xii Introduction. 



rents and services due from each, and the customs of the manor. 



^ ' "" 



They are : 



Rentals and Customaries. Their Latin titles read somewhat as 

 follows : " redditus, consuetudines, et servicia," " consuetudines 

 manerii," and so forth. In the earlier part of the period covered 

 by the list no line can be drawn, as a rule, between the rental and 

 the customary. The customs of the manor consist largely in the 

 customary rents of labor or of money due from the tenants. Still, 

 even at this time, these documents sometimes contain general 

 statements as to the duties of manorial officers, or with regard to 

 such matters as alienation of land. But later rents are no longer 

 dependent upon custom, but are fixed ; they no longer are in ser- 

 vices, but in money; and rental and customary are documents of 

 quite different kinds. By the sixteenth century the rental is a list 

 of names of tenants with the payments due from each, while the 

 customary is a statement in general terms of the rights or duties 

 of classes of tenants (not of individuals) or of officers. Custom- 

 aries seem to have been written in English for some time before 

 Latin ceased to be the language of " Account Rolls," " Court 

 Rolls," and " Rentals." Since many of these English records 

 bear the title of " customary," and some of the Latin ones that 

 of "custumarium," and since almost no document styled "cus- 

 tomal " has come within my notice, I have adopted the former 

 word. 



5. Documents entitled " supervisus " have been placed among 

 the rentals in this list except when the survey concerned the 

 customs of the manor, when it naturally finds a place under the 

 head of " customaries." Besides being virtual rentals or custom- 

 aries, some of these surveys give in detail the bounds of the manor 

 and of each of its fields. 



The classes of documents previously enumerated originated 

 within the manor. Subsidy Rolls (Henry III. William and 

 Mary), though not manoral in origin, yet throw much light on 

 the population, not on their numbers only, but sometimes 

 on their occupations and property as well. From 4 Richard 

 II., however, to 14 Henry VIII., most of the rolls supply no 

 names. 



