"Free bench" is a legal term referring to an ancient manorial custom in parts of England whereby a widow, until she remarried, could retain tenure of her late husband's land.
The widow of a tenant was usually allowed her free bench, so long as she preserved her chastity. But if any evidence appeared against her, or she declared an intention of remarrying, she had to forfeit her lands.
The rights to free bench varied from manor to manor and were subject to local custom. Some did not have the custom at all.
In a few cases, some very unusual ways of circumventing the problem have been recorded. For instance, the widow submitted to the penalty of riding into court upon a black ram holding its tail in her hand and repeating the following lines of nonsense (as recorded in No. 614 of The Spectator ):
A similar practice to freebench sometimes applied to the children, who had to follow the conditions of their father. The lord had to look narrowly after the morals and marriages of the daughters of his farmers. A case of female incontinence was punished by a fine called 'Legrewite' or 'Leyr-wite' [From leyr derives 'lair'. l< OE leger= lying (down), a bed + wite = a fine], [3] and the birth of an illegitimate child was followed by another called 'childwite' , which in one of the manors of Bury Monastery was fixed at 2s. 8d.: it was due from the guardian, who might be the father or the brother, of the unfortunate damsel. In some cases the young woman went through a grotesque act of penance. At Faringdon, a tenant's daughter, on being convicted of incontinence, forfeited forty pence (no small sum) in the reign of Henry III, to the lord of the manor; which was only remitted on condition of the offender's appearing in the lord's court, carrying a black sheep on her back, and making confession of her shame. [4] [5]
Manorialism, also known as the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership in parts of Europe, notably England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes fortified manor house in which the lord of the manor and his dependents lived and administered a rural estate, and a population of labourers who worked the surrounding land to support themselves and the lord. These labourers fulfilled their obligations with labour time or in-kind produce at first, and later by cash payment as commercial activity increased. Manorialism is sometimes included as part of the feudal system.
Copyhold tenure was a form of customary tenure of land common in England from the Middle Ages. The land was held according to the custom of the manor, and the mode of landholding took its name from the fact that the "title deed" received by the tenant was a copy of the relevant entry in the manorial court roll. A tenant – or mesne lord – who held land in this way was legally known as a copyholder.
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, a chief, or a ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are entitled to courtesy titles. The collective "Lords" can refer to a group or body of peers.
Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land could be either through a "formal" or "informal" process. The process could normally be accomplished in three ways. First there was the creation of "closes", taken out of larger common fields by their owners. Secondly, there was enclosure by proprietors, owners who acted together, usually small farmers or squires, leading to the enclosure of whole parishes. Finally there were enclosures by Acts of Parliament.
The manorial system of New France, known as the seigneurial system, was the semi-feudal system of land tenure used in the North American French colonial empire.
Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights as well as seignory, the right to grant or draw benefit from the estate. The title continues in modern England and Wales as a legally recognised form of property that can be held independently of its historical rights. It may belong entirely to one person or be a moiety shared with other people.
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals with manorial tenants and great banquets. The term is today loosely applied to various country houses, frequently dating from the late medieval era, which formerly housed the landed gentry.
The Inclosure Acts, which use an archaic spelling of the word now usually spelt "enclosure", cover enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land previously held in common. Between 1604 and 1914, over 5,200 individual enclosure acts were passed, affecting 28,000 km2.
A demesne or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants.
Enborne is a village and civil parish, in West Berkshire, England that bounds to the east, across a road from Newbury. The River Enborne shares its name, although it does not run through the village; rather, it runs through and rises near the nearby village of Enborne Row. Enborne is in the county of Berkshire. It lost some of its eastern land to Newbury's 20th century expansion. The village name has had many variant spellings in the past, including Anebourne in 1086, as well as Enbourne, Enborn and Enbourn in the last 200 years.
Chaddleworth is a village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire.
The manorial courts were the lowest courts of law in England during the feudal period. They had a civil jurisdiction limited both in subject matter and geography. They dealt with matters over which the lord of the manor had jurisdiction, primarily torts, local contracts and land tenure, and their powers only extended to those who lived within the lands of the manor: the demesne and such lands as the lord had enfeoffed to others, and to those who held land therein. Historians have divided manorial courts into those that were primarily seignorial – based on feudal responsibilities – and those based on separate delegation of authority from the monarch. There were three types of manorial court: the court of the honour; the court baron; and the court customary, also known as the halmote court.
Cardinham is a civil parish and a village in mid Cornwall, England. The village is approximately three-and-a-half miles (6 km), east-northeast of Bodmin. The hamlets of Fletchersbridge, Millpool, Milltown, Mount, Old Cardinham Castle and Welltown are in the parish.
In law, a moiety title is the ownership of part of a property. The word derives from Old French moitié, "half", from Latin medietas ("middle"), from medius.
A manorial roll or court roll is the roll or record kept of the activities of a manorial court, in particular containing entries relating to the rents and holdings, deaths, alienations, and successions of the customary tenants or copyholders. The records were invariably kept in roll form in the Middle Ages, but in the post-medieval period were more usually entered into volumes. Despite this change of format, the records often continued to be known as court rolls, although the term court books is also found.
Brown v Raindle (1796) 30 ER 998 is an English land law case, concerning co-ownership of land. It confirmed that equity will not, in copyhold land for example, generally allow a widow the right to remain in a property where a mortgage remains in arrears.
Ashley Park is a private residential neighbourhood at Walton-on-Thames in Surrey. Its central feature was a grandiose English country house, at times enjoying associated medieval manorial rights, which stood on the site, with alterations, between 1605 and the early 1920s. Its owners included Charles Sackville, 2nd Duke of Dorset, in the 18th century and members of the Sassoon family around the turn of the 20th century.
William Rosewell was a gentleman and landholder of Loxton, Somerset, England. He was the father of William Rosewell the Solicitor-General to Queen Elizabeth I. He was named as one of the trustee in his son's will of 1566 and managed his son's estates in Somerset while his son's children were under age.
The Manor of Totteridge was located in Totteridge, Hertfordshire, in an area that is now part of the London Borough of Barnet. The manor was historically associated with the Manor of Hatfield. The original manor house was demolished before 1821 and the manorial estate known as Totteridge Common was transferred to a charity, the Totteridge Manor Association, in 1954.
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article " Freebench ". |