Court Rolls of the Manor of Ingoldmells in the County of Lincoln/Preface
PREFACE
Having, through the kindness of the lord of the manor, been afforded the opportunity of transcribing and studying at my leisure the court rolls of a Lincolnshire manor, which form an unusually complete series, and seem to me of special interest, I have thought it worth while to print the results in the interests of county history, and I am even ambitious enough to hope that my abstracts may be found to have a still wider historical value. I am conscious that the rolls deserve to be edited by an expert, but, as that is impossible, I trust that the deficiencies of an editor who has done his best will be pardoned. A somewhat longer Introduction and some more notes might have been given, but I have largely exceeded my space already, and have felt that for historical purposes it was better to curtail my own remarks than to diminish the extracts from the rolls.
I cannot mark out on a map the boundaries of the ancient manor of Ingoldmells, and I should certainly get very wrong if I attempted to mark out the boundaries of the modern manor of Ingoldmells-cum-Addlethorpe. I show in the Introduction that the manor extended over part of six parishes, and for the information of those who do not know the county well I must explain that Ingoldmells and Skegness have a coast-line of six miles a little to the north of the Wash, a narrow strip of land in Skegness separating Winthorpe from the seashore and causing Ingoldmells and Skegness to adjoin on the sea coast side, though Winthorpe comes up to the Roman Bank. Very possibly this strip was considerably wider before the fifteenth century, when we read of lands being ‘inundated by the sea.’ Addlethorpe adjoins Ingoldmells on the west, Burgh is further inland, and Partney and Great Steeping are on the extreme west of Candleshoe Wapentake, in what is called the Wold Division. The sand hills, or meales, may still be seen, and it is important for their consolidation and maintenance that the thorns and synes which grow upon them should be preserved. As regards the synes Mr. Woodruffe Peacock tells me that there are two species of grasses called by this name—Ammophila arundinacea, which is properly called ‘synes,’ and Elymus arenarius. There are ‘Syne Hills’ at Huttoft and North Somercotes, and a ‘Syne Hill House’ at Skegness.
I know that experts prefer to have the original Latin text rather than a more or less imperfect translation, and I quite acknowledge that they have good reasons for their preference, but to give both text and translation was in this case out of the question. I have given what may be considered by scholars a bald translation, as thus experts will, I hope, be able to judge how the original text runs, and for the same reason I have left some paragraphs as they are, though I know quite well that they are not good English. The 194 rolls, of which I give extracts, were found by Mr. Richard Cheales in Ingoldmells Church in 1684, having, according to a statement of Sir Drayner Massingberd, been kept private in the county by the tenants, and never returned into the Duchy Office, because they show the fines to be uncertain, while the rolls in the Duchy Office mention the fines to be 2s. an acre. The rolls then in the Duchy Office are now at the Public Record Office, and are temp. Henry VII., Henry VIII., and Elizabeth. There are also rolls temp. Elizabeth and James I. at Ormsby Hall, and from the time of the purchase of the manor in 1658 there is an unbroken series of rolls in books.
I had hoped to be able to give in an appendix some rather long extracts from the Ministers’ Accounts &c. at the Public Record Office relating to the manor of Ingoldmells, but have been obliged to refrain. These accounts of the rents and issues of the manor make clear the customs of the manor concerning the acquisition of land by villeins, and mark the progress of their prosperity. It seems that the old rent paid by villeins for bond land was 4d. per acre, and that on alienation an additional rent of 8d. per acre became payable, and that a rent of 2d. per acre was paid for free land purchased by villeins besides the fines on surrender and admittance. They also give us some insight into the economic history of a Lincolnshire manor. The process of subinfeudation enabled great barons to keep up great retinues, and ride out to war at the head of goodly companies of knights and followers, but little did they foresee the enormous loss to their successors. What would have been the value of the estates of the Earls of Lincoln had the Domesday estates of Ivo Tailboys, Hugh Earl of Chester, and Ilbert de Lacy been kept in hand, instead of being granted out to tenants to be held by knight service, one hardly dare think, but happily the danger to the country of such estates was averted, and we have only to consider the actual facts as they concern one of the manors which were kept. In 1086 the annual value of the manor of Ingoldmells was 10l., an increase of 2l. upon the value temp. Edward the Confessor. In 1295 the rents of the free and bond tenants were 51l. 17s. 1d., inclusive of 10l. of tallage, but exclusive of fines, perquisites of courts &c. amounting to 18l. 11s. 8d., and some small rents for the N. and S. warrens, &c. In 1347 the same rents were 61l. 9s. 4d., and in 1421–2 they were 71l. 10s. 3d. So far the customs of the manor with regard to the new rents for lands purchased by villeins had provided an increase of revenue. But in 1485, 2l. 7s. 4d. has to be deducted for lost rents, chiefly per fluxum maris, from a total of 72l. 6s. 8d., so that there is a slight decrease, and when the manor was sold in 1628 by Charles I. the reserved rent, which corresponded to the sum of the freehold and copyhold rents then payable, was only 73l. 17s. 2d., and this was reduced in 1665–6 to 65l., because part of the land chargeable was ‘swallowed up by the sea.’ It is therefore clear that at Ingoldmells the tenants appropriated virtually the whole of the increase in the value of the land, and one sees how hopeless in the face of growing expenses it was for lords of manors to keep up their position unless they could acquire actual possession of the lands over which they had the lordship. Thus a struggle went on for years. Many county families disappeared, others by some means or other purchased the freehold lands, and by a system of leases acquired the bond lands of their manors, and so got together the large and compact estates which we now see in these days when a manor without copyhold lands is worth nothing.
One word more. It must not be supposed that the Ingoldmells villein is quite a fair example of the villeins of Lincolnshire. He had had his services commuted at an exceptionably early period, and probably had other advantages over his neighbours. The Court Rolls for the manors of Sutton and Bolingbroke seem to show that the other villeins of the Duchy of Lancaster fared tolerably well, though they owed some labour services, and the survey of the Bishop’s manor of Stow in 1288, and early Lincolnshire Inquisitions post mortem show no great hardships, but the Chronicle of Peterborough, and Spalding Priory surveys in the Cole MSS. show exactions that were decidedly more onerous, and papers found by Mr. Cole, of Doddington, in the Swinderby parish chest show that the Knights of St. John exacted on the death of their bond tenants at Eagle, N. Scarle, and Swinderby, one-third of their goods, and were entitled to a third of the full price paid for any land sold.