services, such as we should look for under the circumstances. In Darlington, we have a notice of a new as well as an old holding in villenage*; probably the Bishop had granted out of his demesne land, or from the waste an additional quantity of land to which he attached a different kind or degree of service from that attached to the old villenage land, this again shows a tendency to a more stable system. The villan could not marry his daughter without the lord's leave, and in many cases was obliged to pay a certain sum for this liberty: this payment was called "merchet." All the children of villans inherited their father's condition, and were, like

• In Darlington are 48 oxgangs, which as well of the old villenage as of the new, the villans hold, and render for each one oxgang 5s., and they ought to mow the whole of the Bishop's meadow, and make the Bishop's hay and lead it, and once to have a corrody, and to enclose the copse and the court, and to make the works which they were accustomed to make at the mills, and for each one bovate one cartload of woodlades; and to make cartloads on the Bishop's journeys; and also three cartloads in the year to cart wine and herrings and salt.Boldon Buke.

+ Merchet, in the ancient British, Gwarb Merched or maid's fee is a composition of ten shillings paid by the tenant, on the marriage of his daughter, to the lord, on condition of the latter waiving his claim to sleep the first night with the bride. The custom, with certain modifications, is observed in some parts of England and Scotland, and in the manor of Dynevor, in the county of Caermarthen, where the "fee" is still exacted by Lord Dynevor.-Cabinet Lawyer. Greenwell thus alludes to the custom :-Merchet, a payment incident to tenures in villenage. Writers have been led into long and not very satisfactory disquisitions as to the meaning of merchet. The popular notion has been that it was a payment made by the vassal to his lord, to preserve his daughter on the first night of her marriage, from being deflowered by him. The only authority on which this rests is a ridi eulous story by Boece, of its establishment by a King of Scotland,

him, villans too. If a free man married a female villan, or neife, as she was called, the children were free; but if a free woman married a villan the children were villans, in this contrary to the maxim of the civil law, that "partus sequitur ventrem." No bastard could, however, be born a villan, for the law held that being "filius nullius," and, as such, unable to have any inheritance, he should at all events gain his natural freedom by it. Holding by villenage tenure does not always imply that the holder was a villan: a freeman might hold land in villenage, in which case he rendered the services due upon the land, but remained personally free. The villan, in course of time, became the copyholder of later days, so that, as Coke expresses it, copyhold, though of mean descent, is of a very ancient house. The villan, indeed, could acquire no property in goods or land, for, being himself the property of the lord, all that he acquired was the lord's. But, being allowed to hold land, himself and his children, for many years without interruption, the common law gave him the title to hold his land on rendering the accustomed services, or on payment of the money for which those services had been commuted.

called Evenus; in this he was followed by Skene, Spelman, and DuLord Hailes has very clearly shown the absurdity of this notion, and has pointed out the origin and true meaning of the term. The word seems to have been used in two senses, 1. A fine by a villan to his lord when his unmarried daughter had been debauched. 2. And this its usual signification, a payment made by a villan to his lord for liberty to give his daughter in marriage. As the lord had, for a certain portion of the year, the right to his villan's service in agricultural works, together with that of his household, if a villan's daughter married, it was so much service lost to the lord, and he had, therefore, a remuneration in money, and this was called

This title they possessed only by custom, as shown in the rolls of the lord's court, and from this manner of holding by copy of court roll, they became ultimately in name and effect copyholders. From Boldon Buke we learn that, in the Palatinate, the quantity of land which they held varied from sixteen to thirty-five acres, with a house attached. Their services were onerous, about half the year being given up to working for the Bishop on his demesne land; the villan of Boldon, for instance, held thirty acres, and for this he worked 144 days in the year for the lord, besides some extra work in ploughing, harrowing, and reaping; he also paid in money 3s. 10d., and gave two hens and twenty eggs: this, or something not very different, seems to have been the amount of services rendered throughout the county by the villan. The other classes of cottars, bond-tenants, &c., rendered much in the same way, differing only in the quantity of land they held, and in the amount of work they rendered. The work itself was of the same servile nature.*

