A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



would have required 1,144 days' labour to clear at harvest. By 1353 Winch- 

 combe Abbey was overwhelmed with debt, and Llanthony Priory was in 

 difficulties owing to its almost entire loss of rents and services from the 

 same cause. At Horsleigh Priory, too, some eighty tenants were reported to 

 have died. 1 From this time onward, too, the disturbance of the rural 

 population is testified by the frequent notices in court rolls as to ruined 

 houses, 2 and the ' cert-money,' a contribution paid by each tithing to a lord 

 holding view of frankpledge, diminished at Hawkesbury, as if from inability 

 or recalcitrance on the part of the tenants. 8 



In the face of such changes, lords of manors struggled vainly to 

 preserve the old order of things. The shortage of labour enabled the villein 

 to do far better as a hired labourer at high wages than as a tenant subject 

 to the old laborious services. If his lord insisted on a return to these, a 

 villein not infrequently took to his heels. From 1352, right through the 

 reigns of Richard II, the two Henrys, and Edward IV, manor-courts 

 continued to issue orders for the return of runaway bondmen, who never 

 re-appeared, though in one case a Bisley tenant, William Coptegue, sent word 

 that he wished to come and claim his freedom. Four years later however 

 he was still at Cirencester.* Thus the process of commutation went merrily 

 on, 6 and the villein obtained by economic pressure what would never have 

 been granted otherwise. From time to time, it is true, there occurred a few 

 scattered instances of direct manumission, probably as an act of piety, by 

 religious houses ; 8 but the rise of the villein took place mainly in two ways : 

 by his hiring himself out as a free labourer, or by his conversion into what 

 was practically a free rent-paying tenant. 7 In a large number of cases the 

 taint of villeinage had been attached only to the holding, not to the tenant ; 

 at Cirencester, in the twelfth century, for instance, it was ' the land ' of so and 

 so that was said to ' owe bederipes,' toll or services. 8 Thus, when these 

 services were commuted, there was little to distinguish the holders of 

 customary land from others, and such holdings were let for the same sort 

 of rents as free land.' In 14356 occurs the first mention at Hawkesbury 

 of copyhold, 10 though the privileged tenants of Cirencester had attained it 

 much earlier. 11 In Bisley and Culkerton it was not till the reign of 

 Henry VIII that the term became common. 18 At Cheltenham, in 1450, 

 services and their money values were still both quoted in a survey of the 

 holdings ' by base tenure ' ; 13 by Henry VII only money-rents were given (the 

 average for a messuage and half-yardland being 4^. 6d.) ; u by Henry VIII 



1 Gasquet, The Great Pestilence, 189 et seq. ' e.g. Bisley Ct. R. portf. 175, Nos. 8-13. 



1 Ct. R. portf. 175, No. 52. 



4 Bisley Ct. R. portf. 175, No. 7-9; Hawkesbury Ct. R. portf. 175, No. 46-8, 56; Cheltenham 

 Mins. Accts. bdle. 852, No. 23. * See also Bisley Mins. Accts. (1447-61), bdle. 850, Nos. 26, 27, 29. 



6 e.g. in 1326 by the abbot of Winchcombe (Landboc. \, 6), and in 1428, 1460, 1461, 1470, by the 

 abbot of Cirencester (Cir. Cart. fol. 18, 41, 45, and 56. Rawlinson MSS. 326). 



' In some cases the tenants simply demanded, and obtained easier rents, as at Cheltenham in 1452-3, 

 when Sir Ralph Butler of Sudeley, called in to arbitrate between the tenants and their lady, the abbess of 

 Sion, decided in favour of a reduction of the rents originally paid in lieu of service. Mins. Accts. bdle. 852, 

 No. 25. 8 Cirencester Abbey Register, A 88<5, as quoted by E. A. Fuller, op. cit. 



' e.g. at Hawkesbury, 1418-19, 4 acres of customary land paid one capon every Hockday as rent, and 

 a gallon of wine as tenant's fine on entry, and a messuage and two customary yardlands were let for a rent of 

 33/. 4^. and a fine of 2 6s. %d. Ct. R. portf. 175, No. 50, m. 3 and 9. 



10 Ct. R. portf. 175, No. 52, m. 6. " E. A. Fuller, op. cit. 



u Ct. R. portf. 175, No. u ; Rentals and Surv. portf. 7, No. 70. 



" Rentals and Surv. R. 217. " Ibid. R. 223. 



146 





