The function and evasion of
marriage fines on a fourteenth-century
English manor
Authors: MÜLLER MIRIAM 
Published: July 2002

Since Vinogradoff described merchet payments as ‘the most odious’ of the
numerous manorial exactions for which villein tenants were liable, the
fine for marriage, classically defined as a levy due from the villein upon the
marriage of his daughter, has received a good deal of attention from
historians. Although the issue of marriage licences has accordingly been
tackled from various perspectives, in recent years the subject at the heart
of a number of contributions to the topic was the question of seigneurial
control. In tackling this matter, one has to ask what kind of control a
manorial lord could or would want to exercise over the matters of
matrimony of his social inferiors.

An important contribution to the debate was provided in 1979 by
Eleanor Searle. A key element in her argument was that marriage licences
essentially constituted a tax on the chattels taken as dowry by the bride
into her marriage, and as such were not universally enforced. Further, in
her view merchet did not so much constitute a test of the status of the
individual as one of tenure. At the same time she argued that merchets
could be used by the lord to vet prospective marriage partners and thus
control the transfers of tenant property lest the latter should slip into
freehold tenure. By imposing financial disincentives, merchets, it was
argued, also encouraged endogenous marriages. Richard Smith, while
arguing that the rates of licences to marry were unlikely to reflect a
proportional tax on dowries, nevertheless showed that merchets were not
universally exacted and tended to fall predominantly upon richer tenants.
Thus he took issue with R. Faith, who in a rejoinder to Searle's
contribution suggested that the marriage licence constituted a tax on the
marriage itself and was as such universally exacted.

In order to consider these problems and test some of the propositions
that have been made, this study aims to examine the practice of seigneurial
exaction and hence the function of marriage licences, on the one hand, and
the relevance and nature of tenant evasion of merchet payments on the
other, on one manor from 1330 to 1377. Changes in seigneurial policy
towards merchet payments will be analysed and placed in the wider
context of the demographic and socio-economic changes affecting
manorial life in this period. Within this framework three intertwined
aspects of the licence to marry will be examined. First, focusing on the
question of which tenants were liable to pay merchets and what constituted
the criteria for this liability, the theory and practice of merchet exaction
will be considered. Secondly the reasons for the lord's interest in the
marriages of his tenants in conjunction with the routes open to him to
influence villein marriages to his advantage will be explored. Thirdly the
extent and consequences of tenant evasion of merchet fines will be
assessed, whilst the clash between lord and tenant over marriage fines will
be viewed in the wider context of lord–tenant friction, especially in the
post-Black Death period. Central to this discussion, the role and
importance of women in this particular act of non-compliance will be
examined.