A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



land as well, to pay a certain yearly increment in order to be quit of 

 all villeinage. The verdict passed over this assertion and decided his 

 freedom on the usual ground that one of his predecessors was an 

 * adventitius.' 



At Teddington the first sale of works (258) occurs in 1313-14, 

 and after that the numbers sold vary a good deal in different years ; 

 in 1324-5 ninety-eight were sold, and the next year seventy ; the 

 year after the Black Death only one and a-half. In 1372-3 the 

 demesne was let to the prepositus on a fifteen-year lease at a rent 

 of 80 quarters of barley, equivalent at the current price (4;. 6d. a 

 quarter) to 18. The works then accrued to him, and he rendered no 

 further account of them. A rental of Richard II, however, shows 

 them in process of commutation. Six of the free tenants have com- 

 muted their suit of court and boon-works for i zd. The eight holdings 

 which are let on lease by 1373-4 are all let at a rent covering all 

 services, from IQJ. to 1 3-r. ^d. for a virgate of i6j acres ; for half a virgate 

 (8j acres) 4-r. bd. In 1379-80 seven holdings are still held for services 

 with or without a money rent. Two holdings have been forfeited for 

 non-performance of services, and in both cases the new tenant has com- 

 muted. One of the half virgates still pays no rent, but does all ser- 

 vices, 69 and three cotmen are still doing their works. Finally, a rental of 

 1434 70 does not mention works at all the land is all let for money rents: 

 virgates at i to i 6s. 8*/., and half virgates from 12s. to 13^. ^d. 



Owing to the scarcity of early court rolls we are left very much 

 in ignorance of the effects of the Black Death in Middlesex. 71 The 

 only court roll in the Record Office for the plague year belongs to 

 the manor of Stepney, 72 and witnesses to an appalling mortality. At 

 the court held on the feast of St. Fabian and St. Sebastian (20 January), 

 1 349, nine tenements were reported in the lord's hands owing to the 

 death of the tenants. In December, 1 348, four members of one family 

 mother and daughter and two sons have died, a third son dies in the 

 following February, and later in the year three more members of the 

 family are reported to be dead and the holdings passed to heirs of a 

 different name. After Easter, 1349, the ale-tasters in Stratford, Aldgate 

 Street and Halliwell Street are all reported to be dead. The plague was 

 at its worst during the summer and early autumn of 1349: between 

 February and Michaelmas in that year 105 tenements were vacated by 

 the death of the tenants, 121 deaths being recorded in connexion with 

 the vacancies, as in some cases joint tenants, and in others the heirs, have 

 died as well. Nor must it be forgotten that only the deaths of tenants 

 and heirs to holdings are recorded in the rolls, and even this list is not 

 complete, for the rolls are torn off at Hokeday, St. Peter in Chains and 

 Michaelmas 1349, and it is impossible to know how many entries 

 are lost. 



" P.R.O. Mins. Accts. Edw. II, Edw. Ill, bdle. 918, Nos. 12-25 5 bdle. QIQ, Nos. i-n ; Rental 

 3 Ric. II, No. 456. 



70 St. Paul's Library, Rental 12 Hen. VI. 



" See Appendix I. " P.R.O. Ct. R. 22 & 23 Edw. Ill, bdle. 191, No. 60. 



78 



