178 PREFACE 



while he gave up his right of joisting l sheep or cattle on the 

 common fields of the parish, and allowed the tenants to pasture 

 the town flock and to fold their sheep on these fields. Chancery 

 proceedings were taken in 1584, and Edward Coke argued on behalf 

 of George Pepys and others of the same family that this agreement 

 was a very onesided affair ; that the lord and the principal farmers 

 were encroaching on the common rights and had not left sufficient 

 pasturage for the poorer inhabitants, and that the right of joisting 

 cattle on the town fields, which the Lord had given up was much 

 more limited, and therefore of less value than he alleged. The 

 dispute was not settled by the arbitration which took place in 

 1583, when the Dean of Ely, the Master of S l John's, the Master 

 of Christ's and other eminent men were called in to adjudicate. 

 Subsequently, in 1585, a Chancery decree, enforcing an award by 

 the Bishop of Peterborough, seems to have set the matter at rest 

 for the time. Unfortunately the record of his decision appears to 

 have been lost, so that it is difficult to get at the result of the 

 case, in regard to which the Bill of Sir F. Hinde, the Answers of 

 the Pepys family, and the Replication of Sir F. Hinde have been 

 preserved. f 



When the disputed pasture rights at Cottenham came into court 

 again in 1596, the whole situation seems to have changed, for 

 there is no mention of the Lord's sheep walk, or of the town flock, 

 but the resources of the place were evidently being devoted to the 

 herd of milch-kine. The same families were again the principal 

 parties in the dispute. Sir William Hinde of Madingley, the son 

 of Sir Francis, exhibited a bill in Chancery, and an answer was 

 made by Pepys. The matter was referred to Lord North, the 

 Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the County, who " upon 

 hearing of the matter in variante hath sette down certain articles 

 of agreement with their mutual consents.'' 3 This award, unlike its 



1 To joist or agist cattle is to allow the owners, in return for a payment, to 

 feed them on common pastures. 



* Record office, Chancery Proceedings, Elizabeth H. i-j. 

 3 Decree in Chancery in 1669. 



