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Inheritance Customs and Succession to Land in the Chiltern Hills in the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

David Roden
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Extract

Since G. C. Homans first published his accounts of inheritance customs in medieval England, there has been some revival of interest in this aspect of English social history. It has been found that arrangements were less rigid, and hence more varied, than once thought, while it is now clear that regional patterns can often be recognized only as broad generalizations — different practices were sometimes followed in close proximity, even within a single township. Recent work has concentrated on forms of partible inheritance, emphasizing apparent differences between the effects of this and impartible inheritance, and stressing the practical advantages of partibility. In comparison, there are few detailed studies of customs of single son inheritance as followed in a peasant community. The present paper is an attempt to reduce this gap by examining succession to property in the Chiltern Hills, an area of primogeniture, during the thirteenth and early fourteeenth centuries, that is, the period for which adequate documentary evidence is available before the widespread depopulation and social disruptions of the mid-fourteenth century. Chiltern custom was similar to the third of the three main forms of impartible descent outlined by Homans in that it “preserved the principle that a tenement ought to descend to only one son of the last holder, while allowing the holder himself to choose which one of his sons was to be heir.” Apart from the actual mechanism of inheritance and succession, considerable interest attaches to the practical implementation of Chiltern custom — how, in fact, descent of property was related to the general economic situation — and especially to an examination, in the Chiltern context, of the contention that partible inheritance tended to favour an increase in population whereas impartibility meant stability of population.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , November 1967 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1967

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References

1. Homans, G. C., “Partible Inheritance of Villagers' Holdings,” Econ. Hist. Rev., VIII (1937–1938), 48–56Google Scholar; Homans, G. C., English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1941)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. The work of H. E. Hallam is particularly significant: “Some Thirteenth-Century Censuses,” Econ. Hist. Rev., second series, X (1957–1958), 340–61Google Scholar; and “Population Density in the Medieval Fenland,” ibid., second series, XIV (1961-62), 71-81. R. H. Hilton has outlined the form of partible inheritance that was followed in part of Leicestershire in The Victoria History of the County of Leicester, II, ed. Hoskins, W. G. (London, 1954), 170Google Scholar. Kentish custom in so far as it influenced field systems has recently been discussed by Baker, A. R. H., “Open Fields and Partible Inheritance on a Kent Manor,” Econ. Hist. Rev., second series, XVII (1964–1965), 1–23Google Scholar.

3. Homans, , English Villagers, p. 129Google Scholar.

4. “Inheritance” is used in this paper to describe the descent of land customary in cases of intestacy, whereas “succession” refers to descent of property under any circumstances (either by inheritance or by an arrangement made before death).

5. For a more detailed account see Roden, David, “Studies in Chiltern Field Systems” (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1965), pp. 271–76Google Scholar.

6. For example, inheritance in the family of Robert atte Lee, a villein of King's Walden. BM, Additional Charter, 35774, Additional Roll, 35933. Ralph de Thikeney, a Codicote villein and eldest of the three sons of Bartholomew de Thikeney, inherited from his father about 1291. BM, Stowe MSS, 849, fols. 10, 10v, 20v, 21, 24, 30v; Roden, , “Studies in Chiltern Field Systems,” p. 166Google Scholar. At Missenden, the heir of John de la Westhall was his eldest son, Henry. See Jenkins, J. G. (ed.), The Cartulary of Missenden Abbey, Pt. 1 [Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society, Records Branch, Publications, II] (Aylesbury, 1939), p. 93, No. 97Google Scholar.

7. For example, at King's Walden. BM, Add. Ch., 35718.

8. For example, there are numerous cases concerning a dower third in feet of fines for the Buckinghamshire Chilterns. Hughes, M. W. (ed.), A Calendar of the Feet of Fines for the County of Buckingham, 7Google ScholarRichard I to 44 Henry III [Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society, Records Branch, Publications, IV] (Aylesbury, 1940)Google Scholar.

9. Buckinghamshire County Museum, C.A., St. Mathew 6E. III.

10. Hertfordshire Record Office, 40702, Ascension 7E. III. Mollond and Werkelond in Bramfield probably corresponded to the free and villein tenures of other Chiltern manors. For an explanation of these two terms, see Vinogradoff, Paul, Villainage in England (Oxford, 1892), pp. 183–87Google Scholar.

11. Roden, , “Studies in Chiltern Field Systems,” pp. 288–89Google Scholar.

12. This was Thomas le Driver. BM, Stowe MSS, 849, fol. 49.

13. Library of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, James MSS, 1.

14. Records Commission, Rotuli Hundredorum (London, 1818), II, 758aGoogle Scholar.

15. Ashford, L. J., The History of the Borough of High Wycombe from Its Origins to 1880 (London, 1960), p. 46Google Scholar. A particularly early form of will was the charter made for a Missenden widow naming her son as her heir at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Jenkins, , Cartulary of Missenden Abbey, Pt. 1, p. 167, No. 178Google Scholar.

16. This was clearly quite distinct from the form of joint tenure that arose when property descended to co-heirs and that was common in areas of partible inheritance.

