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By Root 988 0

as juror in 1294, 1300, 1306, 1307, and 1312; Hugh as juror in 1300, 1307, 1312, and 1331, as reeve in 1323-1324 and again in 1324-1325; and William as juror in 1318 and 1322. Five members of the Gamel family served: Roger as juror in 1279 and 1294, ale taster in 1279; Robert as juror in 1292 and 1308; Philip as juror in 1300, ale taster in 1312; John as juror in 1308 and 1312 and ale taster in 1331; and Edmund as juror in 1342 and ale taster the same year. Four members of the Brington family served as juror, Reginald three times. Four of the Child family served in eight offices, three as jurors, William Child three times as reeve. Four Abovebrooks were jurors, and one was also an ale taster. Four atte Crosses served, Alexander four times as juror and once as reeve. The Goscelins contributed jurors, two reeves, and a beadle. The Reeves were jurors, ale tasters, and, naturally, reeves.

That these same families also figure prominently in the court rolls for quarrels, suits, infractions, and acts of violence is a striking fact, corroborating Edward Britton’s observations to the same effect about Broughton. Members of three of the most active families were fined and assessed damages in 1279 when Alexander atte Cross, Gilbert son of Richard Reeve, and Henry son of Henry Abovebrook “badly beat” the son of another virgater, Reginald le Wyse.58 In 1294 Roger Goscelin “drew blood from Richer Chapeleyn,” while the wives of two of the In Angulo men quarreled and Michael’s wife, Alice, “did hamsoken” on Geoffrey’s wife, also named Alice—that is, assaulted her in her own house; Michael’s wife paid a fine and also gave sixpence for “license to agree” with her sister-in-law. Richard Benyt, twice a juror, “badly beat Thomas Clerk and did hamsoken upon him in his own house.” John son of John Abovebrook, both father and son officeholders, “took the beasts of Maud wife of John Abovebrook,” apparently his stepmother, “and drove them out of her close.”59

In 1306 what sounds like a free-for-all involving the members of several of the elite families occurred. John Ketel, twice juror and twice ale taster, “broke the head” of Nicholas son of Richard Smith and badly beat Richard Benyt, “and moreover did hamsoken upon him”; John son of Henry Smith, four times juror, “struck Robert Stekedec and drew blood from him,” while his brother Henry Smith “pursued John [Smith]…with a knife in order that he might strike and wound him.”60

Members of the elite families sued each other for debt, accused each other of libel, and committed infractions such as coming late to the reaping in the fall or not sending all of their household or “not binding the lord’s wheat in the autumn as [their] neighbors did.” Their daughters were convicted of “fornication”: in 1303, Matilda daughter of John Abovebrook;61 in 1307, Athelina Blakeman;62 in 1312, Alice daughter of Robert atte Cross;63 in 1316, two women of the In Angulo family, Muriel and Alice.64

In short, a handful of village families were active leaders in village affairs, on both sides of the law. Their official posts may have helped them maintain and improve their status, which in turn perhaps lent them a truculence reminiscent of the Tybalts and Mercutios of the Italian cities, with somewhat similar results.

From the terse wording of the court records, a few village personalities emerge. One is that of Henry Godswein, virgater, ale taster, and juror, who in 1279 was fined “because he refused to work at the second boon-work of the autumn and because he impeded said boon-work by ordering that everyone should go home early and without the permission of the bailiffs, to the lord’s damage of half a mark.”65 Another is that of John of Elton the younger, whose troubles with his neighbors recur with regularity: a quarrel with his free tenant, John of Langetoft in 1292;66 one with Emma Prudhomme in 1294;67 a conviction of adultery in 1292 with Alice wife of Reginald le Wyse;68 then an accusation of trespass by John Hering in 1306;69 and finally an episode in 1306 in which John attacked one of his own tenants, John Chapman,