Late Middle Ages

What was a medieval manor?

The manor was the basic unit of the late-medieval rural economy north of the Alps, the smallest cell of the social, fiscal, and judicial order in which a peasant household lived and died. The textbook account — a manor house, a demesne, a village, a mill, a forge, a church, surrounded by open fields, meadow, common, and wood, with the lord of the manor in residence and the customary tenants in his court — captures a real institution, and it was the institution on which the demesne economy of the great ecclesiastical and lay estates was built. The new agrarian history of the past forty years has not, on the whole, displaced this picture; it has complicated it. The manor was, in different regions, very different things. It was a great territorial unit in the Île-de-France and the Brie; it was a fragmentary assemblage of customary rights in many English counties; it was a Grundherrschaft of an estate with ten or fifteen dependent villages in the German Rhineland; it was a Grundherrschaft of a single dependent village in Westphalia. The institution of the manor was, in the late Middle Ages, in slow decline — but it declined at very different speeds in different places, and it left a documentary record so rich that the modern history of the medieval English countryside is, in many respects, the history of the manor.

The principal documentary record is the Extenta, the Censier, the Customal, the Urbar, the Liegenschaftsverzeichnis, the Court Roll, and the Compotus. The historiography is the work of Marc Bloch, of Georges Duby, of Robert Fossier, of Adriaan Verhulst, of Christopher Dyer, of John Hatcher, of Mark Bailey, of Bruce Campbell, of David Stone, of John Langdon, of Edwin DeWindt, of Helen Cam, of Doris Stenton, of Pauline Stafford, of Judith Bennett, of Miriam Chrisman, of Zvi Razi, of R. M. Smith, of R. H. Hilton, of Rodney Hilton, of Robert Brenner, of the late Guy Bois, of the late Robert Fossier, of the late Christopher Hill, of the late Eric Hobsbawm, of the late E. P. Thompson. The new history of the manor is, in this sense, the work of a long generation of agrarian historians, and it has transformed the older, more juridical, more institutional, more formalist account of the medieval estate.

The Anatomy of the Manor

The manor had three principal parts. The demesne (dominicum, terra dominica, Herrenland) was the land reserved for the lord. It was worked by the labour services of the customary tenants, by the labour of the servi and the ancillae on the home farms of the great ecclesiastical estates, and, increasingly from the late thirteenth century, by the wage labour of the mercenarii. The peasant holdings (terra villanorum, terra censiva, Gewannland) were the strips of land held by the customary tenants, in exchange for the labour services, the money rents, and the customary dues of the villanus, the censitaire, the Hintersasse. The common land (communio, terre communes, Allmende) was the meadow, the wood, the pasture, the marsh, the moor, the wastelands — the whole of the ager and the silva that was not the demesne and was not the peasant holdings.

The demesne was, in the great estates of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the principal source of the lord’s revenue. The Compotus rolls of the bishop of Winchester’s manors, of the abbey of Westminster’s manors, of the abbey of Bury St Edmunds’s manors, of the abbey of Glastonbury’s manors, of the abbey of Ramsey’s manors, of the abbey of Crowland’s manors, of the abbey of Battle’s manors — and the Polyptyque of the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Cartulaire of the abbey of Saint-Denis, the Cartulaire of the bishop of Beauvais, the Cartulaire of the bishop of Chartres, the Censier of the abbey of Saint-Victor, the Cartulaire of the abbey of Cluny, the Cartulaire of the abbey of Saint-Bertin — are the principal documentary records. The work of Titow, of Hallam, of Mate, of Postan, of Hatcher, of Campbell, of Stone, of Langdon, of Bennett, of DeWindt, of Postles, of Razi, of Faith, of Dyer, of Campbell, of Bailey has, in two generations, transformed the historiography of the medieval manor.

The Lord of the Manor

The lord of the manor was, in the great ecclesiastical and lay estates, a person of consequence. The bishop of Winchester, the abbot of Bury St Edmunds, the abbot of Westminster, the abbot of Glastonbury, the abbot of Ramsey, the abbot of Crowland, the abbot of Battle — all were the lords of great manors. The earls of the English higher nobility, the great baronnie of the French high nobility, the great Herrschaft of the German high nobility — all were the lords of great manors.

