"Here I am
Riding upon a black ram"——
Alas, that the rest must be silence! The Spectator, greatly daring, gives it in full; but that was as far back as November 1st, 1714. A like custom ruled the Manor of Kilmersdon, in Somerset, where the doggerel, if briefer and blunter, is at least equally gross. And here one must refer to the jus primæ noctis, that lewd historic jest which, in England at any rate, was ever a sheer delusion. True that on the marriage of a villein's daughter a fine was paid to the lord, but this was not to spare her blushes, but as compensation to him for the loss of her services—inasmuch as she took the domicile of her husband. Nay, the custom of the manor usually made for morality. There was a fine called child-wit exacted on the birth of an illegitimate child, sometimes from the infant's father, or, again, from the father of its mother. Nay, in one or two places the unlucky lover forfeited all his goods and chattels. On the other hand a curious privilege attached to an oak in Knoll Wood in the Manor of Terley in Staffordshire: "In case oath were made that the bastard was got within the umbrage or reach of its boughs," neither spiritual nor temporal power had ought to say, and the man got off scot free.
The curious tenacity of the manorial custom is well shown in the case of Pomber in Hampshire: the Annual Court, in accordance with immemorial usage, must be held in the open air, but the inconvenience of this was obviated by an immediate adjournment of the proceedings to the nearest tavern. The records were not kept on parchment, but "on a piece of wood called a tally, about three feet long and an inch and a half square, furnished every day by the steward." In time these strange muniments became worm-eaten and illegible; and, as occupying much needed room, were thrown to the flames by the dozen. (It will be remembered that the old Houses of Parliament were set on fire and destroyed on the burning of the exchequer tallies, October 1834.) Some of the survivors were produced as evidence in a case heard at Winchester, which fact provoked "a counsellor on the opposite side of the question" to dub it "a wooden cause." The obvious retort—that his was a wooden joke—seems lacking; but possibly this gem of legal humour emanated from the Bench: how often one has seen its like!
Still stranger was the Lawless Court of the Honour of Raleigh: it was held in the darkness of cockcrow; the steward and the suitors (i.e., those bound to attend the Court) mumbled their words in scarce audible fashion; candles, pens, ink, were all forbidden; for, as the authorities vaguely put it, "they supply that office with a coal." To ensure a punctual attendance, the suitor "forfeits to his lord double his rent every hour he is absent." The learned Camden affirms it was all to punish the aboriginal tenants for a conspiracy hatched in the darkness of the night; again he sees in it a remnant of an old Teutonic custom; and in the end you suspect that he knows as little as yourself.
Then there was the white bull which the tenants of the monks of Bury St Edmunds were bound by their leases to provide, that childless women might present it to the shrine of the martyred king of East Anglia; there was the fine called "thistletake," which the owner of beasts crossing the common, and snatching at the "symbol dear," must pay to the lord of the Manor of Halton; there are the "three clove-gillieflowers" which the tenants of Hame in Surrey shall render at the King's coronation; there are all sorts of minute details as to house-bote and fire-bote, and common of piscary and turbary. One more custom and we have done. In the time of Richard the Lion-heart, Randal Blundeville, Earl of Chester, was on one occasion sore pressed by the Flintshire Welsh. He summoned to his aid his constable of Cheshire, one Roger Lacy, "for his fierceness surnamed Hell." It was fair-time at Chester, and Roger, putting himself at the head of the motley crowd marched off to his relief. The Welsh heard, saw, and bolted, and the grateful earl there and then promulgated a charter granting to Roger and his heirs for ever, "power over all fiddlers, lechers, light ladies (the charter has a briefer and stronger term), and cobblers in Chester." Under Henry VII. we find the then grantee exacting from the minstrels (inter alia) "four flagons of wine and a lance," whilst each of the aforesaid ladies must pay fourpence on the feast of St John the Baptist. Under Elizabeth, various acts were aimed at rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, but always with a saving provision as to this Chester jurisdiction, and in later times the Vagrant Act (17 George II., cap. 5) had a like reservation.
DEODANDS
At one time or other you have looked, one supposes, into that huge collection of curiosities and horrors known as the State Trials. You may possibly have noted the form of indictment in the murder cases; and if so, one odd detail must have impressed you. Having set forth the weapon used by the murderer, the document invariably goes on to estimate its money value: for, having been instrumental in taking human life, it was forfeit to the Crown, and it or its price had to be duly accounted for. It was called a Deodand, but the name was applied to many things besides arms used with malice aforethought. Thus, a man died by misadventure: then was the material cause active or passive? For instance, his end might come because a tree fell on him, or because he fell from a tree, in either case the wood was a deodand, and so forfeited. The name is from Deo dandum—a thing that must be offered to God, and this because in early mediæval times the Church or the poor had the ultimate benefit.