

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



claimed id. a load and even the wood-carriers got \d. As the bailiff could 

 hire men for hay-making and loading at the rate of \\d. a day, he naturally 

 allowed the peasants to commute at least part of their services, so long as 

 labour was plentiful. At the end of the compotus of 1337 we have an inter- 

 esting account of how the 28 bondmen of Auckland, Newton, and Escombe 

 performed the services which they did not commute. The 28 men 

 owed jointly 1,064 day-works at the rate of one day a week for 38 weeks. 

 They harrowed seven days each at Coundon Grange and then spent a day in 

 carrying stakes and other material for inclosing the park and its meadows. 

 For six days they mowed the meadow and then for three days made hay, 

 receiving \d. each for food. Then they carried the hay for two days and got 

 \d. in lieu of food. In this way they accounted for 532 works. They were 

 allowed to commute 420 of the remainder, and the remaining 1 1 2 were 

 reckoned as the four weeks' holiday they could claim by Boldon Book. 1 



This system of commutation worked well enough until the Black Death 

 made labour scarce. Then came the question must the lord allow the tenant 

 to commute at the old rate ? * In the autumn of 1 349 Roger de Tikhill, the 

 new bailiff of Auckland, was faced by a difficult problem. He could not hire 

 labourers enough with the commutation money formerly paid, but could he 

 force the bondmen to work at any rate in the autumn ? The compotus roll 3 

 tells us that Roger, or some other official, proposed an inquiry should be held 

 as to whether the commutation was by right or by favour. Before the effect 

 of the Black Death can be properly explained something must be said about 

 those bond tenants who were not personally free the nativi or neifs whose 

 apparent helplessness tempted the perplexed officials to acts which seem sheer 

 oppression. 



The question of the nativi, serfs, or personally unfree tenants of the 

 bishopric, is a very perplexing one. As has been already pointed out the 

 authentic text of Boldon Book gives no help towards determining the pro- 

 portion of free to unfree tenants. Practically, all our information upon the 

 status and fate of these nativi comes from the Halmote Rolls and a bundle of 

 manumissions in the Treasury at Durham. 4 It is tempting to say that the 

 unfree peasant legally held only at the will of the lord, although in practice 

 seldom disturbed if he paid his dues, and that the free tenant had a life interest 

 in his holding and could transmit some kind of tenant-right to his son. How- 

 ever this theory may suit most cases, it does not suit all. We are, indeed, told 

 that certain tenants * held at the will of the lord because a nativus,' * but at 

 Coupon, in 1368, Stephen Fowler, who is not called a nativus, and so was 

 probably free, took several cottages for a money rent, * to hold at the will of 

 the lord,' and one ruined cottage ' until the lord or one of his tenants wished 

 to build it up.' ' Again, at Mid Merrington we find a man taking two bond- 

 ages for 28j. yearly but he was to hold one for the term of his life and the 

 other at the will of the lord. 7 We also find nativi who held for life. 8 All we 



1 This supports Thorold Rogers' contention that the saints' days of the church were not celebrated by 

 idleness and stoppage of work ; Rogers, Six Centuries of (fort and ffagts, i, 181. 



' At a later date (1431) the Prior had certainly the right to choose whether he would accept money in- 

 stead of service, in some cases ; MS. Prior's Halmote Book, voL i, fol. 1 15. 



' Bf. Hatfielfs Sure. (Surtees Soc. xxxii), z 1 1 a. * Loc. 28, No. I. 



1 Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. buocii), 113. * Ibid. 76, 77. 



'Ibid. 78. 'Ibid. 1*3, 131. 



205 



