The Colkyns of Fredville-updated 10.5.2013
In 1279 the King’s Justices held an Eyre in Canterbury and the Abbot of St. Albans Abbey was summoned to show by what right he held his manor of Estwale (Essewelle) manor and the customary rights, priveledges and liberties pertaining to it.
The Abbot claimed tol and team, sac and soc, grithbreach, hamsoca, forstall, stememfrith ways, correction of the assize of bread and beer, warren, and amerciament of his men wherever they were amercedand and said these liberties had been exercised without charter for an immemorial period.
The King, Edward I, claimed these liberties been taken from him and that the Abbot had held the aforesaid liberties seized and forfeited which the King said had made him worse off, and as a result had suffered a loss to the value of one hundred pounds. The truth of the Abbot’s statement was confirmed by oaths sworn by 12 knights chosen by the Abbot and the Justices were thus satisfied it was true and that the Abbot’s claim did not infringe the prerogative of the King or his ancestors and so allowed it.Oath swearing was a common legal procedure for proving guilt or innocence at this time. If twelve oath swearers could successfully swear an oath together in support of either plaintiff or defendant it was presumed that God had chosen the successful litigant. In this case absolution for any false or inaccurate oath swearing could have been readily granted by the Abbot, incentive indeed!
Blodwyte:the fine imposed for drawing blood. A fine or composition for the shedding of blood. It was payable to the lord; while vergild (Wer, Wergild-Compensation for personal injury. [Anglo-Saxon]) or part thereof, went to the party injured or, in case of death, to his relatives.
Court leets were used where lords enjoyed the rights of ‘soc and sac,’ which were rights enjoyed by the lords who held estates where jurisdiction was in private hands. These courts were independent of the Hundred courts but not the Shire courts.
Forstall: a fine for an attack.
Franken pledge:in Anglo-Saxon society a mans kindred were responsible for any offences he committed. The laws of Athelstan (924-940), Edgar (959-975) and Canute (1016-35) systemise the notion of collective responsibility by requiring every man to have a borh or surety. Frankenpledge had fully evolved by the time of William I., in the north it was known as tenmannetalle. Every freeman had to enrole in a group of ten (tithing) who were then bound to produce any of their number wanted by the law, for example, to give evidence or pay penalty. Twice yearly the Sheriff held a ‘view to frankenpledge’ in the Hundred court to ensure men were enrolled. View rights were sometimes given to individual lords or boroughs.
Grithbreach: a breach of the local peace.
Hamsoca: the fine paid for an attack on a man’s house.
Infangenethof and outfangenethof: respectively jurisdiction over thieves both on and outside of a manor.
Sac & soc: jurisdiction over matters of dispute.
Stememefrith: the right of punishment for a breach of the peace.
Toll was the right granted to a landowner to impose a payment on the sale or passage of goods or cattle on his lands, or alternatively to be exempt from the tolls of others.
Team was originally a grant of jurisdiction, allowing the holding of a court to judge people accused of wrongful possession of goods or cattle, or granting the right to obtain the profits from such a court. The term has the literal meaning in Old English of “line”, referring to the tracing of a line of ownership. By the 12th century, however, the original meaning had largely been forgotten as the institution of team had fallen into obsolescence. It continued to be used as part of the standard formula of rights in charters but was given various alternative meanings by legal writers.
At a subsequent Eyre at Canterbury in 1283 the Abbot once more claimed the aforesaid liberties and again they were allowed. In addition the Abbot also claimed view of Franken-pledge, offering as supporting evidence a charter of Richard I of 1195 said to grant all the manors held by St. Alban’s Abbey the liberties and free custom which could be granted to any church “with sac & soc on strand and stream on wood and field, tol & team, grithbreach & hamsocken and everything relating to homicide (ie the pecuniary penalties for it), forestall, danegeld, infangenethof and outfangenethof and blodwyte”. This claim for additional liberties was also allowed.
Richard I, the Lionheart, reigned from 1189 to 1199 and spent roughly six months of his ten year reign in England. He preferred to reside in his Duchy of Aquitaine and treated his English possessions as a source of revenue, he is reputed to have said that he would sell London if he could find a buyer so a suitable charter would therefore have been easily obtained by a abbey as wealthy as St. Alban’s, although it apparently pre-dates their possession of Estwale by some sixty-five years or so.
Richard had been held captive by Leopold V, Duke of Austria, and Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, from late 1192 until early 1195 when he was ransomed. On his return he had to reassert his authority and therefore was in desperate need of money.
The Abbott of St. Alban’s was again called upon to substantiate his claims regarding Estwale before the King’s judges at Rochester in 1312, the King now being Edward II, the son of Edward I.
The abbot’s attorney reasserted the Abbey’s claims to the liberties previously granted and confirmed by the two previous Eyres and made additional claims that the liberty of maintaining a tumbrel (ducking stool) and pillory as instruments of punishment had also been excercised from time immemorial and that the right to have a gallows (furca) also been given by Richard I charter of 1195. The jurors accepted these new claims and allowed the abbot the additional liberties. The jurors also stated that Estwale was in the tithing (borghe) of Solys (Soles).
The above seems to indicate that the Abbey of St. Alban’s obtained possession of half of the manor of Essewelle and proceeded to claim jurisdiction over the whole manor and through the process of law, and possibly some dodgy charters and oath swearing, obtained it.
The 1303 Aids and Scutages for Eastry Hundred for getting the King’s eldest daughter married refers to one fee, believed to be some 300 or so acres at this time, held by “Johan (John) Colkyn” at “Esol and Fredevill” from Galfrid (Geoffrey) de Say. This would appear to indicate that the Colkyns still held some of Esol (Essewelle) directly from the de Say’s and that it was not entirely in the possession of the Abbey.
