William Oswald Massingberd

“ INDUSTRIES
THE most important early industries of Lincolnshire were connected with a great agricultural product of the county—that of wool. Foremost amongst the craftsmen were the Lincoln weavers, who had a charter from Henry II, which was unfortunately burnt, but which is stated to have provided that no one should exercise the office of weaver in the city of Lincoln or 12 miles [1] round unless he be in the guild of weavers. ”

“ Many county families disappeared, others by some means or other purchased the freehold lands, and by a system of leases acquired the bond lands of their manors, and so got together the large and compact estates which we now see in these days when a manor without copyhold lands is worth nothing.
One word more. It must not be supposed that the Ingoldmells villein is quite a fair example of the villeins of Lincolnshire. ”

“ Most necessaries of life were produced on the manor, and villagers purchased things they wanted of one another. Thus at Ingoldmells in the fourteenth century, while we read of bakers and 'tipplers,' as on every manor, we find the tenants purchasing of one another malt, beans, flour, corn, timber, nails, and divers 'merchandise'. ”

“ The presenters present those who are guilty of any offence or misdemeanour, who transgress the customs and regulations of the manor, who entertain strangers contrary to the earl’s peace, who carry off wreck, who break the assizes of bread and ale, who obstruct a drain, injure the highway, or trespass in the warren, and the offender is amerced, or otherwise punished according to the nature of his offence. ”

“ In 1624 Gregory Lawcock undertook to set all the poor of Lincoln upon work to spin, knit stockings, weave garterings, make stuffs and other manufactures of wool, and out of the gain to clothe the same poor; and £60 was to be lent him and £20 given to provide tools, bring workmen, and establish manufacturies, besides £10 yearly for teaching young spinners, while every citizen and other inhabitant of ability should wear at least one suit of apparel and one pair of stockings of such cloth or stuff as should be made in the city. ”

“ It easy to see how liable to oppression by a bad, unjust, or grasping lord this rule of law rendered the villein, though there were some excep­tions to this rule, for a villein may not be slain or maimed at pleasure, and the lord may not seize his wainage. Still in ordinary daily life under a decent lord the villein might live on, as he seems to have done at Ingoldmells, without experiencing any grievous wrong through this want of protection by the king's courts. Secondly I must put the exaction of merchet, a fine the villein had to pay for marrying his daughter. ”

“ The utility of the various rivers for commerce is undoubted. But a word seems necessary about the Witham. It was the great water-way between Lincoln and Boston in the palmiest days of those towns. There were two places on the Witham, Calscroft and Dogdyke, where the bailiffs of the city of Lincoln used to collect tolls in aid of the farm of the city. ”

“ We may divide the free tenants into two classes: (1) those who held lands in Ingoldmells or the soke; (2) those who held lands outside, but owed suit at the court.
I. The lords of the manor of South Hiltoft held an independent manor, but still were not included amongst the ‘foreign’ tenants, as S. Hiltoft was in Ingoldmells. On the earliest roll appears the name of Sir Thomas de Burnham, knight, who held this manor probably in right of Philippa his wife, who seems to have been the same person as Philippa de Hiltoft who presented to the church of Ingoldmells in 1273. ”

“ They also present that a free tenant owes fealty or other services, and that a villain is dead, and his heirs owe a fine for entry, or that he has acquired free land and owes a new rent, or that he has left the manor without licence, or that his daughter has been guilty of immorality. ”

“ In 1365 the citizens of Lincoln made great complaint to the king in Parliament concerning the damage they suffered because ships and boats could not pass to and fro in the Fosse Dyke with merchandise and victuals as they were wont to do, and judges were commissioned to view the channel, and inquire by the oaths of honest and lawful men of the county who ought to cleanse the same, and to distrain those found liable and compel them to make good defects. ”

“ The fine for incontinence naturally connects itself with the merchet, and was by no means so uncommon at Ingoldmells as one could wish.
Other disabilities were that the villein could not leave the lordship nor take orders without the licence of the court, and his goods and chattels were in strict law considered the property of his lord. But the Ingoldmells villein who held land seems to have had no desire to leave it, and the landless man appears to have gone away [102] to get work, paying a small sum of money (chevagium) as an acknowledgement of the lord’s hold over him. ”

