Farnborough Customal 1598
Hampshire Record Office 1M45/11,12
Extract transcribed by Peter Tipton 16 Nov 2006
A customal is a document which records the feudal customs of the manor. This is a list of all the services owed by the free tenants (freeholders) and the unfree tenants (villeins later called copyholders), together with the temants' customary rights. Some of the latter have come down to our own times and are now known as common rights -- such as the right to graze animals on common land. The customal, which also states the rights and obligations of the Lord of the Manor, was periodically read out at the manor courts. It was copied from time to time so many customals are now preserved in county record offices in several copies. The two references above are two separate copies from different periods.
The Manor of Farnborough was very small when compared with the next-door Manor of Crondall owned by the Dean and Chapter of Winchester. The population of Farnborough had barely reached 300 by 1801. There were 34 householders paying Hearth Tax in 1665 and 27 who were exempted. So Farnborough was probably much the same size in 1665 as it was at the time of the first census in 1801. There were several smaller manors within the Hundred of Crondall, and these were originally held from the Tenant-in-Chief by Knight's Fee. The Lords of these small manors were obliged to give military service to their immediate overlord, who usually held his manors directly from the Crown. If the Lord of the Manor did not live locally then villagers generally got on with their lives, attending the manor court twice a year.
Here is a transcription of paragraph 21 of the customary:
21. Item that all Customary Tenants within the said Manner their Heirs and Assigns shall and may at all times hearafter enjoy have and such profit of all wast ground and Commons Appertaining to the Lord of the Manner & in respect of the said Manner either with their Beasts and Cattle or in Sherreds.g (??) of Bushes Cutting of Turf Heath Ferns digging of Loom and Sand or other Comodities in such form and manner and to all such intents purposes and respects as they or any or their Ancestors in former time and being Tenants of any of the Customary lands of the said Manner have used to have take enjoy the same saving that ye said Tenant may not by the Custom of the said Manner Intermeddle with any Manner of Oak ask or Elm being Timber Growing or to be Grown in or upon the same Wast Ground or Commons
This paragraph of the customary is interesting in that copyholders are permitted to dig loam. I do not believe that the word loam here has the current meaning of garden loam ie a mixture of clay, sand and decomposed vegetable matter, but rather the older meaning of clay used for making bricks, tiles, and most probably pottery. The diggers of the loam were permitted to use it for any use they or their ancestors had formerly used it. Normally customary tenants can only use the products of the land for maintenance purposes on their own copyholding. Having common rights myself over Yateley Common I am only permitted to dig gravel on the common to maintain my own property. If timber can be cut, perhaps Silver Birch or coppiced Hazel, it can only be used on the commoner's property. The unrestricted ability to dig and use loam and 'other commodities' in Farnborough is significant and leads me to the conclusion that clay was dug by potters and brickmakers on Farnborough Common as a customary right. The Crondall Customary specifically restricts customary tenants from using the timber even growing on their own property for making bricks and tiles. The more permissive situation in Farnborough for cutting and using wood (except oak, ash or elm) may also indicate a free source of wood for firing kilns. This should be investigated further since wood is costed in the probate inventories of potters at much higher values than potters' clay.
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