226 " Rowksse Thing " — " Rowlese Tenement "— " Rowley." 



Any of these elements might be wanting ; but I suggest that 

 where there was no messuage to a holding it was called a roofless 

 tenement, which phrase was variously corrupted according to the 

 fancy of lawyers' clerks, who did not know the history of the term. 



That "Roof" and "Row" arc etyniologically equivalent can he 

 shown without going outside the parish of Melksham. 



A tithing of Melksham is called Woodrow, or Woodrew. In 

 Stuart times a lane running through it was called Woodroofe Lane. 

 Moreover (though 1 have lost the reference) this wry same tithing 

 is itself called Wotnl 'mo/e at the same date — I saw it lately in a 

 number of the Wilts Archaeological Magazine. 



There is a farm at Melksham called Bezzles (variously spelt, but 

 probably recalling an ancient family of Bradford Darned Besyl, &c.) 

 When this farm changed hands in 1G69 it consisted inter alia of 

 two closes named Bessells and Rowbessells. Now I suggest that, 

 according to an old-fashioned terminology Rowbessells meant that 

 part of the estate on which the roof or house stood. 



This of course is conjecture, but what I have said about Woodrow 

 is fact. 



Referring now to the cases first cited : under the headings of A 

 and B it is to be noted that out of the sixteen holdings there 

 mentioned the oh/// ont without a messuage is the one styled Rovelesse 

 or Rowlesse. 



With regard to C, it appears that here also a messuage has been 

 suppressed: for in a tine levied of the premises the description is 

 one messuage, two oxhouses, two gardens, two orchards, &C, which 

 seems to indicate that two holdings had been thrown together, and 

 a house destroyed. 



1). The " RoofleSB Tenement " in Somerset cannot mean, as some 

 might suppose, a tumble-down cottage, for it is stated to be worth 

 £32 per annum. 



To account for the fuller form of the phrase found in Somerset in 

 1 800 as compared with the mutilated forme in Melksham indentures 



in L630, &c, it may be supposed that the extinction of copyhold 

 • •states was already far advanced in Melksham before the Common- 

 wealth, whereas it was only beginning in the Somerset manor in 1800. 



