Re: Manor in Devon 16th cent.

Di Mortimer wrote:

<snip>
I was a bit vague with my enquiry, sorry, I meant to ask if a small manor
existed there, with an owner documented by 1623, how would a yeoman who
died in 1604 (this John Mortimer) have been able to occupy /buy some of
it.
<snip>


I must admit that I wasn't answering your question as such, just throwing in
a complication! :-)

So far as your question is concerned ....

There is no problem at all in England about people moving up and down the
social and/or wealth ladder. That was as true in the 16th/17th century as it
is now. There was no restriction on the sort of land that any individual
could own. Nor was there any strict social line between the 'yeomanry' and
the classes above or below.

The term 'yeoman' is not necessarily a statement of social rank (as it had
become by, say, the late eighteenth century), but a statement of land
tenure. A yeoman was someone who held land within a manor according to
manorial custom. A yeoman in one manor might well own freehold in another,
or the manorhouse in another - but, on the whole, if he was the outright
lord of a manor he would have been described as 'gent.' or 'Esq.'.

[one way of determining the status of individual holdings is to look at the
will (if any!). Land held by manorial custom generally won't be bequeathed
to the main heir (is it was inherited by custom) but the extras like farm or
kitchen equipment might well be mentioned]

Anyone could accumulate assets in any number of ways. As you suggest, it
could have happened though the military - but at this particular time in
English history that isn't especially likely. It could have come through
trade and buccaneering, or through industry (mining especially), and so on.
On the whole government or church office was the quickest route to wealth -
simply because the system could be tweaked to get monopolies, mining rights,
and the juiciest land deals. Or, of course, there was simple inheritance!

My experience is that if someone acquired a 'manor', there was frequently a
family or local connection. Maybe your man had married the daughter of the
previous owner, inheriting some and buying the rest. Or maybe your man had
spent his childhood on the neightbouring farm, dreaming about owning the big
house - made his money in the City before coming back to the home village.

But there were certainly also entrepreneurs who simply purchased because
they saw a good deal. It's worth trying to find out how the land was used -
if it seems pretty ordinary, then it probably wasn't of interest to an
entrepreneur. But mining rights might make it very profitable - as would any
large-scale commercial enterprise (salt, cattle rearing, textiles, etc.).

The other point to bear in mind is that land purchases were often piecemeal.
Your man may have acquired the manor, bit by bit, over an extended period of
time - and previous owners might have retained rights of occupation. So, for
instance, the new owner might own and farm the surrounding land, while the
elderly former owners retained the house during their remaining lifetime.

Chris


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