DEPARTMENT OF LETTERS. 



THE ENGLISH COTTAGEES OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 



By Prof. W. P. Allen. 



In the statute entitled Extenta Manerii, enacted in the fourtli 

 year of Edward I. (1276), three classes of tenants of the manor 

 are enumerated : the lihere tenentes or freeholders ; the custumarii 

 or customary tenants ; and the coterelU or cottagers. In former 

 papers I have inquired into the origin of the two first of these 

 classes, and attempted to show that the customary tenants were; 

 representatives of the primitive village community, and that the 

 freeholders were of feudal origin. In the present paper I propose 

 to consider the third class, the cottagers. 



The class who, in this document, are called coterelU, are known 

 by several other names — cotagii, cotmanni, cotani, coterii, cotlan- 

 darii The several manors enumerated in the Gloucester Cartu- 

 lary use these terms indijQEerently, while the Domesday of St. 

 Paul's, in a passage corresponding to that in the Extenta Ilaneni, 

 uses the word cotagii instead of coterelU. The Exchequer 

 Domesday has coterii and cotmanni, as well as a new variation, 

 cosceii or coscez, and the laws of Henry I. also mention cotseti. 

 Lastly, the Bectitudines singularum personarum, of the period be- 

 fore the Norman Conquest, has coisetlan, a form which is repeated 

 in the consetV of the Abingdon Cartulary, in the latter half of the 

 twelfth century. 



Here are ten forms of the same word, evidently having the 

 same derivation, and apparently the same meaning. Nor is there 

 any difference discernible in their tenures and services. They 

 generally hold a messuage and curtilage, that is a cottage with a 

 yard, or an acre or two of land, and render therefor some trifling 

 services. Still they occasionally are found with estates of con- 

 siderable size ; as, an entire virgate,^ twelve acres,^ ten, nine and 



» Domesday of St. Paul's, p. 5. ' Boldon Book, p. 666. 



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