Chapter XVI: Part 16

MANOR. Any definition of a manor, in land tenure, must take note of two elements--economic and political. The manor has an estate for its basis, although it need not coincide with an estate, but may be wider. It is also a political unit, a district formed for purposes of government, although the political functions made over to it may greatly vary. As a lordship based on land tenure, the manor necessarily comprises a ruler and a population dependent on him, and the characteristic trait of such dependence consists not in ownership extending over persons, as in slave-holding communities, nor in contractual arrangements, as in a modern economic organization, but in various forms and degrees of subjection, chiefly regulated by custom. In the sense mentioned the manor is by no means a peculiarly English institution; it occurs in every country where feudalism got a hold. Under other names we find it not only in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, but also, to a certain extent, in the Byzantine Empire, Russia, Japan, &c. It is especially representative of an aristocratic stage in the development of European nations. When tribal notions and arrangements ceased to be sufficient for upholding their commonwealths, when social and political life had to be built up on the basis of land-tenure, the type of manorial organization came forward in natural course. It was closely connected with natural economy, and was suited to a narrow horizon of economic wants and political requirements. At the same time it provided links for a kind of national federation of military estates. We shall only speak of the course of manorial evolution in France and Germany, because this presents the clearest expression of the fundamental principles of manorial life and the best material for comparison with English facts.

One problem common to the entire European world has to be considered from the very beginning. Does the manor date from the Roman Empire, or not? Can its chief features be traced in Roman institutions? There can be no doubt that at the end of the Roman period certain traits are noticeable which might, under favourable conditions, develop into a manorial combination. Great estates with political functions, populations subjected to the political lordship of landowners, appear in the closing centuries of the empire, and have to be reckoned with as precursors of medieval manorial life. The original organization of the ancient world was built up on the self-government of cities and on the sharp distinction between citizens and slaves. Both features were gradually modified by the Roman Empire. Self-government was atrophied by bureaucratic interference; the economy based on the exploitation of slaves began to give way before relations in which the elements of freedom and serfdom were oddly mixed. During the last centuries of its existence the Western Empire became more and more a conglomerate of barbaric and half-civilized populations, and it is not strange that the characteristic germs of feudalism began to show themselves within its territory as well as outside it. As far as political institutions are concerned, we notice that the central power, after claiming an absolute sway over its subjects, is obliged more and more to lean on private forces in order to maintain itself. One of its favourite resources in the 4th and 5th centuries consists in making great landowners responsible for the good behaviour of their tenants and even of their less important neighbours. The _saltus_, the great domain, is occasionally recognized as a separate district exempt from the ordinary administration of the city, subordinated to its owner in respect of taxes and police. Even in ordinary estates (_fundi_) there is a tendency to make the landowner responsible for military conscription, for the presentation of criminals to justice. On the other hand the incumbents of ecclesiastical offices are nominated in accordance with the wishes of patrons among the landowners; in the administration of justice the influence of this same class makes itself felt more and more. Nor are signs of a convergent evolution wanting on the economic side. Slaves are used more and more as small householders provided with rural tenements and burdened with rents and services. Free peasant farmers holding by free agreement get more and more reduced to a status of half-free settlers occupying their tenancies on the strength of custom and traditional ascription to the glebe. Eventually this status is recognized as a distinct class by imperial legislation. Ominous symptoms of growing political disruption and of an aristocratic transformation of society were visible everywhere at the close of the empire. Yet there could be no talk of a manorial system as long as the empire and the commercial intercourse protected by it continued to exist.

The fall of the empire hastened the course of evolution. It brought into prominence barbaric tribes who were unable to uphold either the political power or the economic system of the Romans. The Germans had from old certain manorial features in the constitution of their government and husbandry. The owner of a house had always been possessed of a certain political power within its precincts, as well as within the fenced area surrounding it: the peace of the dwelling and the peace of the hedged-in yard were recognized by the legal customs of all the German tribes. The aristocratic superiority of warriors over all classes engaged in base peaceful work was also deeply engraved in the minds of the fighting and conquering tribes. On the other hand the downfall of complicated forms of civilization and civil intercourse rendered necessary a kind of subjection in which tributary labourers were left to a certain extent to manage their own affairs. The Germanic conqueror was unable to move slaves about like draughts: he had no scope for a complicated administration of capital and work. The natural outcome was to have recourse to serfdom with its convenient system of tribute and services.

But, as in the case of the Roman Empire, the formation of regular manors was held back for a time in the early Germanic monarchies by the lingering influence of tribal organization. In the second period of medieval development in continental Europe, in the Carolingian epoch, the features of the estate as a political unit are more sharply marked. Notwithstanding the immense efforts of Charles Martel, Pippin and Charlemagne to strengthen the tottering edifice of the Frankish Empire, public authority had to compromise with aristocratic forces in order to ensure regular government. As regards military organization this is expressed in the recognition of the power of _seniores_, called upon to lead their vassals in the host; as regards jurisdiction, in the increase of the numbers of commended freemen who seek to interpose the powerful patronage of lay and secular magnates between themselves and the Crown. Great estates arose not only on the lands belonging to the king, but on that of churches and of lay potentates, and the constitution of these estates, as described for instance in the Polyptique of St Germain des Près or in the "Brevium exempla ad describendas res ecclesiasticas et fiscales" (_Capitularia_, ed. Boretius, i. 250), reminds us forcibly of that of later feudal estates. They contain a home-farm, with a court and a _casa indominicata_, or manor-house, some holdings (_mansi_) of free men (_ingenuiles_), of serfs (_serviles_), and perhaps of half-free people (_lidiles_). The rents and services of this dependent population are stated in detail, as in later custumals, and there is information about the agricultural implements, the stores and stock on the home-farm. Thus the economic basis of the manor exists in more or less complete order, but it cannot be said as yet to form the prevailing type of land tenure in the country. Holdings of independent free men and village organizations of ancient type still surround the great estates, and in the case of ecclesiastical possessions we are often in a position to watch their gradual extension at the expense of the neighbouring free settlers, by way of direct encroachment, and by that of surrender and commendation on the part of the weaker citizens. Another factor which plays a great part in the gradual process of infeudation is the rise of private jurisdictions, which falls chiefly into the 10th and 11th centuries. The struggle against Northmen, Magyars and Slavs gave a crowning touch to the process of localization of political life and of the aristocratic constitution of society.