The lord of the manor was, in many cases, an absentee. The English bishop was, on average, more often at the Domus Conversorum of London, at the palace of the bishop’s see, at the manerium of the bishop’s principal manor, at the curia of the archbishop, at the parliament of the realm — than at the manor. The English earl was, on average, more often at the hospicium of London, at the curia of the earl’s bench, at the parliament of the realm — than at the manor. The French seigneur was, on average, more often at Paris, at the Hôtel of the duke, at the Hôtel of the king, at the parliament of Paris — than at the manor. The German Herr was, on average, more often at the Pfalz of the emperor, at the Hof of the king, at the Reichstag of the realm, at the Hoftag of the duke — than at the manor.

The absentee lord of the manor was represented at the manor by a steward — seneschal, drossart, Vogt, bailiff, Meyer, Schulte, villicus. The steward was the principal officer of the lord at the manor, and the steward was, in the great ecclesiastical estates, a salaried officer appointed by the chapter or the abbot. The steward was, in the great lay estates, a salaried officer appointed by the earl or the baron. The steward was, in the great Italian estates, a salaried officer appointed by the commune or the prince. The steward was, in the great Iberian estates, a salaried officer appointed by the king or the caballero. The steward was, in the great Castilian estates, a salaried officer appointed by the señor or the caballero. The steward was, in the great Aragonese estates, a salaried officer appointed by the barón or the ricohombre. The steward was, in the great Navarrese estates, a salaried officer appointed by the príncipe or the caballero.

The Customary Tenants

The customary tenants of the manor were the principal labour force of the demesne economy. The customary tenant held a customary holding (villanagium, mansus, hufe, mansa, mas) in exchange for the labour services, the money rents, and the customary dues of the customary tenure. The labour services were, in the great ecclesiastical and lay estates of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the principal form of the lord’s revenue. The English Bracton (c. 1230), the English Fleta (c. 1290), the English Britton (c. 1290), the English Mirror of Justices (c. 1290), the English Year Books of Edward I, the French Coutumiers of the late thirteenth century, the French Établissements de Saint Louis (c. 1270), the French Coutume de Beauvaisis of Philippe de Beaumanoir (1283), the German Sachsenspiegel of Eike von Repgow (c. 1220), the German Schwabenspiegel (c. 1270) — all are the documentary record of the customary tenure.

The customary tenant worked the demesne as part of his services. The week-work (opera), the boon-work (precariae), the carucage, the averagium, the socage, the soke, the suit of mill, the suit of bakehouse, the suit of brewery, the suit of forge, the suit of fishery, the suit of warren, the suit of fair, the suit of market — all were the services of the customary tenant. The merchet, the heriot, the relief, the primer seisin, the wardship, the marriage, the escheat, the felony — all were the incidents of the customary tenure.

The customary tenant was, in law, free to do many things: to marry, to inherit, to alienate by the custom of the manor, to sue in the royal court, to appeal to the curia of the lord, to appeal to the curia of the king. He was not, in law, free to do a few other things: to leave the manor without licence, to sell his holding without the lord’s consent, to marry his daughter outside the manor without paying a merchet, to bequeath his holding against the custom of the manor, to grind his corn at the moulin banal, to bake his bread at the four banal, to brew his beer at the brasserie banal. The customary tenant was, in short, the principal labour force of the demesne economy, and he was, in law, a person of limited legal capacity.

The Manorial Court

The manorial court was the principal institution of the manor. The curia, the plaids, the audiences, the court baron, the court leet, the court of the honour, the high court of the seigneury — all were the manorial court. The court had jurisdiction over the customary tenures, the petty offences of the manor, the regulation of the common, the supervision of the weights and measures, the supervision of the bakehouse, the supervision of the moulin banal, the supervision of the foresterie and the garenne, the supervision of the vigne and the vergier.

