Page:Massingberd - Court Rolls of the Manor of Ingoldmells in the County of Lincoln.pdf/18

xviii plaintiff, and was allowed to go away quit, and the plaintiff was in mercy for an unjust claim. Sometimes substantial debts were recovered, and the limit of 40s evaded. In 7 Henry IV a plaintiff recovered 39s in each of 5 pleas of debt, and 18s 4d in a 6th plea, or 10l 13s 4.d in all, besides damages. In 2 Henry VI 42s were recovered in a plea of debt, and in 19 Edw. III 105s.

Several entries show the steward exercising considerable inﬂuence and control. The court was sometimes held before him, though even then the township presented what the custom of the manor was. We ﬁnd cases postponed for the coming of the steward, and others presented for the common council. In 7 Edw. II a woman was put in the pillory by the consideration of the steward. Sometimes he condones a ﬁne. Occasionally tenants complained to the lord for lack of justice, and the steward was directed to administer to the parties such justice that they have no reasonable cause to complain.

It is, of course, well known that the surrenders and admit­tances of customary tenants were recorded on manorial court rolls. On the earlier rolls such entries are comparatively few, the object of recording the proceedings of the courts not being to afford the villein written evidence of his title to the land he occupied, but to serve as a check on the manorial officers, and show what the amercements, ﬁnes, and proﬁts of the manor were. As time goes on we ﬁnd these entries increasing in number and importance, a tenant pays a small ﬁne to be allowed to search the rolls for evidence of his title, later he calls the rolls to ‘warrant’ it, and temp. Edw. IV judges begin to give copyholders some protection in the king’s courts, and the con­veyancing entries come to take up half the roll, and eventu­ally in the seventeenth century hardly any other entries appear.

I must not omit to mention that the court of Ingoldmells was the court of a considerable ﬁef. The lord might, perhaps, have summoned his Lincolnshire tenants to the court of his honor at Pontefract, but this would have been most inconvenient to them, and have caused much discontent, and so he summoned them to his principal manor in the county of Lincoln; even so they often made default, but eventually seem to have fallen into