ONGAR HUNDRED 



STANFORD RIVERS 



annually, usually between July and November.^' No 

 court appears to have met between 1624 and 1659. 

 The fact that constables began to be chosen by the 

 vestry in 1637 seems to confirm that no courts leet met 

 about this time. From 1662 courts were held regularly 

 about Eastertide until 1690.80 There was a court leet 

 in 1 7 10, another in 17 14, and then no more. 



Twelve to seventeen men were usually sworn as a 

 jury, the same men serving year after year. They were 

 chosen as tenants,*' not necessarily resident within the 

 manor. 8^ The jurisdiction of the court extended over 

 all residents within the manor.^J Each court leet also 

 transacted court baron business, and courts after 1667, 

 although described as 'of the View of Frank-pledge' did 

 no true leet business except the election of constables. 

 The primary duty of the court — to view frank- pledge — 

 was occasionally discharged by early Elizabethan 

 courts.** The immediate extension of this duty — a 

 general surveillance of manners — frequently occupied 

 courts about this time.*' But the commonest subjects 

 of presentment were failures to maintain roads and 

 bridges by those bound ratione tenure to do so. Statu- 

 tory offences presented in Elizabethan courts included 

 defaults under the first Highways Act (2 & 3 Philip & 

 Mary, c. 8).** Disrepair of the stocks was sometimes 

 presented. 



Most courts elected two constables and swore them 

 if they were present. In 1561 a constable was not 

 sworn because he was absent, and this, uncommon at 

 that date, became usual as the court declined. Of the 

 seven appointments made after 1675 three were made 

 in the absence of one or two of the men elected, who 

 were ordered to take their oaths before justices.*' The 

 only reference to the constables' work is their present- 

 ment for not punishing vagabonds, made in 1 567. The 

 orders of the court were directed to the bailiff. The 

 court had one weapon, the amercement, which was 

 assessed or 'affeered' by two jurors appointed as 

 'affeerors'. It does not seem to have been very effec- 

 tive. 



A principal cause of the decline of the court leet was 

 the rise, chiefly as the result of the Poor Law of 1 598, 

 of the vestry.'* In 1634-44 five courts (one court leet 

 and 4 courts baron) were attended by a total of 17 

 jurors. Of these 7 had served parish office during the 

 same 1 1 years. The man who served parish office most 

 frequently (5 times) attended I court. The man who 

 attended all courts served parish office 3 times. 



The court and the vestry had a specific common 

 interest — the appointment of constables — and their 

 activities were closely co-ordinated. From 1637 con- 



" These records are not quite complete. 

 A file of original jury presentments, draft 

 court rolls, and miscellaneous court papers 

 (D/DP Mi 140) is stated, in the paper 

 which begins the file, to have been 

 assembled and handed over in lieu of cer- 

 tain court rolls (which were missing) upon 

 conveyance of the manor in 161 5. Hence 

 any statement about irregularity of meet- 

 ing of the court must be suppositious : the 

 court may have met regularly but some of 

 its records may have perished. 



^ The longest gap between courts was 

 four years. 



*■ e.g. D/DP Mi 127, 4 Apr. 1560: 2 

 jurors attended in right of their wives. 



'^ e.g. ibid. 3 Sept. 1573 : John Grene of 

 Navestock was sworn. 



83 e.g. ibid., 4 Apr. 1560: 'tenants and 

 inhabitants of the manor ... to amend the 

 buttes within the manor*. Cf. another 



stables were nominated in the vestry while courts leet 

 were not being held.*' After 1662 the vestry appears 

 to have nominated only when it knew that the court 

 was not to be held for some time. When the court was 

 to meet soon after the vestry'" the vestrymen doubtless 

 knew this from the baihff's summons and did not 

 nominate constables in the vestry. As late as 1734 

 constables were still being noted in the vestry book as 

 'chosen by Wm. Petre esq.' (lord of the manor and an 

 active vestryman) although no court leet had met for 

 20 years." Occasionally the tenants in court were able 

 to assist themselves as parishioners in vestry, as for 

 example in 1684, when the court ordered John 

 Combers the younger to pay 2/. dd. a year to the poor 

 for a gate in Bowyers Lane.'^ 



The earliest surviving vestry record is a brief church- 

 warden's account of 1 592.'^ Notes of the appointment 

 of officers begin in 1604 (f 5) and are defective at 

 first. The earliest summary account signed by the 

 vestrymen as approving it is dated 1619 (f. 35). 



