SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



lord's rights. The presentments of the hayward for trespass in the meadows, 

 for instance, were accepted apparently without any trial, and the offenders 

 fined. An entry in a roll at Kingsey 20 suggests, however, that the tenants 

 had some control over the amount of the fines. 



Omnes tenentes tarn liberi (quam) nativi consensierunt quod si aliquis eorum convincatur 

 super dampno facto cum animalibus suis in prato de Suthmcd, nisi quibus dc suo proprio, 

 quod dabunt domine 6d. nomine pene. 



At Fawley" a distinction was made in the presentment of different 

 offences. In questions concerning land if any point was put to the 

 suitors for evidence the presentment was made by the whole homage, but on 

 other occasions the presentment was made only by the bondsmen in matters 

 that affected none but the unfree suitors of the court. 



The manor of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be regarded 

 as an independent community, very nearly self-supporting, having little 

 communication with other places outside its immediate neighbourhood. Its 

 population was almost entirely agricultural, but in spite of the similarity of 

 occupation there was a remarkable difference of status between the members 

 of the community ; in each manor some of the inhabitants were freemen, 

 others were serfs or bondsmen, described in the Latin of the time as nativi 

 domini or villani. 



These latter were probably in the majority on most of the Buckingham- 

 shire manors, but exceptions were to be found. At Beaumond," a very small 

 manor in Little Missenden, the list of tenants in 1333 comprised eleven 

 freemen and six bondsmen, but earlier the number of bondsmen may have 

 been larger, since in the fourteenth century the class was already diminishing. 

 This difference of status had its counterpart in the system of land tenure. 



Within the manor the land was divided into two parts, one of which, 

 the demesne, was generally cultivated by the lord or his steward for the 

 maintenance of himself and his household, while the other was granted to 

 different tenants. Some of these tenants held freely and some in villeinage, 

 and the distinction in tenure as a rule corresponded to the distinction in 

 status, but exceptions were to be found, though not as a rule until the personal 

 disabilities of a villein were disappearing. At Fawley the parson, a freeman, 

 held a tenement in villeinage, for the services tended to become inherent 

 upon the tenements apart from their tenants. The free tenants of a manor 

 were bound to their lord in two ways : there was the personal tie created by 

 the performance on entry into their land of homage and fealty, by which 

 they became the ' men ' of their lord, and also the relation created by the 

 grant of the land in return for money or service. 



The different kinds of free-tenure were entirely unconnected with the 

 size and importance of the tenement, and their characteristics were the same 

 for a great baron and for the humblest freeholder within a manor. From 

 the Conquest the right in all land emanated from a grant from the crown, 

 but the tenants in chief might grant their land to sub-tenants, so that there 

 might be many lords between the king and the man in actual seisin of a 

 piece of land. 



" P.R.O. Ct. R. ptfo. ijs, No. 15, m. 8. " B.M. Add. R. 27027. 



" P.R.O. Ct. R. ptfo. 155, No. *. 



43 



