Year: 1887
Type: article
Abstract: of half a ' wara.'The latter is clearly the equivalent of the virgate; and as the ' wara' is unmentioned by Mr. Seebohm, it may be well to set the fact on record.J. H. BOUND.HOLMEN.BEECH'S ' Cartulariam Saxonicum,' L 298, contains what purports to bean earlier instance of the nse of the word molman than the one Mr. Bound cites.It occurs in a charter from Ving Offa to abbot JSSel n68 of Canterbury, the date whereof is circa 772.The passage is as follows: fan on sv£ rihte swa Moulman streets op landes ends.This is clearly corrupt.Thomas of Elmham, writing in the early part of the fifteenth century, translates this passage by alia recU ad austrwn ad Movitm-mu~atrate, ubi stt una extremiias ejutdem terra.' Probably the English should read : andlang Mdlman strdte o« landes ende,' i.e. along Maiman street to the end of the estate.This charter is derived from 'MS.Trin.Hall, Camb., i. 56 b," but, unfortunately, Mr. Birch gives no hint of the age of the manuscript.But I thmb it is clear that the charter, if it be not a forgery, has been tampered with.The boundaries have certainly been modernised, for the mention of mdlmenn at this date is clearly an anachronism.I shall endeavour to prove that mdl=c-Tent is of Danish origin, that this meaning is a late development, and therefore mdlman must be also a late formation; so that the word mdlman cannot have existed in the reign of 02a.It is certainly a noteworthy feature that this class of tenants should derive their name from a Danish source, and one is tempted to conclude that the tenure itself was of Danish origin.Apart from the lack of evidence other than that of etymology, we must, before accepting such a connlnmon, reflect that, after all, the word mdl-man may have been coined on English ground by y.nglinhTnnn after molsrent had become familiarised as part of their every-day speech. 1 Has not Professor Vinogradoff drawn too sweeping a conclusion in saying that ' borough "RngKah was very widely held in medieval England to imply servile occupation' ?(ENGLISH HISTOBICAL RXVXBW, L 786.) Against an unqualified acceptance of this view may be urged the fact of the existence of this custom of descent in so many free boroughs where there could be no implication of servile tenure.And we have the foot that this custom of descent existed in at least two out of the Five Burhs (Le. in Nottingham and Stamford), in the very heart of the free Danish districts.There is also evidence of its existence amongst free sokemen, where, again, there could be no imputation of a servile status.I make these remarks with considerable diffidence, for I fully appreciate the danger of differing with so great an authority on early Fmglinh legal history as Professor Vinogradoff.Before proceeding to the main part of my note, I may point out that JSlfrfc, in his version of St. Augustine De Auguriis, distinctly refers to the custom of casting lots for parcels of pasture land.The 1 Neither Professor Vmogradoff nor Mr. Bound has noticed the mention of mdZnuxK in the Boldon Book (ed.Greenwell, p. 5).In his glossary Canon Greenwell attempts to identify these mabnanni with the tmaOmeauti, or mamti homing, of the Pipe Boll, 31 Hen.L He notices that Bishop Hatneld's Survey speaks of ttntnttt vocati ' miUmmi' siv* firmarH.
Source: The English Historical Review
Author: W. H. STEVENSON
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4230082407