In order to describe the full-grown continental manor of the 11th century it is better to take French examples than German, Italian or Spanish. Feudalism in France attained the greatest extension and utmost regularity, while in other European countries it was hampered and intermixed with other institutional features. The expression best corresponding to the English "manor," in the sense of an organized district, was _seigneurie_. _Manoir_ is in use, and is, of course, a French word corresponding to _manerium_, but it meant strictly "mansion" or chief homestead in France. _Baronie_ is another term which might be employed in some instances as an equivalent of the English manor, but, in a sense, it designates only one species of a larger genus, the estate of a full baron in contrast to a mere knight's fee, as well as to a principality. Some of the attributes of a baron are, however, typical, as the purest expression of manorial rights, and may be used in a general characterization of the latter.

The _seigneurie_ may be considered from three points of view--as a
unit of administration, as an economic unit, and as a union of social
classes.

(a) In principle the disruption of political life brought about by
feudalism ought to have resulted in the complete administrative
independence of the manor. _Chaque baron est souverain dans sa
baronie_ is a proverb meant to express this radical view of manorial
separatism. As a matter of fact this separatism was never completely
realized, and even at the time of the greatest prevalence of feudalism
the little sovereigns of France were combined into a loose federation
of independent fiefs. Still, the proverb was not a mere play of words,
and it took a long time for the kings of France to break in
potentates, like the little Sire de Coucy in the immediate vicinity of
Paris, who sported in his crest the self-complacent motto: _Je ne suis
ni comte, ni marquis, je suis le sire de Coucy_. The institutional
expression of this aspect of feudalism in the life of the _seigneurie_
was the jurisdiction combined with the latter. The principal origin of
this jurisdiction was the dismemberment of royal justice, the
acquisition by certain landowners of the right of holding royal pleas.
The assumption of authority over public tribunals of any kind was
naturally considered as equivalent to such a transmission of royal
right. But other sources may be noticed also. It was assumed by French
feudal law that in all cases when land was granted by a _seigneur_ in
subinfeudation the recipients would be bound to appear as members of a
court of tenants for the settlement of conflicts in regard to land. A
third source may be traced in the extension of the patrimonial justice
of a person over his serfs and personal dependents to the classes of
free and half-free population connected with the _seigneurie_ in one
way or another. There arose in consequence of these assumptions of
jurisdiction a most bewildering confusion of tribunals and judicial
rights. It happened sometimes that the question as to who should be
the judge in some particular contest was decided by matter-of-fact
seizure--the holder of pleas who was the first on the spot to proclaim
himself judge in a case was deemed entitled to jurisdiction. In other
cases one _seigneur_ held the pleas in a certain place for six days in
the week, while some competitor of his possessed jurisdiction during
the seventh. A certain order was brought into this feudal chaos by the
classification of judiciary functions according to the four categories
of high, middle, low and tenurial justice. The scope of the first
three subdivisions is sufficiently explained by their names; the
fourth concerned cases arising from subinfeudation. As a rule the
baron or _seigneur_ sat in justice with a court of assessors or peers,
but the constitution of such courts varied a great deal. They
represented partly the succession of the old popular courts with their
_scabini_, partly courts of vassals and tenants. In strict feudal law
an appeal was allowed from a lower to a higher court only in a case of
a denial of justice (_dénie de justice_), not in error or revision of
sentence. This rule was, however, very often infringed, and gave way
ultimately before the restoration of royal justice.

(b) The economic fabric of the French _seigneurie_ varied greatly,
according to localities. In the north of France it was not unlike that
of the English manor. The capital messuage, or castle, and the
home-farm of the lord, were surrounded by dependent holdings,
_censives_, paying rent, and villein tenements burdened with services.
Between these tenancies there were various ties of neighbourhood and
economic solidarity recalling the open-field cultivation in England
and Germany. When the harvest was removed from the open strips they
returned to a state of undivided pasture in which the householders of
the village exercised rights of common with their cattle. Wild pasture
and woods were used more or less in the same fashion as in England
(_droit de pacage de vaine pâture_). The inhabitants often formed
courts and held meetings in order to settle the by-laws, and to
adjudicate as to trespasses and encroachments (_courts colongères_).
In the south, individual property was more prevalent and the villagers
were not so closely united by ties of neighbourhood. Yet even there
the dependent households were arranged into _mansi_ or _colonicae_,
subjected to approximately equal impositions in respect of rents and
services. In any case the characteristic dualism of manorial life, the
combined working of a central home-farm, and of its economic
satellites providing necessary help in the way of services, and
contributing towards the formation of manorial stores, is quite as
much a feature of French as of English medieval husbandry.

