CHAPTER IITHE MONASTIC TENANTS
WHEN the religious houses were possessed of manors—and all save the smallest houses held at least one or two and frequently many—it was incumbent upon them to discharge the obligations that rested on manorial lords; nor was there any difficulty about this, for the technical obligations of presiding at courts and fulfilling other like duties were almost invariably discharged, even on secular manors, by the lord’s steward. Still the lord was responsible, and held responsible, in the same fashion as a modern landowner and his agent, and the difference between a good and a bad or careless landlord had even more striking results in the feudal and sub-feudal days than in our own. The tenants of the monastic estates were of every kind, from those who held under the obligation of military service to the Crown and so many knight’s fees, to the humblest customary tenants or villeins, who were tied to the soil. The abbot or prior had to carry out the obligations resting on landholdersof the days in which he lived; he could not, if he would, have upset the land system, but by just and conscientious administration each manor might become a centre of comparative content.
If the student of manorial records and customaries compares any considerable number of manors that were in monastic, or Church, hands, with those that were in lay control, it will be found, broadly speaking, that the lot of the tenants generally, and more especially that of the villeins, was decidedly superior when under monastic administration. True, tenants of ecclesiastical manors had their difficulties with the lord from time to time, and were, perhaps, all the more ready now and again to show dissatisfaction in a more marked way than they would have dared to do against the more severe secular lords; but the easy terms on which the assarts or clearings made by the monks and their lay-brothers were conferred on their tenants, the commuting of labour customs for quite small sums of money, the generally light character of the labour for the lord, the better harvest fare provided, and, more particularly, the far greater opportunity for manumission or freedom that pertained to the clerical estates, all these were noticeable in so many instances, that there can be no doubt it was as a rule far better for each class of tenants to be on a monastic rather than on a secular estate.
In the valuable chartulary of the abbey of Burton-on-Trent, preserved at Beaudesert, there are full accounts of the tenantry on their Staffordshireand Derbyshire manors drawn up about the year 1100, as well as some like entries of the year 1114. It would be very difficult to find such easy tenures on any secular manors of approximate date. In a variety of cases a house was held for which a single day’s harvest work per week for the lord was the only charge. The proportion ofad opustenants on these estates was unusually small; thus at Mickleover, out of a total of seventy-eight only twenty-two had to make any return in labour, and in each of these cases the villein held two bovates or oxgangs of land in return for two days’ labour a week at harvest-time, the occasional carrying of a load to the lord’s garden, and ploughing once in the winter and twice in the spring. Their position, too, is also shown by the fact that they were cowkeepers; for time was allowed them, when working for the lord, to drive home and milk their cows, and generally to attend to their stock. In two other Mickleover casesad opustenures of two bovates of land had recently (1100) been commuted by the abbot for 2s.a year, a sum which gives a good idea of the comparatively small amount of exacted labour.
In the adjoining township of Littleover there were twenty-two villeins, including Goderic the reeve, the majority of whom held two bovates of land; but in only four cases did they make recompense to the lord by labour. On the same manor there were, in 1114, five men in charge of the plough oxen (bovarii); each of them held one bovate ofland and two acres of marsh in return for making or providing the irons of three ploughs, the amount of demesne land being sufficient for three ploughs. On another of the abbot’s Derbyshire manors, Willington, there was no “inland” or demesne land, but there were thirty-two bovates, seven of which, sufficient for two ploughs, were held by the lord. The remaining twenty-five bovates were thus held:—One, with part of the church meadow, by Goderic the priest; Unifred, six bovates for 6s.; Soen, four bovates for 6s.; Serlo, two bovates for 2s.; Lewin, the reeve, one bovate for 1s.; Hotin, one bovate for 2s.; Godwin, half bovate for 11d.; Lewric and Lewin, each two bovates for 32d.and two days’ work a week from July to Martinmas; Edwin and three others, each one bovate for 16d.and two days’ work for the like period; Godric, half bovate for 8d.and half day’s work for the like period; and Lewin, the smith, one bovate by the service of two ploughs, or for 16d.and work as above.
