Life in a Medieval Village - Frances Gies [51]
This deed have I done for thee.
Good example givest thou me
How I shall serve thee in thine age.
…This half sack shall lie above thy father,
And keep the other part to thy behalf.68
Most peasants were more careful. In Upwood in 1311 Nicholas son of Adam turned over his virgate to his son John, stipulating that he should have “a reasonable maintenance in that land until the end of his life,” and that John should give him “every year for the rest of his life” specified amounts of grain.69 At Cranfield in 1294, Elias de Bretendon made a more complicated agreement with his son John; John was to take over his house, yard, and half virgate for the services and money rent owed the lord. “And…the above John will provide suitable food and drink for Elias and his wife Christine while they are alive, and they will have residence with John [in his house].” The contract left nothing to chance:
And if it should happen, though may it not, that trouble and discord should in the future arise between the parties so that they are unable to live together, the above John will provide for Elias and Christine, or whichever of them should outlive the other, a house and curtilage [yard] where they can decently reside. And he will give each year to the same Elias and Christine or whichever of them is alive, six quarters of hard grain at Michaelmas, namely three quarters of wheat, one and one-half quarters of barley, one and one-half quarters of peas and beans, and one quarter of oats. [The addition evidently gave trouble, since the total is not six but seven quarters.]70
If the retiring tenant was childless, the pension was contracted for outside the family, an arrangement that became frequent after the Black Death. In 1332 John in the Hale of Barnet, Hertfordshire, agreed with another peasant, John atte Barre, to turn over his house and land in return for a yearly contribution of “one new garment with a hood, worth 3 shillings 4 pence, two pairs of linen sheets, three pairs of new shoes, one pair of new hose, worth 12 pence, and victuals in food and drink decently as is proper.” An unusual feature of the contract was that the retiring tenant agreed to work for his replacement “to the best of his ability,” and that the new tenant not only paid an entry fee, as was customary, but “satisfied the lord for the heriot of the said John in the Hale by [the payment of] one mare,” although the retiree was not yet dead.71
Pension contracts were enforceable in the manor court, a sign of one of their most striking aspects: the community’s interest in enforcement. “Dereliction of duty to the old [was] a matter of public concern,” observes Elaine Clark.72 A son undertaking to support his aged parents commonly requested the manorial court to witness his oath, or enlisted as guarantors pledges whose names he reported to the steward. For the court’s participation the pensioners paid a fee.73
In Ellington in 1278, William Koc acknowledged that he was in arrears for the contributions he owed his father, in wheat, barley, beans, and peas, and promised to make amends.74 The jurors in Warboys in 1334 reported: “And since Stephen the Smith did not keep his mother according to their agreement he is [fined] sixpence. And afterwards the above jurors ordered that the said land be given back to his mother and that she should hold it for the rest of her life. And the above Stephen may not have anything of that land while his mother is alive.”75
Pensions were sometimes negotiated between