The one class gradually shades off into the other. A very good example is afforded by the history of Stoneleigh Abbey. In 1154King Henry II gave the Cistercian monks of Radmore in Staffordshire his manor of Stoneleigh in exchange for their possessions in Radmore. The charter as given in the Register of the Abbey seems to amount to a complete grant of the land and of the jurisdiction. Nevertheless, we find Henry II drawing all kinds of perquisites from the place all through his reign, and it is specially noticed that his writs were directed not to the Abbot or the Abbot's bailiffs, but to his own bailiffs in Stoneleigh.(56*) In order to get rid of the inconveniences consequent upon such mixed ownership, Abbot William of Tyso bought a charter from King John, granting to the Abbey all the soke of Stoneleigh.(57*) But all the same the royal rights did not yet disappear. There were tenants connected with the place who were immediately dependent on the king,(58*) and his bailiff continued to exercise functions by the side of, and in conjunction with, the officers of the Abbot.(59*) In the 50th year of Henry III a remarkable case occurred: -- a certain Alexander of Canle was tried for usurping the rights of the Abbot as to the tenantry in the hamlet of Canle, and it came out that one of his ancestors had succeeded in improving his position of collector of the revenue into the position of an owner of the rents. Although the rights which were vindicated against him were the rights of the Abbot, still the king entered into possession and afterwards transferred the possession to the Abbot.(60*) In one word, the king is always considered as 'the senior lord' of Stoneleigh; his lordship is something more direct than a mere feudal over-lordship.(61*)We find a similar state of things at King's Ripton. The manor had been let in fee farm to the Abbots of Ramsey. In case of a tenement lapsing into the lord's hands, it is seized sometimes by the bailiff of the king, sometimes by the bailiffs of the Abbot.(62*) The royal writs again are directed not to the Abbot, but to his bailiff. The same was the case at Stoneleigh,(63*) and indeed this seems to have been the regular course on ancient demesne manors.(64*) This curious way of ignoring the lord himself and addressing the writ directly to his officers seems an outcome of the fundamental assumption that of these manors there was no real lord but the king, and that the private lord's officers were acting as the king's bailiffs.
According to current notions the demesnes of the crown ought not to have been alienated at all. Although alienated by one king they were considered as liable to be resumed by his successors.(65*) And as a matter of fact such resumptions were by no means unusual. Edward I gave an adequate expression to this doctrine when he ordered an inquisition into the state of the tenantry at Stoneleigh: -- he did not wish any encroachment made on the old constitution of the manor, for he had always in mind the possibility that his royal rights would be resumed by himself or by one of his successors.(66*)If we turn to the court rolls of a manor which is actually in the king's hand and compare them with those of a manor which he has granted to some convent or some private lord, we see hardly any difference between them. The rolls of the manor of Havering at the Record Office, although comparatively late, afford a good insight into the constitution of a manor retained in the king's own hand. They contain a good many writs of right, and though, naturally enough, the tenants do not bring actions against the king, we find an instance in which the king brings an action against his tenant, and pleads before a court which is held in his own name.(67*) This is good proof that the condition of the tenants was by no means dependent on the arbitrary action of the manorial officers. When King Henry II granted Stoneleigh to the Cistercians he displaced a number of 'rustics' from their holdings, and while doing this he recognised their right and enjoined the sheriff of Warwickshire to give them an equivalent for what they had lost in consequence of the grant.(68*) The notion from which all inquiry consequent upon a 'Monstraverunt'
starts is always this, that the tenants were holding by certain (i.e. by fixed) services at the time when the manor was in the king's own hand. The certainty is not created by the fact that the manor passes away from the king to some one else; it exists when the land is royal land and therefore cannot be destroyed on land that has been alienated. So true is this that Bracton and Britton give their often cited description of privileged villainage without alluding to the question whether or no the manor is still in the king's hand;(69*) Britton even applies this description primarily to the king's own possessions by his way of stating the law as the direct utterance of the king's command.