The court rolls of the manorial court are the principal documentary record. The English Court Rolls of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries — the Rolls of the Curia Regis of the reign of Henry III, the Rolls of the Curia Regis of the reign of Edward I, the Rolls of the Curia Regis of the reign of Edward II, the Rolls of the Curia Regis of the reign of Edward III, the Rolls of the Curia Regis of the reign of Richard II, the Rolls of the Curia Regis of the reign of Henry IV, the Rolls of the Curia Regis of the reign of Henry V, the Rolls of the Curia Regis of the reign of Henry VI, the Rolls of the Curia Regis of the reign of Edward IV, the Rolls of the Curia Regis of the reign of Richard III, the Rolls of the Curia Regis of the reign of Henry VII — are the principal documentary record. The French Censiers of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the French Cartulaires of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the French Coutumiers of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the French Ordonnances of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the French Registres of the Parlement of Paris, the French Registres of the Chambre des comptes — are the French equivalents. The German Weistümer of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the German Urkundenbücher of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the German Salbücher of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries — are the German equivalents.

The Decline of the Manor

The manor was, in the late Middle Ages, in slow decline. The demographic, economic, and political transformation of the period — the famine of 1315–1317, the Black Death of 1347–1351, the labour shortage of the late fourteenth century, the commutation of labour services into money rents, the rise of wage labour, the rise of the putting-out system, the rise of the enclosure of the open fields — all undermined the demesne economy. The great Compotus rolls of the bishop of Winchester, of the abbey of Westminster, of the abbey of Glastonbury, of the abbey of Ramsey, of the abbey of Crowland, of the abbey of Battle, of the abbey of Saint-Denis, of the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés — show the demesne economy in retreat from the late thirteenth century onwards. The demesne was progressively leased out; the customary services were progressively commuted; the labour services were progressively replaced by wage labour; the enclosure of the open fields was progressive in some regions, regressive in others.

The decline was, however, uneven. The English Midlands saw a sustained programme of enclosure in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with the open fields of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, and Leicestershire progressively reduced to a few large blocks. The chalk and limestone belt, with its high costs of clearance, was slower; the downland pastoralism of the Cotswolds and the Wolds, the great centre of the English fine-wool trade, was a different agrarian regime. The late-medieval English field system, in other words, was a system in transition, and the three-field rotation survived long after the economic historians had declared it dead.

The historiographical question of why the manor declined in the West and intensified in the East is the central question of the late-medieval economic history of the region. The standard account, of Marc Bloch, of R. H. Hilton, of Rodney Hilton, of Robert Brenner, of the late Guy Bois, of the late Robert Fossier, of the late Christopher Hill, of the late Eric Hobsbawm, of the late E. P. Thompson, has, in two generations, transformed the historiography of the medieval manor. The answer, in summary, lies in the conjunction of a structural labour shortage, a real rise in the price of labour, the rise of the market for grain and wool, the weakness of the central state in the eastern German lands, and the rise of a new political and military elite in the East. The answer is, in other words, the conjunction of the demographic, the economic, the political, and the military — a conjunction that is the central problem of the late-medieval European economy.

Reading the Manor

The principal documentary record of the manor is the Extenta, the Censier, the Customal, the Urbar, the Liegenschaftsverzeichnis, the Court Roll, and the Compotus. The principal secondary literature is the work of Marc Bloch, of Georges Duby, of Robert Fossier, of Adriaan Verhulst, of Christopher Dyer, of John Hatcher, of Mark Bailey, of Bruce Campbell, of David Stone, of John Langdon, of Edwin DeWindt, of Helen Cam, of Doris Stenton, of Pauline Stafford, of Judith Bennett, of Miriam Chrisman, of Zvi Razi, of R. M. Smith, of R. H. Hilton, of Rodney Hilton, of Robert Brenner. The new history of the manor is, in this sense, the work of a long generation of agrarian historians, and it has transformed the older, more juridical, more institutional, more formalist account of the medieval estate.

References and Further Reading

  • Marc Bloch, Les caractères originaux de l’histoire rurale française (1931).
  • Georges Duby, L’Économie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans l’Occident médiéval (1962), 2 vols.
  • J. Z. Titow, English Rural Society 1200–1350 (1969).
  • H. E. Hallam, Rural England 1066–1348 (1981).
  • Mark Bailey, The English Manor c. 1200–1500 (2002).
  • Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850–1520 (2002).
  • Bruce M. S. Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture 1042–1350 (2000).
  • Zvi Razi and Richard Smith, eds., The Origins of the English Manorial Court (1996).