(c) The social relations between the manorial lord and his subjects
are marked by various forms of the exploitation of the latter by the
former. Apart from jurisdictional profits, rents and agricultural
services, dues of all kinds are exacted from the rural population.
Some of these dues have to be traced to servile origins, although they
were evidently gradually extended to groups of people who were not
descended from downright serfs but had lapsed into a state of
considerable subjection. The _main morte_ of rustic tenants meant that
they had no goods of their own, but held movable property on
sufferance without the right of passing it on to their successors. As
a matter of fact, sons were admitted to inheritance after their
fathers, and sometimes succession was extended to other relatives, but
the person taking inheritance paid a heavy fine for entering into
possession, or gave up a horse, an ox, or some other especially
valuable piece of property. The _formariage_ corresponded to the
English _merchetum_, and was exacted from rustics on the marriage of
their daughters. Although this payment assumed very different shapes,
and sometimes only appeared in case consorts belonged to different
lords, it was considered a badge of serfdom. _Chevage_ (_capitagium_)
might be exacted as a poll-tax from all the unfree inhabitants of a
_seigneurie_, or, more especially, from those who left it to look for
sustenance abroad. The power of the lord as a landowner was more
particularly expressed in his right of pre-emption (_retrait
seigneurial_), and in taxes on alienation (_lods et ventes_). As a
person wielding political authority, a kind of sovereignty, the lord
enjoyed divers rights which are commonly attributed to the state--the
right of coining money, of levying direct taxes and toll (_tallagium,
tolneta_) and of instituting monopolies. These latter were of common
occurrence, and might take the shape, for instance, of forcing the
inhabitants to make use of the lord's mill (_moulin banal_), or of his
oven (_four banal_), or of his bull (_taureau banal_).

In Germany the history of the manorial system is bound up with the evolution of the _Grundherrschaft_ (landlordship) as opposed to _Gutsherrschaft_ (estate-ownership). The latter need not include any elements of public authority and aristocratic supremacy: the former is necessarily connected with public functions and aristocratic standing. The centre of the _Grundherrschaft_ was the _Hof_, the court or hall of the lord, from which the political and economic rights of the lord radiated. The struggle of the military aristocracy and of ecclesiastical institutions with common freedom was more protracted than in France or England; the lordships very often took the shape of disparate rights over holdings and groups of population scattered over wide tracts of country and intermixed with estates and inhabitants subjected to entirely different authority. Therefore the aspect of German manorialism is more confused and heterogeneous than that of the French or English systems. One remarkable feature of it is the consistent separation of criminal justice from other kinds of jurisdiction on Church property. Episcopal sees and abbeys delegated their share of criminal justice to lay magnates in the neighbourhood (_Vogtei_), and this division of power became a source of various conflicts and of many entangled relations. The main lines of German manorialism are not radically different from those of France and England. The communal element, the _Dorfverband_, is usually more strongly developed than in France, and assumes a form more akin to the English township. But there were regions, e.g. Westphalia, where the population had settled in separate farms (_Hofsystem_), and where the communal solidarity was reduced to a union for administrative purposes and for the use of pasture.

It need hardly be added that every step in the direction of more active economic intercourse and more efficient public authority tended to lessen the influence of the manorial system in so far as the latter was based on the localization of government, natural husbandry and aristocratic authority.

See Fustel de Coulanges, _Histoire des institutions de la France_,
especially the volumes "L'Alleu et le domaine rural" and "L'Invasion
germanique"; Beaudouin, "Les Grands domaines dans l'empire romain"
(_Nouvelle revue de droit français et étranger_, 1898); T. Flach, _Les
Origines de l'ancienne France_, I., II., III. (1886); Paul Viollet,
_Histoire des institutions de la France_, I., II. (1890, 1898); A.
Luchaire, _Manuel des institutions françaises_ (1892); G. Waitz,
_Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_, I.-VIII. (1865-1883); K. T. von
Inama-Sternegg, _Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte_, I., II. (1879-1891);
K. Lamprecht, _Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben_, I.-IV. (1885); A. Meitzen,
_Ansiedelungen, Wanderungen und Agrarwesen der Völker Europas_, I.-IV.
(1895 ff.); W. Wittich, _Die Grundherrschaft in Nordwestdeutschland_
(1896); G. F. von Maurer, _Geschichte der Mark-, Dorf- und
Hofverfassung in Deutschland_; and F. Seebohm, _The English Village
Community_ (1883). (P. Vi.)

Rights of Lord and Tenants.

Rights of Villeins.

Cotters.

