A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



Durham documents that I have been able to examine. Canon Greenwell 

 conjectured that the term 'yolvvayting' should be connected with Yule and the 

 modern waits in the sense of watchmen, understanding the service as connected 

 with ' the protection of that manor-house in which the bishop happened to 

 be residing during the festivities of Christmas.' In support of this he cites a 

 notice from a fifteenth-century rental, ' de quadam placea vocata Yolwayte- 

 stand. ' ' This is to a great extent a question for professional philologists who, 

 we may suspect, would find Dr. Greenwell's explanation tainted with popular 

 etymology. Another and equally serious objection lies in the tact that the 

 service of yolvvayting was incident to tenure in Auckland Manor only, so 

 that the bishop, had he been disposed to keep his Christmas elsewhere, would 

 have been obliged to forego the special protection which Canon Greenwell 

 accords him throughout his estates. Mr. Hubert Hall, whose theory of 

 cornage as a mode of tenure requires an organic connexion between that 

 institution and castle-guard, understands yolwayting as a form of the latter 

 service." His evidence comes from Suffolk and Northumberland, and really 

 proves no more than that the term ' wayte ' has the sense of protection or 

 guard.* He might have added the case of the manor of Narbrough ' held by 

 castle-guard which could be redeemed by wayt-fee.' * Without admitting 

 the validity of Mr. Hall's arguments in regard to cornage, the truth of the 

 matter under consideration may be detected in his explanation and in that of 

 Canon Greenwell also. The difficulty is that castle-guard appears to have 

 been a free-service, or rather a service incumbent upon free-men.^ If, how- 

 ever, we regard yolwayting as a variation of the duty of furnishing ' castlemen' 

 common to many of the Durham vills, and see in this again a survival of some 

 parts of the ancient ' trinoda necessitas,' the difficulty vanishes. ° This con- 

 jecture, however, is put forward with much diffidence, for it may turn out 

 that in removing one obstacle we have substituted another and more trouble- 

 some one. 



With regard to ' michelmeth ' we can command even less material 

 than was at our disposal in dealing with ' yolwayting,' as we have only the 

 four occurrences of the term in Boldon Book. We fall back, therefore, provi- 

 sionally at least, upon Canon Greenwell's quite admissible conjecture, that the 

 service involved some special reaping at Michaelmas, ' beyond the weekly 

 works of tenants, arising from the exigencies of the reaping time.'^ It will be 

 remarked, however, that regular week-work formed no part of the services of 

 the vills which were charged with ' michelmeth,' although at Boldon, to the 

 general type of which they conform, the villeins owed three days' week-work 

 throughout the year. It may be conjectured then that ' michelmeth ' repre- 



' BoUon lii. App. p. Ixxii ; JlatfieWs Surv. (Surtccs Soc), 285. 

 9 KtJ Bk. of the F.x,h. (Rolls Scr.), II. ccxxxvi, ff. 



' Jocclin dc HrakclonJc, Cronica in Mcmorlali of S. Edmunds (Rolls Scr.), i. 271 ; Northumb. Jsjize R. 

 (Surtccs Soc), 325. 



♦ R. M. G.irnicr, Engl. Landed Interest, i. 147, citing Hloiint's Joctikr Tenures. 



' Mr. Round has made this subject Ills own. Sec his p.ipcrs in The Commune of London, 278-288 ; The 

 Areh. four., N. S., ix. 144-159 ; The Ancestor, July, 1903. 



* C.istlc-guard as a free service existed in Durham as well as the villein duty of rendering castlemen. Sec 

 a charter dating from the early years of the thirteenth century by which RcginaKI Hasset granted his house in 

 Durham to the monks, reserving lo.lging for himself and st.ihling for fi)ur horses, ' cum . . . conligcrit me vcl 

 hcrcdci mcos siagium faccrc ad custodiam castelli l)llnclmcllsi^.' Vcod. 196 n. 



7 lioldon Hook, App. p. Ixiv. ; ILilfield's Surv. 2S1. 



278 



