Who Fined You for Letting Your Pig Wander? Your Neighbours Did
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The court that ran a medieval English village was held in a barn or under a tree, judged by the tenants themselves, and its records are the best evidence we have of ordinary life.
What the court did
The court met every few weeks and handled the business of the manor. It recorded transfers of land held from the lord, since such land could not be sold by deed and changed hands only through the court. It enforced the customary rules of farming, including when to harvest, how many animals each tenant could graze on the common and the maintenance of ditches and fences. It punished minor offences, dealt with debts and disputes between neighbours, and appointed the officers who ran the village. Its authority came from custom rather than from statute.
Who ran it
The arrangement gave the tenants more say than the word court suggests:
- •The lord's steward presided and kept the record
- •The tenants attending were required to be there
- •A jury of tenants decided questions of fact and of custom
- •Custom was whatever the assembled tenants said it had always been
- •Village officers were elected or rotated among the tenants
- •The lord took the fines, which is why he held the court
What the records contain
The rolls are written in abbreviated Latin on parchment and survive in large quantities, and their value to historians is out of all proportion to their subject matter. They name ordinary people, which almost no other medieval source does, and they name them repeatedly across decades, so families can be traced. They record what people grew, what animals they kept, who owed whom money, who fought with whom and what the village considered acceptable. Population changes, the effects of plague, wage disputes and the slow collapse of serfdom are all visible in them at village scale.
The officers it appointed
The roles filled by the court are a list of what a village actually needed to function. A reeve oversaw the lord's farming and answered for its yield, which was an onerous job frequently avoided. A hayward watched the crops and the hedges and impounded straying animals. Ale tasters checked the quality and price of what was brewed and sold. A pinder kept the pound where seized livestock was held until a fine was paid. A constable dealt with breaches of the peace. Most were unpaid, served in rotation, and were themselves fined for failing to perform.
What the offences reveal
The recurring entries paint a picture that is unglamorous and revealing. Livestock straying into somebody's crop is the commonest complaint of all. Taking wood, fish or game beyond the customary allowance appears constantly. So does failure to repair a boundary, brewing ale below the required standard, and refusing to perform labour owed to the lord. Defamation and assault between neighbours are frequent. What emerges is a community regulating itself over the use of shared resources, with the lord's steward present mainly to collect the resulting fines.
The takeaway
A court meeting every few weeks recorded land transfers, enforced the farming customs of the village and punished minor offences, with a jury of tenants deciding what the custom actually was. The lord's steward presided and the lord took the fines. The surviving rolls name ordinary people repeatedly across decades, which makes them the richest source available for medieval village life.