第165章

One more point remains to be noticed. In order to make it clear we must by way of exception start from the arrangements of a later epoch than that which we have been discussing. The manor of Aston and Cote, which may have been carved out with several others from the manor of Bampton, presents a very good instance of a village meeting which does not coincide with the manorial divisions, and appears constructed on the lines of a village community which has preserved its unity, although several manors have grown out of it. It was stated by the lord of the manor of Aston and Cote in 1657, that 'there hath been a custom time out of mind that a certain number of persons called the Sixteen, or the greater part of them, have used to make orders, set penalties, choose officers, and lot meadows, and do all such things as are usually performed or done in the courts baron of other manors.' All the details of this case are interesting, but we need not go into them, because they have been set out with sufficient care in the existing literature, and summed up by Mr Gomme in his book on the Village Community.(84*) It is the main point which we must consider. Here is an assembly meeting to transact legal and economic business, which acts on the pattern of manorial courts. And if not a manorial court, what is it? Ithink it is difficult to escape the conclusion that it is a meeting of the village community outside the lines of manorial division. The supposition that it represents the old manor of Bampton, to which Aston, Cote, Bampton Pogeys, Bampton Priory are subordinated, is entirely insufficient to explain the case, because then we should not have had to recognise new manors in the fractions which were detached from Bampton, and there would have been no call to speak of a peculiar assembly assuming the competence of a court baron -- we should have had the manorial court and the lord of Bampton, and not the Sixteen to speak of.

The fact is patent and significant. It shows by itself that there may have been cases where the village community and the manor did not coincide, and the village community had the best of it.

The first proposition does not admit of doubt. It was of quite common occurrence that the land of one village should be broken up between several manors, although its open field system and all its husbandry arrangements remained undivided. The question arises, how was that system to work? There could be express agreement between the owners;(85*) ancient custom and the interference of manorial officers chosen from the different parts could help on many occasions. But it is impossible to suppose, in the light of the Bampton instance, that meetings might not sometimes exist in such divided villages which took into their hands the management of the many economic questions arising out of common husbandry: questions about hedges, rotation of crops, commonable animals, usage as to wood, moor, pasture, and so forth. A diligent search in the customs of manors at a later period, say in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, must certainly disclose a number of similar instances. Our own material does not help us, because it passes over questions of husbandry, and touches merely jurisdiction, ownership, and tenant-right. And so we must restrict ourself to notice the opening for an inquiry in that direction.

Such an inquiry must also deal with the converse possibility, namely, the cases in which the manor is so large that several village units fit into it. We may find very frequently in some parts of the country large manors which are composed of several independent villages and hamlets.(86*) On large tracts of land these villages would form separate open field groups. Although the economic evidence is not within our reach in early times, we have indications of separate village meetings under the manorial court even from the legal point of view taken by the court-rolls.