It was to meet this difficulty, and to check the prevailing sub-division of land--_sub-infeudation_ men called it then--that the statute of _Quia Emptores_ was passed in the eighteenth year of King Edward I. [A.D. 1290]. The result of all the sub-division that been going on had been that the number of what we now call _landed estates_ had largely increased, each of them administered on the model of the larger _fiefs_ originally granted to the tenants _in capite_. There was a capital mansion in which the _lord_ resided, or was supposed to reside, and sub-tenants holding their land under the lord, and paying to him periodically certain small money rents and rendering him certain _services_. The _estate_ comprehended the capital mansion with its appurtenances and the domain lands in the lord's occupation, the common lands over which the tenants had certain common rights, and the lands in the occupation of the tenants, which they farmed with more or less freedom for their own behoof,--the whole constituting a manor whose owner was the lord. At certain intervals the tenants were bound to appear before their lord and give account of themselves; bound, that is, to show cause why they had not performed their _services_; bound to pay their quit rents, whether in money or kind; bound to go through a great deal of queer business; but above all, as far as our present purpose is concerned, _to do fealty_ to the lord of the manor in every case where the small patches of land had changed hands, and pay a fine for entering upon land acquired by the various forms of alienation or by inheritance. In some manors, if a tenant died the lord laid claim to some of his live stock as a _heriot_, which was forthwith seized by the bailiff of the manor; and in all manors, if a man died without heirs, his land _escheated_ to the lord of the manor; that is, it came back to the lord who _in theory_ was the owner of the soil.
These periodical meetings at which all this business and a great deal else was transacted were called the _Courts_ of the Manor, and the Records of these Courts were kept with exceeding and most jealous scrupulousness; they were invariably drawn up in Latin, according to a strictly legal form, and were inscribed on long _rolls_ of parchment, and are known as Manor Court Rolls. This is not the time to say much more about the Court Rolls. They are not very easy reading--they require a somewhat long apprenticeship before they can be readily deciphered; but when one has once become familiar with them, they afford the student some very curious and unexpected information from time to time, though it must be allowed that you have to do a good deal of digging for every nugget that you find.
Observe, however, this--that it is not far from the truth to say that in East Anglia--for I will not travel out of my own province--every tiller of the soil who occupied a plot of land, however small, was sure to be a tenant under some lord of the manor; when he died _a record of his death was entered upon the_ _Court Rolls of the Manor_; the name of his successor was inscribed; the amount of fine set down which his heir paid for entering upon his inheritance; and if he died _without heirs_ the fact was noticed, the lands which he had held being forfeited, or _escheating_, as it was called, to the lord.
Thus the Court Rolls of a manor of the fourteenth century--for before the statute _Quia Emptores_ I suspect that they were kept with much less regularity and much less care than they were afterwards--are practically the _registers of the deaths_ of all occupiers of land within the manor; and, as every householder was an occupier of land, the death of every householder may be said to be inscribed upon the Rolls.
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Taken together, then, we have in the Diocesan Institution Books, on the one hand, and in the Court Rolls, on the other, two sources of information which--as far as they go--furnish us with a mass of evidence absolutely irrefragable with regard to the mortality of clergy and laity at any period during the fourteenth century. I say "as far as they go," for it might happen that a country benefice--and still more frequently that a town benefice--had been so cruelly pillaged by a religious house, that little or nothing remained to support the wretched parson, and that no one could be found who would accept the cure. Then the cure would remain vacant for years. Where this happened the death of the previous incumbent would not appear on the Records for years after it had occurred, nor would any notice be taken of the long vacancy when the next parson was instituted. In a period of dreadful mortality, if the parsons died off in large numbers, it would be inevitable that the impoverished livings would "go a begging." It might be difficult to get the most valuable pieces of preferment filled--it would be impossible to fill such as could not offer a bare maintenance. Hence the Institution Books can only be accepted as giving a part of the evidence with regard to the clerical mortality. However startling the number of deaths of clergy within a certain area during a given period may appear to be, they certainly will not represent the whole number--only the number of such incumbents as were forthwith replaced by their successors; and, taking one year with another, it is fair to say that within any diocese the _larger the number of institutions_ recorded in a given time, the _more incomplete_ will be the record of the deaths among the clergy during that time. When there are more men than places the places are soon filled. When there are more places than men there must needs be vacancies--square holes and round ones.
So much for the Institution Books. With regard to the Court Rolls, there the evidence is even much less exhaustive; for here we have the registers of the deaths of the landholders within the manor, great and small--_i.e._, of the heads of families; but, except in rare instances, we have no notice of any other member of the household, or of what happened to them. A man's whole household may have been swept off--young and old, babe and suckling, sister and brother, and aged mother, and wife, and children, and servant, and friend--every soul of them involved in one hideous, horrible calamity. The steward of the manor was not concerned with any but the head of the house--the tenant of the manor. Was he missing? Then, who was his heir? Any sons? Dead of the plague! Brothers? Dead of the plague! Wife? Dead of the plague! Children? Kinsfolk? All gone! Their blackening carcases huddled in sweltering masses of putrefaction in the wretched hovels, while the pitiless July sun blazed overhead, "Calmer than clock-work, and not caring!"
The steward made his entry of one fact only. Thus:--
"The Jurors do present that Simon Must died seized of a Messuage and 4 acres of land in Stradset, and that he has no heir. Therefore it is fitting that the aforesaid land be taken into the hands of the lord."
Also that Matilda Stile... was she married or single, widow or mother or maid? What cared the precise man of business on that 24th of July, 1349, as his pen moved over the parchment?...--"Matilda Stile died seized of one acre and one rood of land held in Villenage. Therefore it is fitting that the aforesaid land be taken into the hands of the lord until such time as the heir may appear in court."