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= Manors = | = Manors = | ||
<br>Where the owner of a property held an administrative court for his tenants, a ‘court baron’, then the property was a manor. A manor rarely coincided exactly with a township or parish and there was great diversity in size and operation. The large parish of Cottenham in Cambridgeshire included six different manors, whereas the manor of Wakefield covered a hundred and fifty square miles.<br>The estate of a large landowner as described above might include several manors as well as any freehold properties with tenants for which the owner held no court. On the other hand a small estate might consist of one manor, with the lord living in the manor house and farming the home farm himself.<br>The lands which the lord farmed directly and which were not leased out were called the demesne lands. By the seventeenth century the majority of manors were farmed out for a fixed rent. In these cases the bailiff became the farmer and took the risks and the profit. The ‘farm’ was not always an agricultural unit but could equally be a group of town houses, such as with the Bishop of Ely’s Manor of Holborn in London. | <br>Where the owner of a property held an administrative court for his tenants, a ‘court baron’, then the property was a manor. A manor rarely coincided exactly with a township or parish and there was great diversity in size and operation. The large parish of Cottenham in Cambridgeshire included six different manors, whereas the manor of Wakefield covered a hundred and fifty square miles.<br>The estate of a large landowner as described above might include several manors as well as any freehold properties with tenants for which the owner held no court. On the other hand a small estate might consist of one manor, with the lord living in the manor house and farming the home farm himself.<br>The lands which the lord farmed directly and which were not leased out were called the demesne lands. By the seventeenth century the majority of manors were farmed out for a fixed rent. In these cases the bailiff became the farmer and took the risks and the profit. The ‘farm’ was not always an agricultural unit but could equally be a group of town houses, such as with the Bishop of Ely’s Manor of Holborn in London. | ||
=== The court baron === | |||
Even if all the lands were leased out, the right to hold the manor court was kept firmly in the hands of the lord of the manor. His steward then had no managerial responsibilities on the estate but would run the court. For that he would need to be a lawyer. The court book and any official copies made from it, except for ten years in the Commonwealth, will be in Latin until 25 March 1733, but the other court records will probably be in English. Many later court books (i.e. after 1660) have contemporary indexes.<br>Where there is a court baron and the descent of copyhold land to be seen to, the books may continue until this form of land tenure was abolished in 1922. In that year all properties that were then copyhold were made into freeholds. | |||
=== <br>Enfranchisement === | |||
Many courts had disappeared long before 1922 because it had been held at least since the seventeenth century that copyhold could not be newly created. Once there was a change of tenure, from copyhold to leasehold or to freehold, then the copyhold was extinguished, the land was ‘enfranchised’, and it could not be copyhold again.<br>Copyholders had paid a heavy entry fine and then a nominal annual rent. This, from the sixteenth century, the landlord (the lord of the manor) if he could, had steadily replaced with the more lucrative leasehold.<br>Agreements between landlords and their tenants enfranchising copyhold lands were, from 1841, assisted by special Copyhold Commissioners and their records and those of the compensation which was agreed and paid following the 1922 Act are in The National Archives. | |||
=== <br>Records of Courts Baron === | |||
As mentioned above, estate and manorial records are very similar. They may both contain the valuable surveys there described. However, the manor had, in addition, the records of the manorial court. These may be quite voluminous and survive from much earlier periods than most estate records.<br>The court baron recorded four broad categories of business: sales and purchases, inheritances, mortgages, and rentals.<br>• '''Sales and purchases'''. A sale or purchase was called a surrender and the purchasers were admitted to ‘the use and behoof (i.e. benefit) of’ the property. | |||
• '''Inheritances'''. The copyholders were the ‘customary tenants’ of the lord of the manor, and the customs of the manor might allow for holdings to be inherited or passed from one generation to the next in a number of different ways.<br>When a copyholder died, the heirs had to report the death to the court within a year and a day. Failure to do so could, at least in theory, lead to the property being forfeited. If the copyholder had left a will, this was usually produced when the death was reported. Whether or not there was a will, the heirs or devisees (the recipients under the will) had to ‘pray to be admitted’ to the property as tenants. In a few rare cases, such requests were not granted. Some courts recorded the wills in full, some merely mentioned their production.<br>Many copyholders were allowed to devise (or bequeath) their lands to the ‘uses’ (i.e. the purposes) specified in their wills. The larger holders would, if possible, get this power confirmed in their lifetimes by surrendering their land to the lord for the uses specified in their wills.<br>A woman could be a customary tenant if she inherited land as a widow or spinster. If she married, her property became her husband’s, but the court would not normally allow him to do anything with it without her agreement, she being examined separately for that purpose.<br>• '''Mortgages'''. Many entries on the court books relate to mortgages and the disputes which arose from them, but the complex transactions are often extremely difficult to understand. For a simple mortgage the copyholder surrendered his property to the use of the mortgagee, who was admitted as the customary tenant, subject to the proviso that the capital sum and interest was paid in the year, otherwise the surrender was void. | • '''Inheritances'''. The copyholders were the ‘customary tenants’ of the lord of the manor, and the customs of the manor might allow for holdings to be inherited or passed from one generation to the next in a number of different ways.<br>When a copyholder died, the heirs had to report the death to the court within a year and a day. Failure to do so could, at least in theory, lead to the property being forfeited. If the copyholder had left a will, this was usually produced when the death was reported. Whether or not there was a will, the heirs or devisees (the recipients under the will) had to ‘pray to be admitted’ to the property as tenants. In a few rare cases, such requests were not granted. Some courts recorded the wills in full, some merely mentioned their production.<br>Many copyholders were allowed to devise (or bequeath) their lands to the ‘uses’ (i.e. the purposes) specified in their wills. The larger holders would, if possible, get this power confirmed in their lifetimes by surrendering their land to the lord for the uses specified in their wills.<br>A woman could be a customary tenant if she inherited land as a widow or spinster. If she married, her property became her husband’s, but the court would not normally allow him to do anything with it without her agreement, she being examined separately for that purpose.<br>• '''Mortgages'''. Many entries on the court books relate to mortgages and the disputes which arose from them, but the complex transactions are often extremely difficult to understand. For a simple mortgage the copyholder surrendered his property to the use of the mortgagee, who was admitted as the customary tenant, subject to the proviso that the capital sum and interest was paid in the year, otherwise the surrender was void. | ||
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=== Bibliography === | === Bibliography === | ||
For further details see Peter Park, ''My ancestors were manorial tenants: how can I find out more about them?'' (London: Society of Genealogists, 1994) [FHL book 942 D27]; Mary Ellis, ''Using Manorial Records'' (Kew, Surrey: Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 1994) [FHL book 942 7JJ] and D. Stuart, ''Manorial records: an introduction to their transcription and translation'' (Chichester, England: Phillimore, 1992) [not in FHL]. See also the article [[ | For further details see Peter Park, ''My ancestors were manorial tenants: how can I find out more about them?'' (London: Society of Genealogists, 1994) [FHL book 942 D27]; Mary Ellis, ''Using Manorial Records'' (Kew, Surrey: Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 1994) [FHL book 942 7JJ] and D. Stuart, ''Manorial records: an introduction to their transcription and translation'' (Chichester, England: Phillimore, 1992) [not in FHL]. See also the article [[English Manorial Court Records as a Source for Eighteenth- and Nineteenth Century Families]].<br> | ||
= Rates and Taxes<br> = | = Rates and Taxes<br> = | ||