The market in freehold land, 1300–1509: the evidence of feet of fines

Abstract

This article provides time series data on the medieval market in freehold land, including the changing social composition of freeholders, level of market activity, size and complexity of landholdings, and shifts in the market value of land. These are subjects hitherto largely ignored due, in part, to the disparate nature of the evidence. It argues that feet of fines, despite archival limitations, if employed with care and an understanding of the underlying changes in the common law of real property, are capable of providing quantifiable evidence spanning hundreds of years and comparable across large areas of England.

The Rural Land Market in Early Modern Inland Flanders and Brabant: A Long Run Perspective

“…This significant improvement in bookkeeping practices by the local stewards has to be seen in relationship to the increasing emergence of local rural aldermen's benches (Soly, 1974). Consequently the quality of manorial accounts came close to the detail provided within the aldermen's registers and are highly comparable to the English manor court rolls and feet of fines (Yates, 2013b; Yates, 2013a; Goodyear-Garrett, 2014; Schofield, 2005). In both the duchy of Evergem and the domain of Kruikenbrug the owners of the surrounding plots were referred to as well, consequently, effectively chronicling the property's geographical as well as social embeddedness in a fashion similar to collective memory as has been argued by Ian Blanchard (Blanchard, 1984).…”

“…English research on the peasant land market, for example, is highly dependent on the use of legal documents (manorial court rolls) to track land sales (Schofield, 2005; Dribe, Olsson, and Svensson, 2012; Goodyear-Garrett, 2014; Campbell, 2009; Davies and Kissock, 2004). Recently, Margret Yates has convincingly managed to use feet of fines as the starting point for her analysis of the late medieval rural land market in south-west England (Yates, 2013a; Yates, 2013b). The latter were not designed to serve as a legal document but were registered either because taxes were due on the transfer or for accounting purposes.…”

Married women and their landholdings: the evidence from feet of fines, 1310–1509

“…For those wishing entry into landed society the property of a married woman was sought after and they were prepared to pay large sums for these valuable assets. 88 Men such as John Noreys were willing to buy up fractions of landholdings from co-heiresses and unite them again as part of their amassing of large landed estates. Who benefited financially from the sale of the married woman's property -wife, husband or both -will remain unknown; the true beneficiary from the fine was the purchaser of the property.…”

The First Real Estate Bubble? Land Prices and Rents in Medieval England C. 1300-1500

“…Fines nominally record the settlement of legal disputes over property but are usually considered as fictitious lawsuits intended to convey property. They often include a 'consideration' or price paid for the property, which can be decomposed to provide property valuations (see Yates, 2013).…”