[441] Rochester Cart. (Thorpe), 19 a: 'Dominus non debet aliquem operarium injuste et sine judicio a terra sua ejicere.' Ibid. 10, a: 'in crastino Sancti Martini non ponet eos (dominus) ad opera sine consensu eorundem.' Black Book of St. Augustine, Cotton MSS., Faustina, A. i. f. 185, d: '(Consuetudines villanorum de Plumsted) Villani de P. tenent quatuor juga et debent inde arare quatuor acras et seminare ... et debent metere in autumpno 8 acras de ivernagio vel 4 acras de alio blado.... Et debent falcare 2 acras prati.... Item debent duo averagia per annum a Plumsted ad Newenton et nihil debent averare ad tunc nisi res que sunt ad opus conventus et que poni debent super ripam.'
[442] Notebook of Bracton, pl. 1334: '... et consuetudo est quod uxores maritorum defunctorum habeant francum bancum suum de terris sokemannorum.' Rot. Hundr. i. 201, 202: 'habent et vendunt maritagia sokemannorum aliter quam deberent, quia in Kancia non est warda.'
[443] Cf. Elton, Tenures of Kent.
[444] Notebook of Bracton, pl. 1419: 'et ipsi veniunt et dicunt quid nunquam cartam illam fecit nec facere potuit quia uillanus fuit et terram suam defendidit per furcam et flagellum.'
[445] Seebohm, Village Community, 103; followed by Scrutton, Commons and Common Fields, 38; and Ashley, Economic History, i. 18.
[446] Maitland, Introduction to Manorial Rolls, lxix.
[447] Chandler, Court Rolls of Great Cressingham, p. 14: '20 solidi de toto Homagio quia recusaverunt preparare fenum domini. Debitum ponatur in respectum usque proximam curiam et interea scrutatur le Domesday.' A manorial extent is evidently meant. Comp. Domesday of St. Paul's.
[448] Ely Inq., Cotton MSS., Claudius, C. xi. 60, a: 'Anelipemen, Anelipewyman et coterellus manens super terram episcopi vel terram alicuius custumariorum suorum metet unam sellionem in autumpno ex consuetudine que vocatur luuebene.' Cp. 42, a, 'quilibet anlepiman et anlepiwyman et quilibet undersetle metet dimidiam acram bladi,' etc., and Ramsey, Cart. i. 50.—I have not been able to find a satisfactory etymological explanation of 'anelipeman'; but he seems a small tenant, and sometimes settled on the land of a villain.
[449] Of course in later times the test applied in drawing the line between freehold and baser tenure was much rather the mode of conveyance than anything else. The commutation into money rent of labour services due from a tenement 'held by copy of court roll' (a commutation which in some cases was not effected before the fifteenth century), did not convert the tenement into freehold; had it done so, there would have been no copyhold tenure at the present day. But I am here speaking of the thirteenth century when this 'conveyancing test' could not be readily applied, when the self-same ceremony might be regarded either as the feoffment by subinfeudation of a freehold tenant or the admittance of a customary tenant, there being neither charter on the one hand nor entry on a court roll on the other hand. Thus the nature of the services due from the tenement had to be considered, and, at least in general, a tenement which merely paid a money rent was deemed freehold.
[450] It should be observed that the word demesne (dominicum) is constantly used in two different senses, (a) the narrower sense in which it stands for the land directly occupied and cultivated by the lord or for his use, and excludes the land held by his villain tenants, and (b) the wider sense in which it includes these villain tenements. The first meaning is that which the word usually bears in manorial documents, in which the dominicum is contrasted with the villenagium or bondagium. But in legal pleadings and documents which state the doctrine of the common law and the king's courts the villain tenements are part of the lord's demesne, he is seised of them in his demesne (in dominico suo). This discrepancy between what I may call the manorial and the legal uses of the term deserves notice as an indication of the imperfect adjustment of law to fact. I shall use the term in its narrower sense.