Has chance or necessity ever opened to you the charter-chest of the respectable solicitor in some country town? Then, among his records, you have noted an interminable series of parchment volumes—very thick, very closely written, some centuries old, and one in current use. These are the court-rolls of the Manor of Wherenot. If you can spell out the beautifully written mediÆval characters, you are sure to light on many a quaint record of by-gone folk and their ways, for, better than aught else, the manor and its muniments preserve for us the English past.

Manors, they used to say, arose in this fashion. A great lord obtained a piece of land from the King; part he disposed of to tenants who held of him in freehold (this sub-infeudation was stopped by the statute quia emptores in 1290); the rest was his domain, on part of which he built the manor house, another part was cultivated by villeins, then the cotters had dwellings with portions of land, and the residue was waste, where the folk of the manor pastured their cattle, gathered fuel, and made their ways. Sometimes these villeins were slaves, but each had his patch of soil, wherefor he rendered some servile office to his lord, ploughing his land, garnering his crops, or such like. The business of the manor was transacted in two courts, the Court Baron and the Customary Court. The first was attended by the freeholders, who themselves constituted the Court; the second by the villeins, who merely hearkened to and witnessed the doings of the lord or his steward. When a villein died, the fact that the new tenant had such and such a field on condition of rendering so many days' labour yearly was noted in the records or roll of the Customary Court, and this roll, or a copy of it, becoming his title, he was dubbed a copyholder. In theory he was a mere tenant at the will of the lord, but time fettered the lord's will, until the principle was evolved that it must be exercised according to the custom of the manor, for "custom" as Lord Coke put it, "is the life of the manor," and so it came about that the holder had fixity of tenure while he did his service. His position steadily improved, the slave became free, the servile toil a money payment, and now the court agenda merely register changes of title. This account of the manor may serve for description, but does not represent the real origin, which has not yet been exactly ascertained. It was a fragment of Old England, with a lord usually of Norman race as head, and the relations between head and members elaborated and controlled by the theories and devices of the mediÆval lawyer. As manorial law was custom, old local usages were preserved unaltered; thus, whilst the root idea of feudalism was that the eldest son should inherit his father's land, and the manor itself did so descend, within it an extraordinary diversity of usage obtained. By a custom similar to that of Gavelkind (in Kent), the copyholder's estate was sometimes parted equally among all his sons. In other places, Borough-English prevailed, that is, the youngest son took everything, to the exclusion of his elder brothers; nay, by an odd application of the maxim "better late than never," a posthumous child ousted the brother already in possession; or, again, the widow or widower inherited. When the tenant died, the lord had a right to seize his best chattel (usually a beast), this was called a Heriot, and it is yet here and there exacted. Many customs are old Saxon, many customs were invented, or at any rate twisted into fantastic rights from mere whim or a not very cleanly sense of humour, but here one must often merely accept the fact, for to try it by the rule of right reason were absurd.

Most manors were held of the Crown, in return for services sometimes of the oddest character; thus, Solomon De Campis (or Solomon At-Field) had land in Kent on condition that, "as often as our lord the King would cross the sea, the said Solomon and his heirs should go along with him to hold his head on the sea, if it was needful;" and certain jurors solemnly present on their oath that "the aforesaid Solomon fully performed the aforesaid service." Our early kings provided against every possible contingency. One tenant enjoyed land by the service of holding the King's stirrup when he mounted his horse at Cambridge Castle. Another must make hastias in the King's kitchen on the day of his coronation. The glossaries are dumb as to this mysterious dish, though the learned darkly hint at haggis! Or was it "a certain potage called the mess of Giron," which, being enriched with lard, was called Maupygernon—which last is possibly mediÆval Welsh for a haggis? Thomas Bardolf, who died, lord of Addington, in 5 Edward III., was pledged to compound three portions of this dainty dish against Coronation Day, and serve them up smoking hot, one to the King, one to his Grace of Canterbury, and the third "to whomsoever the King would." Other manors were held on the tenure of presenting to the King a white young brach ("lady the brach" of King Lear) with red ears; of delivering a hundred herrings baked in twenty pasties; of finding the King a penny for an oblation, whenever he came to hear mass at Maplescamp, in Kent: gifts of roses, falcons, capons (which last dainties your mediÆval sovereign held in special favour), were abundant. But how to riddle this one? The manor of Shrivenham, in Berks, was held (temp. Edward III.) by the family of Becket, whose head, whenever the King passed over a certain bridge in those parts, must present himself with two white capons, whereto he directed the royal attention in choice mediÆval Latin, "Behold," he said, "my lord, these two capons, which you shall have another time, but not now," which pleasantry reminds one of the current vulgarism, "Will you have it now, or wait till you get it?" The service of the Dymocks, owners of Scrivelsby in Lincoln, as King's champions, and of the Duke of Norfolk, as Earl Marshal of England, curious enough in themselves, are too notorious for this crowded page.

