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- Title
Manorial Amercements and Peasant Poverty.
- Authors
Post, J. B.
- Abstract
This article focuses on variations in the rates of manorial amercements in Winchester, England during the 13th century. Among the fiscal perquisites of the manorial court there were two broad categories of occasional payment as distinct from rents and customary dues: fines, at least notionally "offered" to the lord by his tenants for favors at his discretion as landlord, such as permission to enter, marry off a daughter, or leave the manor: and amercements, exactea by the lord from those tenants who came "in mercy" for offences committee within his jurisdiction, such as labour services omitted or done badly. Of the three Winchester manors, only Bishops Waltham shows the anticipated rise in the proportion of small amercements for bread and ale offences, while amounts in the highest range seem, if anything, to increase towards the end of the century. There is little doubt that these amercements for bread and ale offences were treated as a licensing system, which may have done little for the quality of the product or for the application of standard measures, but which provided an additional source of income for the lords of court-holding franchises.
- Subjects
REAL property; MANORIAL courts; LEASE assignment; LANDOWNERS; RENTAL housing; PAYMENT
- Publication
Economic History Review, 1975, Vol 28, Issue 2, p304
- ISSN
0013-0117
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2593489