244 EVERYDAY LIFE
her choice would fall. If, as often happened, she wished to
withdraw from his manor altogether he was faced with a serious
loss, not only of the revenues arising from personal dues and
fines, but also of the services or their equivalents due from her
holding. We find women, therefore, forced to pay for leave to
re-marry, or to withdraw from the manor.1 Conversely, a man
wishing to enter a manor, having married a woman holding land
therein, finds himself forced to pay for such a privilege.2 Other-
wise, as on a manor of the monks of Canterbury, the land could
be taken into the hands of the lord. The prior wrote to his
official at Risborough to enquire which would be most to his
advantage: to accept a fine of five marks or to seize the land!3
Worse than these payments was the fact that at times the lord
forced his serfs to marry when it suited his interests. We see this
in a number of cases, especially on the manor of Hales, where the
Abbot again and again attempted to force men into marriages
they had no wish for. In 1274, "John of Romsley and Nicholas
Sewal are given till next court to decide as to the widows offered
them". At that court, three weeks later, "Nicholas Sewal is
given to next Sunday to decide as to the widow offered to him in
the presence of the cellarer " who held the court.4 Nothing more
is heard of either John or Nicholas, so probably they submitted.
A few years later (n Dec. 1279) Thomas Robins of Oldbury
was ordered to take Agatha of Halesowen to wife. He said he
would rather be fined; and, because he could find no guarantors,
it was ordered that he should be distrained. On 7 January 1280,
he is again distrained to take a wife as ordered, and on 23 January
he paid a fine of three shillings, and so the matter ended.5
Similar cases occurred on the manors of the monks of St Albans
and elsewhere,6 while an instance on the manor of Brightwaltham
in 1335 will help to explain why the lord was often anxious to
bring about some marriage, and so provide a widow or heiress
1 Wakefield Rolls, I, 256; n, 49.
2 Hales Rolls, 415; Wakefield Rolls, n, 192.
8 Lit. Cant. I, 501. Cf. the case at Wisbech, where a holding is seized by the
Bishop of Ely till he is satisfied by a fine. C.JR. Wisbeck, 33 Ed. I.
4 Hales Rolls, 55, 57.
5 Op. tit* 119,121, 124. Cf. the case of R. Ridyacre who also refused and
apparently succeeded in neither taking a wife or paying a fine, 121, 124, 126.
* Abbots Langley 13, 25; Tatenkill, n, 2.