known as pannage was exacted for the 

 swine that were driven into the forest.* 



Having examined the land and its cultivators, we may now turn to 

 consider the rules which determined their relations, or in other words the 

 manorial economy revealed to us in Boldon Book. 



The fully developed manor of the thirteenth century was commonly 

 administered on behalf of the lord by three different officers. There were the 

 steward, who superintended a group of manors, the bailiff or head-man of a 

 single manor, and the reeve, who was chosen by the dependent community 

 from among their own number to act as their overseer and representative.* 

 Neither the steward nor the bailiff occurs in Boldon Book, and there is no 

 particular reason why they should. The reeve was, however, the most 

 essential of all. His duties were many and various, and he received in return 

 for his services an allotment of land, ' revelond ' it was sometimes called, free 

 of renders and services. 6 In Durham the pairs and groups of vills to which 

 attention has already been called, shared a reeve between or among them, and 

 in these cases the size of the reeve's holding appears to have been increased 

 to correspond with the increase in his labours. Thus at Newbottle the reeve 

 held 12 acres, which was the normal peasant holding at that place, but at 

 Houghton, with which Warden and Morton were grouped, the reeve held 

 2 bovates of 14 acres each. Still there are exceptions, as at Wolsingham, 

 where Adam the reeve had but 6 acres, for which, moreover, he was obliged 

 to pay 4o</. At Stanhope again the reeve had a toft and croft and 6 acres for 

 his services, but when he laid down the office he would be required to pay 

 2s. and do 4 boon-works every year. Next to the reeve the village officer of 

 the most frequent occurrence was the pinder or pound-keeper, whose business 

 it was to impound strange or wandering cattle. The pinder's services, like 

 those of the reeve, were rewarded by an assignment of land, but the holding 

 was commonly smaller than that of the reeve, generally 6 acres, as at Stockton, 

 Wolsingham, and Stanhope. Where vills were grouped as in Quarrington- 

 shire and Aucklandshire a single pinder served for the whole cluster, and 

 received a proportionate tenement, 20 acres in both of these cases. This 

 officer further received a proportion of the harvest, consisting of a certain 

 number of sheaves, twelve, or in some cases twenty-four, for every plough. 

 These were called thraves and served, as Canon Greenwell conjectures, for 



1 FeoJ., 1 56-1 57 n. 



* Adam, a tenant at Blackwell, renders 32^. ' pro herbagio de Balthela.' In 1 307 the ' bondi ' of Eaiington 

 and Shotton rendered 53*. 4/2". ' pro p.istura de SchottonJen per annum ad voluntatcm Episccpi,' Receipt Roll 

 in Boldm Bk. (Surtees Soc.), App. p. zxxi. 



* See Boldon Bk. (Surtees Soc.), s. v. Lanchcstcr ; cf. Bishop Pudsey'i charter to Alan de Chilton in ibid., 

 App. No. viii. 



* Fleta, cited by Ashley, Economic ////A, i. 10 ft". ; cf. Gamier, Landed Interest, i. ch. xiv. 



* Hale, Domesday of St. Pauft, introd. xxxvi ; Ashley, of. tit. i., II, ff. ; Vinogradoff, Villainage, 157, 



3 '7-319- 



I 297 38 



