Great Britain -- Economic conditions; Great Britain -- Social conditions
The assize comes to recognise if William de Sufford and Reynold de
Sufford unjustly etc. disseised William the Tailor of his free tenement
in Lodenes after the last, etc. And William comes and grants the assize,
and Reynold comes not, and it is not known who he is, etc.
The jurors say that the father of the aforesaid William the Tailor was a
villein of Roger, father of the aforesaid William de Sufford, and he
held of him in villeinage all his life, and after his death Roger came
and gave to William the Tailor a messuage and an acre and a rood of land
to hold freely for a mark which William the Tailor gave to him, so that
he should hold the land for 8d. a year and for foreign service, and so
William the Tailor held the land and messuage the whole of Roger's life,
and after his decease William the Tailor came to the aforesaid William
de Sufford and to his mother and gave them 5s. to hold the land as he
held it before, and so held it until William de Sufford unjustly
disseised him. And so it is awarded that William the Tailor recover his
seisin, etc.[147]
[Footnote 147: On this case Bracton's comment runs: "Note that a
villein's son recovered by assize of novel disseisin land which his
father held in villeinage, because the villein's lord gave it to the son
by charter, even without manumission."]
23. THE MANUMISSION OF A VILLEIN [_Ancient Deeds_, A 10279], 1334.
Be it manifest to all by these presents that we, brother Robert, Abbot
of Stoneleigh, and the convent of the same place, have granted for us
and our successors that Geoffrey son of the late William Austyn of
Wottonhull be free of his body with all his brood and his chattels
hereafter for ever; so that neither we nor our successors shall be able
to demand or claim anything in him or his brood or his chattels, but by
these presents we are wholly excluded. In witness whereof we have put
our seal to these presents. Given at Stonle on Monday next after the
feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary[148] in the eighth
year of the reign of King Edward the third after the conquest.
[Footnote 148: Monday after February 2.]
24. GRANT OF A BONDMAN [_Duchy of Lancaster, Misc. Bks., 8, f._ 81 d.],
1358.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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