It was easy, too, on most monastic manors, for the native tenant or villein to obtain leave to live elsewhere on payment of a small acknowledgment, which was a privilege very rarely granted by a secular lord. Thus, on the manor of Inkpen, Berkshire, in the time of Richard I., the Abbot of Titchfield, as lord, licensed three of his native tenants to dwell outside the manor in return for 6d.a year apiece at Michaelmas; in another case the annual acknowledgment for a like permissiontook the shape of a ploughshoe (or iron tip for a wooden share), then worth about 2d.; and in a third case, the more costly service of a pair of cart-wheels, probably worth about 1s.
The same abbot, according to the customary of the Hampshire manor where the abbey stood, had an extraordinarily generous scale of dietary for those tenants who worked at the lord’s autumn harvesting. Those who worked one day a week for the whole day received at three o’clock a supply of food (unum pastum) consisting of bread, with beer or cider, broth (potagium), and two sorts of flesh or fish, as well as drink once after dinner. For supper the fortunate labourer also received a wheat loaf weighing forty ounces, and two herrings, or four pilchards, or one mackerel. As such apastumby itself seems to have been considered as worth 4d., this food allowance was certainly remarkably generous. If three days’ labour was the service to be rendered, the last of the three was recompensed in a like generous fashion, whilst on the two first days thepastumwas a loaf of barley bread, water to drink, and two kinds of fish, whilst the change in the supper consisted merely of the substitution of a forty-ounce barley loaf for one of wheat. When the customary tenants had to wash sheep or do a day’s work on the meadows at the lord’s will, they received nothing, save that they had wheat bread and beer when they had finished; but the shearers of sheep had cheese in addition to the bread and beer. Those who dressed the meadowshad no food allowance, but when haymaking they received bread and beer, with flesh or fish. In short, it is admitted that on several monastic estates the harvest payment in food for villein labour cost more than the labour was worth.
We have looked in vain through many a customary of secular manors to find a parallel to this; the only approach to it is in other manors in monastic hands. As a broad rule there was no food or drink given to the secular lord’s villeins for labour on the demesne, save at corn harvest, and then only on a somewhat meagre scale.
One other point of the generous treatment of the tenants on the lands of Titchfield Abbey may be named. Those who have studied riverside manorial customs on manors that bordered on the Thames, Trent, Severn, Ouse (Yorks.), and elsewhere, know that not only the free ferrying of the lord’s household and his goods by the tenants was usually expected, but also the water-transit of himself or his property to quays or places at a considerable distance. But the waterside tenants of Titchfield, who were boat owners—although they had to take the abbot, canons, or members of the household and their horses free across the estuary of the Hamble when necessary—if they had to convey them up the water to Southampton were always to be recompensed by apastum, or by 4d.in money, whichever they preferred.
It may also be mentioned as still further showing the condition of thenativeson these monasticlands that they were forbidden to sell their horses or oxen that had been bred on the manor without the lord’s leave. The very statement of this small restriction shows that they were at liberty to trade in cattle or horses outside those of manorial breed. Nor were they to fell any oak or ash growing on their holding without the lord’s leave, save in the case of wood required for the repair of their houses or the strengthening of their hedges. As a rule timber, for even these purposes, could not be taken without a permit. The licence fee for marriage with anyone within the manor was two shillings, with anyone outside, according to the lord’s discretion. The reeve elected by the homage was to be free of all service of every kind, and from payment of churchset, pannage-fee, etc., during his term of office.
