A few words must be given to the legal theories of the 15th century on the manor court. It would seem to have become the law that to the existence of the manor two courts were necessary—a court customary for customary tenants, and a court baron for free tenants. In the court customary the lord’s steward is the judge; in the court baron the freeholders are the judges. If the freeholders in the manor diminish to less than two in number the court baron cannot be held, and the manor perishes. Nor can it be revived by the grant of new freehold tenures, because under the statute of Quia Emptores such new freeholders would hold not of the lord of the manor, but of his lord. The customary tenants and the court customary may survive, but the manor is only a reputed manor. Of the 13th century all this is untrue, but even at that date the existence of free tenants was in a measure essential to the existence of the manor court. If there were none the jurisdiction of the court over free tenants of course collapsed; but in addition to this the lord also lost his power of exercising the highest criminal franchises, even if he otherwise possessed them; he could, for instance, no longer hang a murderer on his own gallows. Perhaps it may be said that to the exercise of the feudal power and of the royal franchises the presence of free tenants was necessary. But it is clear that no such condition was necessary to the existence of the manor.
Apart from the change in the court of the manor, the most important thread in its history is the process which converted the villein into the copyholder. Here again the subject is imperfectly explored, and part of it is still subject to controversy. In the strict view of contemporary lawyers the holding of the villein tenant of the 13th century was at the will of the lord, and the king’s courts of law would not protect him in his possession. If, however, the villein were a tenant on the king’s ancient demesne his condition was improved. The writs of monstraverunt and the little writ of right close protected him from the improper exaction of services and from ejection by the lord. But in ordinary manors there was no such immunity. That ejection was common cannot be believed, but it was legally possible; and it was not until the well-known decision of Danby, C. J., and Bryan, C. J., in 7 Edw. IV., that the courts of law would entertain an action of trespass brought against his lord by a customary tenant. From that date the courts, both of law and equity, begin to intervene; and the records of the Courts of Star Chamber and Requests show that in the Tudor period equitable suits brought by tenants against their lords are not infrequent. Side by side with the alteration in the legal condition of the manor there went on an economic change. The labour rents and other services slowly disappeared, and were replaced by money payments. The field divisions gave way before inclosures, effected sometimes by the lords and sometimes by the tenants. Change in legal and agricultural practice went on side by side, and finally the manor ceased to be an important social form, and became only a peculiar form of land tenure and the abode of antiquarian curiosities.
See G. L. von Maurer, Einleitung in die Geschichte der Hof-, Mark-, Dorf- und Stadtverfassung in Deutschland (Erlangen, 1856); G. Nasse, Zur Geschichte der mittelälterlichen Feldgemeinschaft in England (Bonn, 1869); H. S. Maine, Village Communities in the East and West (Cambridge, 1872); F. Seebohm, The English Village Community (1883); W. J. Ashley, English Economic History, pts. i. ii. (1888-1893); F. W. Maitland, Select Pleas in Manorial Courts (London, Selden Society, 1888); P. Vinogradoff, Villainage in England (Cambridge, 1892); The Growth of the Manor (1905) and English Society in the 11th Century (1908); A. Meitzen, Siedelung und Agrarwesen der Westgermanen und Ostgermanen (Berlin, 1896); W. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce (Cambridge, 1896); F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, History of English Law (Cambridge, 1896); F. W. Maitland, Doomsday Book and Beyond (Cambridge, 1897); and C. M. Andrews, The Old English Manor (1892).
(C. G. Cr.)
