A HISTORY OF SURREY 



twice a year, at the terms of Hock tide and St. Martins. The view of 

 frank pledge of Farnham hundred court extended over a large district. 

 Besides the tithings comprising the hundred of Farnham it seems that 

 from the end of the thirteenth century tithingmen from the hundred of 

 Crondall in Hampshire appeared at the views of frank pledge at Black- 

 heathfield twice a year, and it is stated in 1398 that they had been 

 ' accustomed to attend these from old time and through a time beyond 

 the memory of man.' ' Thus in the extant hundred court rolls from 

 Henry VII. onwards to the time of Charles II.— after which the list of 

 tithings is not given — tithing men from Hawley, Crondall, Aldershot, 

 Yateley, Crookham, Badley, Cove, Itchel Sutton, Farnborough, and 

 Bentley, all in Hampshire, presented at the tourn of Farnham Blackheath, 

 as well as those from the ordinary Surrey tithings included in the hundred. 

 At the same time in the Crondall hundred court rolls from Edward III. 

 to James I., tithingmen from Crookham, Yateley, Hawley, Aldershot, 

 Swanthrop, Long Sutton, and Crondall, presented at the Crondall hundred 

 tourn. This shows that the Hampshire tithings owing suit at Black- 

 heathfield, owed suit at two hundred courts. That this was so is proved 

 by the fourteenth century struggle between the bishop and the prior and 

 convent of St. Swithun as to which court these Hampshire tithings owed 

 suit, to Blackheathfield in Farnham or to Crondall. The men of Crondall 

 had made various complaints that the prior had exacted excessive and 

 undue services from them,* and the king had shown himself on their 

 side.' As early as 1283 the bishops' rights had been defined," but the 

 struggle lasted until a settlement came in 1398, during the episcopate of 

 WiUiam of Wykeham. On 1 8 December in that year an indenture was 

 drawn up between ' the Reverend Father in Christ the Lord William 

 Wykeham ' and ' the venerable and religious man Thomas Nevyle,' prior 

 of St. Swithun, for the settlement and final definition of the services owed 

 by the tenants of Crondall. All the free tenants of Crondall with all the 

 tithingmen of the towns, villages and hamlets of the entire manor and 

 lordship of Crondall, together with four men of each tithing, were bound 

 to pay two suits yearly at the bishop's court at Blackheathfield, and 

 present there such things as ought to be presented ' according to the 

 law and custom of the realm of England.' " The prior and convent 



Field, on the southern side of Beacon Hill and Ca:sar's Camp, Aldershot. Heath Lane still runs up to 

 it, and Lady House or Law-day House, where the court met in later years, is on it, on the brow of 

 the heather-covered hill north-west of Farnham Park. It is still obviously a black heath field. On its 

 northern margin Bowen's map of 1 749 marks the Bishop's Bank, the boundary of the manor and of the 

 county. This is still partly to be seen, much obscured by furze bushes. 

 ' Winton. Epis. Reg., Wykeham, ii. fbl. 324. 



8 Plac. Div. Cos. 9 Edw. L R. 29 ; Codex Winton. f. 117b; Add. MS. 15350. 

 » Codex Winton. ii8b.; Add. MS. 15350. 



10 Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), p. 276, 12 Edw. L R. vii. 



" Winton. Epis. Reg., Wykeham, ii. f. cccxxiv. ' Unde super hac materia inter partes pracdictas modo 

 quo sequitur concordatum existit, quod omnes Hberi tenentes de Crondale et omnes decennarii villarura, 

 villatarum, et hamlettorum tocius manerii et dominii de Crondale pracdicta, cum quatuor hominibus 

 cujus libet decennae, appareant, ac faciant et debeant duas sectas per annum coram senescallo prsefati 

 Episcopi, et successorum suorum Episcoporum Wyntoniensium apud Blakehethefcld, quae est in mancrio 

 de Farnham, ad prisenundum ibidem ea qui ad diem sive dietam hujus modi prsesenuri dcbent, 



580 



