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The Manor
The manor was not just a piece of land or a house it was an economic, social, & administrative entity, effectively the basis of rural life.
It was divided into the demesne lands, which belonged to the Lord of the Manor and the glebe, lands which belonged to the Church.
The manor house was the residence of the lord & the manorial court ,when it wasnt at the Manor House, was at the Manorial Court House which was frequently near the parish church.
In English law a manor was an estate, the basic feudal unit of tenure, with the right to hold a manorial court & pass judgement on misdomenors anr serious wrong doing The Lord of the manor could hand down fines, corporal punishment such a flogging or the stocks &
even hang the worst offenders, the gibbet often being remote from the center of population .
Cory Manor- Putford
Cotehele Manor - the Edgecumbs - Cornwall
Fardel Manor - the Ralegh
The method of "strip farming" that we learned about in school history lessons was the open field system, imported by the Saxons. As a method of farming it worked well enough in flat plain areas but was difficult in hilly Devon.
The manor was a complex entity that defined the economic, social, and administrative organisation of rural life.
The origins and structure of the manorial system in medieval England are deeply rooted in the period following the Norman Conquest of 1066. William the Conqueror as a new king, granted manors to his loyal followers, thereby making them lords of many manors. The feudal system that emerged became the cornerstone of medieval society.. where possessing land became the primary source of wealth and power. The grants made by the king were in expectation of military and other forms of service, solidifying the feudal bond between the king and his vassals.
At its heart of a manor was the lord’s residence, the Manor House, symbolising his authority and status. Manor houses were often fortified in that era, when security of local power was dominant. The main building was surrounded by buildings that supported ,barns, stables, and workshops reflecting the function of the manor.
The village was part of the manor with a church, often a mill and a collection of cottages,. The peasants who were the manorial workforce & on whose backs the whole edifice rested, built simple dwellings from local materials. The humble nature of their homes reflecting their subservient position within the manorial hierarchy.
Demesne, land retained "in-hand" by the lord, without legal tenant. It was exploited for the lord's own profit using his manorial workforce, being those with no tenancy rights or those whose copyhold tenancies stipulated so many days per month or year to be worked on the demesne.
Glebe, land reserved for the support of the parish priest.
Residents of a manor
Lord of the manor, the Knight or the Baron who held the land from the Crown or the Church; often an absentee, almost never resident.
Slaves, who had nothing & were owned by the Lord of the Manor
Serfs who were bound to the land they worked & obliged to work to Lords land on certain times. They could not advance to higher social status.
Villeins a tenant farmer who were legally tied to a lord of the manor but were free to move around.
Freeholders who own the freehold of a property, a building & or the land
Copyholders owned land which was evidenced by a copy of the manor roll establishing the title
Berry Pomoroy Manor
Beenleigh Manorin Harberton
Clapton Manor in Clapton in Gordeno- the Arturs
Above -Trelask in Cornwall
Below
An illustration of a Norman manor house with a defensive tower.
The parish is generally called by the same name as the manor from which in early times the Lord of the manor also derived his name and has clerical jurisdiction over the same geographic territory over which the lord has lay jurisdiction through his manorial court.
The parish must have come into existence after the establishment of the manor, following the building of a church by the Lord of the Manor for the use of himself and his tenants, no doubt in consultation with the bishop within whose clerical jurisdiction the manor was situated. The lord then endowed the parish church with some of his landholdings, the revenues from which were used for the support of the priest and the maintenance of the church building.
The lord of the manor retained the advowson, that is the right to select and appoint the parish priest, yet the parish was governed by the diocese within which it was situated, which also granted it the tithes to which it was legally entitled, which was a tax of one tenth of the produce of the manor.
Common land, over which certain manorial tenants and other occupants held traditional rights exploitable for their own profit.
Types of lands
Arable, ploughed land used to grow crops.
Waste, economically unproductive land.
Pasture, grassland used for grazing livestock.
Meadow, grassland used for haymaking.
Closes, small enclosed fields created by hedge or stone wall boundaries, used for example to house ewes with their lambs requiring close observation.
Marsh
Woodland, an essential fuel resource.
Furze, a fuel resource used by the lower tenants.
Fallow, land resting within the cycle of crop rotation agriculture.
Fishpond, used to breed fish such as carp
A manor was akin to the modern firm or business or other going concern. It was a productive unit, which required physical capital, in the form of land, buildings, equipment and draught animals such as ploughing oxen and labour in the form of direction, day to day management and a workforce.
It was further similar in that its ownership could be transferred, with the necessary "licence to alienate" having been obtained from the overlord, as can the ownership of a modern company. The administration was self-contained and the new lord needed only to collect its net revenues to form his return on investment. The direction was ultimately provided by the manorial court, presided over by the lord's personal steward, whose members included the freehold tenants of the manor. The court itself appointed most of the lower manorial officers, which included the following:
Bailiff, in charge of supervising the cultivation of the manor.
Reeve, an overseer.
Ditch Reeve, responsible for maintaining drainage ditches.
The efficiency, productivity and thus profitability of a manor therefore depended on a mixture of qualities and interaction of location, micro-climate, natural resources, soil type, direction and labour. It was in the interest of all dwellers within the manor, to a greater or lesser degree, that it should be successful.
The manorial court had wide legal jurisdiction over the inhabitants of the manor, sometimes with the right to administer capital punishment, if the lord had obtained from the king the right of holding a court leet. Much of the law was specific to a particular manor, as developed by "custom of the manor" and as interpreted by the manorial court. Rights of appeal existed to the hundred court and the county court beyond that over which presided the county's sheriff.
A Free manor was an autonomous area, outside the jurisdiction, law and administrative control of the surrounding territory
Every person who dwelt in mediaeval England was deemed to exist under the jurisdiction of a manorial court, unless a citizen of a borough or a cleric, or a lord of the manor himself, when he was subject to the primary jurisdiction of the king's court if a tenant-in-chief or of the county court if a mesne lord. It was not permissible for a person to migrate from the manor of his birth except by special arrangement with the authorities. The manor was also the source of a poor man's charitable relief, should he fall into destitution, but such was at the discretion of the manorial court, by custom of each manor. An alien within a manor would not therefore be entitled to any such relief, or indeed protection offered by the power of the lord from crime or violence committed by marauding bands and robbers.
Outlying parts of a manor over time were exchanged between neighbouring lords, and thus would change from being within the manorial boundaries of the one to the other, but would remain within the original parish's boundaries. Thus over time a manor's lands could grow and shrink and could extend over several different parishes. Where a manor was split into two by the process of subinfeudation, the parish would then cover both manors, unless a new parish were also created.
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