SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



and the thirteenth centuries the numbers of freemen, as has been said, 

 increased very largely, and it seems a fair assumption that this increase was 

 in part the outcome of a similar need on the part of other overlords to secure 

 the performance of certain non-agricultural services, either those connected 

 with the administration of a franchise, or those which the overlord himself 

 owed to the crown. Thus a tenant would first be exonerated from the 

 performance of the unfree customs due from his land on condition that he 

 would perform some quota of the lord's free service (usually of course 

 military), and subsequently his descendants, by right of prescription, would be 

 able to claim freedom ' de corpore ' or ' quia procreatus fuit ex patre libro.' 30 



Actual figures to illustrate the numbers of freemen in the thirteenth 

 century are unfortunately not largely available. In Iham, however, in 1291 

 there were seventeen on the mainland and fifty-three in the marshes, there 

 had been nineteen others, but their holdings had been submerged ; there were 

 also ten free tenants belonging to this manor whose holdings lay in Guestling 

 and Ore, making eighty in all, even after the floods. 31 In Iden at the same 

 date there were eighteen free tenants whose rents amounted to 29^. 6</., as 

 well as 3 Ib. of pepper each and i| Ib. of cummin. 82 For further information 

 there is only the evidence of money rents : these, however, in several cases 

 seem to have been considerable ; thus on the manor of Eastbourne, held by 

 the bishop of Chichester, in 1244 they amounted to 8 us. i id'. 33 and in 

 Udimore in 1253 to 8 js. ioi</. 3 * For purposes of comparison it may be 

 noted that the fifty-three tenants in the marsh of Iham paid 7 zs. q\d. in 

 1291 ; it is, however, impossible to argue very definitely from this, for while 

 this sum works out at an average of about 2s. %d. each, the 29^. 6d. paid by 

 the eighteen free men of Iden at the same date is equal to an average of 

 something less than is. yd., and the same variations would naturally be found 

 throughout the county. 86 



It cannot, of course, be argued that everyone of these men had attained 

 their freedom in the way suggested above, but an actual instance is recorded 

 in which the services due from land at Battle held in socage by such plough- 

 ing, reaping, and mowing services as were owed by other sokemen were 

 commuted for i os. yearly, and this rent was then converted into the serjeanty 

 of carrying the abbot's cup and attending upon him if required, 353 and some 

 of the instances of castle-guard service would seem to illustrate a similar 



30 Add. Ct. R. 32653 ; cf. also Abbrev.Plac. (Rec. Com.), 214. 



31 P.R.O. Rentals and Surv. R. 660 ; cf. Ptfo. \{, where the numbers of the tenants in the marsh are 

 slightly different. 



M Ibid. R. 660. K Chan. Inq. p.m. Hen. Ill, file 2, No. 7. 3< Ibid, file i 5, No. 2. 



K Further evidence on this point is as follows : 

 In Trotton (1259) 

 In Rotherfield (1262) 

 In Pulborough (1263) 

 In Bibleham (1280) 

 In Elsted (1259) 

 In Fletching (1269) 

 In Hamerden (1280) 

 In Burwash (1280) 

 In Harting (1253) 

 In Street (1272) . 

 In Barcombe (1269) 

 In Dumpford (in Trotton 1259) 



*" Coram Rege R. 5, m. 8 d 



173 



rents from freemen 7 I4/. I \d. (Chan. Inq. p.m. Hen. Ill, file 23, No. 9). 

 1 3/. 3^. (Ibid, file 27, No. 5, m. 19). 



L\ 

 L\ 



151. 

 in. 



8/. 

 55'- 



4i/. 

 33'- 



(Ibid, file 28, No. 17). 

 id. (Add. MS. 33189, fol. 46). 

 4</. (Chan. Inq. p.m. Hen. Ill, file 23, No. 9). 

 jd. (Ibid, file 36, No. 19). 

 \Q\d. (Add. MS. 33189, fol. 46). 

 id. (Ibid. fol. 45). 



od. (Chan. Inq. p.m. Hen. Ill, file 14, No. 20). 

 id. (Ibid, file 42, No. 6). 

 \d. (Ibid, file 3 6, No. 19). 

 od. (Ibid, file 23, No. 9). 



