6. THE MONASTIC TENANTS
The division of the monastic revenues between the various obedientiaries for the support of the burdens of their special offices was fairly general, at least in the great religious houses. It was for the benefit of the house, inasmuch as it left a much smaller revenue to be dealt with by the royal exchequer at every vacancy. It served, also, at least one other good purpose. It brought many of the religious into contact with the tenants of the monastic estates and gave them more knowledge of their condition and mode of life; whilst the personal contact, which was possible in a small administration, was certainly for the mutual benefit of master and tenant. Since the prior, sacrist, almoner and other officials all had to look after the administration of the manors and farms assigned to their care, they had to have separate granges and manor-halls. In these they had to carry out their various duties, and meet their tenants on occasions, as was the case, for example, at Glastonbury, where the sacrist had all the tithes of Glastonbury, including West Pennard, to collect, and had his special tithe-barn, etc., for the purpose.
Two books, amongst others, The Rentalia et Custumaria of Glastonbury, published by the Somerset Record Society, and the Halmote Rolls of Durham, issued by the Surtees Society, enable any student who may desire to do so, to obtain a knowledge of the relations which existed between the monastic landlords and their tenants. At the great monastery of the West Country the tenure of the land was of all kinds, from the estates held under the obligation of so many knights’ fees, to the poor cottier with an acre or two. Some of the tenants had to find part of their rent in service, part in kind, part in payment. Thus, one had to find thirty salmon, “each as thick as a man’s fist at the tail,” for the use of the monastery; some had to find thousands of eels from Sedgemoor; others, again, so many measures of honey. Some of those who worked for the monastery or its estates had fixed wages, as, for example, the gardeners; others had to be content with what was given them.
Mr. Elton, in an appendix to the Glastonbury volume, has analysed the information to be found in its pages, and from this some items of interest may be given here. A cottier with five acres of arable land paid 4d. less one farthing for rent, and five hens as “kirkset” if he were married. From Michaelmas to Midsummer he was bound to do three days’ labour a week of farm work on the monastic lands, such as toiling on the fallows, winnowing corn, hedging, ditching, and fencing. During the rest of the year, that is, in the harvest time, he had to do five days’ work on the farm, and could be called upon to lend a hand in any kind of occupation, except loading and carting. Like the farmers, he had his allowance of one sheaf of corn for each acre he reaped, and a “laveroc,” or as much grass as he could gather on his hook, for every acre he mowed. Besides this general work he had to bear his share in looking after the vineyard at Glastonbury.
Take another example of tenure: one “Golliva of the lake,” held a three-acre tenement. It consisted of a croft of two acres and one acre in the common field. She made a small payment for this; and for extra work she had three sheaves, measured by a strap kept for the purpose. When she went haymaking she brought her own rake; she took her share in all harvest work, had to winnow a specified quantity of corn before Christmas, and did odd jobs of all kinds, such as carrying a writ for the abbot and driving cattle to Glastonbury.
The smaller cottagers were apparently well treated. A certain Alice, for example, had half an acre field for which she had to bring water to the reapers at the harvest and sharpen their sickles for them. On the whole, though work was plenty and the life no doubt hard, the lot of the Somerset labourer on the Glastonbury estate was not too unpleasant. Of amusements the only one named is the institution of Scot-ales, an entertainment which lasted two, or even three days. The lord of the manor might hold three in the year. On the first day, Saturday, the married men and youths came with their pennies and were served three times with ale. On the Sunday the husbands and their wives came; but if the youths came they had to pay another penny. On the Monday any of them could come if they had paid on the other days.
On the whole, the manors of the monastery may be said to have been worked as a co-operative farm. The reader of the accounts in this volume may learn of common meals, of breakfasts and luncheons and dinners being prepared ready for those who were at work on the common lands or on the masters’ farming operations. It appears that they met together in the great hall for a common Christmas entertainment. They furnished the great yule-log to burn at the dinner, and each one brought his dish and mug, with a napkin “if he wanted to eat off a cloth”; and still more curiously, his own contribution of firewood, that his portion of food might be properly cooked.
Of even greater interest is the picture of village life led by monastic tenants which is afforded by the Durham Halmote Rolls.
“It is hardly a figure of speech,” writes Mr. Booth in the preface of this volume, “to say we have (in these Rolls) village life photographed. The dry record of tenures is peopled by men and women who occupy them, whose acquaintance we make in these records under the various phases of village life. We see them 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 to the vill to consider matters which affected the common weal of 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 by-laws; 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.”
In fact, as the picture of mediæval village life among the tenants of the Durham monastery is displayed in the pages of these Halmote accounts, it would seem almost as if the reader were transported to some Utopia of Dreamland. Many of the points that in these days advanced politicians would desire to see introduced into the village communities of modern England in the way of improved sanitary and social conditions, and to relieve the deadly dulness of country life, were seen in full working order in Durham and Cumberland in pre-Reformation days. Local provisions for public health and general convenience are evidenced by the watchful vigilance of the village officials over the water supplies, the stringent measures taken in regard to springs and wells, to prevent the fouling of useful streams, as to the common places for washing clothes, and the regular times for emptying and cleansing ponds and milldams.
Labour, too, was lightened and the burdens of life eased by co-operation on an extensive scale. A common mill ground the corn of the tenants, and their flour was baked into bread at a common oven. A smith employed by the community worked at their will in a common forge, and common shepherds and herdsmen watched the sheep and cattle of the various tenants, when pastured on the fields common to the whole community. The pages of the volume, too, contain numerous instances of the kindly consideration extended to their tenants by the monastic proprietors, and the relation which existed between them was in reality rather that of rent-chargers than of absolute owners. In fact, as the editor of this interesting volume says: “Notwithstanding the rents, duties, and services and the fine paid on entering, the inferior tenants of the Prior had a beneficial interest in their holdings, which gave rise to a recognised system of tenant-right, which we may see growing into a customary right; the only limitation of the tenant’s right being inability, from poverty or other cause, to pay rent or perform the accustomed services.” And, it may be added, even when it was necessary for a tenant on these accounts to leave, provision was made with the new tenant to give the late owner shelter and a livelihood.
SENESCHAL JOHN WHITEWELL AND MOTHER
ILLUMINATOR OF ST. ALBANS
CHAPTER X
THE PAID SERVANTS OF THE MONASTERY
No account of the officials of a mediæval monastery would be complete without some notice of the assistants, other than the monks, who took so large a part in the administration. Incidentally something has already been said about the paid lay officers and servants; but their position requires that their place and work should be discussed somewhat more fully. They were all of them salaried servants; and frequently, if not generally, faithful, lifelong friends of the monks, whose interest in the well-being of the establishment with which they were connected was almost as keen and real as that of the brethren themselves. In some of the greater houses their number was very considerable, and even in small monasteries the records of the dissolution make it clear that there were, at least in most of them, a great number of such retainers. In many places the higher lay offices, such as steward, cook, etc., became in process of time, hereditary, and were much prized by the family in whose possession they were. It was also possible, of course, that by default of male heirs, the position might pass to the female line. Thus in one case the office of cook in a great Benedictine monastery was held by a woman in respect to her inheritance of the last holder. She became the ward of the superior, and he had thus a good deal to say to her marriage, by which she transmitted the office to her husband as her dower. Among the various paid officials the following were the most important.