Elsdon Tenurial Development : Conclusions
If this survey of landownership at Elsdon appears rather complex and confusing that is probably because it was indeed complex. Some holdings can be traced over a prolonged period, such as the tenements of the Umfraville cadet line or that belonging to the ‘sons of William’, but more commonly new ones appear only then to disappear completely. The details may be of only academic significance, but the overall pattern is intriguing.
It is clear that the township of Elsdon did not constitute a single manor within the wider Umfraville lordship during the mid 13th-late 14th centuries. The general impression the documents provide is one of a township where landownership was very fragmented with multiple relatively small holdings. Whilst some of the landowners were members of the local nobility or gentry such as the cadet branch of the Umfravilles, Alexander Swinburne, John of Herlaw or the de Lucys, the majority appear to have been of no great social status to judge from their names.
Thus Richard and John Callan, Gilbert de Kenely and Gilbert the Tailor, were probably no more than yeoman farmers or relatively prosperous free peasants. Evidently there was an active land market in Elsdon, during this period, in which the free peasantry could and did participate energetically. In 1308 the free tenants in the village of Ellesden (Cal IPM V 14, no. 47: Gilbert de Umfraville II) paid £2 per annum in rent directly to the lord.
It may be significant that there is no reference to a capital messuage - i.e. a manorial building complex - in any of these documents. William de Umfraville may have had some kind of manorial complex when he was trying to develop his manor in the late 13th century, but given that only held a part of the township and had other residences elsewhere, it may have been fairly utilitarian.
The higher status landowners were probably largely absentees. Thus when a tower house was first built in Elsdon, probably in the 14th century (certainly pre-1415), it was occupied by the rector of the parish church and not one the gentry landowners mentioned above. The tower was presumably the most elaborate dwelling in the village when it was erected and the identity of its occupant suggests the rector to some degree filled the role performed by local gentry families in other settlements.
