148 SERVILE BURDENS
We may see how the confusion arose from the Hales court
rolls. There in general we read that a hcriot was paid, sometimes
in the shape of an ox, or a cow, or sheaves of corn, sometimes in
the form of a sum of money; and, on that being completed,
and not till then, the new tenant was allowed to take up the
holding. At other times, however, not only has the scribe re-
corded a payment of the heriot, but also of a fine or " relief" for
entry on the holding. Thus in 1278 a son presented nomine
henetipatris two oxen worth twenty shillings, a male horse worth
half a mark (3$. 4^.) and two hogs worth two shillings. As well
as this, he paid two and a half marks for being allowed to take
over the holding,1 From this it was an easy step to lump the two
things—heriot and relief—together, and to regard the whole
thing as a single transaction.
This became even more natural when the whole transaction
was entirely expressed in money terms, and no animal or chattel,
but only its monetary value, was mentioned. Thus, on the
Ramsey manors, the virgater constantly paid five shillings for his
heriot, and lesser holders paid smaller sums;2 and on other
manors the heriot was always valued in money,3 Heriot, or relief,
or fine on entry—whatever it was called—it seemed all the same
to the man who had to pay; and the scribe, unless unusually
intelligent, saw in the whole business only the passing of the
holding from one serf to another, for which his lord naturally
received a money payment.
The confusion surrounding the word was carried one stage
further when the fine paid on the surrender of a holding from
one man to another also began to be called a heriot. From the
lord's point of view, whether the surrender was caused by death,
or by a man's desire to acquire or relinquish his land, made little
difference. The lord was entitled to his fee—the best animal or its
value. Thus at Hales, in 1277, when a man surrendered his land
into the hands of the lord he had also to pay a heriot of eight
shillings.4 Again, on the manors of the monks of Crowland, the
custom was clearly established whereby "every holder of a terra
1 Op, cit. 104, and cf. 21$, where the terms herietis and relevio are used to
describe a similar transaction,
« Ramsey Cart. I, 301, 303, 304, 337, 347, 359, 370, 384, 395-
8 E.g, Wakefield and Ingoldmells Rolls, passim,
* Op. cit. 79.