A Note on the Farming Out of Manors

N accepting editors' invitation to reply to Dr Bridbury's article am breaking a long-established rule. Throughout his writing career Dr Bridbury has devotedly and single-mindedly pursued me and views he imputes to me. On my part hitherto refused to react. did so in knowledge that field over which was being hunted-the later centuries of Middle Ages -was well worked by historians capable of assessing Dr Bridbury's notions at their worth. In this respect Dr Bridbury's latest sally differs from his previous ones. It is largely confined to twelfth century: a period of English economic history badly served by sources and rather neglected by economic historians. have therefore had to consider possibility that in this case Dr Bridbury's views might be taken seriously. Hence my decision to respond. Fortunately much of Dr Bridbury's text calls for no reply. It is largely devoted to a piecemeal refutation of facts cited in my essay on 'Chronology of Labour Services'. It appears to me that for all intemperance of its tone refutation does not establish a substantive case to answer. As shall have to emphasize presently, true version of facts Dr Bridbury reads into evidence varies not from wrong facts offered by me but from his own distorted view of my facts. propose to discuss pretended disagreement later and to disregard Dr Bridbury's tone as yet another manifestation of an idiosyncraticfafon de parler. must therefore begin my response with a personal disclaimer. cannot recognize myself or any other historian sharing my views in animal Dr Bridbury is determined to hunt. Never and nowhere have I, or any historian known to me, presented twelfth century as a whole as time when ruin afflicted very foundations of society, or when manors-all or most of them-disintegrated. In dealing with manorial estates in second half of twelfth century have repeatedly and approvingly drawn attention to tendency of surveys to hark back to the time of Henry I as a time of paradise lost.' In discussing twelfth-century surveys of Glastonbury may have noted slight contraction of manorial values and somewhat larger contraction of manorial herds in first half of century. But have suggested elsewhere that contraction was compatible with an increase in period immediately following post-Conquest rundown.2 In common with most historians have invariably assumed that century was a time of expanding population and settlement. This assumption is explicit in my treatment of medieval trends and also underlies my firm view of thirteenth-century colonization as tail end of a process

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