MANOR-HOUSE (Lat. manerium; Fr. manoir), in architecture, the name given to the dwelling-house of the lord of the manor. The manor-house was generally arranged for defence against robbers and thieves and was often surrounded by a moat with drawbridge, but was not provided with a keep or with towers or lofty curtain walls so as to stand a siege. The early buildings were comparatively small, square in plan, comprising a hall with one or two adjacent chambers; at a later period wings were added, thus forming three sides of a quadrangle, like the house designed by John Thorpe as his residence, the plan of which is among his drawings in the Soane Museum. One of the most ancient examples is the manor-house built by Richard Cœur de Lion at Southampton as a rendezvous when he was about to cross into France. This consisted of a hall and chapel on the first floor, with cellars on the ground floor; the walls of this structure, with the chimney-piece, are still in existence. The distinction between the “manor-house” and “castle” is not always very clearly defined; in France such buildings as the castles of Aydon (Northumberland) and of Stokesay (Shropshire) would be regarded as manor-houses in that they were built as country houses and not as fortresses, like Coucy and Pierrefonds; some of the smaller castles in France were, in the 16th century, transformed into manor-houses by the introduction of windows on the second floors of their towers and the partial destruction of their curtain walls, as in the manor-houses of Sedières (Corrèze), Nantouillet and Compiègne; and in the same century, as at Chenonceaux, Blois and Chambord, though angle towers and machicolated parapets still formed part of the design, they were considered to be purely decorative features. The same is found in England; thus in Thornbury and Hurstmonceaux castles, and in Cowdray House, the fortifications were more for show than for use. There is an interesting example of a French manor-house near Dieppe, known as the Manoir-d’Ango, built in 1525, of which a great portion still exists, where the proprietor Ango received François I., so that it must have been of considerable size.
In England the principal examples of which remains exist are the manor-houses of Appleton, Berkshire, with a moat; King John’s house at Warnford (Hampshire); Boothby Ragnell, Lincolnshire, with traces of moat; Godmersham, Kent; Little Wenham Hall, Suffolk, built partly in brick and flint, and one of the earliest in which the bricks, probably imported from Flanders, are found; Charney Hall, Berkshire (T-shaped in plan in two storeys); Longthorpe House, near Peterborough; Stokesay, Shropshire, already referred to; Cottesford, Oxfordshire; Woodcraft, Northamptonshire; Acton Burnell, Shropshire; Old Soar, Plaxtol, Kent, in two storeys, the ground storey vaulted and used as cellar and storehouse, and the upper floor with hall, solar and chapel. The foundation of all these dates from the 13th century. Ightham Mote, Kent, portions of which, with the moat, date from the 14th century, is one of the best preserved manor-houses; then follow Norborough Hall, Northamptonshire; Creslow manor-house, Bucks, with moat; Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire; the Court Lodge, Great Chart, Kent; Stanton St Quentin, Great Chalfield, and South Wraxhall, all in Wilts; Meare manor-house, Somerset; Ockwell, Berks; Kingfield manor-house, Derbyshire; Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire; Stoke Albany, Northamptonshire; and, in the 16th century, Large Marney Hall, Essex (1520); Sutton Place, Surrey (1530); the Vyne, Hampshire, already influenced by the first Renaissance. In the 17th and 18th centuries the manor-house is generally rectangular in plan, and, though well and solidly built, would seem to have been erected more with a view to internal comfort than to exterior embellishments. There is one other type of manor-house, which partakes of the character of the castle in its design, and takes the form of a tower, rectangular or square, with angle turrets and in several storeys; in France it is represented by the manor-houses of St Medard near Bordeaux and Camarsae (Dordogne), and in England by Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire and Middleton Tower, Norfolk, both being in brick.
(R. P. S.)
MANRESA, a town of north-eastern Spain, in the province of Barcelona, on the river Cardoner and the Barcelona-Lérida railway. Pop. (1900), 23,252. Manresa is the chief town of the highlands watered by the Cardoner and upper Llobregat, which meet below the town, and are also connected by a canal 18 m. long. Two bridges, one built of stone and dating from the Roman period, the other constructed of iron in 1804, unite the older and larger part of Manresa with the modern suburbs on the right bank of the river. The principal buildings are the collegiate church of Santa Maria de la Séo, the Dominican monastery, and the church of San Ignazio, built over the cavern (cueva santa) where Ignatius de Loyola spent most of the year 1522 in penitentiary exercises and the composition of his Exercitia spiritualia. Santa Maria is a fine example of Spanish Gothic, and consists, like many Catalan churches, of nave and chancel, aisles and ambulatory, without transepts. One of its chief treasures is an exquisite 15th-century Florentine altar-frontal, preserved in the sacristy. The Dominican monastery, adjoining the cueva santa, commands a magnificent view of the Montserrat (q.v.), and is used for the accommodation of the pilgrims who yearly visit the cavern in thousands. Manresa has important iron-foundries and manufactures of woollen, cotton and linen goods, ribbons, hats, paper, soap, chemicals, spirits and flour. Building-stone is quarried near the town.