第161章

The rolls of King's Ripton are not less explicit in this respect. People are fined for selling land without the licence of the court, for selling it 'outside the court.'(63*) The judgment depends entirely on the verdict given by the community of suitors or its representatives the jurors. When the parties rely on some former decision, arrangement, or statement of law, they appeal to the rolls of the court, which, as has been said already, present nothing else but the recorded jurisprudence of the body of suitors.(64*) The extent of the legal self-government of this little community may be well seen in the record of a trial in which the Abbot of Ramsey, the lord of the manor, is impleaded upon a little writ of right by one of his tenants.(65*) But it is hardly necessary to dwell on so normal an event. I should like to take up for once the opposite standpoint, and to show that in these very communities on the ancient demesne elements are apparent which have thrived and developed in ordinary manors to such an extent as to obscure their self-government. In the Rolls of King's Ripton we might easily notice a number of instances in which the influence of the lord makes itself felt directly or indirectly through the means of his steward. We come, for instance, on the following forms of pleading: An action of dower is brought, and the defendants ask that the laws and customs hitherto used in the court should be observed in regard to them -- they have a right to three summonses, three distraints, and three essoins, and if they make default after that, the land ought to be taken into the lord's hand, when, but only if it is not replevied in the course of fifteen days, it will be lost for good and all. All these demands are granted by the steward, with whom the decision, at least formally, rests.(66*) Again, when we hear that the whole court craves leave to defer its judgment till the next meeting, it is clear that it rests with the steward to grant this request.(67*) We may find now and then a consideration for the interests of the lord which transcends the limits of mere formal right, as in a case where a certain Margery asks the court, without any writ of right or formal action, that an inquest may be held as to a part of her messuage which is detained in the hands of the Abbot, although she performs the service due for it. The inquest is held, and apparently ends in her favour, but she is directed at the same time to go and speak with the lord about the matter. Ultimately she gets what she wants after this private interview.(68*) The proceedings are irregular and interesting: the usual forms of action are disregarded; a verdict is given, but the material decision is left with the lord, and is to be sought for by private intercession. Quite close to this entry we find an instance which is in flagrant contradiction with such a considerate treatment of all parties. The jurors of the court are called upon to decide a question of testament and succession. They say that none of them was present when the testament was made, and that they know nothing about it, and will say nothing about it. 'And so leaving their business undone, and in great contempt of the lord and of his bailiffs, they leave the court. And therefore it is ordered that the bailiffs do cause to be levied a sum of 40s to the use of the lord from the property of the said jurors by distress continued from day to. day.'(69*) This case may stand as a good example both of the sturdy self-will which the peasantry occasionally asserted in their dealings with the lord, and of the opportunities that the lord had of asserting his superiority in a very high-handed manner.

But we need not even turn to any egregious instances in which the lord's power is thus displayed. The usual forms of surrender are there to show that, as regards origins, we have the same thing here as in ordinary manors, although the peculiarities of the ancient demesne have brought forward the features of communal organisation in a very marked way, and have held the element of lordship in check.

We have seen that there was only one halimot in the thirteenth and the preceding centuries, and that the division into customary court and court baron developed at a later time.