In the early 17th century the vestry apparently 

 met only at Easter, to pass accounts and appoint 

 officers. After 1673 there was a regular additional 

 meeting at Christmas, at which the surveyors of high- 

 ways were nominated. Other meetings, rare in the late 

 17th century, became more common in the early i8th 

 century, and at a meeting in November 1724 it was 

 agreed, as one of ten standing orders, that a vestry 

 should meet once a month, every first Thursday at 

 3 p.m.''* This order was followed and the meeting in 

 February 1786 was entitled, as something uncommon, 

 a '2 month vestry'. '5 Standing orders enjoined the 

 vestry to meet in the church and prescribed that any 

 expenses incurred if it adjourned to a public house 

 should be borne by individuals. Nevertheless the 

 Easter vestries of 1728 and 1744 charged the parish 

 with ;^i and £1 2S. respectively, the latter for dinner 

 and punch. The Easter vestry of 1782 held a dinner 'at 

 Mr. Sammes'.'* 



In the 17th century the vestry was often attended 

 by fewer than six men. Numbers rose in the next 

 century. In the three periods 1725-7, 1750—2, 

 1800—2, for example, about 12 attended the Easter 

 vestries and 6-9 the other meetings. The chairman 

 was never named as such in the minutes but members 

 of the Petre family always signed first when they were 

 present, during the first half of the i8th century; in 

 their absence the rector signed first. About 1740 the 

 curate sometimes appears to have written the minutes , 

 but did not sign. When neither a Petre nor the rector 

 was present one of the churchwardens signed first. 



order that *no one neither tenants nor 

 inhabitants within that manor, shall per- 

 mit their servants and sons to break hedges 

 within the manor*. 



'♦ e.g. ibid. 4 Sept. 1566. 



*5 e.g. ibid. 29 Sept. 1562: Wm. 

 Mylborne presented for keeping a woman 

 suspect as a whore. On 4 July 1 564 he 

 was presented as a common barrator, an 

 'inhuman* man among his neighbours and 

 a 'public enemy of the commonwealth' 

 (rei publici inimicus puhticus) and the bailiff 

 was ordered to move him from his tene- 

 ment. 



*' e.g. ibid. 4 Apr. 1560: default of 

 WiUiam Wood. 



" As enjoined by Poor Relief Act, 14 

 Chas. IIc.i2(i662). 



88 The loss of pecuniary interest by the 

 lord may have contributed. The 'common 

 fine* of 6i, td. became increasingly in- 



adequate as an incentive to the lord to 

 hold the court. 



8» E.R.O., D/P 140/1/1. The vestry 

 had no power to swear the constables ; that 

 power lay, at common law, with the leet 

 or a justice. 



90 e.g. 1675 : leet 8 Apr., Vestry 5 Apr. 



'■ E.R.O., D/P 140/8/1. 



"2 Ibid. D/DP M1131. 



" Ibid. D/P 140/1/1. All vestry 

 information down to 1724 is from this 

 source, which is also the earliest parish 

 register. Later vestry minutes are D/P 

 140/8/1-7. Unless otherwise stated 

 references below are to vestry minutes. 



9< This, of course, was an hour when only 

 a fairly wealthy employer could attend. 



95 E.R.O., D/P 140/8/2. 



" Sammes kept the 'Green Man* : cf. 

 E.R.O., g/RLv 36. 



219 



