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Abstract
This contribution reinforces Currie’s article in Vernacular Architecture 49 to demonstrate that tenants of all kinds, free and customary, usually arranged for the building of the dwellings and subsidiary buildings on their holdings. Lords built only in special circumstances, and tenants normally organised construction by obtaining materials and hiring carpenters. The expectation that tenants were responsible for buildings was often expressed in manorial courts in the period 1360–1520, but neglect of buildings also caused some concern in the period before 1349. This rather technical argument is placed in a more general context of the reappraisal of peasant capacities and agency.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Abbreviations
WAMWestminster Abbey Muniments
Notes
1 Slocombe, “The Roles of Lords, Landlords and Tenants.”
2 Currie, “A Reply to Pamela Slocombe.”
3 John, ed., Warwickshire Hundred Rolls; Dyer, “Landscape, Farming and Society,” 69–70.
4 Alcock and Miles, Medieval Peasant House, 125, 141.
5 Worcestershire Archives, ref. 009:1 BA 2636/175 92479 (estate valor).
6 E.g. The National Archives, SC2 175/48 (court roll of Hawkesbury, Glos.). In 1409 William Payn burnt 5 pieces of timber delivered to him for repairs.
7 Staffordshire Record Office, D641/1/2/270, 273,275.
8 Slocombe, “The Roles of Lords, Landlords and Tenants,” 36.
9 WAM, 21165. This messuage, without a specified holding, apparently consisted of buildings and a small patch of land.
10 WAM, 21166.
11 Field, “Worcestershire Peasant Buildings,” 125–36.
12 Dyer, Age of Transition?, 119.
13 Field, “Worcestershire Peasant Buildings,” 126.
14 WAM, 21377, 21387.
15 Staffordshire Record Office, D641/1/4C/1.
16 Page, “Retirement of Customary Tenants,” 38–9.
17 Tompkins, ed. Court Rolls of Romsley, 47, 60, 62, 67, 72, 100.
18 WAM, 8238.
19 WAM, 8247.
20 Dodds, Peasants and Production, 161; Dyer, Age of Transition?, 56–8, 75–8.
21 Alcock and Miles, “Joggled Halvings.”