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kindness of Fred. Whitaker, esq. J. P., lord of the manor of Bampton deanery, and well acquainted with the whole subject of manors, their nature and jurisdiction.

"It would be beyond the scope of my design, and at the same time uninteresting to the general reader, and to those who from local circumstances feel interest in the perusal of these pages, were I to enlarge upon the origin and nature of what is called a Hundred or a Manor; but as the town of Bampton is the Hundred-Town, and there will be found in the appendix some transcripts from records relating to the Hundred and Manor of Bampton, it may, for the better understanding them, be useful to furnish the reader with a few general observations on the subject.

The division of the kingdom into counties, hundreds, and tithings, is said to have been the work of King Alfred, and his object the prevention of rapine and disorder, which prevailed in his realm. But neither the mere separation of a given portion of the kingdom and calling it a county, nor of a county and calling it a hundred, nor of a hundred and calling it a tithing, would in itself at all advance this object. It was by instituting certain courts or tribunals within these particular limits, that he hoped to accomplish his object, and, as has been said of him, to bring Justice home to every man's door; hence in glancing at the courts which from these views of the king sprang up, we shall have to notice the very courts, which until lately were held within the hundred and manor of Bampton.

In ancient times it was the duty of the Sheriff of a county to make his circuit through every hundred of his county twice in the year, and to hold a court for the reformation of common grievances, and for the preservation of the peace and good government of the kingdom; at which court all the inhabitants above twelve years old (with some exceptions) were bound to attend, to make inquiries of all offences, and also to give security to the public for their own good behaviour by taking an oath to be faithful to the king and to observe his laws. And they were to incorporate_themselves into some free-pledge or tithing, which formerly comprised a certain number of families living together in the same precinct, the members whereof were every one of them mutually bound for each other, and punishable for the default of any member of a family in not appearing to answer for himself on any accusation made against him.

The jurisdiction of the Sheriff extended to every hundred in the county, unless, by prescription or by virtue of some grant or charter, it had come into the hands of some private Lord of the Leet, as the Hundred and Manor of Bampton had by the grant of King Henry the 3rd [No. IV in the appendix] come into the hands of William de Valence. These grants or charters usually specified the powers with which the Lord of the Leet and the Manor was to be invested, and the instruments of punishment which he was to keep. Amongst the latter, which he would have by law with out enumeration, as incident to the situation of Lord of the Leet, was a pillory, and a tumbrell or cucking-stool: the

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former is a well known instrument of punishment; the latter, because not so well known, I shall describe out of Jacob's Law Dictionary. "Cuckingstool is an engine invented for the punishment of scolds and unquiet women, by ducking them in the water, called in ancient time a Tumbrel' and sometimes a Trebuchet.'...And it was in use even in the time of our Saxons, by whom it was described to be Cathedra in qua rixosæ mulieres sedentes aquis demergebantur.' A chair or stool in which scolding, brawling women, being made to sit, were plunged over head and ears in water.

An indefinite number of hundreds made up a county, but ten tithings, hamlets, or townships were said formerly to have made up a Hundred, for every one of which tithingmen were appointed at the courtleet of the Hundred; but since an Act of Parliament passed on the 12th of August, 1842, the office of a tithingman is no longer in use, and the appointment of constables was taken from the Lords of the Leet, and is now made by Justices of the peace at a special Sessions of the peace: in the Hundred of Bampton it is made at Burford for the western, and at Witney for the eastern division of the Hundred.

In ancient times there was a ceremony, performed at courta-leet, which consisted of what was called view of frank-or free-pledge. Here the heads of the different families of the different tithings presented themselves to the Lord or Steward of the court, and a certain number of neighbours became bound, one for another, to see each man of their pledge or tithing forthcoming at all times, or to answer for any transgression done by any one who was gone away; and when any one offended, it was forthwith inquired to what pledge he belonged, and then the members of that pledge either produced the offender within 31 days, or satisfied for his offence. This mode of making one neighbour in a tithing become responsible for another, has, looking at the then state of society, been highly commended by law authors, and is said by Sir William Blackstone to have been the invention of King Alfred, and not merely to have been introduced by him from any other country.

As to Manors: According to that great lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, in his treatise on Manors and Copyholders, the Saxons, if they had not Manors in precisely the way in which they existed after the introduction of the feudal system at the conquest, had yet, says he, demesnes and services, the two material causes of a Manor. These demesnes they called "Inlands," because the Lords kept them in their own hands; the services they called "Utlands," because those lands were in the manurance and occupation of certain tenants, who, in consideration of the profits arising out of these lands, were bound to perform unto their Lords certain duties and services.

Of these demesne lands, says Sir Edward, one sort was called "Bookland," because they passed by book, and they in fact differed nothing from our freehold lands at this day, — the other sort was called "Folkland" because they passed by polls, and were claimed and challenged by the tenants, not by assurance in writing, but only by the mouth of the people, (PER VOCEM POPULI); and they in effect differ nothing from copyhold lands at this day.

