SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



per oxgang, probably because, belonging to what has been called the favoured 

 class of tenants in villeinage,"' they paid part of their rent in services also ; 

 whereas the tenants at will, though holding by a less secure tenure, paid the 

 full land rent in money. Yet some explanation is needed, for at Pendleton, only 

 about a mile away, the bondmen paid the comparatively high sum of 6s. 8d. 

 per oxgang,"' while at Downham, not very much farther away, the ' natives ' 

 or bondmen paid 2s. per oxgang, and is. extra per oxgang for remission of 

 services, making a full rent of y. per oxgang."* Here the demesne land 

 fetched the usual rent of /\J. for arable and 8c/. for meadow land per acre. In 

 other parts of Blackburnshire, namely at Burnley and Colne on the Pendle 

 and Trawden side, the oxgang was rented at 3J. 4^/., including the charge for 

 'works remitted';"^ while at Padiham, only 3 miles from Burnley, the 

 customary tenants, holding by the same tenure as those of Burnley, paid the 

 double rate of 6s. 4^/. the oxgang, including payment for works remitted 

 there."' Yet this was as nothing compared with the high rents of some of 

 the demesne lands of the Lancaster honour, as for example those at Singleton, 

 where the bondmen held 25 oxgangs for which they paid ^C^i, or at the rate 

 of i6s. 8d. per oxgang."' At Ribby, not in the demesne, the customary 

 tenants paid at the same rate,"' which seems to prove that the rents even in 

 the same neighbourhood went very variously. To show how differently rent 

 was computed where feudal services were rendered it may be mentioned that 

 at Wray the drengs held 8 oxgangs in drengage, paying only gj. 6d., or at 

 the comparatively nominal rent of is. 7.\d. per oxgang. 



The lord's payment of wages and the labourer's payment of rent are facts 

 which militate strongly against the supposition that the condition of the 

 mediaeval Lancashire husbandman was as servile as from the frequent mention 

 of ' lands tilled in villeinage ' or ' held in bondage ' might otherwise appear. 

 A writer in Edward I's reign "* identifies the ' serf ' (or servus of Domesday) 

 with the ' nayf ' or nativus of the estate. In a paper read before the Royal 

 Historical Society ^^^ Mr. I. S. Leadam, following this mediaeval authority, 

 maintains that the chief distinction between the 'serf or nativus and the 

 ' villein ' is the uncertain nature of the former's service and the fixed nature 

 of the villein's. Of the serfs the thirteenth-century writer observes that 

 ' they do not know in the evening what they shall do in the morning.' The 

 villein, on the contrary, had fixed services required of him, and these 

 performed he was quit. 



This clearly-marked distinction seems tenable as a general theory ; but, as 

 in so many other cases, when we come to look for the illustration of it in 

 Lancashire, we find it refuted. It is the nativi who here appear as the 

 tenants in villeinage in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ; ^'^ and yet 



"» Leadam, 'Inq. of 1517,' in Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. (1892) (New Ser.), vi, 252. 



"' Ibid. The oxgangs were probably larger than at Worston. '" Ibid. "' Ibid. 



"* Ibid. It may be added that in 1526 the oxgangs of land in Padiham contained, some 16, some 20, 

 and some 24% acres (customary). 



"' L.T.R. Misc. Enr. Accts. 14, m. 68 (first skin), under Preston. The rent of the oxgang varied also 

 according to the amount of meadow with it, and the easements and services. 



"» Ibid. Ribby. 



"' Supposed to be Andrew Horn, the grocer, who compiled ' Le myrrour des justices.' 



"»« The Inquisition of 15 17,' TrtfOT. ^«y. fl";//. S«i-. vi (New Ser.), (1892). 



"' There is no general reference in Lancashire to ' villeins * or to ' tenure in villeinage,' i.e. as opposed to 

 nativi and tenure in bondage. 



277 



