‘custom of the manor,’ and it seems to me reasonable to expect that where, as in Lincolnshire, there were, as far as is known, no servi towards whose condition he could be depressed, and many free sokemen, attending the same manor courts, serving on the same inquisitions, and sometimes connected[1] by marriage, and not the least likely to acquiesce in unjust or high-handed proceedings, the villein would be able to preserve some of his ancient freedom. And I cannot but think that the sturdy independence of the Lincolnshire man must also be taken into consideration, and that we can see traces thereof in the bold and on the whole successful assertion of his rights by the Ingoldmells villein. The fact that his lord lived at a distance may have been in his favour, as it prevented any personal interference with his ancient liberties, and made the lord content with money rents instead of labour services under servile conditions. But the best way to give a fair and impartial account of the condition and status of the Ingoldmells villein will, I think, be to set out his disabilities and advantages.
1. His disabilities were the well-known ones. First I must place his disability to bring an action against his lord in the king's courts. An appeal to these courts by a villein who had been wronged by his lord was of no avail, for they will not[2] interfere between the lord and his villein. It easy to see how liable to oppression by a bad, unjust, or grasping lord this rule of law rendered the villein, though there were some exceptions to this rule, for a villein may not be slain or maimed at pleasure, and the lord may not seize his wainage. Still in ordinary daily life under a decent lord the villein might live on, as he seems to have done at Ingoldmells, without experiencing any grievous wrong through this want of protection by the king's courts. Secondly I must put the exaction of merchet, a fine the villein had to pay for marrying his daughter. This might in some forms, and on some manors, be a most odious tax. But at Ingoldmells as a rule the payment was not large, and does not seem to have had anything degrading about it, and as early as the fifteenth century was actually called maritagium. The fine for incontinence naturally connects itself with the merchet, and was by no means so uncommon at Ingoldmells as one could wish.
Other disabilities were that the villein could not leave the
- ↑ Pp. 69, 135, 136 and 261.
- ↑ Hist. of Ormsby, p. 68.
