A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



ranks of what we may call the gentry there must have been considerable 

 homogeneity, due primarily to the identity of services which caused 

 the villein and small freeholder to work side by side. This unity 

 and inter-dependence was furthered by the jurisdictionary arrangements 

 of the period. The unfree having no lands and technically no chattels 

 of his own which could be seized for his offences, responsibility for his 

 good behaviour was made collective, all persons over twelve 103 being 

 enrolled in tithings, and the whole tithing being liable to amercement for the 

 offence of any member. These tithings were the subdivisions of vills as 

 vills were of the hundreds, but they occasionally attained to a semi-villar 

 independence under the title of ' borghs ' or ' boroughs.' 10 * Although all 

 the unfree were supposed to be enrolled in tithings, an exception was made 

 of the personal servants and retainers of landowners ; for their misdeeds their 

 masters were responsible, and so when in 1278 Thomas Alin stole a deer at 

 Folkington, the prior of Michelham, in whose ' mainpast,' or household, he 

 had been, was fined. 106 A state intermediate between the tithing and ' main- 

 past ' existed in 1277 at Chidham, 106 where the bishop of Exeter had certain 

 tenants not in any tithing ; they were the ploughmen, carters, reapers, and 

 threshers of the manor, and were bound to come twice in the year to their 

 lord's court with the bishop's reaper (probably the ' ripereve ') 107 as their 

 tithingman, and also to appear before the coroner in the tithing of 

 ' Westenton ' and not elsewhere. The position of tithingman or head- 

 borough was somewhat onerous : he had to attend at the hundred court, to 

 make presentments of offences, and if he came late was liable to be fined, 108 

 while he was the object of oppression of such arbitrary officials as John de 

 Pallingfeud, who in 1 275 fined the headboroughs for wearing their hoods when 

 they appeared in court before him. 109 The inquiries made at the various 

 courts were searching, and tithings were frequently amerced for omitting to 

 make full presentments ; at Steyning uo a remarkable system existed by which 

 the twelve jurors made their presentments at the manorial court, and were 

 then given a date, about ten days later, at which to make a fuller or revised 

 charge ; this ' court of Morewespeche ' (presumably, ' morrow speech ') 

 showed more consideration for the jurors than did Nicholas le Bretun, who in 

 1275 used to fine them because they could not answer without premeditation 111 

 the Sussex man has never been remarkable for a glib tongue. The result of 

 all the searching examinations of manorial and hundredal courts was to reveal 

 a mass of lawlessness, but it is clear from the pleas of the crown, held from 

 time to time, 112 that a very large proportion of the crime escaped unpunished; 

 constantly it is stated that the criminals are unknown, or have fled, rarely 

 were they arrested, and then they were usually acquitted. The tithingmen 

 seem to have been the normal police, and in 1 306 it is stated that when the 

 hue and cry was raised the 'decenarii et custodes pacis' came to the pursuit. 113 

 During the night police duties were discharged by two, or more, honest 

 men, and their duties were no sinecure, for at Steyning even the parish clerk 



103 Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 216. IM Suss. Arch. Coll. xlii, 190. 



106 Assize R. 921. "* Ibid. 924, m. 70, D. 



107 Cf. Mins. Accts. bdle. 1031, No. i. I0 Ct. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 126, No. 1869. 

 HunJ. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 214. " Ct. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 206, m. 43. 



111 Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 211. '" Assize R. 909, 912, 921, 924, &c. 



"Mbid. 1339, m. 6J. 



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