CH/13/4

CH/13/4

File

Contracts Register, 1670-1674

Greenhill: Lease Book

1670 - 1674

1 volume

A searchable calender of this volume has been created by Andrew Thomson and is available from the Cathedral Archives. The following overview is also by Andrew Thomson: This book is mainly about leases. There are over 80 of them and, while they are overwhelmingly leases of the 1670s, there are five in the 1660s and a few which date from before the interregnum. The earliest lease is 1632, the latest 1678. Beyond leases, several entries deal with ecclesiastical appointments e.g. Vicar General; one deals with a legal dispute; and another is a terrier. Terriers were summaries of land holdings within an estate and this one contains, to the delight of genealogists, no doubt, no less than 49 names of various tenants. The leases follow a template which is ‘standard’, mutatis mutandi, not just for Salisbury but for Winchester and elsewhere. These cover, in nearly identical language, the date of the lease, the parties, a description of the property, the fine, the duties of the lessee (rent and repairs) and the rights of the lessor. Some lessors appoint attorneys and a few leases are witnessed. The key information in these leases is surrounded by the usual ‘barbed wire’ of cumbersome legal language made worse by long histories of leases going back to Elizabethan times in some cases or by attempts to settle beyond doubt who – lessor or lessee – was responsible for an augmentation to the local vicar or curate. It is often particularly frustrating because their attempts to remove ambiguities and misunderstandings end in repetition and convolution which can only confuse the reader. The ‘barbed wire’ can be penetrated, nonetheless, and reading leases of this kind is usually rewarding. Evasion about the precise amounts of fines is common enough but some – one of £1,500 and another of £900 – were astonishingly high. Among the ‘curiosities’ are the various ‘bootes’ allowed to lessees: for example ‘hedgeboote’ ‘ploughboote’ and ‘carteboote’ which were ‘left overs’ the lessee could use for repairs. Storage of grain was another occasional requirement and residence – either requiring it or banning it – was sometimes a stipulation. Hospitality also appears from time to time and provision for dean or prebendary, servants, horses – down to the number of days and the amount of ‘provender’ – offers a fascinating glimpse into the status of the higher clergy in seventeenth century society. It is, finally, amusing to observe the ’money-changing’ attitude implicit in delivery of rent at the west door or the font of the cathedral; and surprising to read that a lease should run to full term – ‘fully to be compleate and ended’ – when early surrender of so many leases – for another fine, of course – was a regular occurrence, amounting to official policy, in cathedral and episcopal estate offices.

English

Material: parchment, paper Binding: parchment