_The Manor in England._--It will be most convenient to describe a typical English manor in its best known period, the 13th century, and to indicate briefly the modifications of the type which varying conditions may produce. Topographically such a manor consisted partly of the houses of the inhabitants more or less closely clustered together, and surrounded by arable land divided into large fields, two or three in number. Each of these fields was divided again into shots or furlongs, and each of the shots was broken up into cultivated strips a pole wide, each containing an acre, separated by narrow balks of turf. There were also certain meadows for supplying hay; and beyond the cultivated land lay the wood and waste of the manor. Portions of arable or meadow land might be found apart from the organization of the remainder; the lord of the manor might have a park, and each householder a garden, but the land of the manor was the open fields, the meadows and the wastes or common. The condition of the inhabitants of such a manor is as complex as its geography. At the head of the society came the lord of the manor, with his hall, court, or manor-house, and the land immediately about it, and his demesne both in the fields and in the meadow land. The arable demesne consisted of certain of the acre strips lying scattered over the various furlongs; his meadow was a portion assigned to him each year by the custom of the manor. He had also rights over the surrounding waste paramount to those enjoyed by the other inhabitants. Part of his demesne land would be granted out to free tenants to hold at a rent or by military or other service; part would be in the lord's own hands, and cultivated by him. Each part so granted out will carry with it a share in the meadow land and in the profits of the waste. These rights of the free tenants over the waste limited the lord's power over it. He could not by enclosure diminish their interest in it. The statute of Merton in 1236 and the second statute of Westminster in 1285 marked the utmost limit of enclosure allowed in the 13th century. Below the lord and the free tenants came the villeins, natives, bondmen, or holders of virgates or yard-lands, each holding a house, a fixed number of acre strips, a share of the meadow and of the profits of the waste. The number of strips so held was usually about thirty; but virgates of fifteen acres or even eighty are not unknown. In any one manor, however, the holdings of all the villeins were equal. Normally the holder of a virgate was unfree; he had no rights in the eye of the law against his lord, who was protected from all suits by the _exceptio villenagii_; he could not without leave quit the manor, and could be reclaimed by process of law if he did; the strict contention of law deprived him of all right to hold property; and in many cases he was subject to certain degrading incidents, such as _merchet_ (_merchetum_), a payment due to the lord upon the marriage of a daughter, which was regarded as a special mark of unfree condition. But there are certain limitations to be made. Firstly, all these incidents of tenure, even merchet, might not affect the personal status of the tenant; he might still be free, though holding by an unfree tenure; secondly, even if unfree, he was not exposed to the arbitrary will of his lord but was protected by the custom of the manor as interpreted by the manor court. Moreover, he was not a slave, he was not bought and sold apart from his holding. The hardship of his condition lay in the services due from him. As a rule a villein paid for his holding in money, in labour and in kind. In money he paid, firstly, a small fixed rent called rent of assize; and, secondly, dues under various names, partly in lieu of services commuted into money payments, and partly for the privileges and profits enjoyed by him on the waste of the manor. In labour he paid more heavily. Week by week he had to come with his own plough and oxen to plough the lord's demesne; when ploughing was done he had to harrow, to reap the crops, to thresh and carry them, or do whatever might be required of him, until his allotted number of days labour in the year was done. Beyond this his lord might request of him extra days in harvest or other seasons of emergency, and these requests could not be denied. Further, all the carriage of the manor was provided by the villeins, even to places as much as a hundred miles away from the manor. The mending of the ploughs, hedging, ditching, sheepshearing and other miscellaneous work also fell upon him, and it is sometimes hard to see what time remained to him to work upon his own holding. In kind he usually rendered honey, eggs, chickens and perhaps a ploughshare, but these payments were almost always small in value. Another class of inhabitants remains to be mentioned--the cotters. These are the poor of the manor, who hold a cottage and garden, or perhaps one acre or half an acre in the fields. They were unfree in condition, and in most manors their services were modelled upon those of the villeins. From their ranks were usually drawn the shepherd of the manor, the bee-keeper and other minor officials of the manor.

Staff.

A complicated organization necessarily involves administrators. Just as the services of the tenants and even their names vary from manor to manor, so does the nature of the staff. Highest in rank came the steward; he was attached to no manor in particular, but controlled a group, travelling from one to another to take accounts, to hold the courts, and generally represent the lord. Under him are the officers of the several manors. First came the bailiff or beadle, the representative of the lord in the manor; his duty was to collect the rents and services, to gather in the lord's crops and account for the receipts and expenditure of the manor. Closely connected with him was the "messor" or reaper; in many cases, indeed, "reaper" seems to have been only another name for the bailiff. But the villeins were not without their own officer, the provost or reeve. His duty was to arrange the distribution of the services due from the tenants, and, as their representative, to assist the bailiff in the management of the manor. Sometimes the same man appears to have united both offices, and we find the reeve accounting to the lord for the issues of the manor. To these important officials may be added a number of smaller ones, the shepherd, the swineherd, the bee-keeper, the cowherd, the ploughman and so on, mostly selected from the cotters, and occupying their small holdings by the services expressed in their titles. The number varies with the constitution and needs of each estate, and they are often replaced by hired labour.

Manor Court.

The most complicated structure in the system is the manor court. The complication is, indeed, partly the work of lawyers interpreting institutions they did not understand by formulae not adapted to describe them. But beyond this there remain the facts that the court was the meeting-point of the lord and the tenants both free and unfree, that any question touching on the power and constitution of the court was bound to affect the interests of the lord and the tenants, and that there was no external power capable of settling such questions as did arise. Amid this maze a few clear lines can be laid down. In the first place, so far as the 13th century goes, all the discussion that has collected about the terms court leet, court baron and court customary may be put aside; it relates to questions which in the 13th century were only just emerging. The manor court at that date exercised its criminal, civil, or manorial jurisdiction as one court; its names may differ, the parties before it may be free or unfree, but the court is the same. Its president was the lord's steward; the bailiff was the lord's representative and the public prosecutor; and the tenants of the manor, both free and unfree, attended at the court and gave judgment in the cases brought before it. To modern ears the constitution sounds unfamiliar. The president of the court settled the procedure of the court, carried it out, and gave the final sentence, but over the law of the court he had no power. All that is comprised in the word "judgment" was settled by the body of tenants present at the court. This attendance was, indeed, compulsory, and absence subjected to a fine any tenant owing and refusing the service known as "suit of court." It may be asked who in these courts settled questions of fact. The answer must be that disputed questions of fact could only be settled in one way, by ordeal; and that in most manorial courts the method employed was the wager of law. The business of the court may be divided into criminal, manorial and civil. Its powers under the first head depended on the franchises enjoyed by the lord in the particular manor; for the most part only petty offences were triable, such as small thefts, breaches of the assize of bread and ale, assaults, and the like; except under special conditions, the justice of great offences remained in the king. But offences against the custom of the manor, such as bad ploughing, improper taking of wood from the lord's woods, and the like, were of course the staple criminal business of the court. Under the head of manorial business the court dealt with the choice of the manorial officers, and had some power of making regulations for the management of the manor; but its most important function was the recording of the surrenders and admittances of the villein tenants. Into the history and meaning of this form of land transfer it is not necessary to enter here. But it must be noted that the conveyance of a villein's holding was effected by the vendor surrendering his land to the lord, who thereupon admitted the purchaser to the holding. The same procedure was employed in all cases of transfer of land, and the transaction was regularly recorded upon the rolls of the court among the records of all the other business transacted there. Finally, the court dealt with all suits as to land within the manor, questions of dower and inheritance, and with civil suits not connected with land. But it need hardly be said that in an ordinary rural manor very few of these would occur.

