A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



promised to intercede with the steward, if by any chance the lord may be 

 willing to show them a special favour by allowing them to pay for the 

 grain and carrying works in money. But he adds : ' Let it be kept secret 

 for three years or two, lest it set a bad example to the other villages.' l The 

 question was debated by the bishop's council, 2 and the last information 

 we get is that in February 1356, the tenants were ordered to 'pay the 

 ancient firm in malt, and in all other services, and in money as they were 

 accustomed to do as of old time.' 3 In Hatfield's * Survey we find each man 

 responsible for his own holding, but allowed to commute the works at the 

 rate of 5-r. ^\d. for 30 acres, and it is probable that quite three hundred years 

 passed before the men of Killerby realized their ambition of a purely money 

 rent to the bishop. 6 



In the eastern district of the Palatinate similar demands were made for 

 a frank commutation of services. It must be remembered that even in the 

 days of Hugh Pudsey purely money rents were not unknown. The question 

 at issue between the lord and his tenants was not ' May the tenant commute 

 his services ? ' but ' At what price may he escape the necessity of perform- 

 ing them when free labour is dear ? ' The tenants at Killerby fixed the com- 

 mutation price too low. We are not told, unfortunately, what offer was 

 made to the lord at Sedgefieldin March 1350, but we learn that the tenantry 

 of Sedgefield and Cornforth (and probably those of Middleham also) took 

 their lands at penyferme for three years, but at the end of that time the lord 

 might revert to the older system of works (pristinas operationes}.* Bishop 

 Hatfield himself tried to arrange some scheme to satisfy the discontent in the 

 Stockton district, and by his order the tenants of bondages and half bondages 

 (but not the cotters) of Norton, Hartburn, and Stockton were allowed to lease 

 their vills and works at the same rate as the tenants of Sedgefield and Corn- 

 forth had done. 7 We learn from a later entry that the Stockton tenants 

 agreed to pay a rent which would enable Richard Stere, the bishop's bailiff, 

 to hire free labour enough to replace their commuted services. 8 



It was high time something was done if the whole economic system of 

 the Palatinate was not to go down in ruin. The yield was poor enough in 

 the Middle Ages, and one year's fallowing after two successive crops was the 

 least the land could bear. However, at Sedgefield the peasantry had used 

 their new rights unsparingly, and sowed even the third field that should have 

 lain fallow. In the summer of 1352 the steward 'coerced' them into a 

 promise that they would revert to the old system and allow one-third of the 

 land to lie fallow each year. 9 It seems probable that as each man had more 

 land at his disposal while labour was dear, the peasants had decided to go in 

 for ' extensive ' as opposed to ' intensive ' cultivation, or at any rate only to 

 sow the most fertile patches of each field. The ' coercion ' of the steward 

 was not very effectual, for not long afterwards we find that the Sedgefield 

 jury were fined 2s. for refusing to present those tenants who sowed the fallow 



1 Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 130. ' Ibid. fol. 151 d. 3 Ibid. fol. 



4 Ep. Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 23, 24. It is impossible to equate some of the old obligations 

 in terms of money, but the old system, which seems to have been restored in 1356, was certainly more burden- 

 some and probably less favourable to the tenants than a rate of I ^d. an acre. 



6 From the Report of the Commonwealth Com. in 16467 it is clear that the copyholders of the Palatinate 

 professed to commute some labour services in the seventeenth century and actually did perform others. 



6 Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 51, 51 d. 7 Ibid. fol. 75. 8 Ibid. fol. 113^. 9 Ibid. fol. 68 d. 



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