A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



Kellaw's Register of clergy seeking and obtaining permission to study at the 

 ' schools,' as the universities were then called. It is interesting to note that 

 the bishop insists upon proper provision being made for the care of the parish, 

 and he also exacts a promise that the absentees shall study under proper 

 discipline. Most of the students are recently appointed rectors, but in every 

 case they appear to have owed their promotion to a special cause, as two at 

 least were only sub-deacons, and one was actually given five years' leave of 

 absence. 1 However, the ordinary peasant was not encouraged to acquire 

 learning on his own responsibility, and we find that even in 1365 a peasant 

 of Mid Merrington was peremptorily ordered to recall his son from the 

 ' schools ' ; 3 perhaps as a precaution against the bishopric becoming infected 

 with dangerous learning. 



The office of collector is dealt with last of the village notables, 

 because he was probably the most recently created, and his importance 

 belongs to the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, when it was 

 understood that the rents paid were in commutation of personal service 

 in most cases. He was elected by the peasantry and was bound to serve for 

 a year, in that rather unpleasant office ; sometimes we find more than one 

 collector. For instance, at Wolsingham in 1391 we find a collector of cheker- 

 land rents, a collector of bond and demesne rents, and a collector of free land 

 rents. 8 The usual custom was to demand a money contribution, and when 

 that was refused the collector distrained upon the tenant's goods.* Sometimes 

 the same person acted both as reeve and collector, 6 and as time went on his 

 second office became the more important of the two.' 



From the earliest times to the Black Death the Durham peasantry lived 

 almost entirely by agriculture. The population was scanty and the land full 

 of heaths and moors that afforded splendid pasturage for sheep. Both the 

 bishop and his various kinds of tenants, from the prior down to the humblest 

 serf, were pasture-masters, who valued their right to turn out their cattle, sheep, 

 and goats on to the waste that surrounded the village. In some instances the 

 bishop and prior devoted whole districts, especially in the west of the county, 

 to pasture-farming, and we still have numbers of De Instauro Rolls from which 

 a vivid picture can be obtained of the way in which a large proportion of the 

 famous wool of mediaeval England was produced. 7 



One of the most frequently recurring subjects in the Halmote Rolls is 

 the quarrel between the herdsmen of neighbouring vills as to the right to 

 pasture or ' inter-common ' in certain favourite spots. 8 As population grew, 

 fresh land was taken into the common fields from the waste or pasture land, 

 and as a result the area available for cattle shrank. Again, the best parts of 

 the waste were inclosed in summer and a crop of hay was taken from them. 

 This hay was practically the only sustenance for the cattle in winter, as 

 root-crops were unknown, and in consequence a very large proportion of the 

 beasts had to be slaughtered and salted down at Martinmas. These ' marts ' 



Reg. Pal. Dun. (Rolls Ser.), i, 442. 



Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 42. There is a similar case at Acley (Aycliffe) ; ibid. 51. 

 Dur. Curs. No. 13, fol. 19. 4 Ibid. fols. 1 6, 285. 



Ibid. 12,69 d. ; Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 126. 6 Roy. Com. (Surtees Soc. cxi), 18-20. 



Canon Fowler, in his excellent edition of the Dur. Ace. R. (Surtees Soc. xcix-ciii), provides a mine of 

 information. 



8 See Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), II, for a curious quarrel between Moorsley and Dalton. 



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