Page:History and characteristics of Bishop Auckland.djvu/21

 4 HISTOEY OP BISHOP AUCKLAND. The rent of the whole borough of Auckland, together with the profits of a borough court, produced about twenty-six ppunds ; a fulling mill, which was situate in the Park, forty shillings ; the Park, which contained at that time about fifty acres of meadow land, eight pounds, making in all about forty pounds, which the whole borough of Auckland then produced to the See of Durham, exclusive of the services rendered by the villans and bondsmen. We learn from the same source, also, that the borough of Auckland contained in aU about five hundred acres of arable land, and the probability is that the whole of the rest of the neighbourhood, both up and down the vaUey of the Wear, was one great forest ; whilst the more distant hills were clothed, as the western moors are now-a-days, with blooming heather ; as many of them stiU bear that appellation, viz., Etherley Moor, Byers Green Moor, Spennymoor, &c. The word " Averpenny," which frequently occurs in the Boldon Buke, is supposed to be money paid by the tenant on commutation of the service of performing any work for his Lord by horse or ox, or by carriage with either. Scatmalt, meal or malt of the measure of the Exchequer. Wodelade, a load of wood for fueL Green well, in the appendix to the Boldon Buke, says : — " The viUan formed that large class, including, under this general name, cotmen, bond-tenants, and farmers, the members of which, though not slaves, and holding under the Lord some small portion of land, had neither a permanent interest in the land, nor could be called freemen. They have been divided into villans regardant — ^those attached to the land ; and villans in gross — those attached to the Lord's person, and transferable by him to another. No real distinction, however, seems to have existed, and this division probably originated from confounding the villan with the serf, who was a mere personal slave, and had no interest in the land. The villan could not leave his Lord's estate, nor, indeed, give up the land he held under him ; he was a servant for life, receiving as wages enough of land to support himself and family. If he left his Lord he could be recovered as astray, unless he had lived meanwhile for a year and a day in a privileged town or borough, in which case he obtained his freedom. He could accumulate no property, everything he possessed being his Lord's. His services consisted in servile work done by himself and his household on the Lord's demesne land, such as ploughing, harrowing, mowing, and reaping, carting dung, and aU other agricultural operations. These could be changed at any time by the Lord, though they naturally had a tendency to become of a permanent and settled character, and in the end became quite regular and stated in quantity and time. " The villan could not marry his daughter without the Lord's leave, and in many cases was obliged to pay a certain sum for this liberty; this payment was called ^merchet.'* AU the children of villans inherited their father s condition, and were, like him, villans too. If a free man married a female villan, or neife, as she was called, the children were free ; but if a free woman married a villan the children were villans, in this, contrary to the maxim of the civil law, thai partus sequitur ventrem. No bastard could, however, be bom a villan, for the law held that being feliu8 nullius^ and as such unable to have any inheritance, he should at all events gain his natural freedom by it. Holding by viUenage tenure did not always imply that the holder was a villan : a freeman might hold land in villenage, in which case he rendered the services due upon the land, but remained personally free. The villan could acquire no property in goods or land, for, being himself the property of the Lord, all that he acquired was the Lord's. But being allowed to hold land — himself and his children — for many years without interruption, the common law gave him the title to hold his lands on rendering the accustomed services, or on payment of the money for which those services had been commuted ; and the villan, in course of exact meaning. The popular notion has been that ** Merchet" was a payment made by tKe yassal to his Lord to preserve his danehter^ ' t on the first mght of her marriage, from being deflonred by him. Recent writers, however, have clearly shown the absurdity of this ^ notion, and have pointed out the origin and tnie meaning of the term. As the Lord had for a certain portion of the year the right to his villan's services, together with that of his household, if a villan's daughter married it was so much loss to the ]jDrd, and he had, therefore, a remxmeration in money, and that was called "Merchet." Greenwdl thinks the word is a compound of the two words, Mtrg and Sceai^ signifying daughter and payment* Digitized by Google
 * ThiB cnstom, incident to tennres in Yillenage, seems to have puzzled the luiiiqnari^s, and has led into long disquisitions as to its ^A