Agricultural History Review, Volume 61 Part 1 (2013), p. 170

These two volumes from the Buckinghamshire Record Society are a valuable addition to the canon of published manorial court records. As court books, rather than the more common court rolls, they represent a different stage in the manorial administrative process and provide somewhat different, though no less valuable, information.

These volumes are part of the abbey of St Alban’s court books, which are known but have been used relatively little by historians. This volume makes the source much more accessible to all types of historians. In addition to the excellent transcription and translation of the source, Dr Noy has provided a short glossary of Latin terms, which anyone consulting such records will find useful. He has also compiled four comprehensive indexes. The index of persons highlights one of the minor features of the volumes, the wide range and rather exotic nature of the female names in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Winslow and its sub-manors, Granborough and Little Horwood. While the male names are standard for the time, the female names include more exotic ones such as Anabilias (or Amabilias), Athelina, Felice, Florence, Lovata and Scholastica. The index of places within the manor has been carefully cross-referenced and will be a great help to anyone using the volume. It is a pity that a map showing at least the principal places was not included in the volume, but perhaps the editor assumed that most people using this work would be familiar with the locality.

These court books are less detailed than the court rolls from which they were drawn and it is clear that there was careful editing of the original. However, since there are only a few extent rolls for this manor, historians should be very grateful that the books were compiled. Unsurprisingly, the books have retained details of land transactions as these would be of most interest to the ecclesiastical landlords; there are frequent references though the volumes to the need to search past rolls for evidence to prove a tenant’s (or the lord’s) case. Such items are the majority of business for the whole of the nearly 80 years that are recorded in the books.

The inclusion of certain types of court business changes over time. In the first few years the names of bakers and brewers who broke the assize of bread and ale are given sometimes separately. In later years only the amounts of fines are recorded with no names given. The fourteenth-century volume also contains a number of fines paid for boys being ‘put to study’; in one case, Geoffrey the son of Geoffrey Milcent was given a licence to go to clerical school, but on the condition that he did not take holy orders. Licences to marry were also commonly recorded for both men and women. What is missing from the first period of the books are disputes between neighbours, petty crime and debt cases. These are included, however, in the later volume; at the court on 2 June 1348 for Granborough nearly all the recorded items are either pleas of debt or trespass or withholding rent. The latter period also sees the regular inclusion of transcripts of wills in the books. Petty crime is seldom recorded for either period.

Reading through these volumes, one is struck afresh by the changes wrought by the visitation of plague in the mid-fourteenth century and not just the numbers of dead, although these are startling enough. On one manor where usually only one or two deaths were recorded per session of the court, the year from October 1348 to October 1349 saw the recording of over 150 deaths with a further 30 recorded in 1361. New types of entry appear regularly in the books after the plague’s arrival. Fugitives from the manor are named, often the same names for many years; and often with their current whereabouts recorded. Tenants are ordered to repair waste on their holdings, and there are accusations of hunting without warrant or refusing to use the lord’s mill, as well as cases concerning people taking on new holdings without permission. These are all issues that did not appear in earlier part of the book, and reflect the social and economic disorder that followed the devastation of the plague. The naming of fugitives from the manor continues until the end of the early book in 1377.

The introduction to the volumes contains information about the origins of the manor (including a full transcript of the 1279 Hundred Roll entry), a short essay on the organization of the manor and its free and villein tenants and a longer piece on the business of the court. These volumes will be seized upon by local historians, but will also be of considerable use to historians more widely.