SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



I 



were strong enough to dispute them. In 1529-30 the bailiffs of Lancaster 

 refused to acknowledge the right to exemption from tolls of a certain 

 Leicestershire man who had bought cattle at Lancaster fair to drive through 

 to Leicestershire."* In 1 530-1 one Robert Hatton challenged the right of 

 Sir Thomas Butler to take tolls of corn at the markets and fairs of Warring- 

 ton Manor."* This very year the king himself was disputing the right of the 

 abbot of Furness to customs, tolls, sherifFs tourn, and the prisage of wines at 

 Furness and other places in the abbot's lordship."' Again, in 1 545, another case 

 of refusal of exemption from ' tolls, piccage, and lastage at fairs and markets ' 

 occurred, the defendant being the mayor of Preston, who had denied this privi- 

 lege to the plaintiffs, inhabitants of ' Salford,' visiting Preston fair.'" At Wigan 

 fair in the same year the servants of Sir T. Langton threw down the booths 

 in defiance of the mayor and burgesses, who claimed the tolls."' Exemption 

 from toll was pleaded by one of the king's tenants of Clitheroe Manor in 

 I 547,"' while in Philip and Mary's reign arose a great dispute between the 

 farmer of the lordship and the mayor and bailiffs of Liverpool. 



In 1 58 I Edward Butler made a claim to have the right of holding fairs 

 and markets at Warrington Manor and at Leigh ; '^^ and in 1585 Lord La 

 Warre was contending for his right to take stallage, tolls, and pannage in the 

 manors of Manchester, Blackley, Gorton, Droylsden, Failsworth, and Clayton, 

 which was opposed by certain persons.^*^ In 1597, again, the mayor and alder- 

 men and burgesses of Wigan claimed the right to take the tolls and profits of 

 fairs and markets against Edward Fleetwood, clerk and parson of Wigan, 

 who disputed it.'*^ Three years later the mayor and bailiffs and burghers 

 of Preston were contending against W. Singleton and others as to their right 

 of taking tolls and stallage of the markets and fairs of Kirkham.'^'* 



The church shared the unpopularity of the landlords, being, in fact, the 

 most prevailing and absolute landlord of them all. By the close of the 

 fifteenth century the payment of tithes seems to have become extremely 

 onerous, and in numerous cases during the following century was refused. 

 Cases of prominent refusal occurred at Kirkham,'** Great Marsden, Clitheroe, 

 Pendle Forest, where the payment was to the abbot of Whalley,''^ Burscough,^*" 

 Warrington,^'^ Leigh,***' and indeed in so many places throughout the period 

 that it is impossible to detail separate instances. When the monasteries were 

 suppressed the king's farmers of their lands continued to claim the tithes the 

 abbots had claimed, and this caused great opposition, as at Kirkham for instance, 

 where the inhabitants claimed tithe exemption against Thomas Clifton, farmer 

 of Kirkham Church.^'' Similarly the claim of the warden of Manchester 

 College to have tithes of wool, lambs, calves, hay, hemp, flax, corn, and grain 

 in divers towns and villages, as well as in Broughton, Cheetham, Chorlton, 

 Didsbury, Withington, Hulme, and Salford, was opposed and brought to a 

 lawsuit in the Duchy Court.''" 



'" Duchy of Lane. Plead, v, H. 12. '» Ibid, vii, H. i. 



"' Ibid, viii, R. I. See also ibid, ix, R. 2 (26 Hen. VIII). '" Ibid, xi, B. 24. 



»"» Ibid, xvi, W. 2. •" Ibid, xxiv, W. 2. 



"» Ibid, cxx, B. 23. "' Ibid, cxxxiii, H. 2. '" Ibid, clxxxix, F. 9. 

 '^ Ibid. P. 5. ''' Ibid, vi, S. 7. 



'^ Ibid, ix, W. 12 (25 Hen. VIII) and again, ibid, xxi, W. 14 (no date), Bernard Hartley and others 

 refuse tithe corn and herbage, at Whalley, Clitheroe Castle, Pendle Forest, Trawden and Bowland Forests. 



"' Ibid, xi, H. 4. »" Ibid, xxiii, B. 24. '"^ Ibid. Dep. Ixxx, U. i. 



»" Ibid. Plead, XXX, L. I (j Edw. VI). »» Ibid. Ixx, B. 25 (9 Eliz.). 



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