Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/197

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1920 BARONY AND THANAGE 189 for forty days at his own cost ; ^ and even in the sixteenth century all gentlemen, tenants, and inhabitants of the baronies of AUerdale and Coupland had to attend on the lord and his lieutenant and at their command ride into Scotland to do any exploit.^ It is therefore probable that ' endmot ' was not just the general service in the fyrd required of all freemen, but was the special service in the king's ' utware ' required of all drengs.^ Now, there is good reason for identifying cornage tenure with drengage. (1) It is only on the hypothesis that the cornage tenant rendered instead of a farm the personal service that distinguished the ' dreng ' from the ' thegn ' * that we can account for the sharp distinction drawn between cornage tenants, from whom as from drengs wardship and marriage were due,^ and fee-farm or socage tenants, from whom they were not. (2) We can hardly doubt that the cornage tenants of Westmorland who in 1196-7 joined the knights in paying 20 marks for respite from an aid till the king arrived,^ were the drengs who four years later paid 50 marks ' ne transfretent ',' and who were certainly the ancestors of the free tenants holding by cornage in 1314.^ Clifton, for instance, which was held of Brougham Castle by drengage in 1201, by cornage in 1314, and by cornage, ward, marriage, relief, suit of court, and a custom of oats, ' which custom is called drengage ', in 1525-6,® was held by a tenure that differed from

  • Pipe Roll, 3 John ; Testa de Nevill, ii. 696, 703.
  • Huwberston' s Survey. ' Maitland, vhi supra, p. 626.
  • ' Dreng ', found only where Norse influence,- as distinct from Danish, was strong,

seems originally to have been synonymous with ' thegn ' ; but in time a distinction between them must have arisen similar to that which arose in Scotland between ' thane ' and ' baron ', for the words are constantly used together in eleventh- and twelfth-century documents. It is not easy to determine wherein the distinction lay ; for the extant inquests of service other than knight-service were all taken in the thirteenth century when ' thanage ' and ' drengage ' were often used interchangeably. The dreng, however, seems to have been distinguished from the thegn as owing some per^nal service — usually, though not always, in lieu of a farm — which, inasmuch as it made him ' nigher ' to his lord, made him less ' free ' than the thegn, who owed only general service. Thus, Earl Gospatric, c. 1070, contrasted 'freo & dreng' (Scott. Hist. Review, i. 66) ; and the case of Ribton held by free service paying a farm {Reg. of St. Bee's, Surtees Soc, pp. 47, 481) goes far to prove that in Cumberland as in Northumberland ' free service was fee farm '. It is noteworthy that whereas the tenants-in-chief in Westmorland who held by drengage did not pay a farm, those who held by thanage in Lancashire and Northumberland did (Testa de Nevill, ii. 812 ff.). ' See note 7, p. 183. Both in Northumberland (Testa de Nevill, ii. 758-60 ; Bain, ii, no. 557) and in Durham (Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense, iii. 556) wardship and marriage were due from lands held in drengage.

  • Pipe RoUs of Cumberland and Westmorland, p. 1.

' Hardy, Rot. Ohlat., &c., p. 127. These drengs were tenants-in-chief, but after the shrievalty of Westmorland had been given with the custody of Brougham Castle to Robert de Vipont, castellan of Appleby, they came to be regarded as his men.

  • Cal. of Inq. v, no. 533 ; inquisition post mortem of Robert Clifford, 8 Edw. II

» Inquest of 18 Hen. VIII (Nicolson and Bum, i. 418). Of course the ' custom ' of oats did not constitute drengage ; it was only an incident of that as of other tenures.