Freedom and Dependence in the Relationship between Landlords and Tenants in the Customary Law of Medieval English Boroughs

Abstract

The paper examines a number of problems related to possession of land in the boroughs of medieval England — according to the customary law. A special attention is devoted to the relationship between landlords and tenants in the boroughs. It’s evident that feudal dependence in the borough was not as distinct as in the English medieval manor. As a rule, tenants in the borough were obliged to pay to the lords only fixed yearly rents. Usually, they were not due to pay entry fines or reliefs, heriots after the death of the tenant or marriage merchets. Unlike medieval villains, they were not obliged to do corvee work. The English medieval borough included into itself so-called “element of freedom” to such a high degree that villains who had escaped from the manors became free people having lived in the borough a year and a day. Tenants in the boroughs also had the right according to their own will (without the lord’s permission) to alienate (e. g. to inherit, to buy, to sell) their movables. Nevertheless, the role of the lord in the medieval borough should not be there underestimated as he was a borrower of the yearly rents — a very important feature of the relations between tenants and lords in general. The social significance of the rents in the borough was so high that customary law presupposed special punishment for rent arrears, up to forfeiture of land.