It will be clear on consideration that the manor court as here described consisted of conflicting elements of very different origin and history. Founded partly on express grants of franchises, partly on the inherent right of a feudal lord to hold a court for his free tenants, partly on the obscure community traceable among the unfree inhabitants of the manor, it is incapable of strict legal definition. All these elements, moreover, contain in themselves reasons for the decay which gradually came over the system. The history of the decay of the manorial jurisdictions in England has not yet been written. On the one hand were the king's courts, with new and improved processes of law; on the other hand the gradual disintegration which marks the history of the manor during the 14th and 15th centuries. The criminal jurisdiction was the first to disappear, and was closely followed by the civil jurisdiction over the free tenants; and in modern times all that is left is the jurisdiction over the customary tenants and their holdings, and that in an attenuated form.

A few words must be given to the legal theories of the 15th century on
the manor court. It would seem to have become the law that to the
existence of the manor two courts were necessary--a court customary
for customary tenants, and a court baron for free tenants. In the
court customary the lord's steward is the judge; in the court baron
the freeholders are the judges. If the freeholders in the manor
diminish to less than two in number the court baron cannot be held,
and the manor perishes. Nor can it be revived by the grant of new
freehold tenures, because under the statute of _Quia Emptores_ such
new freeholders would hold not of the lord of the manor, but of his
lord. The customary tenants and the court customary may survive, but
the manor is only a reputed manor. Of the 13th century all this is
untrue, but even at that date the existence of free tenants was in a
measure essential to the existence of the manor court. If there were
none the jurisdiction of the court over free tenants of course
collapsed; but in addition to this the lord also lost his power of
exercising the highest criminal franchises, even if he otherwise
possessed them; he could, for instance, no longer hang a murderer on
his own gallows. Perhaps it may be said that to the exercise of the
feudal power and of the royal franchises the presence of free tenants
was necessary. But it is clear that no such condition was necessary to
the existence of the manor.

Apart from the change in the court of the manor, the most important
thread in its history is the process which converted the villein into
the copyholder. Here again the subject is imperfectly explored, and
part of it is still subject to controversy. In the strict view of
contemporary lawyers the holding of the villein tenant of the 13th
century was at the will of the lord, and the king's courts of law
would not protect him in his possession. If, however, the villein were
a tenant on the king's ancient demesne his condition was improved. The
writs of _monstraverunt_ and the little writ of right close protected
him from the improper exaction of services and from ejection by the
lord. But in ordinary manors there was no such immunity. That ejection
was common cannot be believed, but it was legally possible; and it was
not until the well-known decision of Danby, C. J., and Bryan, C. J.,
in 7 Edw. IV., that the courts of law would entertain an action of
trespass brought against his lord by a customary tenant. From that
date the courts, both of law and equity, begin to intervene; and the
records of the Courts of Star Chamber and Requests show that in the
Tudor period equitable suits brought by tenants against their lords
are not infrequent. Side by side with the alteration in the legal
condition of the manor there went on an economic change. The labour
rents and other services slowly disappeared, and were replaced by
money payments. The field divisions gave way before inclosures,
effected sometimes by the lords and sometimes by the tenants. Change
in legal and agricultural practice went on side by side, and finally
the manor ceased to be an important social form, and became only a
peculiar form of land tenure and the abode of antiquarian curiosities.

See G. L. von Maurer, _Einleitung in die Geschichte der Hof-, Mark-,
Dorf- und Stadtverfassung in Deutschland_ (Erlangen, 1856); G. Nasse,
_Zur Geschichte der mittelälterlichen Feldgemeinschaft in England_
(Bonn, 1869); H. S. Maine, _Village Communities in the East and West_
(Cambridge, 1872); F. Seebohm, _The English Village Community_ (1883);
W. J. Ashley, _English Economic History_, pts. i. ii. (1888-1893); F.
W. Maitland, _Select Pleas in Manorial Courts_ (London, Selden
Society, 1888); P. Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_ (Cambridge,
1892); _The Growth of the Manor_ (1905) and _English Society in the
11th Century_ (1908); A. Meitzen, _Siedelung und Agrarwesen der
Westgermanen und Ostgermanen_ (Berlin, 1896); W. Cunningham, _Growth
of English Industry and Commerce_ (Cambridge, 1896); F. Pollock and F.
W. Maitland, _History of English Law_ (Cambridge, 1896); F. W.
Maitland, _Doomsday Book and Beyond_ (Cambridge, 1897); and C. M.
Andrews, _The Old English Manor_ (1892). (C. G. Cr.)

