SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



The same hunt after the serfs went on in the prior's vills, but the prior 

 was less fortunate in reclaiming his wanderers. Many of his serfs were in 

 Northumberland, 1 Yorkshire, 1 or other districts outside his reach. They had 

 left their vills either as albanarii or later as pure fugitives, and in many cases 

 there was considerable uncertainty as to their place of residence. Towns such 

 as Newcastle, Hartlepool, or even York were their favourite retreats, and 

 apparently the prior could not entice them back. After a while both bishop 

 and prior allowed the persecution of the serfs to die down. In the case of 

 the bishop it is possible that the actual number of his serfs was never very 

 large after the Black Death, and the prior's serfs were after a time seldom 

 found outside certain districts. Harton, Southwick, and Billingham were the 

 last homes of serfdom, and it died out first in the northern vills. 



However, there is another side to this sketch of the last days of serfdom. 

 We find one prior rewarding the coroner's assistant for arresting a neif who 

 was escaping to Seaham, 8 but that was during an economic crisis when every 

 man's work was needed. Two generations later another prior allows a pension 

 to a worn-out neif who was ' prostrated with infirmity.' * Nor was the bishop 

 behind the prior in consideration. If a serf was known to be unable to pay 

 his rent from poverty, it was forgiven him.' If he could gain any wealth his 

 will was acknowledged and his children could inherit. 6 



Long before the fourteenth century was over the main discomfort of the 

 serf was the scorn of his more fortunate free neighbours. ' Rustic ' and ' neif 

 came to be terms of vulgar abuse despite the prohibition of the halmote, 7 and 

 it is not surprising to find that the serfs gladly availed themselves of the 

 opportunity to become albanarii, or if that was refused they fled away and 

 skulked into freedom. 



When serfdom finally died out in the Palatinate it is impossible to say. 

 However, in the fifteenth century there are very few references to serfs in the 

 Halmote Rolls and not many more in the Chancery Rolls. The last certain 

 reference may be to the last of the bishop's serfs. In 1481 Bishop Dudley 

 granted letters of manumission to Thomas Copyn, husbandman of Over- 

 thurstan in the county of Sadberge, ' to him and to the heirs of his body 

 begotten or yet to be begotten.' 8 Legally, serfdom lingered later on the 

 prior's lands. In 1407* and I469 10 ' inquisitions concerning serfs ' appear in 

 the otherwise jejune Halmote Books of the prior. Two were held in 1407. 

 The one at Harton discloses twenty-eight names, representing nineteen or 

 twenty families. Sixty-two years later the northern serfs have entirely dis- 

 appeared. Many of them were already across the Tyne in 1407, at Benwell, 

 Earsdon, and Wallsend. When the heads of the family died the children silently 

 melted away into the free peasantry, among whom they lived. Even in 1407 

 the prior did not know the names of many of these distant serfs. In 1469 

 we find the last of the prior's serfs, thirty-eight in number, and representing 

 nine families. Really there were only thirty-two living, for six were said to 

 be 'defunct.' The names of many of the younger serfs were unknown, and the 

 inevitable result would be that the prior's rights would lapse. Not a single 



1 Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. bocxii), 136. ' Ibid. 138. 



1 Dur. Acct. R. (Surtees Soc. xcix-ciii), 579. ' Ibid. 623. * Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 162. 



' Ibid. No. 14, fols. 307, 332, 402. ' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Izxzii), 33, 40. 



' Dur. Curs. No. 54, m. 13. Over-thurstan is probably Throston, now part of Hartlepool. 



Prior's MS. Halmote Bk. i, fol. 1 8, 1 8 J. 10 Ibid, ii, fol. 1 1 2 d. 113. 



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