A few quaint tenures are of quite modern origin. Thus the honour of Woodstock (an honour was a lordship over several manors: so "Waverley Honour" in Scott's great romance) is held by the tenure of presenting a banner each second of August at Windsor Castle; that being the anniversary of Blenheim, fought in 1704; and on each 18th of June the Duke of Wellington must likewise send to the same place, for the estate of Strathfieldsay, a tri-coloured flag to commemorate Waterloo. The last century legal antiquary pricked up his ears at a fine scandal which he fondly imagined in connection with the manors of Poyle and Catteshill, both near Guildford. Their holders were bound to provide a certain number (twelve in one instance) of young women, called meretrices, for the service of the royal court. Dry-as-dust shook his solemn head, invented pimp-tenure (a "peculiarly odious kind of tenure" he explained), and the forerunner of the man who writes to The Times (it was then to the Gentleman's Magazine) cracked some not particularly choice jokes on the subject. A wider knowledge restored the moral character of the King, his lords, and the much-slandered young women, whose decent dust may now repose in peace. In mediÆval Latin the word was widely used for the female servant general or special, and these were, it seems, neither more nor less than laundry-maids.

Manors of an early date were ofttimes held under other manors on equally whimsical conditions. A snowball at summer and a red rose at Christmas are extravagantly picturesque. A hawk was a common rent; but in one case it was carried to the Earl of Huntingdon's house, by the yielder, attended by his wife, three boys, three horses, and three greyhounds; and these must be housed for forty days at the earl's expense, while his countess must give the lady her second best gown. Again, the tenant of Brindwood in Essex, upon every change, must come with his wife, his man, and his maid, all a-horseback to the rectory, "with his hawke on his fist and his greyhound in his slip"; he blows three blasts with his horn, and then receives curious gifts, and thereafter departeth. The lord of the Manor of Essington, in Stafford, must bring a goose every New Year's Day to the head manor-house at Hilton. Here he drives it about the fire, which Jack of Hilton blows furiously, and (one regrets to add) most improperly. But Jack may be forgiven, for he is but "an image of brass about twelve inches high," whose description you read at length in old Thomas Blount, the great recorder of all these mad pranks.

The holding of Pusey in Berks by the Pusey Horn, gifted, it is said, by King Canute, is well-known. Sir Philip de Somerville, knight, was bound to hunt and capture the Earl of Lancaster's greese (wild swine) for my lord's larder upon St Peter's Day in August. This he did till Holy-Rood Day, when he dined with the steward, and after dinner "he shall kiss the porter and depart." This same Sir Philip de Somerville held the Manor of Whychenover at half terms from the Earl on condition that there ever hung in his hall one bacon flitch to be assigned to a happy married couple yearly in Lent, after a variety of ceremonies like those in the more famous case of Dunmow: the disposal of the flitch there being likewise according to "the custom of the manor."

In the customs that made up the inner life of the manor one finds a diversity too great for classification. However, those old English folk were a merry lot; with usages not sad nor savage, but having much sensible joy in good meat and drink. At Baldock, in Hertfordshire, the Customary Court was holden at dinner-time, whereto every baker and vintner within the bounds must send bread and ale which the steward and his jury "cam' to pree," and presently gave their verdict "if these be wholesome for man's body or no." To the Manor of Hutton Conyers there was attached a great common, where many townships pastured their sheep; and the shepherd of each township "did fealty by bringing to the Court a large apple pie, and a twopenny sweet cake." For refreshment, "furmity and mustard, well mixed in an earthen pot, is placed before the shepherds, which they sup with spoons provided by themselves, and if any forget his spoon then, for so the customary law wills it, he must lay him down upon his belly, and sup the furmity with his face to the pot or dish." And the custom further permits the bystanders "to dip his face into the furmity," to the great delight of all present. To finer issues is the money provided by Magdalen College, Oxford, for certain manors of theirs in Hampshire, pro mulieribus hockantibus, as the dog Latin of the college accounts hath it. On Hock Day, annually, "the women stop the ways with ropes, and pull passengers to them, desiring something to be laid out in pious uses": the men having hocked the women after the same fashion the day before. There are traces of this usage further afield than Hampshire. Not less jovial were the tenants of South Malling, in Kent, who were bound to pay scot-ale, which fund they agreeably expended in "drink with the bedel of the Lord Archbishop." The case of Stamford, in Lincoln, is noteworthy as showing the origin of one peculiar custom. In the time of King John, William, Earl Warren, was lord of the place. One day he saw from his castle wall "two bulls fighting for a cow in the castle meadow;" their bellowing attracted all the butcher's dogs in the place; and these, in company with a host of rag-tag and bobtail, chased one of the champions in and out the town till he went mad; all which so delighted Earl Warren, that he forthwith gifted the common to the butchers on condition that they provided a mad bull six weeks before Christmas Day, "for the continuance of that sport for ever."

