SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



for land among the custumaries. The rolls and accounts give no evidencf 

 of a deficiency of tenants until about the year 1315. 



While these changes incident to tenure were going on the persona) 

 condition of the villein was changing. This shows itself, in the first 

 place, in the occasional separation of tenure and status. As early as 1222 

 we find a reeve at Caddington, who held a free tenement." At Codicote, 

 in 1278, two tenants exchanged their tenements, one of which was free, so 

 that this one should do villein service and the other do free service." Either 

 this tenant was a villein holding freely or he was dealing with his free land 

 in a way which the king's courts might not have approved. The change 

 must have been fairly recognized by 1300," or a citizen of London would not 

 have been holding villein land in Ashwell.*^ In 1333 land in Codicote was 

 held in villeinage, ' in whatever hands it might be.'*^ 



The right of the villein to demise his land seems to have been generally 

 recognized, subject to the buying of licence from the lord." Moreover, the 

 wider right of making a surrender of land to the use of a person named was 

 developed early, and it became common at Codicote about 1260.°° Such 

 conveyances became quickly as elaborate and elastic as free men's deeds. In 

 1295, at Sawbridgeworth, R. Pete surrendered his land 'to R. atte Brynehe, 

 who pays 2J. . . . so that Richard shall do due service . . . and shall give 

 R. Pete i quarter of wheat and -^ quarter of beans all his life,' at Michaelmas 

 and All Saints." A contingent reversion was created on a surrender at 

 Ash well in 1299." 



These elaborate transactions needed record. In 1274 a villein 

 ' enfeoffed,' as the roll has it, by the lord, paid 2J. pro rotulo habendo}^ Seven 

 years later one Walter atte Strete paid 2j. for licence to search the rolls as to 

 his title to a plot of land." There are many cases of villeins with charters, the 

 possession of which, to a legal purist, might have been a presumption of 

 freedom. The earliest of these is from 1296." 



The villeins were evidently growing more independent or insubordinate ; 

 this seems to be on the increase after about 1320. For example, the men of 

 Codicote began to have difficulties with the Abbot of St. Albans exactly like 

 those of the men of St. Albans. From 1330 there are many presentments of 

 those who have not ground at the lord's mill.'^ In the same year the lord 

 granted John Dolitel a hand-mill for grinding oats, to be held in villeinage 

 at the rent of zd. a year." Some of the tenants used hand-mills against the 

 lord's prohibition,"' and the cases connected with grinding became a recurrent 

 item in the Court Rolls. 



At Codicote from about 1288 the lord occasionally took specific recog- 

 nitions of liability to tallage from new tenants." Tallage was paid on the 

 manor of Langley apparently every year,"" but the obligation was very 



** Dom. Bk. of St. Paul's (Camd. Soc), l et seq. ^^ Stowe MS. 849, under date quoted. 



■** cf. the rules of Abbot Roger of St. Albans, 1260-90 (Walsingham, op. cit. i, 453). 

 *^ Ct. R. (Gen. Ser.), portf 176, no. 128. ** Stowe MS. 849, fol. 50 et seq. 



*9 Add. MS. 6057 ; Stowe MS. 849. 



5" Stowe MS. 849, fol. 50 et seq. ; cf also Ashwell Ct. R. (Gen. Ser.), portf. 176, no. 127. 

 " Ct. R. (Gen. Ser.), portf. 178, no. 24. «« Ibid. port£ 176, no. 128. 



53 Stowe MS. 849. 6* Ibid. 



85 Ct. R. (Gen. Ser.), portf 178, no. 24 ; cf also Add. MS. 6057 ; Ct. R, (Gen. Ser.), portf 177, 

 no. 33. 5^ Stowe MS. 849, fol. 50 et seq. 5' Ibid. 



'8 Ibid. " Ibid. ^ Mins. Accts. bdle. 866, no. 17, 19, 21, 29. 



4 185 24 



