Talk – An Introduction to Manors And Manorial Documents


Event Details


An instructive talk by Bethany Hamblin on Manors and Manorial Documents, including what they can tell us, basic tips on reading and interpreting them, and how and where to find them.

These documents, including court rolls, accounts and surveys, survive from the thirteenth century, and may be used for many purposes, a few of which are mentioned here.  Local and family historians will find names of manorial inhabitants, often with details of occupations and family relations.  The records shed light on economic development, including markets, land values and the ability of tenants to pay the various rents they owed the lord.  They reveal a great deal about social and community relations, pubic order and petty crime, such as gambling or brawling, and the punishments meted out.  They help us decipher the historic environment, particularly the way the land was farmed, exploitation of natural resources such as minerals, and the presence of mills, fishponds, ditches, and roads.

Quite a significant number of documents, mainly manorial court rolls, but also surveys and books containing details of manorial customs, survive for the manor of Bishampton, the manor of Bishampton Rectory, and Fladbury, to which Bishampton once belonged.  The bulk of the medieval Bishampton manorial records are held at The National Archives in Kew, with a smaller number at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.  Worcestershire Archives does hold a manor book for Bishampton Rectory, covering the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as a good quantity of court rolls for Fladbury dating from the 16th century on. The talk will compare and contrast the documents, highlighting why/how they were produced, and what they can tell us.  It would touch on palaeography (and Latin),which is a much more involved subject in its own right.

 

Leave a Reply