SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



incontinence was not rare before the Black Death, and painfully common after 

 it. So far as the rolls show, offenders belonged to all classes of village society, 

 one of the saddest being the case of Preciosa, daughter of the vicar of East 

 Merrington. 1 We find both married and unmarried women paying the fine 

 for incontinence (leyrwite), but it is not unusual to hear that the man who 

 shared the woman's sin married her and paid both the leyrwite and the 

 merchet.* If he did not marry her, he was frequently forced to pay the fine, 

 especially if he cohabited with the woman after being warned by the reeve. 3 



A striking instance of the halmote's power to interfere in the private 

 life of the peasantry occurs in the bishop's roll of 1361 under Shotton. We 

 are told that William Buvuthe had wasted his substance by living in 

 luxurious adultery with Margaret of Hotton, having abandoned his own 

 wife. He was fined izd. for his folly, and John Boner, the coroner of the 

 Easington Ward, was ordered to keep him in safe custody as well as his land 

 until he found a good security that he would look better after his land and 

 pay his rent. Apparently his neighbours were sceptical of his promises, as he 

 seems to have remained in prison until the jury of the vill took pity on him 

 and became his sureties.* 



Sometimes we find the halmote attempting to deal with an obstinate 

 woman. As will be explained more fully later, a widow was allowed to 

 retain her husband's holding after his death, and to hold it jointly with a 

 second husband for the term of her life. At Tunstall a certain Emma, who 

 had married John Hobson as her second husband, left him and also the land 

 for which she had fined as a widow. As she had ceased to till the land it 

 was legally forfeited to the lord to the disinherison of her sons by her first mar- 

 riage. We are told that the halmote and the steward made many attempts 

 to reconcile her to her husband, but even the threat to declare her lands 

 forfeit proved of no avail. The steward did not wish to punish her sons for 

 her fault, and so he arranged a compromise under which her second husband 

 fined for the land ' at his peril,' which seems from a marginal note to mean 

 that he held them ' at the will of the lord ' as though he were a serf.' 



The misdeeds of women play a prominent part in the Halmote Rolls, 

 and ' Gammer Gurton's Needle ' does not credit the mediaeval women with 

 an undue capacity for foul language and coarse talk. It is pathetic and yet 

 ludicrous to read the numerous admonitions by the halmote to the women 

 to hold their tongues.' In every village quarrel we find the women taking 

 the leading part and assailing each other with the vilest names. Sometimes, 

 in despair of achieving a result in any other way, the halmote fines the 

 offender heavily. For instance, we learn that Agnes wife of Henry Taillour 

 of Boldon was fined 6s. 8d. for being a common ' objurgatrix,' contrary to the 

 by-law. 7 However, 6s. %d. was as hopeless a fine for a peasant's wife as 5 

 was, and money penalties could seldom be exacted. At any rate we find a 

 new system coming into force in the latter part of the fourteenth century ; 

 probably at the instigation of the steward who found that the time spent on 

 such cases was profitless. The vills were ordered to make a ' Thewe,' which 

 is variously translated cucking-stool or pillory. The noisy offender was 



1 Dur. Ha/mate R. (Surtces Soc. braii), 13. ' Ibid. 108. ' Ibid. 74. ' Ibid. 263. 



' Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 119. e.g. Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. boxii). 131, 132, 144. 



7 Dur. Curt. No. 12, fol. 285. 