"merchet," perhaps, from a northern word "merg," "merch,” “march,' which signified a daughter or young woman, and "sceat," a payment. Mon. Angl. vol. iii. p. 318. Et omnes tenentes de Tynmuth solvent "merchet" pro filiabus suis maritandis.' Bracton. lib. 4, trac. 1, cap. 28, § 5. Qui tenet in villenagio talliari potest ad voluntatem domini item dare" merchetam" ad filiam maritandam.^ The following extract, relating to Wivenho, goes far to prove the view above stated, 40 Ed. III., ‹ R. Burre . debet "merchet," hoc modo, quod si maritare voluerit filiam suam cum quodam libero homine extra villam, faciet pacem domini pro maritagio, et si eam maritaverit alicui costumario villæ, nihil dabit pro maritagio. In the latter case nothing was paid, since, the daughter not marrying out of the manor, her services were not lost to the lord.-Appendix to

"Appendix to Greenwell's Translation of the Boldon Buke."

Traces of all these customs may be found in the remains of the Anglo-Saxon antiquity; and their previous existence is proved by the decisions of the courts of law during the Norman period, when exceptions from these servile burthens were admitted as uncontrovertible evidence of free tenancy.*

Among a people but lately emerged from barbarism, the administration of justice is always rude and simple; and though the absence of legal forms and pleading may casually insure a prompt and equitable decision, it is difficult without their aid to oppose the acts of intrigue or falsehood, or the influence of passion and prejudice. The proceedings before the Anglo-Saxon tribunals would not have suited a more advanced state of civilization; they were ill calculated to elicit truth, or to produce conviction; and in many instances which have been recorded by contemporary writers, our more correct or more artificial notions will be shocked at the credulity or the precipitancy of the judges. The subject, however, Greenwell's Translation of the Boldon Buke. With all due deference to Lord Hailes (whose learned dissertation extends to more than twenty pages octavo), and Mr. Greenwell, we see no reason to depart from the popular notion; more especially when the fee is still (1857) claimed by, and paid to, the Right Honourable George Talbot Rice Lord Dynevor.

* We meet also with cotsets, coterells, cotmen, or cottagers, who, as their holdings were small, rendered a smaller portion of labour, that is in the Boldon Book, two days in the week from Lammas to Martinmas, and one only during the rest of the year. There were also bordars whose services were few but very servile. Bonds appear to have been the masters of families amongst the second class of ceorls. If a sufficient number of free tenants could not be procured to form a jury, the deficiency was supplied from among the most discreet and lawful bonds.-Lingard.

is curious and interesting. These ancient courts still exist under different names; and the intelligent observer may discover in their proceedings the origin of several institutions which now mark the administration of justice in the English tribunals.

The lowest species of jurisdiction known among the Anglo-Saxons was that of the "Sac and Soc" words, the derivation of which has puzzled the ingenuity of antiqua rians, though the meaning is sufficiently understood. It was the privilege of holding pleas and imposing fines within a certain district, and, with a few variations, was per petuated in the manorial courts of the Norman dynasty. It seems to have been claimed and exercised by all the greater and several of the lesser thanes, but was differ ently modified by the terms of the original grant, or by immemorial usage. Some took cognizance of all crimes committed within their soke; the jurisdiction of others was confined to offences of a particular description; some might summon every delinquent, whether native or stranger, before their tribunal; while others could inflict punishment on none but their own tenants. From the custom of holding these courts in the hall of the lord, they were usually termed the "hall-mots."

From these manorial courts of the Anglo-Saxons, are derived the present halmote or copyhold courts, for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners' (late the Bishop of Dur ham's) manors of Houghton, Chester, Easington, Stockton, &c., &c., the Rector of Bishopwearmouth's manor of Wearmouth or the rectory of Bishopwearmouth; Frances Anne Vane Tempest, Marchioness of Londonderry's manor of Gilligate; Sir William George Hylton Jolliffe, Bart., M.P. for Petersfield, and Lady Noel Byron's manor

P