HERIOT PROBLEMS 149
nativa, shall owe the lord on his outgoing his best animal as
heriot", and later it was declared that if he had no animal he was
to pay 2s. 6d. "in the money of the King of England, by way of
heriot".1
The tangled process which we have been trying to unravel is a
reminder to us of the variety and confusion lurking everywhere
in medieval terms. Even the lawyers cannot lay down a clear
definition of heriot, but have to admit of exceptions and un-
certainties. Britton tells us that they are generally paid by serfs
rather than free men,2 while Glanvill, on the other hand, tells us
that it is the free man who ought to recognise his lord by leaving
him the best thing he has.3 Bracton, on the whole, agrees with
Glanvill; but adds that local customs vary, and says that heriot
comes to the lord by grace rather than by right.4 When we look
at the Court Rolls we see what a deal of variation can exist
beneath the common formula of the extent: "and on his death
he owes his best beast or chattel as a heriot". On the Tooting
Bee manor, for example, the heriot is not forthcoming because
the land is held conjointly with another;5 because it is held for a
period of years;6 because only a part of the holding is sur-
rendered;7 because there is no tenement on the holding8—in
short, there seem to be innumerable ways whereby custom has
altered and deflected the straightforward operation of the old
law.
Furthermore, innumerable questions arose which had to be
settled by the decision of the suitors of the manorial court. The
Hales tenants had to deliberate as to whether a heriot was due from
a married woman;9 or whether a man fortunate enough to own
a male horse was entitled to keep it, or must pay it as heriot on his
wife's death.10 If a man holds two tenements does he pay one or
two heriots? The Hales custom demands one, so does that of
Crowland, but the manors of the Bishop of Hereford11 and those
of the monks of Ramsey12 have customs which demand a heriot
for each messuage or toft, or each virgate of the holding.
1 Page, Crowland Estates, 115,116. 2 Britton, n, 51.
3 Glanvill, vn, 5. * Bracton, ff. 60, 86; cf. Fleta, 212.
5 Op. dt. 16, 172, 184, 186. 6 Op. tit. 28; c£. Hales Rolls, zSi, 285-
7 Op. cit. 108, 146; cf. Hales Rolls, 260. 8 Op. tit. 198.
9 Op. dt. m, 58. 10 Op. dt. I, 298.
11 E.H.R. April 1928. 12 Ramsey Cart. I, 370.