It is impossible even to conjecture the origin of other customs. In most manors, when a copy-holder died, his widow had in free-bench (or what the common law calls dower) the whole or part of his lands. There was one restriction: she must remain "sole and chaste." Yet, if she forgot herself, her case was not altogether past praying for in the Manor of Enborne in Berkshire. At the next Customary Court she appeared strangely mounted upon a black ram, her face to the tail, the which grasping in her hand, she recited, sure the merriest, maddest rhyme it ever entered into the heart of man to conceive—

Alas, that the rest must be silence! The Spectator, greatly daring, gives it in full; but that was as far back as November 1st, 1714. A like custom ruled the Manor of Kilmersdon, in Somerset, where the doggerel, if briefer and blunter, is at least equally gross. And here one must refer to the jus primÆ noctis, that lewd historic jest which, in England at any rate, was ever a sheer delusion. True that on the marriage of a villein's daughter a fine was paid to the lord, but this was not to spare her blushes, but as compensation to him for the loss of her services—inasmuch as she took the domicile of her husband. Nay, the custom of the manor usually made for morality. There was a fine called child-wit exacted on the birth of an illegitimate child, sometimes from the infant's father, or, again, from the father of its mother. Nay, in one or two places the unlucky lover forfeited all his goods and chattels. On the other hand a curious privilege attached to an oak in Knoll Wood in the Manor of Terley in Staffordshire: "In case oath were made that the bastard was got within the umbrage or reach of its boughs," neither spiritual nor temporal power had ought to say, and the man got off scot free.

The curious tenacity of the manorial custom is well shown in the case of Pomber in Hampshire: the Annual Court, in accordance with immemorial usage, must be held in the open air, but the inconvenience of this was obviated by an immediate adjournment of the proceedings to the nearest tavern. The records were not kept on parchment, but "on a piece of wood called a tally, about three feet long and an inch and a half square, furnished every day by the steward." In time these strange muniments became worm-eaten and illegible; and, as occupying much needed room, were thrown to the flames by the dozen. (It will be remembered that the old Houses of Parliament were set on fire and destroyed on the burning of the exchequer tallies, October 1834.) Some of the survivors were produced as evidence in a case heard at Winchester, which fact provoked "a counsellor on the opposite side of the question" to dub it "a wooden cause." The obvious retort—that his was a wooden joke—seems lacking; but possibly this gem of legal humour emanated from the Bench: how often one has seen its like!

Still stranger was the Lawless Court of the Honour of Raleigh: it was held in the darkness of cockcrow; the steward and the suitors (i.e., those bound to attend the Court) mumbled their words in scarce audible fashion; candles, pens, ink, were all forbidden; for, as the authorities vaguely put it, "they supply that office with a coal." To ensure a punctual attendance, the suitor "forfeits to his lord double his rent every hour he is absent." The learned Camden affirms it was all to punish the aboriginal tenants for a conspiracy hatched in the darkness of the night; again he sees in it a remnant of an old Teutonic custom; and in the end you suspect that he knows as little as yourself.Then there was the white bull which the tenants of the monks of Bury St Edmunds were bound by their leases to provide, that childless women might present it to the shrine of the martyred king of East Anglia; there was the fine called "thistletake," which the owner of beasts crossing the common, and snatching at the "symbol dear," must pay to the lord of the Manor of Halton; there are the "three clove-gillieflowers" which the tenants of Hame in Surrey shall render at the King's coronation; there are all sorts of minute details as to house-bote and fire-bote, and common of piscary and turbary. One more custom and we have done. In the time of Richard the Lion-heart, Randal Blundeville, Earl of Chester, was on one occasion sore pressed by the Flintshire Welsh. He summoned to his aid his constable of Cheshire, one Roger Lacy, "for his fierceness surnamed Hell." It was fair-time at Chester, and Roger, putting himself at the head of the motley crowd marched off to his relief. The Welsh heard, saw, and bolted, and the grateful earl there and then promulgated a charter granting to Roger and his heirs for ever, "power over all fiddlers, lechers, light ladies (the charter has a briefer and stronger term), and cobblers in Chester." Under Henry VII. we find the then grantee exacting from the minstrels (inter alia) "four flagons of wine and a lance," whilst each of the aforesaid ladies must pay fourpence on the feast of St John the Baptist. Under Elizabeth, various acts were aimed at rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, but always with a saving provision as to this Chester jurisdiction, and in later times the Vagrant Act (17 George II., cap. 5) had a like reservation.