Rents and Revenues
| Author | Christopher Jessel |
| Pages | 255-267 |
Chapter 14
Rents and Revenues
customs ... duties, reliefs, heriots, fines, sums of money, amerciaments, ... chief-rents, quit-rents, rentscharge, rents seck, rents of assize, fee farm rents, services, royalties
14.1 NATURE OF MANORIAL REVENUES
Some lords are still entitled to small sums of money, usually a few pence a year, payable at the manor court by freeholders and leaseholders. They are of little value, now normally worth less than the stamp on the letter that demands or pays them, and they are viewed as a curiosity. Formerly the manorial revenues were, next to the demesne, the most valued interest.
(27.2). Money features most prominently in those provisions of the Law of Property Act 1922 which abolished copyhold tenure.
The number of words used to describe payments shows how important they once were. Some words, such as custom, duty, fine, service and royalty have several meanings, which confuses understanding. Most, but not all, derive from the trinity of service, tenure and jurisdiction discussed in 5.1 and, as those three overlap, so do the nature of the payments.
Payments can be classified in several ways. The basic classification is between manorial or seigniorial dues or incidents (9.4–9.5), arising from custom and in theory either dating from or derived from the period before legal memory, on the one hand, and on the other conventional payments arising from agreements. The distinction can be blurred: in particular quitrents are regarded as customary even though the obligation to pay them derived from the commutation of services requiring work on the land. A custom (in this sense) can be a customary
1 See Blackstone, Sir William, Commentaries on the Laws of England II.3.x.
256 The Law of the Manor
payment and the Latin word consuetudo seems to have been used from Anglo-Saxon times for regular and ancient dues.
This should be distinguished from the modern usage of customs duty, which is a tax voted by Parliament for the Crown to collect payments from people importing items into the country. Internal customs in England disappeared long ago, if they ever existed. In France, internal customs existed until the Revolution and in Germany until the Zollverein was established in the years after 1819. Throughout Continental Europe many small lords could charge customs. Much of the law of customs is now governed by European law. Importation payments were claimed by the Crown as dues the king was accustomed to have but they were not customary in the sense discussed in 4.1. The issue was litigated under James I
Customary payments strictly so-called, which were simply a matter between the lord and an individual tenant, such as rents, should be distinguished from payments which were decided by the local court often as a mark of communal disapproval, such as an amerciament. A further distinction is between rentservices and rentcharges (14.5–14.6). There were also general payments such as tolls and duties which could be owed by anyone and only incidentally belonged to the manor. A duty is anything that is due. Tolls are related to charges for markets and other commercial activities and are considered in 15.1–
15.5.
14.2 COURT PAYMENTS
Fines (in one sense – see 14.4) and amerciaments are payments in the manor court. Fines are still payable in modern courts. They are sums of money either determined by the general law or fixed (within predetermined limits) by the judge or magistrate to put an end (latin finis) to the offence for which someone is charged.
Amerciaments are not so fixed. Although a manor court might charge a fine, an amerciament was more usual.
2 Bates’s Case (1606) Lane 22, 145 ER 267.
3 See Griesley’s Case (1587) 8 Co Rep 38a, 77 ER 530.
the judge or steward but by the jury or homage (in modern civil courts there is usually no jury). A suitor or tenant who did not attend court when he should, or who sold his holding without leave, or failed to repair his house or put up an unauthorised building, was in mercy. If he overstocked the common with his beasts, enclosed part of the waste, allowed weeds to grow on his strip, failed to clear a ditch or pond for which he was responsible, put up a dovecote without consent, cut the lord’s timber, or dug the lord’s minerals, he was in mercy. Some of these matters might also give rise to a forfeiture of his land but the usual procedure was less drastic. The matter was presented to the manor court and the homage (which consisted of his neighbours) fixed a suitable amerciament. Some became settled by custom, some were charged so often that they appear more like a licence fee than a penalty, for example for assarting the waste. Collecting amerciaments was a problem – many court records show unpaid sums carried forward from sitting to sitting and, of course, if a tenant failed to pay, he was again in mercy.
The money, if and when paid, belonged to the lord, and in well-controlled manors in the Middle Ages was a good source of income. Later it was less important, but as long as the manor court functioned the power to amerce was a source of social control. Often manorial discipline was exercised through amerciaments by the homage since a tenant’s neighbours were the ones who suffered from straying cattle, uncleared ditches and strips covered with thistles. Any jurisdiction of the manor court to fine or amerce which still remained was abolished by s 23 of the Administration of Justice Act 1977 since fixing a penalty is determining a legal proceeding. It is therefore now obsolete.
14.3 RELIEFS AND HERIOTS
Reliefs and heriots were death duties within the manor. Reliefs payable to the king by tenants in chief are considered in 7.3. Reliefs were sometimes payable for land held in knight service, but when the Tenures Abolition Act 1660, s 3 converted such tenure to socage such payments ceased. Section 5 of the Act specifically preserved reliefs where they already existed on the death of a tenant in socage. Such payments seem to have been rare but where lords were entitled to reliefs from free tenants they could continue to collect them from the incoming heir who succeeded on death. Scriven
4 Scriven, J, A Treatise on the Law of Copyholds (Butterworth & Co, 7th edn by Archibald
Brown, 1896) 243.
258 The Law of the Manor
Reliefs could also refer to payments from copyholders. The Copyhold Act 1894, s 94 defines rent as including reliefs and so they could be redeemed under that Act in the same way as...
To continue reading
Request your trial