Frequently asked questions
PDA Harvey in Manorial Records gives three
meanings of the word manor; "a residence", "a unit of estate
administration" and "a piece of landed property with tenants
over whom the landlord exercised rights of jurisdiction in a private court".
It is the third definition which has been applied in compiling the Manorial
Documents Register. Many of the secondary sources listed in the general
bibliography provide further definitions.
For the purposes of the Manorial Documents Register
the definitive proof of the existence of a manor is the survival of records
produced by the manorial court. The Register notes the location of manorial
records and its purpose is to guide users to the location of these records.
The manor name information within the Manorial Documents Register is not
designed to be a definitive list of all manors which existed but only
records the names of manors for which documents were, or may have been,
created in order to enable those documents to be entered on the Register.
Therefore, the lists of manors and manor names compiled should not be
regarded as a definitive register of all manors that may have existed.
The Manorial Documents Register records the existence of documents, not
the existence of manors.
According to the Manorial Documents Rules, manorial
documents are defined as "court rolls, surveys, maps, terriers, documents
and books of every description relating to the boundaries, wastes, customs
or courts of a manor" but they exclude "deeds or other instruments
required for evidencing the title to a manor or agreements or draft agreements
relating to compensation, or any documents which came into being after
31st December 1925".
For the purposes of the Manorial Documents Register
and for the sake of users certain exceptions have been made to these rules:
- records created by manor courts which continued to meet
after 1925
- estate rentals have been included where collection circuits
continued to be organised by manor
- records relating to compulsory enfranchisement and extinguishment
of manorial incidents, both in The National Archives and
related correspondence and papers found in private archives
- Parliamentary surveys
Therefore, the inclusion of a record in the Manorial
Documents Register does not necessarily indicate that it is legally defined
as a manorial record for the purposes of the Manorial Documents Rules.
Manorial records may be of use once a family has been
traced back to the early eighteenth century or earlier, particularly when
few parish records have survived for an area. The Manorial Documents Register
can then help to establish the whereabouts of records for specific manors
or manors within a parish. The Register does not include information concerning
the people or places which may be referred to in manorial documents. A
visit must be made to the relevant record office to examine the records
themselves.
Not every village in England was part of a manor and
not all residents of an area were necessarily tenants of a manor. However,
should you suspect that an ancestor was a manorial tenant, in particular
a copyhold tenant, the court rolls and court books of that manor for the
right period may prove invaluable. The surrenders and admissions of copyhold
tenants include information about deaths of tenants and their heirs. Court
rolls and court books are sometimes, but not always, indexed and are likely
to be much more useful if you are able to work back from a date at which
it is known an ancestor was a manorial tenant. Rentals and surveys may
also be useful and include both copyhold and freehold tenants.
Many manorial records were written in Latin until 1733
and are often abbreviated. For further information about using manorial
records for family history, and help in interpreting them, see the bibliography.
Copyhold tenure, as opposed to freehold or leasehold,
was a form of landholding peculiar to manors. Copyhold tenants were restricted
in what they could do with their land and needed permission from the manorial
court to inherit, sell, sublet, buy or mortgage their copyhold property.
These transactions, referred to as admissions and surrenders, were written
down in the formal record of the court, that is the court roll or court
book, and a copy of the entry given to the new tenant as proof of title.
The term copyhold therefore derives from the fact that the land was held
by copy of the court roll. Copyhold tenants were also subject to certain
customary payments. For example, when a new tenant took over copyhold
property he had to pay an entry fine to the lord of the manor and when
a copyhold tenant died a payment called a 'heriot' had to be made. Copyhold
was abolished by the Law of Property Act 1922.
The Manorial Documents Register is not a register of
title to lordships and we do not collect or record information concerning
the ownership or descent of manorial titles. The Manorial Documents Register
is therefore of little use in tracing current or previous manorial lords.
As far as we are aware, no such register of manorial lordships exists.
The Manorial Documents Register is not a register of
title to manorial lordships and so is of little help in tracing the descent
of manorial titles. Although they do not provide current information,
there are other sources which may help, such as the published volumes
of the Victoria County Histories of England, the earlier volumes of which
contain detailed manorial histories, and Kelly's Directories, both of
which should be available at a good reference library. In addition, as
a result of the Law of Property (Amendment) Act 1924, the Manorial Documents
Committee was supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Board of
Inland Revenue with a considerable amount of information about the existence
of manors and the ownership of manorial titles. This information, which
largely relates to the 1920s, is held here under the reference HMC 5/6-8,
and is available for public inspection.
The Manorial Documents Register is not a register of
title to manorial lordships and we do not seek to record information concerning
the ownership of manorial titles. As far as we are aware, no such register
of manorial lordships exists.
A voluntary registration of a manorial title with the
Land Registry was, until recently, possible. The Land Registry
keeps an index of registered lordship titles. A Practice Guide
giving details of the information held in the Land Registry's
index of relating franchises, and the procedures that need
to be followed to obtain such information, can be downloaded
from the Land Registry website www.landregistry.gov.uk
The Manorial Documents Register cannot provide help
with tracing the owners of manorial rights apart from providing details
of the whereabouts of potentially useful manorial documents. The Register
is of no use in answering enquiries concerning common land. The National
Archives Domestic Records Resarch Guide No 95 Common Lands is a useful
guide to sources available here and Dudley Stamp and WG Hoskins The
Common Lands of England and Wales (London, Collins 1963) may also
help.
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