Free tenant
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Lord paramount / Territorial lord |
Tenant-in-chief |
Mesne lord |
Liege lord |
Esquire / Gentleman / Landed gentry |
Franklin / Yeoman / Retinue / Vavasour |
Husbandman |
Free tenant |
Domestic servant |
Vagabond |
Bordar / Cottar |
Slave |
Free tenants, also known as free peasants, were
Definitions
One of the major challenges in examining the free peasants of this era is that no one single definition can be attached to them. The disparate nature of manorial holdings and local laws mean the free tenant in Kent, for example, may well bear little resemblance to the Free Tenant in the Danelaw.
Attempts were made by some contemporary scholars to set out a legal definition of freedom, one of the most notable being the treatise by Ranulf de Glanvill written between 1187 and 1189. This stated that:
He who claims to be free shall produce in court several near blood relatives descended from the same stock as himself, and if they are admitted or proved in court to be free, then the claimant himself will be freed from the yoke of servitude
Another way to identify a freeman in the Middle Ages, was to determine what kind of taxes or laws he had to obey. For example, having to pay merchet, a tax paid upon the marriage of a servile woman, was a key sign of being unfree.
They could get married without permission and they could not be moved between
See also
References
- ^ "Social Classes in the Middle Ages". 25 May 2012.
External links
- "The Town of the Free Peasants near Thirsk", Darlington & Stockton Times, 7 December 2007.