The Evolution of Manor Courts in Medieval England, c.1250–1350:The Evidence of the Personal Actions

Manor courts held by landlords for their tenants and other local people existed in their thousands across medieval England. These courts played a significant role in the everyday lives of villagers, formed a major site for the preservation of law and order, and have been studied by generations of historians. Yet room for debate remains concerning the character of these institutions in the later thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and the influences that proved most important for their evolution. This article uses a new database concerning hundreds of manorial personal actions – lawsuits which treated areas roughly equivalent to modern tort and contract law – to explore the procedures and practices of the manor courts, and to reconstruct their development over the first century for which detailed records of their proceedings survive. It is argued that although significant local variation among manor courts persisted, especially in the west of England, overall there was a broad process of ‘convergence’. Yet this was not simply a top-down process involving the transmission of practices from the king’s courts of common law, or the communication of external rules by legal professionals or landlords. Instead, the suitors, litigants and jurors of the manor courts played a decisive role in this process. The manorial personal actions thus provide an important instance of the fundamental role of experienced laypeople in simultaneously shaping and exploiting key institutions of medieval governance and law.Arts and Humanities Research Counci

Making a living in rural societies in the North Sea area, 500-2000

This chapter deals with the central question in the book: "Rural Economy and Society in Northwestern Europe, 500-2000. Volume: Making a living. Family, income and labour" What happened to family forms in the rural societies around the coasts of the North Sea in the last one and a half millennium? How did resources become available to the rural family and to its members, and what strategies were employed to generate these resources? The approach of this book is based on an analysis of long-term changes in household formation and in the economic behaviour of its members within a social and regional context

Making a living in rural societies in the North Sea area, 500-2000

This chapter deals with the central question in the book: "Rural Economy and Society in Northwestern Europe, 500-2000. Volume: Making a living. Family, income and labour" What happened to family forms in the rural societies around the coasts of the North Sea in the last one and a half millennium? How did resources become available to the rural family and to its members, and what strategies were employed to generate these resources? The approach of this book is based on an analysis of long-term changes in household formation and in the economic behaviour of its members within a social and regional context