SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



of as many pence. 1 Sometimes we find masters suing hired servants for 

 breaking their contracts, 2 or ordered to chastise them for misbehaviour.* 

 The free labourers had indeed a hard time in the late fourteenth century. 

 At Mid Merrington the cotters and labourers were ordered to work for the 

 firmars at a sufficient (competent!) wage,* at Dalton they were compelled to 

 remain in the village so long as any employer offered them work on any terms, 

 and the same rule was in force at Ferryhill and probably throughout the 

 Palatinate. An entry under Aycliffe tells us that at harvest-time everyone in 

 the vill, tenants, servants, or labourers, was compelled to work for the lord at 

 the manor of Ketton, or for the tenants, if he had no crop of his own to 

 reap. 1 But however good the motives may have been of those who framed 

 this statute, it was useless to expect that a law would be enforced when it 

 seemed to be to everyone's interest to break it, and in the fifteenth century 

 it became obsolete. 



Something more effective than the commands of a London Parliament 

 would be needed if the economic changes of the Black Death were to be 

 restrained. In the autumn of 1350 the surviving tenants at Hartburn, 

 Norton, and Stockton flatly refused to mow the lord's meadows, and Robyn 

 the reeve reported the matter to the steward.* Of course they were fined, 

 but it is doubtful whether the fine of 4O</. would be a deterrent, for in- 

 subordination was rife, at the time, in other parts of the bishopric. In the 

 western vills, especially Heighington, Ricknall, Middridge, and Killerby, a 

 custom had grown up under which most of the works due from the tenants 

 had been compounded for at a sort of rent known as 'penyferme* (i.e. money- 

 rent). At the spring halmote of 1351 these tenants informed the steward 

 that they intended to refuse any more rent unless he would accept 1 2d. an 

 acre. It is probable that attempts were being made to force the tenants to 

 compound at the actual rate it cost the lord to replace their labour, and so 

 it is not surprising that the steward refused to accept the tenants' terms. 7 



Roger de Tikhill had by this time learnt that he could not force whole 

 vills to work against their will, 8 and so we find that in February 1352 he per- 

 suaded the steward to accept the peasants' terms in a slightly modified form, 

 at any rate, so far as Killerby was concerned. The surviving tenants under- 

 took to work all the holdings in the vill at I zd. an acre, but they were to 

 compound for the malt, wheat, and oats they owed at the current winter 

 price, and they agreed to provide the usual conveyance for the bishop's food 

 and baggage on his arrival and departure. The period might be extended 

 so long as more favourable offers were not made by other tenants.' The 

 steward was probably only too glad to compromise as he ordered Roger to 

 let all the vacant lands of Coundon on the same terms. 10 Ricknall, Heigh- 

 ington, and Middridge all came under the scheme, 10 but the proviso as to 

 waste tenements was resisted at Ricknall. 11 Soon afterwards we find the 

 tenants of Killerby complaining that they were quite unable to carry out 

 Roger's compromise. From the obscure entry in the roll it is impossible 

 to say who their new advocate was, but it may have been Roger again, who 



1 Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. bcxxii), 22. * Ibid. 38, 53, 90, 92. 



Ibid. 58. Ibid. 109. 'Ibid. 127. 



Dur. Con. No. 12, fol. 46. ' Ibid. fol. 53. 



' Bf. Hatfielft Sum. (Surtees Soc. mii), 21 1 . Dur. Cun. No. iz, fol. 63. 



' Ibid. fol. 76. >' Ibid. fol. 91 d. 



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