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Coss, Peter
2003.
The Origins of the English Gentry.
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The following pages contain a valuable, and in its way, I believe, an unique, document for the illustration of certain social relations in this country during the first half of the fourteenth century. I propose, therefore, to analyse it carefully, bearing well in mind, in all that I say, and all that I derive from its entries, the great economic deductions from which we may reason as to the normal mode of life of our forefathers at that period. It is a very striking chapter in that most interesting of all conceivable histories, the history of culture; and from this certain and positive record of one form of being at a definite period we can, without any very great difficulty, draw some valuable conclusions respecting times both earlier and later than the one whose details are so clearly set before us. It is undoubtedly important for us to know how Englishmen of different grades lived in the year of grace 1338, and we are very fortunate in having an account of undeniable authority, and by a contemporary hand, which enables us to follow, step by step, many of the more interesting and valuable details of the condition of English civilisation at that date. I wish we had similar accounts for other periods, both anterior and subsequent to this one. These would certainly give us a nearer insight into the changes of English life, its progression and its principle, than we can glean from records of public events, which we universally construe by the light of our actual state and knowledge, and consequently, in general, with more or less inaccuracy. But, in the absence of these aids to history, let us still rejoice that we possess in these pages a document by which, with due consideration of circumstances, we can test all other similar documents bearing upon the state of our social life during the mediæval period. The fourteenth century did not stand alone and apart: it was the child of the thirteenth, and it was also the father of the fifteenth—it partakes, therefore, in some degree of both.
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References
page 18 note * Item cclx. acre terre, et modo non coluntur nisi vijxx acre et x. propter sterilitatem, pretium acre iiij d: et iiijxxx. acre, pretium acre ij d. (p. 13.)
page 19 note * C. acre que non coluntur, quelibet acra j d. (p. 21.)
page 20 note * Valent tempore pacis—pretium acre vj d. et nunc propter guerram vix valet acra iij d.
page 20 note † Here were 54 acres, que non possunt coli, et valet pastura in communi 50 sol.
page 21 note * The value of the fresh meadow here is 2 sol., that of the salt 8 den.
page 21 note † Also marsh land, 6 den. per acre, and several turbary works, 10 sol.
page 21 note ‡ lx. acre steriles et debiles at 1 den. the acre.
page 21 note § I suspect the 36 den. here ought to be carried to the colum n of meadow-land.
page 22 note * This is in communi pastura 5 but in the several it was probably a little dearer, only ten eheep being fed for twelve pence.
page 28 note * It is the interest of the lord that his tenant should be well to do in the world, at least as long as the impassable gulf between class and class continues to yawn. When the lower begins to tread upon the heel of the upper, this may be weak and vicious enough to use its privilege and right as a means of oppression. But, if it does, it brings the guillotine and the Jacquerie. In some places the lord, or the parson, might and may, and do, call upon the peasant to save their hay, or cut and carry their corn, when he ought to be employed on the same work for himself; will he be the better neighbour or dependent ? This is a point which I recommend some of the Junker and Pastors of North Germany to take into their serious consideration.
page 29 note * It is sometimes called liber redditus, and is then contrasted with the redditus custum-ariorufo.
page 37 note * So in Germany, die küuche is not only the kitchen, i.e. the place where cooking goes on, but one's share of what comes from it, i. e. the dinner. Cuisine has just the same sense, and some others, in French.
page 37 note † So one penny a day was the kitchen allowance of a brother of the order.
page 37 note † If a “feast day,” says the Cambridge man.
page 43 note * In Devonshire, Herefordshire, and Monmouthshire wheat for malting is cited at 3s.
page 44 note * In Devonshire, Herefordshire, and Monmouthshire wheat for malting is cited at 3s.
page 44 note † In Northamptonshire there is another entry, where the frumentum and siligo are reckoned together at 2s. 6d.
page 44 note † I suppose draget to be meant by mixtilis (p. 169).
page 44 note § In London oatmeal is to be provided for porridge at 2s. the quarter, which cost in Somersetshire Is. 8d. (p. 186); and white peas for the same at 3s. per quarter.
page 44 note | An entry for Northumberland allows, however, only 2s. 6d. for Bladum, Blé.
page 49 note * * A different thing from the Corrodies heretofore noticed in this Introduction. It was the right to be housed and fed which the lord claimed among his vassals, and the King had in all monastic establishments. In so far as it implied commons it was Corredium or Corrodium. And this I believe is the usual sense of the word in our mediaeval law. A Pension in money is a different thing. A Corrody is a seat at table with the family, and a share of their dinner.
page 51 note * De pretiis victualium, MS. Cott. Claud. D. II. fol. 133 b, 134, 134 b.
page 53 note * Not a pig, as Maitland supposes, in his History of London; nn poucin.
page 57 note * MS. Cott. Galb. A. XVII. fol. 144. See Postscript to this Introduction.
page 59 note * Ewell, in Kent, p. 173.
page 60 note † Vide Marnham, p. 161; Kelyngton, p. 143. It is to be regretted that churches should so often have been bought and sold in this money-raising transaction.
page 64 note * This title does not occur, but is probable. Generosus is the proper corresponding opposite to liber in mediaeval modes of thought. The cook and baker were liberi servientes: the esquires were ad arma, or generosi. They wore coat-armour, and were gentlemen.
page 64 note † MS. Harl. 3345.
page 65 note * Origine ed Instituto del Sacro Militar Ordine di S. Giovamtattista Gerosolimitano. Rome, 1781. p. 331.
page 66 note * Any one who, in oonventu, impeached the knightly rank of a brother, was to prove his accusation sub gravi poena talionis; i. e. if he failed—non probata intentione—he was himself to be reduced to the grade of a frater serviens.—MS. Harl. 3345.
page 71 note * Not being able to find a copy of Sebastian Paoli's Codice Diplomatico Gerosolimitano, from which I presume this is taken, I have borrowed it from Taaffe's History of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. (8vo. 1852.) Vol. iv. p. xcvii. Appendix.
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