MANOR-HOUSE (Lat. _manerium_; Fr. _manoir_), in architecture, the name given to the dwelling-house of the lord of the manor. The manor-house was generally arranged for defence against robbers and thieves and was often surrounded by a moat with drawbridge, but was not provided with a keep or with towers or lofty curtain walls so as to stand a siege. The early buildings were comparatively small, square in plan, comprising a hall with one or two adjacent chambers; at a later period wings were added, thus forming three sides of a quadrangle, like the house designed by John Thorpe as his residence, the plan of which is among his drawings in the Soane Museum. One of the most ancient examples is the manor-house built by Richard Coeur de Lion at Southampton as a rendezvous when he was about to cross into France. This consisted of a hall and chapel on the first floor, with cellars on the ground floor; the walls of this structure, with the chimney-piece, are still in existence. The distinction between the "manor-house" and "castle" is not always very clearly defined; in France such buildings as the castles of Aydon (Northumberland) and of Stokesay (Shropshire) would be regarded as manor-houses in that they were built as country houses and not as fortresses, like Coucy and Pierrefonds; some of the smaller castles in France were, in the 16th century, transformed into manor-houses by the introduction of windows on the second floors of their towers and the partial destruction of their curtain walls, as in the manor-houses of Sedières (Corrèze), Nantouillet and Compiègne; and in the same century, as at Chenonceaux, Blois and Chambord, though angle towers and machicolated parapets still formed part of the design, they were considered to be purely decorative features. The same is found in England; thus in Thornbury and Hurstmonceaux castles, and in Cowdray House, the fortifications were more for show than for use. There is an interesting example of a French manor-house near Dieppe, known as the Manoir-d'Ango, built in 1525, of which a great portion still exists, where the proprietor Ango received François I., so that it must have been of considerable size.

In England the principal examples of which remains exist are the
manor-houses of Appleton, Berkshire, with a moat; King John's house at
Warnford (Hampshire); Boothby Ragnell, Lincolnshire, with traces of
moat; Godmersham, Kent; Little Wenham Hall, Suffolk, built partly in
brick and flint, and one of the earliest in which the bricks, probably
imported from Flanders, are found; Charney Hall, Berkshire (T-shaped
in plan in two storeys); Longthorpe House, near Peterborough;
Stokesay, Shropshire, already referred to; Cottesford, Oxfordshire;
Woodcraft, Northamptonshire; Acton Burnell, Shropshire; Old Soar,
Plaxtol, Kent, in two storeys, the ground storey vaulted and used as
cellar and storehouse, and the upper floor with hall, solar and
chapel. The foundation of all these dates from the 13th century.
Ightham Mote, Kent, portions of which, with the moat, date from the
14th century, is one of the best preserved manor-houses; then follow
Norborough Hall, Northamptonshire; Creslow manor-house, Bucks, with
moat; Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire; the Court Lodge, Great Chart, Kent;
Stanton St Quentin, Great Chalfield, and South Wraxhall, all in Wilts;
Meare manor-house, Somerset; Ockwell, Berks; Kingfield manor-house,
Derbyshire; Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire; Stoke Albany,
Northamptonshire; and, in the 16th century, Large Marney Hall, Essex
(1520); Sutton Place, Surrey (1530); the Vyne, Hampshire, already
influenced by the first Renaissance. In the 17th and 18th centuries
the manor-house is generally rectangular in plan, and, though well and
solidly built, would seem to have been erected more with a view to
internal comfort than to exterior embellishments. There is one other
type of manor-house, which partakes of the character of the castle in
its design, and takes the form of a tower, rectangular or square, with
angle turrets and in several storeys; in France it is represented by
the manor-houses of St Medard near Bordeaux and Camarsae (Dordogne),
and in England by Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire and Middleton
Tower, Norfolk, both being in brick. (R. P. S.)

MANRESA, a town of north-eastern Spain, in the province of Barcelona, on the river Cardoner and the Barcelona-Lérida railway. Pop. (1900), 23,252. Manresa is the chief town of the highlands watered by the Cardoner and upper Llobregat, which meet below the town, and are also connected by a canal 18 m. long. Two bridges, one built of stone and dating from the Roman period, the other constructed of iron in 1804, unite the older and larger part of Manresa with the modern suburbs on the right bank of the river. The principal buildings are the collegiate church of Santa Maria de la Séo, the Dominican monastery, and the church of San Ignazio, built over the cavern (_cueva santa_) where Ignatius de Loyola spent most of the year 1522 in penitentiary exercises and the composition of his _Exercitia spiritualia_. Santa Maria is a fine example of Spanish Gothic, and consists, like many Catalan churches, of nave and chancel, aisles and ambulatory, without transepts. One of its chief treasures is an exquisite 15th-century Florentine altar-frontal, preserved in the sacristy. The Dominican monastery, adjoining the _cueva santa_, commands a magnificent view of the Montserrat (q.v.), and is used for the accommodation of the pilgrims who yearly visit the cavern in thousands. Manresa has important iron-foundries and manufactures of woollen, cotton and linen goods, ribbons, hats, paper, soap, chemicals, spirits and flour. Building-stone is quarried near the town.

Manresa is probably the _Munorisa_ of the Romans, which was the capital of the Jacetani or Jaccetani, an important tribe of the south-eastern Pyrenees. A large portion of the town was burned by the French in 1811.

MANRIQUE, GÓMEZ (1412?-1490?), Spanish poet, soldier, politician and dramatist, was born at Amusco. The fifth son of Pedro Manrique, _adelantado mayor_ of León, and nephew of Santillana (q.v.), Gómez Manrique was introduced into public life at an early age, took a prominent part against the constable Álvaro de Luna during the reign of John II., went into opposition against Miguel Lucas de Iranzo in the reign of Henry IV., and declared in favour of the infanta Isabel, whose marriage with Ferdinand he promoted. Besides being a distinguished soldier, he acted as a moderating political influence and, when appointed _corregidor_ of Toledo, was active in protecting the converted Jews from popular resentment. His will was signed on the 31st of May 1490, and he is known to have died before the 16th of February 1491. He inherited the literary taste of his uncle Santillana, and was greatly esteemed in his own age; but his reputation was afterwards eclipsed by that of his nephew Jorge Manrique (q.v.), whose _Coplas_ were continually reproduced. Gómez Manrique's poems were not printed till 1885, when they were edited by Antonio Paz y Melia. They at once revealed him to be a poet of eminent merit, and it seems certain that his _Consejos_, addressed to Diego Arias de Avila, inspired the more famous _Coplas_ of his nephew. His didactic verses are modelled upon those of Santillana, and his satires are somewhat coarse in thought and expression; but his place in the history of Spanish literature is secure as the earliest Spanish dramatist whose name has reached posterity. He wrote the _Representación del nascimiento de Nuestro Señor_, a play on the Passion, and two _momos_, or interludes, played at court.

