Land and Family: Trends and Local Variations in the Peasant Land Market on the Winchester Bishopric Estates, 1263-1415, by John Mullan and Richard Britnell

Abstract

The land market has often been identified as the cornerstone of medieval agrarian society. As immovable property was the most important economic asset, with significant jurisdictional implications for both lords and their free and unfree tenants, transactions in land are a significant feature in a variety of manorial documents, such as manor court rolls, accounts, or in this case, the Winchester Pipe Rolls. Lords were generally very keen to keep track of their landed wealth and were often tolerant of peasant land markets as long as these were conducted properly through the manorial court, involving the notification as well as the formal licensing of individual transfers by seigneurial agents. This being the case, land transfers offer valuable insights into rural society. By studying the land market it is possible to explore topics as disparate as the relationship between lords and peasants on the one hand and the status of women in peasant society on the other. The land market can also illuminate developments of leaseholds in the later middle ages, the weakening of seigneurial power, and therefore feudalism, as well as the coming of agrarian capitalism, can also be examined through the study of land transfers.