Life in a Medieval Village - Frances Gies [43]
Widows had inferior but definite rights that varied from place to place. Under common (feudal) law, a widow’s portion of an estate was from one third to one half, but a widow often automatically succeeded a husband in a peasant holding, not as the heiress, but as the surviving co-tenant. This arrangement allowed her to support the family and hold it together. A widow might be pressured by the lord to remarry, to insure that the holding had a man to perform its labor services, but she might preserve her freedom by hiring workers. Most widows eventually married, or turned over the holding to an adult son, but some, like Cecilia Benyt of Cuxham (Oxfordshire), remained in possession of the family holding, never remarrying, although her son was an adult and in fact reeve.3 Widows’ rights, says Rosamond Faith, “seem to have been by far the most durable and firmly established of all inheritance customs.”4 Widows’ rights, and inheritance customs in general, were influenced by the long-term fluctuations in availability of land. The scarcer land became, the more attractive a widow became.
A grand principle of inheritance had come to be very widely accepted: “An established holding ought to descend in the blood of the men who…held it of old,” sometimes expressed as “keeping the name on the land.”5 No one yet disputed the lord’s title to his entry fee and even his heriot [death duty], but by now, legal doctrine notwithstanding, the land was felt to belong to the tenant, villein or free, who plowed, harrowed, and planted it. Tradition was even strong enough to inhibit the lord from raising the rent on a holding when a normal succession took place (alert lords and stewards made sure to raise it when a tenant died without heir and a new tenant was found).
The entry fee was substantial, arbitrary, and proportional to the size of the holding: in Elton in 1313, “four shillings from Henry Reed to have one cottage formerly his father’s”; “13 shillings 4 pence from Ralph son of Gilbert Shepherd to have one cottage and eight acres of land formerly his father’s”; and “60 shillings from John son of Henry Reeve to have one virgate of land formerly his father’s.” Sometimes the connection between heir and dead tenant is not clear; while Gilbert Shepherd’s son Ralph inherited his father’s holding, another son, John, paid an entry fee of 2 shillings “to have one cottage formerly belonging to Margery Carter.”6
Manorial courts sometimes had to rule on complicated inheritance questions. In the Bedfordshire village of Chalgrave in 1279, Richard son of Thomas Ballard presented himself and “demanded the land which was his father’s.” Investigation showed that Richard had had an elder brother named Walter, who had died, leaving sons. These sons “would have been the next heirs if Walter had held the land while he lived, but he did not have possession of the land, therefore [the jurors] say that Richard himself is the next heir.” The custom of the manor, however, was that “no customary tenant can enter such land after the death of his father while his mother is alive, unless the mother shall agree, and…his mother will hold the land all her life if she shall wish.” Richard therefore agreed to pay his mother, Avice, a yearly ration of winter wheat (frumentum), beans, and spring wheat (tramesium). Richard paid 12 pence entry fee and promised to do the services “due and accustomed” for the holding, as well as to “maintain the houses of the same tenement.”7
If the inheriting son was a minor and an orphan and no other relative could be found, the lord might exercise his right of “wardship.” Thus at Elton in 1297 John Ketel was “in the custody of the lord,” slept and ate in the manor house, and was apparently clothed; at least he was bought a pair of shoes which had to be repaired at the manor’s expense.8 John Daye, who “tore up and carried away” the house on his father