SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



mittees representing the villages, and apparently the halmote had power to 

 break itself up into a number of smaller bodies, one for each vill, whose 

 recommendations and orders, if accepted by the steward, were entered on the 

 halmote roll and were enforced by the court. We often find entries such as 

 ' It is ordered to all that . . . ,' or * it is ordained by the common assent . . . .' 

 Sometimes the free tenants appear as assenting. 1 



It would be interesting if we could find out the precise connexion 

 between the halmote and the local village assembly which might be convened 

 by the reeve when necessary to discuss matters of common interest or profit 

 to the villagers and the lord. Unfortunately this ' tun-moot ' is seldom re- 

 ferred to in the rolls, and then only in terms which show that attendance at 

 it was become slack in the fourteenth century. 9 It probably lingered in 

 some form or other until it received a fresh lease of life as the vestry in Tudor 

 times, its secular side thus being revived as the halmote was sinking into impo- 

 tence before the justice of the peace and the constable, who had jurisdiction 

 over bond and free tenant alike. 



But this shadowy village meeting had little importance in the village 

 beside the officials whose election by the tenantry took place in or was con- 

 firmed by the halmote. The reeve and jury have been mentioned already, and 

 next to them came the ' messor ' or hayward, who acted as foreman over the 

 autumn works of the peasants and had also duties in connexion with the 

 village pasture. In some vills he seems to have acted as assistant reeve. 

 None of the officials were popular, and the messor fared worst of all. The 

 peasant naturally resented the order that he should reap the lord's crop 

 whether his own was spoiled or not, 8 and the careless owner disliked the fine 

 that ensued when the messor impounded beasts that had strayed. After 

 the Black Death the messor was the official whom the vills most frequently 

 refused to appoint. 



The pinder, or pounder, was an important village official. His main 

 work was the impounding of straying cattle till their owners redeemed them 

 from the village pinfold. Sometimes the more daring offenders would 

 attempt to rescue their cattle by a sudden night attack, but if caught they 

 were severely punished. Like the reeve the pinder escaped ordinary field 

 work, and often had in addition a few acres of land and sheaves of corn from 

 the other tenants. He paid his rent in the form of hens and eggs, or later a 

 money equivalent. In the fourteenth century we find that the pindership 

 was sometimes held by the vill in common and a deputy was paid to perform 

 the work. There was a common pinfold for the whole county at Sadberge in 

 the eighteenth century. 



We also meet with the village shepherd and the village swineherd, but 

 in some vills they appear to have had difficulty in obtaining their wages. In 

 other vills the tenants acted as shepherd or swineherd in turn, but all agreed in 

 showing a steady disinclination to do their share. The village geese were 

 supposed to be sent out in charge of a ' goose-boy,' but after the Black Death 

 we find frequent complaints that tenants did not 'keep hirsilP (i.e. send a 

 keeper) with their pigs and geese. The hens, of which even the poorest 



1 E.g. at Aycliffe ; Dur. Ha/mate R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxit), 171. 



1 E.g. at 'Coupon,' row Cowpen Bewley ; Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixzxii), 17*. 



1 To refuse obedience to the reeve or messor was to incur a fine. 



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