Note 272 — Chapter IV · THE PEASANTRY (continued)

Victoria County History, Suffolk. I quote the writer’s remarks in full. “The bailiff’s accounts for the manor begin in that very year [1381], and the one striking feature in them is the system of leases which appears to have gradually displaced other kinds of tenure since the time of the pestilence. A few are for forty years, but most are for ten or six years.... The land so leased is not mainly demesne land. It belongs largely to villein tenements that have fallen into the lord’s hands, and the process of consolidation described had already taken place at Mildenhall. The land held by John Kelsynd on a ten years' lease includes, for example, '3 acres of Frere's, Hayward’s and Willway’s tenement in Bradinhawfield, 1 acre of Holmes' tenement in Suttonfield, 5 acres of Zabulo's tenement in one piece at Lambwash,' and the rent of the whole 22 acres is 31s. 1d., or nearly 1s. 5d. an acre, an extremely high rent for land not stated to be meadow or pasture.”