THE MANORIAL MILL 131
Despite all manorial injunctions men were constantly failing
to bring their corn to the lord's mill, and in due time found
themselves accused in the Manor Court. Here they usually re-
ceived short shrift, and were fined, sometimes for grinding at
another's mill, sometimes for grinding at home with a small
hand-mill.1 Men tried to avoid this liability, at times successfully,
by pleading that they held the lord's license to grind wheresoever
they liked, but this was not a privilege freely given.2 At Hales, for
example, on one occasion when the services of three applicants
were relaxed, on payment of a fine, the lord insisted on their
rendering suit of mill.3 If men were caught on the way to a rival
mill, the custom of the manor was often such that, if the offence
was other than the first, the lord was entitled to seize the man's
horse, while his miller took whatever corn or flour the wretched
man was carrying.4 The validity of such a custom seems to have
been recognised in an action before the itinerant justices at
Cirencester in 1302. Here the plaintiff admitted he was en route
to another mill and off the manor when his horse and corn were
confiscated by the Abbot—who kept the horse and passed on
the corn to his miller. The plaintiff bases his claim only on
the fact that the seizure took place off the manor, and does not
dispute the recognised custom of seizure itself.5
Some lords recognised that often it was not wantonness but
necessity that made men go elsewhere. They would arrive at the
mill, only to find the miller overwhelmed with work, or with his
mill out of repair, or his head of water weak, or the wind feeble
and variable. With the best will in the world (and the miller was
notoriously not overburdened with goodwill) much of the corn
must wait many days before it could be ground. But at home the
family could not wait, and so, perforce, the peasant went to the
next mill or ground furtively at home with a hand-mill. Condi-
tions similar to these are sometimes provided for, as on the
Ramsey manor, where,
if they (the peasants) cannot on the first day grind the whole of the
corn, the mill must grind as much as may keep their household in
1 Hales Rolls, 118, 119, 136, 138, 152 etc.; Court Rolls, 176/130, and see
below.
z Hales Rolls, 364, 366. 8 Ibid. 225; Abbots Langley Rolls, 44, 45.
4 Bennett and Elton, Hist. Corn Milling, in, 220; rv, 66; Wore. Priory Reg,
Ixiii. & Y.B. Ed. II (R.S.).
9-2