A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



land is to be held ' per hanc convencionem scilicet quod pro tota hac terra 

 simul reddet \6d. ad Rogaciones et \6ct ad festum Sancti Martini et pro 

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

 quantum ad eandem terram pertinet, ad festum Sancti Martini ; quater in 

 anno herciabit pro praedicta terra et semel arabit pro ipsa in anno i die tantum 

 et ipsam quam aravit terram herciabit ; in messis tempore iiii diebus metet 

 cum ii hominibus singulis diebus . . . pro heriet dabit vi oras, pro 

 merchet vi oras et pro forisfacto vi oras in misericordia ; de utware adquietabit 

 ipsam terram quantum ad eam pertinet." There can be no doubt that we 

 have to do here w^ith a drengage tenure. 



The amount of land held on these terms, the content of a normal 

 drengage tenement, is a perplexing point. We have seen that at Whessoe 

 Robert Fitz-Meldred's holding of one carucate w^as reckoned as the fourth 

 part of a drengage, and with that evidence alone one would be tempted to 

 say that a normal drengage ought to contain 4 carucates.^ But the mischance 

 of those who have attempted to specify the content of a knight's fee teaches 

 one caution, and on turning to another part of Boldon Book we see that Elstan 

 had been a full dreng at West Auckland although he held but 4 bovates. In 

 truth there was no normal drengage holding ; on the one hand we may read 

 how at Escomb Elzibrid holds one half a bovate in drengage and pays ()d. 

 cornage, and on the other how William holds the vill of Oxenhall and does the 

 service of the fourth part of a drengage. Or again we have the evidence of 

 a later record, which shows that Robert Binchester holds Binchester and 

 Hunwick ' per cartam Domini Episcopi per servitium forinsecum, quondam 

 tenetur in dryngagio per librum de Boldon.'^ A drengage tenement then 

 might consist of an entire vill or of an allotment of land in a vill. 



From this evidence we have been able to form a consistent notion of the 

 obligations and incidents of drengage tenure. From the feudal point of view 

 it must, indeed, have been perplexing enough, showing as it did attributes of 

 military, socage, and unfree tenure.* If we step backward, however, into a 

 remoter age, the relation becomes natural and consistent. 



As Professor Maitland has pointed out, this kind of relation existed and 

 was understood in the pre-Conquest period. Tidings of the same sort of 

 thing come to us from Frankland. In the eighth and ninth centuries free- 

 men were holding ' beneficia ' for which they performed not only the riding- 

 service which Bishop Oswald required of his Worcester tenants, but agricultural 

 labour as well, carting, mowing, and the like, with their men, and rendered 

 money payments. These holdings were, moreover, sometimes an entire vill, 

 sometimes an allotment of land in a vill, but in the latter case the tenant 

 performed his services independently of the agricultural community, not in 



' Feod., 114 n; cf. ihid. 27, 40, 42, 64, 66 n, 68 n, yon. On the or,i, which w.is .t Scandinavian 

 reckoning, cf. Sccbohm, Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law, 234-237. For a case of hcriot in 1368, see 

 Durham llalmotc Rolls, i. 75. 



' So Robertson, Historical Essays, Introd. xlvii. 



» HatfielXs Survey (Surtces Soc), 34 ; cf. the case of Whitworth, which Thomas de Aclcy was holding as 

 the fourth pan of a knight's fee by tlic charter of Rp. Philip of Poitou ; the bishop had transimitcd Thomas's 

 drengage into military service, Boldon Book (Surtces Soc), App. No. vi. 



* There is evidence that in the twelfth century land held in drengage, like that held in villeinage, was 

 subject to conveyance 'per baculum.' Sec Feod., 141-142 n. But this, it has been strongly argued, may 

 even in the case of villeinage be regarded as a mark rather of the antiquity than of the unfreedom of the 

 tenure ; Vinogradoff, op.cit. 371 ff. 



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