The Surtees Society in 1889 printed a most interesting volume of extracts from the Halmote Court or Manor rolls of the prior and convent of Durham from 1296 to 1384. They supply a vivid picture of the life of the various classes of tenants on the thirty-five vills under the control of that monastery, of their comparative independence, and of the merciful dealing of the conventual lord. Mr. Booth, as editor, writes in warm praise:
“We see them (the tenants) in their tofts, surrounded by their crofts, with their gardens of pot-herbs. We see how they ordered the affairs of the village when summoned by the bailiff of the vill to consider matters which affected the common-wealof the community. We hear of their trespasses and wrong-doings, and how they were remedied or punished; of their strifes and contentions, and how they were repressed; of their attempts, not always ineffective, to grasp the principle of co-operation as shown by their bylaws; of their relations with the prior, who represented the convent and alone stood in relation of lord. He appears always to have dealt with his tenants, either in person or through his officers, with much consideration; and in the imposition of fines we find them invariably tempering justice with mercy.”
Another book that is very helpful in showing the relationships that existed between a great abbey and its various tenants is theRentalia et Custumariaof Glastonbury, printed a few years ago by the Somerset Record Society. Some of these West-country tenants had to find part of their rent in labour, and part in kind or in payment. There are payments in kind of salmon, eels, and honey, whilst not a few who worked direct for the abbey had stated wages. Even in cases where the villein had to do as much as three days’ work a week from Michaelmas to Midsummer, and five days’ work a week during harvest-time, he held in recompense several acres of arable land that he cultivated for himself during the free days, and had a small share of every acre of corn that he reaped or grass that he cut for the lord. The smaller cottagers had a variety of curiouscustomary services in lieu of rent, mostly of a trifling character. Thus a woman named Alice held her cottage and half-an-acre of land by the service of sharpening the reapers’ sickles and bringing them water at harvest-time. Whilst at work for the abbot the labourers were, as a rule, entertained at common meals, and they met at Christmas in the great hall for a special feast.
It may, in short, be taken as a fact, that the best farming and the greatest degree of fair dealing and generous treatment were to be found on the monastic lands. The more this subject is studied, the more thoroughly are such facts established. Nor are the reasons why this should be the case far to seek. However unworthy the superior or the leading officials of an abbey or priory may occasionally have been, the system at all events secured a succession of resident lords for the most part of high moral and religious character, or of diligently supervised granges where the estates were at some distance from the central house. There were no protracted wardships or minorities; the lords were not frequently absent at wars, or with the court; and the actual character of the administration could not possibly have fluctuated in a like way as on secular estates. The heads of religious houses, and the chief obedientiaries or officials, had almost invariably some experience of manual labour as well as of agricultural farming, and could sympathise with the toil of the one and the anxiety of the other. Not infrequently in thelarger houses special lands were appropriated to the support of the burdens of a particular part of the monastic life, and where this was the case, the almoner, the sacrist, or the cellarer, as the case might be, gave his immediate attention to the cultivation and the produce of such small estates. Hence came about a continuous contact between the religious and the tenants of various classes.
Into all this work and superintendence the true monk brought the spirit, and often the actual direction, of his rule. Not only did the monk learn to do field and garden labour as part of his training, but to enter upon it as a conventual or common work under the direction of the prior or one deputed by him. The Cluniacs and the Cistercians gave a dignity to their work by certain defined usages. When the brethren were gathered for work, the abbot himself, in a Cluniac house, was expected to meet them at the cloister door, saying,Eamus ad opus manuum, “Let us go forth to the work of our hands.” Thence they went in procession, saying a psalm, to the assigned place, and when there, certain suitable collects with the “Our Father” and versicles were said ere the work was begun, the superior taking his share.
Wide and general as was the dispersion of England’s religious houses, it was as nothing compared with the number of their granges, and to every grange a chapel was attached. These chapels were divided by a screen; the choir was for the brethren, professed and lay, and the western partfor the tenants and labourers. That so vast an amount of land came by benefaction into the hands of the monasteries throughout England in mediæval days may have had certain economic objections; but one result, at all events, was achieved through that fact, namely, the removal to a great extent of any idea of the degradation of manual toil, and the linking together of labour and worship. It was impossible in old days to go many miles in any direction without alighting upon a humble chapel specially built for those who tilled the soil. In a single midland county where there were only seven religious houses (apart from hospitals), traces, either in stone or records, have been found of upwards of twenty grange chapels. The mere worldling will doubtless view with some contempt this association of Divine service and the weary round of agricultural toil; but for such we are not writing. Those who have any faith in the reality of religious joy will realise the blessing of such opportunities, which were so largely multiplied by the monks of England, not only for their own spiritual advantage, but for those who worked under and with them.
