Vill
Villis a term used in English, Welsh and Irish history to describe a basic rural land unit, roughly comparable to that of aparish,manor,villageortithing.[1][2]
Medieval developments
[edit]The vill was the smallest territorial and administrative unit—a geographical subdivision of thehundredandcounty[3]—in Anglo-Saxon England. It served both a policing function through thetithing,and the economic function of organising common projects through the village moot.[4]The term is the Anglicized form of the wordvilla,used in Latin documents to translate the Anglo-Saxontun.[5]
The vill remained the basic rural unit after theNorman conquest—land units in theDomesday Bookare frequently referred to as vills[6]—and into the latemedievalera. Whereas the manor was a unit of landholding, the vill was a territorial one—most vills didnottally physically with manor boundaries[7]—and a public part of the royal administration. The vill had judicial and policing functions, includingfrankpledge,as well as responsibility for taxation, roads and bridges.[8]It would also organise the communal pastures, the seasonal chronology of rural agriculture, and thethree-field system.[9]
With the Angevin growth of royal, as opposed to feudal, government, new duties were imposed upon the vill. By the early 12th century, thereeveand four villagers were required to attend the hundred court "on behalf of all";[10]in the 1166Assize of Clarendon,"four of the more lawful men of each vill" were required to present malefactors.[11]Four men and the reeve were again called on for tax assessment in 1198; the Ordinance of 1242 on policing provided for "continuous watch... in every vill by six men or four or less according to the number of the inhabitants".[12]
At the same time, the vill emerged as a legal entity in its own right, taking oppressive lords of the manor to court, or suing other vills, or purchasing privileges from the Crown, as well as repairing bridges and churches as required.[13]While retaining and even extending its hierarchical and socially stratified nature to the end, the medieval vill always remained a vibrant part of local rural life.[14]
Legal and other usage
[edit]- Traditionally, among legal historians, a vill referred to the tract of land of a rural community, whereas "township"was referred to when the tax and legal administration of a rural community was meant.[15]
- The word would later develop intovilleandvillage,while an unfree inhabitant of a vill was called avillein.
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^"Archaeology in Wales - Ymddiriedolaeth Archaeolegol Dyfed - Dyfed Archaeological Trust".dyfedarchaeology.org.uk.
- ^Graham, B. J. (1988)."Medieval Settlement in County Roscommon".Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature.88C:19–38 – via JSTOR.
- ^Maitland, Frederic William(1897).Domesday Book & Beyond.Cambridge University Press. p.10.
- ^G. O. Sayles,The Medieval Foundations of England(London 1967) pp. 188, 127–128
- ^Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911)..Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 67.
- ^G. O. Sayles,The Medieval Foundations of England(London 1967) p. 246
- ^G. O. Sayles,The Medieval Foundations of England(London 1967) p. 247
- ^Paul Vinogradoff,inThe Cambridge Medieval History Vol III(Cambridge 1922) p. 483
- ^R. D. Davies,The Age of Conquest(1987) p. 130
- ^G. O. Sayles,The Medieval Foundations of England(London 1967) p. 443
- ^Quoted in R. Wickson,The Community of the Realm in Thirteenth Century England(London 1970) p. 92
- ^Quoted in R. Wickson,The Community of the Realm in Thirteenth Century England(London 1970) p. 101, and cf pp. 40–41
- ^R. Wickson,The Community of the Realm in Thirteenth Century England(London 1970) pp. 32–33
- ^C. Dyer, "The English Village Community and its Decline",Journal of British Studies33 (1994) pp. 407–429
- ^Winchester, Angus (2000).Discovering Parish Boundaries.Shire Publications. pp. 21–29.ISBN0-7478-0470-2.