Bruce wrote:
<< "On certain manors, the custom of "Borough English" prevailed.
This
required that the copyholder's land must go to his youngest rather than his eldest
son as was the case in the common-law usage. Mr. Copinger has estimated that
as many as eighty manors in Suffolk were governed by this custom (The
English Yeoman, pp. 128-9)." >>
Those "certain" manors where Borough English was the custom in the Middle
Ages were primarily in Suffolk, Surrey, Middlesex, and Sussex. By the
seventeenth century, some (if not many) of them had adopted primogeniture, as a
pparently had _all_ Wiltshire manors.
<< Borough English aside it may be that William Carpenter(1) was bound
neither by primogeniture nor any other system as Campbell states above. >>
William1 wasn't "bound" by the law of primogeniture, Borough English,
gavelkind, or any other system of inheritance. Any such system was used only in
cases of intestacy (including, presumably, instances in which an intestate
copyholder failed to name an inheriting co-tenant in the manorial record). He
was free to name as co-tenant anyone he chose. My point was that primogeniture
was not only a principle of common law but also a cultural value that
influenced discretionary behavior.
<< Perhaps a careful look at the manor survey on the whole will reveal
something? >>
I have only page 7 of the manor survey, which contains the record of the
Carpenter copyhold and one other. But my impression is that Wiltshire and
Swindon Record Office archivist Andrew Crookston's position--that the eldest son
was typically the co-tenant named in Westcourt Manor copyhold records--is
based on just such a review.
It should be recalled, moreover, that I presented additional reasons for
concluding that William2 was probably his father's eldest (if not only) son (see
"Re: [CARPENTER] eldest/youngest," CARPENTER Digest, Vol 2, Issue 198).
Gene Z.
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