“ From near South Witham, past Grantham to Lincoln and thence to Boston, was the Witham. In South Lincolnshire the Welland runs from Stamford to Spalding and thence to Boston. And there were the Glen and several natural streams. Nor was that all; there was the Fosse Dyke, an artificial canal, made for trade purposes, from Lincoln to Torksey on the Trent, and the Car Dyke, a catch-water drain, which was also used for boats and small ships. And it seems almost certain that drains made to carry off the water in the low districts were often used for the carriage of corn and merchandise. ”

“ I had hoped to be able to give in an appendix some rather long extracts from the Ministers’ Accounts &c. at the Public Record Office relating to the manor of Ingoldmells, but have been obliged to refrain. These accounts of the rents and issues of the manor make clear the customs of the manor concerning the acquisition of land by villeins, and mark the progress of their prosperity. It seems that the old rent paid by villeins for bond land was 4d. per acre, and that on alienation an additional rent of 8d. per acre became payable, and that a rent of 2d. ”

“ So there was not much occasion to go to markets or fairs, the groceries which are now in every house did not exist, and if a man wanted to go he had better opportunities than now, for there were markets in several places where now there are none. Gradually, however, such a fair as that at Boston declined in importance. ”

“ There could have been no serious difficulty here in finding sufficient freemen to present, and serve on the inquisitions, and in the fifteenth century the second jury presented certain offences and the first jury affirmed that what they said was true, but I cannot show that the system of double presentment, whereby one jury presents that a man is suspected of an offence and another jury says whether he is guilty or no, went on at Ingoldmells. ”

“ In 1787 the well-known Stuff Ball was established for the encouragement of native woollen manufacture, and held for two years at Alford, and afterwards at Lincoln. The ladies used to wear stuff gowns, and the gentlemen stuff coats, waistcoats, and breeches. [21]
Amongst other craft-guilds at Lincoln were those of the fullers and the tailors. A provision of the Fullers' Guild in 1297 was that none of the craft should work in the trough, and none should work at the wooden bar with a woman, unless with the wife of a master or her handmaid. ”

“ In two years it has become the foremost industry of the town, the busiest time being the winter months. The work, which attracts the rougher class of girls and women, consists in separating the good from the bad, discoloured, or shrivelled peas, all of which are fieldgrown, and in order to suit the buyers must be fairly uniform in size and colour. In some factories the best are packed in small boxes and packets for sale. ”

“ Edmund de Lacy, son of John and Margaret, married Alesia daughter of the marquis of Saluzzo, but died in 1258 [13] before his mother. His son and heir, Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, was lord of Ingoldmells when the earliest court rolls we have were written, and had been [14] found to have free warren in Ingoldmells on his own lands and other people’s twenty years in 1276. ”

“ The lord might, perhaps, have summoned his Lincolnshire tenants to the court of his honor at Pontefract, but this would have been most inconvenient to them, and have caused much discontent, and so he summoned them to his principal manor in the county of Lincoln; even so they often made default, but eventually seem to have fallen into the custom of paying a fine for respite of their suit of court for a year, though in 2 Henry VI John Harpyswelle of Toft Newton actually served on the inquisition of freemen. ”

“ Specimens of the 'Torksey Ware' were to be found for many years after in the collections of various persons scattered up and down the country. [78]
Feather factories are a distinctive Lincolnshire industry at the present time. The feathers are received at the factories in enormous sacks from the farmers and poultry dealers. By means of cyclone machinery the fine feathers are separated from the coarse, the former being then purified by condensed steam in special ovens. The waste material, which is yielded in very considerable quantities, is sold to the fruit-growers as manure for their land. ”

“ Several entries show the steward exercising considerable influence and control. The court was sometimes held [38] before him, though even then the township presented what the custom of the manor was. We find cases postponed for the coming of the steward, and others presented for the common council. In 7 Edw. II a woman was [39] put in the pillory by the consideration of the steward. Sometimes he condones a fine. Occasionally tenants complained to the lord for lack of justice, and the steward was directed to administer to the parties such justice that they have no reasonable cause to complain. ”

