87
As regards the last point, there is some obvious distinction to be drawn between the historical view of credit arrangements as essentially the product of horizontal agreements, conducted typically between parties of generally similar means and without the operation of significantly unequal power relations and, conversely, credit agreements that were created in essentially vertical relationships in which one party, typically the creditor, enjoys a considerably enhanced bargaining position relative to the other party. Briggs, in particular, has sought to show that much credit extended in the medieval English countryside was not the product of distress or unequal bargaining positions, occasioned perhaps by crisis events such as harvest failure or famine; instead, as he has argued, credit agreements were often the product of fairly small-scale exchange between parties dealing in proximity and often in forms of mutual support aimed at facilitating consumption.3 The present author, who has tended to work on credit and indebtedness in the decades either side of 1300, has also, as Briggs has noted, often represented credit in terms of distress and has associated it, on occasion and typically indirectly, with other indices of apparent upheaval in crisis years, including heightened land market activity.4 In recent work, the present author has attempted to show that a considerable amount of the credit recovered in the early fourteenth century had been extended in large sums and often extended over what were seemingly quite long periods of time. In particular, there is plentiful evidence for the involvement of relatively wealthy merchants and townsmen engaging, often as creditors, with peasant debtors, and often in credit agreements involving very large sums of money and/or large amounts of goods, especially grain.5
In this paper, further reflection will be made upon the role of external agents in developing modes of business dealing in the medieval English village. Before we return to this theme however we will need to set out a more general context. In what follows therefore we will begin with a discussion of credit agreements, their form and evidence for them in the medieval English countryside, especially at the level of the peasantry. We will then discuss evidence for the role of external agents, both as lawyers and attorneys as well as merchants and townsmen in the medieval English village, and consider the likely significance of their role in helping establish modes of dealing and of conducting business at the local level.
CREDIT AGREEMENTS: EVIDENCE AND FORM
Most of the evidence for peasant-level debt in medieval England comes from litigation and, in particular, litigation recorded in manorial courts. We have very little, though certainly some, evidence from the point that credit is extended but we do have a great deal of information arising from the point of recovery and, given that, recovery recorded as part of the process of debt litigation. While some of that material resides in fora other than manorial courts, including central courts, borough courts and other ancillary documentation, such as wills, the bulk of evidence and, to date, the greater part of historical investigation is focussed upon manorial courts. Manorial courts in England survive in great number from the second half of the thirteenth century and have been used extensively by historians of the medieval English countryside and in particular of the peasantry since the end of the nineteenth century.6 Some of the earliest work on manorial courts and the evidence they offered was undertaken by legal historians and, in particular, F. W. Maitland whose seminally important study of the customary law in manorial courts has remained a standard point of reference for more than a century.7 That said, a great deal of the work on the medieval English peasantry has not been focussed upon law and litigation in the manorial court; instead, considerable emphasis has been upon such topics as socio-economic dealing, the land market, lord-tenant relations, rent and so on. Only intermittently, at least until quite recently, has the study of litigation featured prominently in work in this area and it remains a main topic of research for only a handful of researchers.8
To date a good deal of relevant research has been aimed at establishing the typicality of debt, its extent and frequency, as well as understanding the form and structure of credit agreements and resultant debt in so far as this can be understood from litigation. Historians primarily interested in inter-personal litigation in the manorial court have challenged any easy assumptions regarding the significance of patterns in the frequency of debt litigation relative to external factors such as harvest failure or fluctuation in the money supply.9 They have suggested that a detailed understanding of the law, and most especially due process, informing debt recorded as litigation in manorial courts is required before any confident assertions can be made regarding the applicability of debt litigation evidence to changing socio-economic conditions. With that in mind, the last decade or more has seen a number of detailed studies of litigation in manorial courts; this work has, in the broadest terms, suggested the following ten points:
First. Most debt litigation in manorial courts was not supported by written evidence; typically litigation was conducted between parties who had, at an earlier date, established their credit agreement through oral agreement, most likely supported by witnesses.
Second. This tendency for oral agreement is evidenced in the litigation, often in terms of the proof employed in order to secure judgement; the use of oath-helpers, through compurgation or wager of law, makes clear the kind of evidential basis that most likely predominated, namely the oral oath of the party supported by the oaths of his or her helpers, the latter intended to attest to the integrity of the party.10
Third. Where reference to other than oral proof is made it tends to relate to relatively weak forms of non-oral or written proof; in particular there is evidence for the use of tallies (notched sticks used to record an account) and written instruments of various and often indistinct kinds. Parties to litigation also used devices, such as the payment of a token coin (so-called earnest or God’s money) intended to aid the subsequent mental recovery of contract details. There is also some indication, especially in debts arising after a significant period of time or following the death of a party to a debt, that individuals maintained, in some form, records or accounts of debt, though little or no direct evidence of any kind survives in this respect.11
Fourth. On occasion, but quite rarely, parties to a credit agreement made use of the manor court in order to register or recognise their agreement through the entering of a formal record or recognisance of the agreement in the court roll; as noted, relative to litigation over failed credit agreements such agreements recorded at the inception of the debt are rare.12
Fifth. There is almost no evidence for the use of sealed documents in the inter-personal debt litigation recorded in the manor court; this would be consistent with the legal view that the manorial court, a private seigneurial court in which compurgation was used as the foundation of most pleading, did not have the jurisdictional authority to try cases involving specialty (i. e. where sealed instruments, such as bonds, were in evidence). There is also the closely related point that cases in which compurgation was employed as the evidential basis implied of necessity that sealed documents were not available