17. There are numerous examples of joint tenures and conditional surrenders such as these in the court books for Abbots Langley, Library of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, James MSS, 1; Bramfield, Hertfordshire Record Office, 40702, 40703; and Codicote, BM, Stowe MSS, 849; and in court rolls for Chesham, Buckinghamshire County Museum, C.A.; Ibstone, Library of Merton College, Oxford, 5210-26; Kings Langley, PRO, SC 2/177/47, 52-55; and Wheathampstead, Westminster Abbey Library, 8937A-42. For some detailed examples see Roden, “Studies in Chiltern Field Systems,” pp. 167, 239, 285.

18. For example, the surrender by Adam Person of Bramfield in 1340, Hertfordshire Record Office, 40703, St. Dionisius 13E. Ill; by Cristine le Drake and Hugh Cok of Codicote in 1275 and 1309, BM, Stowe MSS, 849, fols. 13, 32; and by Margaret Lyne of Wheathampstead in 1383, Westminster Abbey Library, 8941, St. Barnabus 7R. II.

19. Homans, , English Villagers, p. 130Google Scholar.

20. BM, Stowe MSS, 849, fols. 52, 63.

21. For example, the cottage given by Robert de London to a son and a daughter, ibid., fols. 32v, 37v, 78; and the two-acre plot of land surrendered by Peter Doget to two daughters, who received an acre each, ibid., fols. 16v, 17.

22. As in the two examples above.

23. For example, Geoffrey and Isabella atte Hurne each received separate halves of the same croft from their parents. When Isabella died twenty-six years later, the croft was reunited because her son John, who inherited her half, was a minor in the custody of Geoffrey, his uncle. This integrity was maintained aftei John came of age through an arrangement by which John leased his part of the field to his uncle for the latter's life, while Geoffrey surrendered his share to his nephew on condition that he himself be allowed this half until he died. BM, Stowe MSS, 849, fols. 17, 28v, 32, 41v, 42.

24. Buckinghamshire County Museum, 547/39, 549/39, 558/39.

25. BM, Stowe MSS, 849, fols. 23, 24v, 34. The son was William and the two daughters were Elen and Margaret. The cottage and five acres that Margaret took had earlier been surrendered by Roger to a joint tenure with his wife. Margaret later held the same property jointly with her husband, eventually transferring it to the joint tenure of their own two daughters. Ibid., fols. 20v, 69v.

26. Library of Merton College, Oxford, 5211, 5216, 5217.

27. Baker, , “Open Fields and Partible Inheritance,” Econ. Hist. Rev., second series, XVII, 19–20Google Scholar. Hilton has described similar conditions in part of Leicester-shire, in Victoria History of the County of Leicester, II, 170Google Scholar.

28. BM, Stowe MSS, 849, fols. 31v, 32v, 37v, 38, 40v, 41, 41v, 44v, 45v, 46, 46v, 48, 51, 54, 55v, 57v, 58, 58v, 61v, 74v, 75. For a detailed account of succession in some individual family groups, see the accompanying Appendix.

29. The two manorial demesnes together contained 634 acres of arable land, and the fact that labour services were relatively light by the early fourteenth century suggests that the demesnes were worked largely by hired labour. BM, Add. MSS, 40734, fols. 1-1v, 15v-16v; BM, Stowe MSS, 849, fol. 124. In 1332 seven villein tenants each held more than fifty acres of land, and a few years later one tenant holding was as large as 206 acres. BM, Add. MSS, 40734, fols. 1v-16; BM, Stowe MSS, 849, fols. 88v-90v.

30. A market charter was acquired in 1286. Cal. Close Rolls, II, 112Google Scholar.

31. BM, Add. MSS, 40734, fols. 1v-16.

32. Library of Merton College, Oxford, 5202, 5210, 5211.

33. Homans, G. C., “The Rural Sociology of Medieval England,” Past and Present, No. 4 (1953), 37Google Scholar.

34. Hallam, , “Some Thirteenth-Century Censuses,” Econ. Hist. Rev., second series, X, 340–61Google Scholar.

35. Ibid.

36. BM, Stowe MSS, 849.

37. Ibid., fols. 15v, 16v, 17v, 18, 19v, 27v, 30, 32, 33, 33v, 35, 37, 38v, 39v, 42, 42v, 43, 44, 52v, 55v, 56, 59, 59v, 61v, 62v, 67, 69, 70v, 71, 71v, 75, 76v; BM, Add. MSS, 40734.

38. BM, Stowe MSS, 849, fols. 5, 7, 8v, 11v, 13v, 14v, 16, 17, 17v, 18, 19v, 20, 20v, 21, 21v, 22v, 23v, 25, 25v, 26v, 27, 33, 39v, 48, 52, 56.

39. Ibid., fols. 32, 40, 44v, 50v.

40. Ibid., fols. 5v, 6, 6v, 7v, 8v, 13, 14, 15, 21v, 22v, 23, 28, 29v, 34v, 36, 48v.

41. Ibid., fols. 22v, 23, 23v, 24v, 27v, 31, 32v, 33, 36, 37v, 38, 38v, 40v, 42v, 43v, 44, 44v, 45, 46, 47, 48v, 49, 51, 51v, 52, 52v, 54, 58v; BM, Add. MSS, 40734,

42. BM, Stowe MSS, 849, fols. 18v, 21v, 25v, 26v, 28, 28v, 31, 31v, 32v, 33v, 34, 35v, 38, 42v. This and the other family accounts above are summarized in table form in Roden, “Studies in Chiltern Field Systems,” pp. 401-03, 405, 412-19.