Welsh Journals

These legal minded antiquarians were in the van of a general movement by landlords to exploit to the full their manorial rights and to revise the terms upon which their property was held so as to secure something approaching an economic rent. In effecting this change their policy was necessarily controlled by the tenurial position of their tenants, the brunt of their efforts to increase rents being borne by leaseholders and those holding customary tenements upon which rents and fines were not fixed by manorial custom. Apart from this all customary tenants were subject to the irritating and oppressive burdens which were earlier the badges of personal serfdom, such as the payment of heriot, leyrwite and merchet; in the sixteenth century these were still exacted as rigorously as in earlier centuries, and some of them survived until 1922. Free tenants, while having security of tenure and fixed rents, were subject to relief, marriage, and wardship if they held by knight's service: the abolition of feudal tenures by the Restoration Parliament secured general approbation. In addition all the tenants within a manor were obliged to do suit in the manorial court, the pleas and perquisites of which provided a valuable source of revenue to the landlord. In a few instances it has been possible to determine the rentrolls of Pembrokeshire squires. A terrier or rental of the lands, tenements, and profits of George Owen, compiled in August 1583 and preserved in the Vairdre Book,1 indicates that he had approximately £ 160 annually from this source, and when the annual rental of Sir John Perrot was discovered after his death it surpassed £ 85o.2 These figures, however, represent only a part of their incomes, and it is impossible to assess how great their incomes were from other sources. Apart from developing their estates to the full and making as much as possible out of their rights as manorial lords, the Pembrokeshire squires frequently augmented their incomes through participating in trade. Some of them, like Morris Walter," probably made most of their money in this way: there was no stigma attached to it. Generally speaking, if the younger sons of squires did not want to drop into the ranks of yeomen they became lawyers or merchants. David Wogan of Poyerston, gent., a younger son of Sir John Wogan of Wiston, was one of the leading Pembrokeshire traders of Elizabeth's day, a hardy and enterprising man who was for a time captain of Le Mary Jones de Tenby and who in 1566 went fishing in Newfoundland waters, whence he returned with 19,000 Newlonde fish.' Roger Barlow had made his fortune as a factor in Spain, and in 1583 Morgan Powell of Greenhill was a member of the Bristol branch of the Spanish company.5 Elizabeth's war with Spain did not ruin him 1 Vairdre Book (Bronwydd Ms. 3) fo. 207. Misc. Books, Land Revenue, 2/260 Rentals and Surveys, General Series, 12/18/11. 3 Welsh Port Books, p. 98 Exchequer Proceedings (Equity), 112/62/2 and 112/62/10. The Haverfordwest Corporation Records indicate that he was also a prominent shopkeeper in the town. 4 Welsh Port Books, p. 79. 5 P. McGrath, Records relating to the society of merchant venturers of the city of Bristol in the seventeenth century, Bristol Record Society Publications XVII, 1952, p. 83,