‘To Beare the Towne Harmles’: Manorial Regulation of Mobility and Settlement in Early Modern Lancashire

Abstract

This article examines the role of manorial courts in early modern Lancashire in the regulation of mobility through order making in relation to inmates. The period under consideration is c. 1550–c. 1660. Four aspects of their operation are considered: the volume of court business dealing with issues of mobility, the quality of court orders regulating it, the place of the manor court in the topography of local governance and aspects of continuity and change in the courts’ functioning in the period. Manorial courts are shown to be active and innovative constituents of the local administrative landscape, exercising a role wider than merely the imposition of seigneurial interest and control.