Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/747

Mortmain in Medieval Boroughs 737 of the thirteenth.' Complaints were sometimes made by the bur- gesses regarding the extensive possessions in the grip of the dead hand. In 1275 the Hundred Rolls give the names of fifty-three religious houses having rents or tenements in the city and suburbs of Lincoln, the annual value of which amounted to about £196;^ ■■ these messuages used to be geldable, and liable for customs and services to the king and the city, but now they are withdrawn, to the great damage of the king and the city " } In 1276 a jury asserts that the abbot of Osney has acquired in O.xford and its suburbs tenements which yield about £300 in annual rents ; they were wont to be tallaged, but now all tallages are withdrawn, so that the burgesses have paid £46 13.J. 4(/., owing to the withdrawal of these and other tenements in the hands of religious houses. In like manner, the prior of St. Frideswide has acquired tenements yielding about 100 marcs, which are no longer subject to taxation, to the great loss of the burgesses.^ Many other entries in the Hun- dred Rolls show that much land in the boroughs had been alienated to the clergy, and that this was felt to be detrimental to the inter- ests of the king and the burgesses through the loss of taxes, rents, and escheats.' Similar complaints were made in the fourteenth century. In 1 3 12 the citizens of London sent a letter to the king regarding the cost of the repairs of the city walls, in which they say that " whereas in justice they ought to be levied from all those who have rents and tenements and movables within the city, (they) commonly fall upon one part of the citizens only, and not upon persons of the religious ' See below, p. 739. 2 This valuation includes the rents and tenements of the bishop and canons of Lincoln. ^Rot. Huiid., I. 312-313, 316, 326. It is also afHrmed (ibid., I. 316) that these estates were wont to be tallaged with the citizens, but now it is claimed that they are free. One of the articles of inquiry on which the returns in the Hundred Rolls are based is : " De feodis militaribus cujuscumque feodi et terris aut tenementis datis vel venditis religiosis vel aliis in prejudicium regis et per quos et a quo tempore" (ibid., I., introd., 14). 'Ibid., II. 36. Six other religious houses had real property in O.xford which yielded rents amounting to about £ 55. 'Ibid., I. 120, 131, 352, II. I, 2, 79-80, 356-360, etc. ,t Cambridge, accord- ing to the Hundred Rolls, the canons of Barnwell in 1279 had about 390 acres of arable land. Maitland believes that this estimate is too low, and says that more than half the strips in the Cambridge fields went to religion (Township and Borough, 63, 159; cf. ibid., 69, 149-158. 161). Gifts to religious houses in rural parts of England are also mentioned in the Hundred Rolls, II. 304-305, etc. The brethren of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem are accused of taking men under their protection in order to make them free of toll (ibid., I. 83, 96, etc.). The complaints in the Hundred Rolls may have influenced the legislators who made the statute De 'iris Religiosis in 1279.