MANRIQUE, JORGE (1440?-1478), Spanish poet and soldier, was born probably at Paredes de Nava. The fourth son of Rodrigo Manrique, count de Paredes, he became like the rest of his family a fervent partisan of Queen Isabel, served with great distinction in many engagements, and was made _comendador_ of Montizón in the order of Santiago. He was killed in a skirmish near the fortress of Garci-Muñoz in 1478, and was buried in the church attached to the convent of Uclés. His love-songs, satires, and acrostic verses are merely ingenious compositions in the taste of his age; he owes his imperishable renown to a single poem, the _Coplas por la muerte de su padre_, an elegy of forty stanzas on the death of his father, which was apparently first printed in the _Cancionero llamado de Fray Inigo de Mendoza_ about the year 1482. There is no foundation for the theory that Manrique drew his inspiration from an Arabic poem by Abu 'l-Baka Salih ar-Rundi; the form of the _Coplas_ is influenced by the _Consejos_ of his uncle, Gómez Manrique, and the matter derives from the Bible, from Boethius and from other sources readily accessible. The great sonorous commonplaces on death are vitalized by the intensely personal grief of the poet, who lent a new solemnity and significance to thoughts which had been for centuries the common property of mankind. It was given to Jorge Manrique to have one single moment of sublime expression, and this isolated achievement has won him a fame undimmed by any change of taste during four centuries.

The best edition of the _Coplas_ is that issued by R. Foulché-Delbosc
in the _Bibliotheca hispanica_; the poem has been admirably translated
by Longfellow. Manrique's other verses were mostly printed in Hernando
del Castillo's _Cancionero general_ (1511).

MANSE (Med. Lat. _mansa_, _mansus_ or _mansum_, from _manere_, to dwell, remain), originally a dwelling-house together with a portion of land sufficient for the support of a family. It is defined by Du Cange (_Glossarium, s.v. Mansus_) as _... certam agri portionem quae coleretur et in qua coloni aedes esset_. The term was particularly applied, in ecclesiastical law, to the house and glebe to which every church was entitled by common right, the rule of canon law being _sancitum est ut unicuique ecclesiae unus mansus integer absque ullo servitio tribuatur_ (Phillimore, _Eccles. Law_, 1895, ii. 1125). The word is now chiefly used for the residence of a minister of the Established Church of Scotland; to this every minister of a rural parish is entitled, and the landed proprietors must build and keep it up. "Manse" is also loosely used for the residence of a minister of various Free Church denominations (see GLEBE).

MANSEL, HENRY LONGUEVILLE (1820-1871), English philosopher, was born at Cosgrove, Northamptonshire (where his father, also Henry Longueville Mansel, fourth son of General John Mansel, was rector), on the 6th of October 1820. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St John's College, Oxford. He took a double first in 1843, and became tutor of his college. He was appointed reader in moral and metaphysical philosophy at Magdalen College in 1855, and Waynflete professor in 1859. He was a great opponent of university reform and of the Hegelianism which was then beginning to take root in Oxford. In 1867 he succeeded A. P. Stanley as professor of ecclesiastical history, and in 1868 he was appointed dean of St Paul's. He died on the 31st of July 1871.

The philosophy of Mansel, like that of Sir William Hamilton, was mainly due to Aristotle, Kant and Reid. Like Hamilton, Mansel maintained the purely formal character of logic, the duality of consciousness as testifying to both self and the external world, and the limitation of knowledge to the finite and "conditioned." His doctrines were developed in his edition of Aldrich's _Artis logicae rudimenta_ (1849)--his chief contribution to the reviving study of Aristotle--and in his _Prolegomena logica: an Inquiry into the Psychological Character of Logical Processes_ (1851, 2nd ed. enlarged 1862), in which the limits of logic as the "science of formal thinking" are rigorously determined. In his Bampton lectures on _The Limits of Religious Thought_ (1858, 5th ed. 1867; Danish trans. 1888) he applied to Christian theology the metaphysical agnosticism which seemed to result from Kant's criticism, and which had been developed in Hamilton's _Philosophy of the Unconditioned_. While denying all knowledge of the supersensuous, Mansel deviated from Kant in contending that cognition of the ego as it really is is itself a fact of experience. Consciousness, he held--agreeing thus with the doctrine of "natural realism" which Hamilton developed from Reid--implies knowledge both of self and of the external world. The latter Mansel's psychology reduces to consciousness of our organism as extended; with the former is given consciousness of free will and moral obligation. A summary of his philosophy is contained in his article "Metaphysics" in the 8th edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (separately published, 1860). Mansel wrote also _The Philosophy of the Conditioned_ (1866) in reply to Mill's criticism of Hamilton; _Letters, Lectures, and Reviews_ (ed. Chandler, 1873), and _The Gnostic Heresies_ (ed. J. B. Lightfoot, 1875, with a biographical sketch by Lord Carnarvon). He wrote a commentary on the first two gospels in the _Speaker's Commentary_.

