A Farnborough (Kent) Court Roll of 1408. Transcribed and extended by M. F. Bond, M.A. - Archaeologia Cantiana

the rule of a local potentate".¹ Although serfdom was in many ways rigorous yet the medieval peasants did form a self-governing community and the laws and customs they enforced were carefully designed to protect the peasant from oppression. There is more to be said for the "Golden Middle Age" than some modern writers allow, and this Court Roll is but one further fragment of evidence for the communal as opposed to the tyrannical element in medieval life.
The Roll contains entries for seven townships or boroughs within which there lay some estate over which the Liberty of the Duchy of Lancaster claimed jurisdiction² but in addition there appear Common Fines of 8d. and 2½d paid by borsholders without any township or borough being mentioned. This quite extensive franchise had been annexed to the Manor of Farnborough from an early date and was held by the Duke of Lancaster since the reign of Edward I.
I am indebted to the owner of the Roll, Brian Tolhurst, Esq., for permission to print this transcription, and to Dr. E. Jaffe, of Girton College, Cambridge, and H. W. Knocker, Esq., F.S.A., of Westerham, Kent, for most generous help in deciphering and interpreting it.

FARNEBERGH (modern, FARNBOROUG).

Visus Franceplegii tentus Die Jovis proximo post festum Pasche Anno Regni regis Henrici quarti nono.

   Willielmus Haselhersh Borghealdir³ cum tota secta sua ibidem presentat communem finem v s.⁴
   Item presentat quod Thomas Colgate⁵ (ii d.), Henricus Leche (iid), Inglardus Jacob (iid), Johannes Barnewell (iid), Robertus Drye (iid), Robertus Betford (iid), Johannes Sergeant (iid), Johannes Shelle (iid), et Johannes Swetemouth (iid) fecerunt defaltum huius visus.
   Item Deonisius stake (ixd.) et Johannes Fesdyng (iiid) quia pandoxerunt⁶ panem equinam.
¹In The Growth of the Manor, 2nd edition, p. 361. (1911.)
   ² See the map, "The Territorial Interest of John, Duke of Lancaster", in John of Gaunt by S. Armitage-Smith, 1904. This, however, only shows three of the seven townships mentioned in the Roll—Ash near Farnborough, Strood near Rochester, and Goodnestone near Sandwich. The other manors forming parcel of the Duchy then were Cliffe, Queenborough, Horton, Brabourne and Hastingley.
   ³The more usual word for Headman was "borgesaldrus".
   ⁴The roll is possibly a series of extracts of the most important business only. The later Farnborough rolls, unless they are marked "Extracts", open with the swearing in of the Jury and a list of names of those excused attendance (Essoins).
   ⁵The figures after each name here and elsewhere in the roll represent the fine imposed.
   ⁶ "Pandoxere" means "to brew", but here presumably the meaning of the phrase is that they "baked horse bread". Horse bread was simply loaves given to horses. Jurors were regularly charged to present those who baked it unlawfully and by 21 Jac. 1, c. 2, ostlers were forbidden to bake it and were subjected to the jurisdiction of the court leet (see passim, Hearnshaw, Leet Jurisdiction in England).