The customary land market in Bedfordshire in the fifteenth century

Abstract

In Bedfordshire in the fifteenth century the market In customary (or copyhold^ land ceased to be a purely peasant land market. As the security of tenure of this land grew, and as the stigma of customary tenure declined, men of a higher social status - gentry and merchants - began to buy up customary land, especially alter about 1/|80. At the same time, prosperous peasants and other local farmers began to amass large holdings in and around their home village or town. The survival of several series of court rolls and of court registers enables us to reconstruct in detail the customary land market. In particular, it is possible to describe the activities of the more important landholders, their family background, and the development of their farms. In this connexion, special reference is made to the land market at Arlesey, a small village, and at Leighton Buzzard, a market town. An attempt is made to show not only how the land market affected the size of holdings, but also how it affected their distribution over the open fields azid the structure of the fields themselves.

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