One other point of the generous treatment of the tenants on the lands of Titchfield Abbey may be named. Those who have studied riverside manorial customs on manors that bordered on the Thames, Trent, Severn, Ouse (Yorks.), and elsewhere, know that not only the free ferrying of the lord’s household and his goods by the tenants was usually expected, but also the water-transit of himself or his property to quays or places at a considerable distance. But the waterside tenants of Titchfield, who were boat owners--although they had to take the abbot, canons, or members of the household and their horses free across the estuary of the Hamble when necessary--if they had to convey them up the water to Southampton were always to be recompensed by a _pastum_, or by 4_d._ in money, whichever they preferred. It may also be mentioned as still further showing the condition of the _natives_ on these monastic lands that they were forbidden to sell their horses or oxen that had been bred on the manor without the lord’s leave. The very statement of this small restriction shows that they were at liberty to trade in cattle or horses outside those of manorial breed. Nor were they to fell any oak or ash growing on their holding without the lord’s leave, save in the case of wood required for the repair of their houses or the strengthening of their hedges. As a rule timber, for even these purposes, could not be taken without a permit. The licence fee for marriage with anyone within the manor was two shillings, with anyone outside, according to the lord’s discretion. The reeve elected by the homage was to be free of all service of every kind, and from payment of churchset, pannage-fee, etc., during his term of office. The Surtees Society in 1889 printed a most interesting volume of extracts from the Halmote Court or Manor rolls of the prior and convent of Durham from 1296 to 1384. They supply a vivid picture of the life of the various classes of tenants on the thirty-five vills under the control of that monastery, of their comparative independence, and of the merciful dealing of the conventual lord. Mr. Booth, as editor, writes in warm praise: “We see them (the tenants) in their tofts, surrounded by their crofts, with their gardens of pot-herbs. We see how they ordered the affairs of the village when summoned by the bailiff of the vill to consider matters which affected the common-weal of the community. We hear of their trespasses and wrong-doings, and how they were remedied or punished; of their strifes and contentions, and how they were repressed; of their attempts, not always ineffective, to grasp the principle of co-operation as shown by their bylaws; of their relations with the prior, who represented the convent and alone stood in relation of lord. He appears always to have dealt with his tenants, either in person or through his officers, with much consideration; and in the imposition of fines we find them invariably tempering justice with mercy.”