“ But the citizens, if they could not set up a profitable manufactory, would attempt to keep the poor employed, so in 1591–2 a knitting school was established, and John Cheseman, the knitter, undertook to set on work in his science all such as were willing to come to him or were sent to him by the aldermen, and to hide nothing from them 'that belongeth to the knowledge of the said science.' Spinning, dressing of wool, and keeping a mill were included, as well as knitting, and Cheseman provided ten wheels for which he was paid 4s. ”

“ At the end of the eighteenth century a good deal of enterprise was shown in constructing canals in Lincolnshire. In 1794 an Act was obtained for making a canal from the Witham near Chapel Hill, along the course of the Kyme Eau and the River Slea, to Sleaford. In 1792 an Act was obtained for a canal from Horncastle to the Witham near Tattershall Ferry. [40] In 1781 an Act was obtained for the improvement of the navigation of the Bourne Eau, [41] from Bourne to the River Glen. ”

“ III the form is ‘to him and to his heirs for ever,’ which seems to bring the lord into danger of losing his villein, so the words ‘according to the custom of the manor’ are added, and a little later ‘in bondage.’ We find him claiming bond land as ‘his inheritance,’ and settling it upon his wife and children. A widow could claim her dower, a third part of her deceased husband’s lands for life. ”

“ For the causes which led to the gradual decay and final extinction of certain other local industries we must look to the working of the two great factors which have been of supreme importance in shaping the economic destinies of the county—namely, the drainage of the fens, and the introduction of steam as a motive power. ”

“ William de Waycroft, Robert de West­mels, Robert de Steping, William son of Richard de Hilletoft, William Cadihorn, Robert de Caleflete, and William Marays. Here we have the names of families which held free lands under the manor of Ingoldmells, and, frequently appearing in the courts, must have materially influenced the proceedings.
The absence of any survey of the manor makes it difficult to define the social position of the different freeholders. ”

“ The geese were plucked five times a year to increase their feathers—namely, at Lady Day, for quills and feathers; at Midsummer, Lammas, Michaelmas, and Martinmas, for feathers only. Those taken from the live birds were esteemed of better value, yielding at the rate of 3d. per head a year, whereas the yield from the feathers of a dead bird was only 6d., three giving a pound. In some places the geese were winged each quarter only, ten feathers being taken from each goose, which sold at 5s. ”

“ The Lords de Cantilupe are the earliest tenants of these fees mentioned on the court rolls. To them succeeded the Lords de la Zouch, of whom Eudo had [69] married Milicent, daughter of William, and sister and coheir of George de Cantilupe. In 1376 Ralph de Daubenay is mentioned as tenant. I suppose he and others held lands in Withcall which were of the Cantilupe fee, for in 1428 [70] the Lord de la Souch, Patrick Skypwith, John Legburn, clerk, William Daubenay and the abbot of Kirkstead held severally 1 fee in Withkall, formerly John Daubenay’s, of the fee of Cantilupe. ”

“ Plucked geese on Wildmore Fen paid in feathers 1s. a head. In 1813 goose-quills were selling at 20s. per thousand. Young records an instance of one man on the Fens whom he met in the course of his survey of the county whose stock of geese was 160. From these he reared, in good years 700, in a bad season 500, an average brood being 8. These sold at 2s., the feathers bringing 1s. 8d. The cost of keep for each bird was 2s. 6d., half of which was spent in corn, but his net profit every year amounted to £40. [65]
The trade in rabbits was no less lucrative. ”

“ A William de Fristona is mentioned in the Pontefract Chartulary, his father was Robert son of Gerbodo, his son Bertram died in his life time, and his [William’s] daughter Alice was his heir. In 1210–12 Guy de Olebec [79] held 2 fees in Cockerington of the honor of Lascy. In 1295 it was found [89] that Alice de Vavasor, deceased, held cer­tain lands in Cockerington of Henry de Lascy, earl of Lincoln, and William Vavasor is her son and heir. In 1342 Henry le Vavasour [90] granted his manor of Cockerington to feoffees, who were sworn to assign it to the abbot and convent of Louth Park. ”

“ As regards the business, at first the largest part of the rolls is taken up with pleas of debt and trespass, but as time goes on the conveyancing entries fill more and more space, and at the view of frank pledge held twice a year the presentments occupy considerable space also. These presentments were made at first by the townships, and sometimes Ingoldmells, Skegness and Burgh presented separately. ”