Decline of Years
| Author | Christopher Jessel |
| Pages | 29-41 |
Chapter 3
Decline of Years
3.1 DECLINE OF THE MANOR
From its dominant position in the twelfth century the English manor gradually dissolved until the procedures under the Law of Property Act 1922 were completed, mostly by 1936, although some elements survived until 1950. The manor disappeared, as it had appeared, by reason of changes in agriculture and society, in which the use of the horse and the growth of market towns were important. In particular, the existence of the manor, as a separate jurisdiction with its own local customary laws, was inconsistent with the emergence of a common law for the whole country.
If the manor owed its existence to the eight-ox plough, when that plough went out of use it was at risk. Two heavy plough-horses can draw better than eight oxen; they can turn in the short space of a close and so they do not need long strips in the open field or uncultivated headlands at the end. A man who owns two horses does not need to share plough beasts with his neighbours.
Where cattle were retained they were more specialised. By the seventeenth century, in Wiltshire, for example, cattle were raised in the lush low valleys to produce milk which was then made into cheese. In contrast to the ‘cheese’ lands of the valleys was the ‘chalk’ of the uplands,
1 Langdon, J, Horses, Oxen and Technological Innovation (Cambridge University Press, 1986).
2 Bettey, JH, Wessex from AD 1000 (Longman, 1986) 126.
30 The Law of the Manor
These were moved over a period of weeks or months over the open fields to fertilise them in turn, and this was regulated by a strong manorial discipline which, for that reason, survived on the chalky uplands long after the independent farmers who kept cows for their milk in their closes on the cheese lands had been able to secure their freedom. This discipline was exercised not so much by some tyrannical lord as by the homage putting pressure on their fellows for the common good. But even on the chalk the horse replaced the ox and sheep were needed to replace the manure produced by cattle. As explained below the open fields and common wastes came to be inclosed.
Arable farming changed, adapting to a market economy and producing food as a cash crop. In the thirteenth century old towns expanded and new ones were founded. Most villages in the lowlands were less than seven miles from a market town and it became worthwhile to sell produce there. New crops were introduced, old ones grown on a larger scale and the open field system became uneconomic. Some people continued to live by the old rules as long as possible but few could weave their own clothes, build their own cottages or provide their own utensils. Everyone, even the humblest, depended on earning an income. If they could not do so from farming they went on the road and drifted to the towns where there was a growing need for labour.
Lordship became ownership and ceased to involve control of peasants who worked the demesne. Landowners could either run their own lands in hand as a home farm or they could put it ‘to farm’ to a lessee, who paid a contractual rent as part of a commercial bargain. The former villein holdings became copyhold, also returning a money rent, and many copyholds were bought up by gentlemen. The manorial tenures were functionally obsolete by the seventeenth century but they lingered on until the twentieth and, as this book shows, fragments remain.
3.2 POPULATION PRESSURE AND THE BLACK DEATH
The picture of the manor in 1.1–1.5 was set in the year 1189 because after that date it was no longer possible to create new manors (4.1), although sub-manors could be created out of manors until 1290. This situation resulted from one or possibly two Acts of Parliament of that year. Quia Emptores is discussed in 7.3 and Quo Warranto in 4.3. Quia Emptores, by prohibiting subinfeudation, prevented both the grant of new manors and the grant of new common manorial freeholds within manors after 1290. Quo Warranto prevented the recognition of new customs or customary tenures since 1189. Until 1894 it remained possible to divide a manor where the holder left two or more daughters to inherit as coparceners (8.3).
By 1290 the system was already under pressure because the population had expanded beyond safe limits. This was caused by, and itself contributed to, growing prosperity, trade and markets. People needed to eat, and the wealth meant that there was money to buy surplus food. There was a great demand for land but a limited supply. Lords, on the whole, did not sell, so rents soared, and the lords enjoyed wealth and power. Much waste land was converted to arable by the two approaches of approvement and assarting (7.11).
Woods were felled and marginal land that was not fit for arable was ploughed up. Old arable was overworked and exhausted. As the grazing waste was reduced there was less space to keep oxen and less manure for the larger areas of arable. Crop yields fell and famine threatened. In the early years of the fourteenth century there were several periods of disastrous weather (perhaps caused by a volcanic eruption) leading to crop failure. In 1348 the Black Death killed between a third and a half of the population.
The growing population led to a growing demand for land and growing power for the lords who controlled the land. They were able to exploit their power by extracting from the manor every possible advantage, but especially money by way of rents and other payments (14.2–14.6). The old ways had involved tenants, whether bond or free, providing services on or for the lord’s demesne. These services were of unequal value. Suppose there were two holdings each of which owed a day’s ploughing each week. One was held by a prosperous villein who could provide a full yoke of eight oxen or two plough horses, and a plough in good repair with a ploughman of 20 years’ experience. The other belonged to a poor widow who could only send two broken-down beasts and an old plough with a blunted share guided by her teenage son who could barely steer a straight furrow. Where services were taken the lord could not know from one day to the next what services he might get, which is no way to run a farming business. As such, lords tended where possible to commute services for rents and pay their own farmhands from the proceeds (and there were plenty of landless men ready to be hired) or even cease farming the demesne altogether and put it to lease (and there were others ready to take leases). As commerce developed there were more uses for money. In much the same way as the lords preferred rents, so the king ceased to demand military services in kind, preferring to rely on professional soldiers who could be paid from the taxes and seignioral dues collected from the lords...
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