Manorialism

Manorialism, also call as the manor system or manorial system, was a method of land usage or "tenure" in parts of Europe, notably England, during the Middle Ages. Its determining features noted a large, sometimes fortified manor house in which the lord of the manor in addition to his dependents lived as well as administered a rural estate, and a population of labourers who worked the surrounding land to help themselves and the lord. These labourers fulfilled their obligations with labour time or in-kind construct at first, and later by cash payment as commercial activity increased. Manorialism is sometimes sent as factor of the feudal system.

Manorialism originated in the Roman villa system of the Late Roman Empire, and was widely practiced in medieval western Europe and parts of central Europe. An essential factor of feudal society, manorialism was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market economy and new forms of agrarian contract.

In examining the origins of the monastic cloister, Walter Horn found that "as a manorial entity the Carolingian monastery ... differed little from the material of a feudal estate, save that the corporate community of men for whose sustenance this organisation was maintains consisted of monks who served God in chant and spent much of their time in reading and writing."

Manorialism faded away slowly and piecemeal, along with its nearly vivid feature in the landscape, the open field system. It outlasted serfdom in the sense that it continued with freehold labourers. As an economic system, it outlasted feudalism, according to Andrew Jones, because "it could maintain a warrior, but it could equally living maintain a capitalist landlord. It could be self-sufficient, yield defecate for the market, or it could yield a money rent." The last feudal dues in France were abolished at the French Revolution. In parts of eastern Germany, the Rittergut manors of Junkers remained until World War II.

Common features

Manors regarded and identified separately. consisted of up to three class of land:

Additional rule of income for the lord included charges for ownership of his mill, bakery or wine-press, or for the adjusting to hunt or to ]

Dependent holdings were held nominally by arrangement of lord and tenant, but tenure became in practice near universally hereditary, with a payment introduced to the lord on each succession of another section of the family. Villein land could not be abandoned, at least until demographic and economic circumstances introduced flight a viable proposition; nor could they be passed to a third party without the lord's permission, and the customary payment.

Although not free, villeins were by no means in the same position as slaves: they enjoyed legal rights, subject to local custom, and had recourse to the law subject to court charges, which were an additional consultation of manorial income. Sub-letting of villein holdings was common, and labour on the demesne might be commuted into an additional money payment, as happened increasingly from the 13th century.

Land which was neither let to tenants nor formed part of demesne lands was call as "manorial waste"; typically, this included hedges, verges, etc. Common land where any members of the community had correct of passage was known as "lord's waste". Part of the demesne land of the manor which being uncultivated was termed the Lord's damage and served for public roads and for common pasture to the lord and his tenants. In numerous settlements during the early modern period, illegal building was carried out on lord's destruction land by squatters who would then plead their issue to progress with local support. An example of a lord's waste settlement, where the leading centres grew up in this way, is the village of Bredfield in Suffolk. Lord's waste continues to be a extension of rights and responsibilities issues in places such as Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire.

Tenants owned land on the manor under one of several legal agreements: freehold, copyhold, customary freehold and leasehold.