Customary Land

BY 1450 personal bondage had disappeared in all but a few places in south-east England. Lords rarely tried to collect merchet and chevage or to force villeins who had left the manor to come home. In addition, tenurial obligations such as weekly labor services had been permanently commuted into money, although on some manors tenants were still expected to help bring in the harvest or carry out other seasonal works. In places where tenants had been required to serve their turn as reeve or rent collector, that obligation too had often been converted into an additional money rent. Finally, tenants who wanted to avoid attending the manorial and leet courts could pay a small fine — usually 4d or 6d. As the disabilities attached to bond tenure became mitigated, people who were legally free were willing to hold it. The most common wording used to grant out former bond-land was ‘hold at the will of the lord according to the custom of the manor’. One of the major developments occurring in the century 1450-1550 was the movement of outsiders — merchants, yeomen, and even gentry — into manorial holdings. By 1550 one cannot categorize customary tenants under the general term ‘peasants’. Some tenants, as in the past, did farm primarily for subsistence, relying on family labor, but others who built up large holdings simply leased their land.