A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



Still, as a whole, the populace lived a peaceful and united life, bond and 

 free together, with the parochial clergy at their head. The incumbent was, 

 as a rule, one of the same class as his parishioners, and might even be by 

 birth a villein, the manumission of Richard de Wyflise of Slindon, priest, son 

 of one of the archbishop's serfs, being enrolled in I352. 12 * After all a 

 vicar with y a year, and many of the Sussex clergy had less, was little better 

 off than an artificer earning 5, and probably receiving at least one meal a 

 day as well, while an assistant chaplain with 4 was not far removed from the 

 unskilled labourer who could earn about 2 1 5^. It is therefore hardly 

 surprising if we find the country clergy occasionally associated with their 

 parishioners in law-breaking, especially in the venial sin of poaching, but 

 sometimes in worse deeds, as Walter, rector of St. John-sub-Castro in Lewes, 

 who was one of a gang of burglars. m Even in his dwelling the rector 

 was often little better off than his neighbours, and at Berwick when the 

 lord of the manor anticipated a nineteenth-century social panacea by assign- 

 ing to every tenant a cottage with ' 3 akers and a cowlease,' the only 

 advantage given to the parsonage was that it was free while the other tenants 

 were copyhold. 12a After all, even the better class dwellings had suprisingly 

 little accommodation; 127 the main apartment being the great hall, where all 

 the household dined together, the retainers and servants sitting either at the 

 lower end of their lord's table, or at a separate ' yoman bord,' the privilege 

 of heading which at Aldingbourne belonged to the park-keeper. 128 



The social conditions of life in Sussex, as in other parts of England, altered 

 comparatively little between the end of the twelfth and beginning of the six- 

 teenth centuries, but the economic development was much more rapid. The 

 two great events round which these changes centred in the fourteenth century 

 are usually considered to be the Black Death and the Peasants' Revolt. Of their 

 relative importance in Sussex there can be no doubt. The rising of 1381 is 

 supposed to have received considerable support in the county, though there is 

 little extant evidence of its character. Its results, however, apart from a 

 possible crystallization of the idea of copyhold, to judge from the court rolls, were 

 practically nil ; cases of neglect of service occur alike before and after that 

 date, 129 commutation is at least foreshadowed in earlier custumals, 13 there are 

 instances in 1308, 1324, and before 1379, 1S1 yet it was not universal in I396, 132 

 and the Bishopstone court rolls lay stress on 'native fealty' in 1403, 133 and 

 the bishop of Chichester manumitted bondmen as late as 1539, m the last 

 manumission in England being probably that of three brothers bondmen of 

 the manor of Palmer in the reign of James I. 135 



The actual growth of copyhold tenure was an equally gradual process, 

 though in several instances the phrase ' to hold by roll of court ' first occurs 



'"Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Islip, fol. 63^. '"Gaol Deliv. R. 178, m. 17. 



'" Suss. Arch. Co/I. vi. 227. '"e.g. Crowhurst manor-house ; ibid. vii. 47. 



lw Assize R. 1491,111.41. 



119 e.g. Add. Ct. R. 31860, 31900, 31906 (Laughton), 1336-1383, 31259 and 31252 (Bishopstone I 373 

 and 1403). Add. MS. 33182, fol. 13^. and 19 (S. Mailing, 1379 and 1388). Eccles. Com. Ct. R. ff , ff 

 (Wootton, 1369 and 1389.) 



130 e.g. The Battle Abbey custumals quoted above, where valuations of works are given consistently. 



'" Rentals and Surveys Ptfo. J the customary tenants around the forest (Ashdown) return yearly for 

 the customs 39*. \d. Mins. Accts. bdle. 1148, No. 13, Eastbourne (apparently) and Iden. and Add. Ct. 

 R. 3 '898- 13> Add. MS. 33182, fol. 1 8. '"Add. Ct. R. 31252. 



131 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ' Various Coll,' i, 194. ' Suis. Arch Coll. ix, 224. 



1 86 



