chattels by will.[1] On the whole it must be admitted that his was no servile tenure in the ordinary as distinguished from the legal sense of the term, but rather ‘customary freehold,’ although he had lost legal protection in the king’s courts.[2]
Another advantage the Ingoldmells villein had was having the ‘court of Ingoldinells’ close at hand. Here he could recover debts and damages for trespasses, and could enforce agreements. Here he could bring his action for land ‘in the nature of an assize mort d’ancestor,’ or of ‘novel disseisin.’ Here land was alienated by ‘surrender’ and ‘admittance,’ and leased by licence of the court. Here matters of importance to the community were regulated and decided. Here too offenders against the criminal law were punished. And the judgments delivered were, not those of the lord or his steward, but of the court,[3] composed of villeins as well as freemen. Altogether, however unprotected the villein might be under the common law against his lord, he was by no means dependent upon his mere caprice, but was ruled in accordance with the customs of the manor defined by the tenants themselves. In fact the lord was a constitutional ruler,[4] and the villeins, as well as the freemen, had a real share in the system of self-government which prevailed. It must, too, in those rough and turbulent times, have been a considerable advantage to the villein to be under the protection of a great and powerful lord, such the earl of Lincoln, or later the duke of Lancaster. I think it will be admitted that the Ingoldmells villein was neither down-trodden, wretched, nor miserable, as by some accounts were villeins elsewhere. The contemporary opinion of his condition comes out clearly when we find a freeman actually proving that his wife was a nief, contrary to the assertion of the defendant that she was a free woman, when all he could gain thereby was four acres of bond land.[5] There is abundant evidence that some villeins were in the fifteenth century becoming well-to-do and prosperous. A glance at the Ministers’ Accounts[6] for 1421–2 will show this. There we find William Thory, Simon Bailly, William Skegnes, and others purchasing considerable quantities of freehold land. And I am able to bring forward a still more remarkable case. Robert Grynne,[7] a ‘bond tenant
- ↑ Pp. 191 n., 274.
- ↑ Villainage, p. 220.
- ↑ Pp. 56 and 256.
- ↑ Villainage, p. 396.
- ↑ P. 111.
- ↑ Duchy of Lancaster, Ministers' Accts., Bundle 243, no. 3913.
- ↑ Grenne or Grene.
