Feudal Aids

To be added

Uggescombe Hundred Feudal Aids

Winterbourne Steepleton Pub 1899 DCM Ref L/1939.56.3RC 10/1/04

Feudal Aids were gifts from a free tenant to his Lord. These could be exacted on three occasions (according to Magna Carta)

1) To pay a ransom on the Lord's person

2) When the Lord's eldest son was knighted (he had to be over 15 years of age)

3) When the lord's eldest daughter was married (she had to be over 7 years old !)

Feudal Aids were enacted in 1275 and abolished until 1660.

Anyone good at Latin ??? - would welcome translations RC

The Black Death : In 1348 two ships … landed at Melcombe (Weymouth) in Dorset a little before Midsummer. In them were sailors … infected with an unheard of epidemic illness called pestilence. They infected the men of Melcombe, who were the first to be infected in England. The first inhabitants to die from the illness of pestilence did so on the Eve of St John the Baptist [23 June], after being ill for three days at most. No doubt, Steepleton did not escape the effects of this plague.