Tenants’ Duties.
‘Every tenant of the three vills aforesaid (Alderton, Debden, and Loughton) shall come with his team to the boon-ploughing twice in winter. Every tenant of five acres shall come and harrow twice in Lent, if he has horses, and shall have his food. Every tenant of 10 acres, whether he has horses or not, shall come in like manner. So all shall come to mow, to lift hay, to weed, and to gather nuts. If, owing to bad weather, they have to give up work, they shall return on the morrow to finish. If any man’s daughter is seduced while in his house, her father shall pay a fine to the lord. No one may marry his daughter without the lord’s licence. No one may sell horse or ox, except such as he himself has bought, without showing it to the bailiff. No one may sell a tree. The lord may appoint anyone to be his reeve, and can take tallage (tax) at his will. Everyone belonging to Luketune or Tipeden shall bind the oats he reaps without having food found him; they of Alwartune shall bind only those which they reap at the great boon-day; and every brewer of that vill owes an offering of beer from each brewing. William de Broc and Kathale, who are from Alwartune, owe carrying service, and it should be known that the men of each vill engaged in harrowing, are to have in the field a handful of oats; but if they carry it away they are liable to punishment.’ Just imagine what it must have been for the steward who had to exact, and the tenant who had to remember to render these services. Others there were whose services were still more complicated; and if their days were spent in working, their nights must have been passed, one would think, in a sleepless endeavour to remember where and how the next day was to be employed. Certain days, called boon-days, were supposed to be given to the lord at his request, and not under compulsion—and these again were divided into ‘dry’ and ‘beery,’ according to whether beer was provided or not. Acorn-gathering, weeding, harrowing, hay-carrying, and a host of other employments are specified. One tenant in Debden paid thirty feet of candle by way of rent—at least such appears to be the meaning of the mediæval Latin in which the service is mentioned.
Certain provisions relating to timber and carriage lived on. I have in my possession a licence, dated November 6, 1851, to cut down 20 pollards to use on the premises, and five ash trees to be sold, one-third of the proceeds to be paid to the lord ‘according to the custom of the manor,’ with a receipt for 19s. 4d. in the margin. And the tenant of Alderton, in 1832, still undertook to do two days’ carting yearly with a good team.
Social Life in the 13th Century.
You will ask me, perhaps, where and how all these people lived. It is probable that there were clusters of rude hovels round Debden Green, Loughton Hall, and Alderton Hall, and that the tillers of the soil dwelt there. Some few copyholders, if such they can be called, may have lived on their own small estates away from the villages. But the strip system of cultivation probably prevailed, though the traces of it in later times are very slight.
Before passing on, I must just mention that, by some curious accident, one or two Court-rolls of very early date have been preserved. 13th century rolls of that sort are rare—and this is dated 1270. The entries are brief and mainly concerned with land; but they tell us that one man insulted the official in the court; that another thievishly took of the lord’s corn in the lord’s barn; and that Walter Linge stole sheep all over the country and was seen at the lord’s fold; ‘and when the shepherds would take him, he fled from them.’