SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



The chief cause of this poverty is definitely stated in many cases to have 

 been the frequent royal taxations. Sixty houses in Studham stood empty 

 owing to the poverty due to these ' insupportable burdens,' and this was no 

 isolated instance. The towns were also affected ; at Dunstable trade was 

 very bad, while Luton had recently been burnt down and 200 tenements 

 were still unoccupied. 



The case of Eversholt, in which parish many farm-houses {mansiones) , 

 where numbers of sheep had once been kept, had been destroyed, and their 

 sites converted into pasture, suggests that the dwellings of the poorer classes 

 were of ephemeral construction, and there is abundant evidence to show that 

 even the best houses consisted chiefly of timber. Not only did Luton suffer, 

 but Dunstable town was burnt in 121 3, and the Dunstable chronicler has 

 frequent occasion to report the loss of the priory's houses and farm buildings 

 by fire.*' ' Our new and best house at Wadelow burnt.' ' Our hall burnt at 

 Segenhoe ; the solarium attached to it, with its appendices, saved. Repaired 

 in three weeks.' These are sample cases. Nor were the buildings very 

 stable. ' Barley-mill destroyed, and rebuilt.' ' Great stable at Dunstable fell 

 down, and all the timber and bricks broken, at Easter. Repaired before 

 Michaelmas.' 



As landlords and agriculturists the priors were great builders ; whether 

 they compared favourably or not with their lay peers it is impossible to 

 say, but their doings give us a little insight into the rural architecture of 

 the day. In 1248 they built a new house at Roxox (in Flitwick), consist- 

 ing of a solarium, which may here mean a dining-room, a cellar {celariuni), a 

 kitchen {coquinam), a small room in the centre for baking and brewing,*' 

 and a dairy {daieriam). They were for ever building at one place or 

 another — hall {said), or cow-house {boveria), or dwelling-house {domum ad 

 manenduni), or sheep-house {bercalia), or barn, or grange, or wash-houses 

 (domos ad lotandum), or pigeon-house — these were numerous — or mill. In 

 the matter of mills it would appear that the people of that day were not 

 absolutely dependent upon water power ; for we learn that Brother John, 

 the carpenter, invented and made a new mill which he promised should 

 require only one horse to turn it. But when it was finished four horses 

 could scarcely turn it. Hence it was put away, and the old horse-mill 

 used again. 



In matters of jurisdiction the position of the unfree peasant was in 

 some ways illogical. For while towards his lord the serf was a mere chattel 

 whose existence was ignored by the common law (except in cases of 

 bodily injury), towards all other men he was in the eyes of the law an 

 equal. Thus, while in 1283 the prior of Dunstable sold William Pyke, his 

 serf, with all his household for i mark,"" in 1285 Henry son of Juliana, 

 a serf of Henry de Grey, was completely successful in a suit of novel 

 disseisin against the prior, the latter having to pay him i mark (to say 

 nothing of incurring 33 marks costs), in return for which Henry released the 

 land in dispute to him by charter." For purposes of local jurisdiction, 

 however, the free and unfree were to some extent kept separate. By the 

 police system then in use every villein above the age of twelve years had to 



" Jnn. Moti. (Rolls Ser.) iii, passim. " ' Thalamum in medio ad panem et cervisiara.' 



» j^nn. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 297- " ^^id. 320. 



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