But it is from the Normans, says he, that we had the very form of

Manors, which is observed amongst us at this present day. They it was, who introduced into this country the law of feuds, which, says Sir William Blackstone, had its origin from the military policy of the northern or Celtic nations, the Goths, the Huns, the Franks, the Vandals, and the Lombards, who poured themselves, on the declension of the Roman empire, into all the regions of Europe, whose conquering general, to secure their new acquisitions, allotted large districts or parcels of land to the superior officers of the army; and thus began that celebrated honourable species of tenure called Knight-service and in law-French SERVICE DE CHEVALIER, to a state of society arising from which Mr. Burke alludes in the following well-known celebrated passage. "But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive even in servitude itself the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprize is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

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This mixed system of opinion and sentiment, he continues, had its origin in the ancient chivalry. And this ancient chivalry was in full vogue and vigour at the time of the grant of the manor of Bampton to William de Valence. Upon that grant being made, he became immediate tenant or tenant in capite to King Henry the 3rd, and held by Knight-service or as the French called it Service de Chevalier.

It is universally admitted, I believe, by law-writers that a manor could not be created subsequently to the statute of Quia emptores terrarum' in the 18th year of the reign of King Edward the 1st, but before that statute it was competent to a tenant in capite or even a mesne lord to grant a portion of the land of a manor to another person, and to make of this portion a new manor to be held of himself. When this was done, such a lord was called a mesne-lord, who might hold manor-courts in that portion as his immediate lord had done before in the manor before such separation.

Of these manor-courts the court of the freeholder was called the Hallmote or Court-baron : that of the copyholders the copyhold or customary court of the manor. In the former the free suitors were the judges: in the latter the lord or his steward.

The court-baron was the court where justice and equity were dispensed among the freehold tenants of the manor by the tenants themselves, assisted by the lord or his steward, and down to about A. D. 1800, it appears by the courtbooks, cognizance was taken of causes under 40 shillings at courts held in Bampton. The copyhold or customary court was the court for the lord's villains, who held at the will of the lord and were for a long time his vassals, removable whenever he should manifest his will; but afterwards, when they had acquired a

firmer and less slavish possession, they held and now hold at the will of the lord nominally, but really according to the custom of the manor, and this custom is the charter of their rights.

In the parish of Bampton there are no less than four manors or reputed manors: 1. The Manor of BAMPTON. 2. The manor of BAMPTON DEANERY. 3. The Manor of ASTON. 4. The Manor of SHIFFORD. The original records, from which we obtain nearly all our information on this subject, will be found in the Appendix: to which may be added incidental notices found in various works, and some charters concerning Shifford in Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum.

1. The Manor of BAMPTON appears to have been in the hands of the Conqueror at the time of the Domesday survey: it was afterwards granted to the Count of Boulogne, but again becoming royal property, was granted by Henry III to William de Valence and descended to his son Aylmer de Valence, who dying without issue, it fell to his heir Elizabeth daughter of John Comyn of Badenhaugh. This lady married Richard Talbot, who received from Edward III a grant of free warren, dated April 10, 1341. The family enjoyed their estate and privilege of free-warren here, until the 9th year of Henry V, when the property passed to the heroic Sir John Talbot. From this time to the present it is my belief that the manor of Bampton has never wholly been out of the hands of the Shrewsbury family, though Mr. Skelton, apparently following the account given of it in the Beauties of England and Wales, a work of little authority, tells us that

"On the 8th July, 1425, Sir William Molins died possessed of this manor with others in the county. In 1441, Robert Hungerford, Esq. having married the daughter and sole heir of Sir Wm. Molins, had possession of the lands of her inheritance. King Edward the 4th subsequently seized upon the manor, in consequence of Robert lord Hungerford having sided with the Lancastrians, and disposed of it to John lord Wenlock.

But I suspect that the family of Molyns and Hungerford

held the manor of Aston and not of Bampton; for the present lords of the manor of Bampton are Thomas Denton, esq., who holds two-thirds, and lord Shrewsbury, who still holds one third of the manor of Bampton, as it would appear, by descent from his ancestor Richard lord Talbot, who first brought it into the family. The two-thirds, which have been alienated, passed by marriage from the Talbots to the Coventry family, from whom they were purchased by the present possessor.

2. The manor of BAMPTON DEANERY is of an earlier origin than the larger manor within which it lies; having been first granted by Leofric to the Dean and chapter of Exeter A. D. 1046. It has remained in their hands until the present time, except for a short period when it was sold with other churchlands in the time of the common-wealth. The present lord of this manor is F. Whitaker esq., holding by lease from the Church of Exeter.

3. The manor of Aston first appears as having been granted before the year 1249, to Hubert Pogges, whence it is sometimes called Aston-Pogges: and by the Inquisition of 3rd Edward I, it appears that it was held of the superior manor of Bampton by the presentation of a sword or the payment of 1s. 6d. This sum is still paid yearly at Cote House by the present lord of the manor H. Hippisley esq., to whose father it was bequeathed by the last surviving member of the Horde family.

We learn from Dugdale's Baronage of England, vol. II, p. 143, that Margaret, daughter and co-heir of Robert Pogeys of Stoke in Buckinghamshire, married John Mauduit of Sumerford in Wiltshire, and that their cousin and heir Ægidia married John Molins, ancestor of William lord Molins, who [Dugd. p. 147] "being also a knight, died 8 Maii, 7 Hen. VI, (slain at the siege of Orleans in France, as it seems) being then seized of the manors of Somerford, Lee, Whittelee, Box, Trow, Farnhill, and Gore, in com. Wiltes, Broughton, Henley upon

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