The great opportunities that the native tenants or villeins had of securing their freedom, for Holy Orders or otherwise, on the monastic estates, and the general advantages of all such tenants in the matter of education, must be left for another chapter, as they both demand more extended treatment than can be given in a single paragraph ortwo. The only other point to be now briefly dealt with is the question of the tenants of nunneries. Though their numbers were not large, and many of the houses quite small, still the houses of religious women suppressed by Henry VIII. were nearly one hundred and fifty.
As to their lands and estates, in their later history they were sometimes farmed out at mere annual rents with but small control from the religious, so that they would differ but little from any ordinary landed property. But this was the exception, and unknown in the earlier centuries of their existence.
The Gilbertine houses had canons attached to them with the avowed object of looking after the temporal affairs of the nuns, and in their elaborate statutes there are the fullest details as to the management of the granges by the lay-brothers, as lately set forth in English in Miss Graham’s interesting book on this Order. To most of the older Benedictine nunneries, as well as to the two large houses of Nuneaton and Amesbury, dependencies of Fontevrault, special officials were attached to superintend the tenants.
Nevertheless, the abbess or prioress, if manors pertained to the house, had all the privileges and responsibilities attached to the position, notwithstanding her sex, and was the lady of the manor. The abbesses of Barking, Nunnaminster, Shaftesbury, and Wilton, held of the king an entire barony, and were actually summoned for a time toparliament as barons. Now and again the convents had for their superiors ladies who were as remarkable for their zeal in temporal as in spiritual matters. In the chartulary of the Hampshire abbey of Wherwell, at the British Museum, is an interesting and beautiful account of “the blessed mother, the abbess Euphemia”, who ruled the house from 1226 until her death in 1257. The following extracts of part of the story of her rule, written by an inmate of the house shortly after her death, show the thoroughness of her administration in temporal matters, leaving out the account of her rebuilding most of the conventual buildings on improved sanitary lines, and planting and draining the precincts, and doubling the number of the sisters:
“Euphemia, notwithstanding all her attention to spiritual affairs, and the good of the actual monastery, so conducted herself with regard to exterior affairs, that she seemed to have the spirit of a man rather than a woman. The court of the abbey manor, owing to the useless mass of squalid buildings, and the nearness of the kitchen to the granary and old hall, was in much danger of fire; whilst the confined area and the amount of animal refuse was a cause of offence both to the feet and nostrils of those who had occasion to pass through. The Mother Euphemia, realising that the Lord had called her to the rule, not that she might live at ease, but that she might, with due care and dispatch, uproot, and destroy, and dissipate allthat was noxious, and establish and erect that which would be useful, demolished the whole of these buildings, levelled the court, and erected a new hall of suitable size and height. She also built a new mill some distance from the hall, and constructed it with great care, in order that more work than formerly might be done therein for the service of the house. She surrounded the court with a wall and the necessary buildings, and round it she made gardens and vineyards and shrubberies in places that were formerly useless and barren, and which now became both serviceable and pleasant. The manor house of Middleton, which was close to a public thoroughfare, and was further disfigured by old and crumbling buildings, she moved to another site, where she erected permanent strong buildings and a farmhouse on the bank of the river. She also set to work in the same way at Tufton, in order that the buildings of both the manor houses in that neighbourhood might be of greater service and more secure against the danger of fire.”
A recently published volume on Wroxall Priory, Warwickshire, shows how admirably that convent managed the affairs of the manor. The tenants dined with the prioress at Christmas.