See J. W. Burgon, _Lives of Twelve Good Men_ (1888-1889); James
Martineau, _Essays, Reviews and Addresses_ (London, 1891), iii. 117
seq.; A. W. Benn, _History of Rationalism_ (1906), ii. 100-112;
Masson, _Recent British Philosophy_ (3rd ed., London, 1877), pp. 252
seq.; Sir Leslie Stephen in _Dict. Nat. Biog._

MANSFELD, the name of an old and illustrious German family which took its name from Mansfeld in Saxony, where it was seated from the 11th to the 18th century. One of its earliest members was Hoyer von Mansfeld (d. 1115), a partisan of the emperor Henry V. during his struggles with the Saxons; he fought for Henry at Warnstädt and was killed in his service at Welfesholz. Still more famous was Albert, count of Mansfeld (1480-1560), an intimate friend of Luther and one of the earliest and staunchest supporters of the Reformation. He helped to crush the rising of the peasants under Thomas Munzer in Thuringia in 1525; he was a member of the league of Schmalkalden, and took part in all the movements of the Protestants against Charles V. With Albert was associated his brother Gebhard, and another member of the family was Johann Gebhard, elector of Cologne from 1558 to 1562. A scion of another branch of the Mansfelds was Peter Ernst, Fürst von Mansfeld (1517-1604), governor of Luxemburg, who unlike his kinsmen was loyal to Charles V. He went with the emperor to Tunis and fought for him in France. He was equally loyal to his son, Philip II. of Spain, whom he served at St Quentin and in the Netherlands. He distinguished himself in the field and found time to lead a body of troops to aid the king of France against the Huguenots. In this capacity he was present in 1569 at the battle of Moncontour, where another member of his family, Count Wolrad of Mansfeld (d. 1578) was among the Huguenot leaders. The Mansfeld family became extinct in 1780 on the death of Josef Wenzel Nepomuk, prince of Fondi, the lands being divided between Saxony and Prussia.

See L. F. Niemann, _Geschichte der Grafen von Mansfeld_ (Aschersleben,
1834).

MANSFELD, ERNST, GRAF VON (c. 1580-1626), German soldier, was an illegitimate son of Peter Ernst, Fürst von Mansfeld, and passed his early years in his father's palace at Luxemburg. He gained his earliest military experiences in Hungary, where his half-brother Charles (1543-1595,) also a soldier of renown, held a high command in the imperial army. Later he served under the Archduke Leopold, until that prince's ingratitude, real or fancied, drove him into the arms of the enemies of the house of Habsburg. Although remaining a Roman Catholic he allied himself with the Protestant princes, and during the earlier part of the Thirty Years' War he was one of their foremost champions. He was despatched by Charles Emmanuel, duke of Savoy, at the head of about 2000 men to aid the revolting Bohemians when war broke out in 1618. He took Pilsen, but in the summer of 1619 he was defeated at Zablat; after this he offered his services to the emperor Ferdinand II. and remained inactive while the titular king of Bohemia, Frederick V., elector palatine of the Rhine, was driven in headlong rout from Prague. Mansfeld, however, was soon appointed by Frederick to command his army in Bohemia, and in 1621 he took up his position in the Upper Palatinate, successfully resisting the efforts made by Tilly to dislodge him. From the Upper he passed into the Rhenish Palatinate. Here he relieved Frankenthal and took Hagenau; then, joined by his master, the elector Frederick, he defeated Tilly at Wiesloch in April 1622 and plundered Alsace and Hesse. But Mansfeld's ravages were not confined to the lands of his enemies; they were ruinous to the districts he was commissioned to defend. At length Frederick was obliged to dismiss Mansfeld's troops from his service. Then joining Christian of Brunswick the count led his army through Lorraine, devastating the country as he went, and in August 1622 defeating the Spaniards at Fleurus. He next entered the service of the United Provinces and took up his quarters in East Friesland, capturing fortresses and inflicting great hardships upon the inhabitants. A mercenary and a leader of mercenaries, Mansfeld often interrupted his campaigns by journeys made for the purpose of raising money, or in other words of selling his services to the highest bidder, and in these diplomatic matters he showed considerable skill. About 1624 he paid three visits to London, where he was hailed as a hero by the populace, and at least one to Paris. James I. was anxious to furnish him with men and money for the recovery of the palatinate, but it was not until January 1625 that Mansfeld and his army of "raw and poor rascals" sailed from Dover to the Netherlands. Later in the year, the Thirty Years' War having been renewed under the leadership of Christian IV., king of Denmark, he re-entered Germany to take part therein. But on the 25th of April 1626 Wallenstein inflicted a severe defeat upon him at the bridge of Dessau. Mansfeld, however, quickly raised another army, with which he intended to attack the hereditary lands of the house of Austria, and pursued by Wallenstein he pressed forward towards Hungary, where he hoped to accomplish his purpose by the aid of Bethlem Gabor, prince of Transylvania. But when Gabor changed his policy and made peace with the emperor, Mansfeld was compelled to disband his troops. He set out for Venice, but when he reached Rakowitza he was taken ill, and here he died on the 29th of November 1626. He was buried at Spalato.

See F. Stieve, _Ernst von Mansfeld_ (Munich, 1890); R. Reuss, _Graf
Ernst von Mansfeld im böhmischen Kriege_ (Brunswick, 1865); A. C. de
Villermont, _Ernest de Mansfeldt_ (Brussels, 1866); L. Graf Uetterodt
zu Schaffenberg, _Ernst Graf zu Mansfeld_ (Gotha, 1867); J. Grossmann,
_Des Grafen Ernst von Mansfeld letzte Pläne und Thaten_ (Breslau,
1870); E. Fischer, _Des Mansfelders Tod_ (Berlin, 1873); S. R.
Gardiner, _History of England_, vols. iv. and v. (1901); J. L. Motley,
_Life and Death of John of Barneveld_ (ed. 1904; vol. ii.).