Palaeolithic figures

Estimates of the Peerage’s total and average manorial holdings 1534-1641 based on Lawrence Stone’s two manorial samples and his estimates of gross rentals and landed income

In the course of composing his study, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641, first published in 1965, Lawrence Stone argued that manorial counts could be used as an indicator of changing landed wealth and presented largely independent estimates of the landed incomes and manorial holdings of the peerage in 1558-1559, 1602 and 1641 to support his claims about the apparent contraction in the peerage’s landholdings between those dates. Whether the manorial counts and estimates of landed income were consistent with one another has been a matter of dispute. So, too, has been his use of the Phelps-Brown price index for consumables to measure changes in real income for the peerage over this period of time. If his contentions are examined, it appears that the peerage held the following number of manors (subject to plus or minus 10 per cent).

Date                              Number of Manors             Number of families        Average manorial holding

December, 1558            3,390                                      63                                     54

December, 1602            2,220                                      57                                     39

December, 1641            3,080                                    121                                     25

Stone’s estimates of total gross rentals, of casualties and of gross and mean landed incomes were:

Date           Gross rental        Casualties             Total Landed Income              Mean Landed Income 

1559          £112,000              £ 23,000                £135,000                                  £2,140

1602          £140,000              £ 35,000                £175,000                                  £3,020

1641          £505,000              £125,000               £630,000                                  £5,200

Adjustment to changes in the Phelps-Brown price index for consumables showed:

Date            Mean Landed Income                Price Index               Mean Landed Income at 1559 prices

1559            £2,140                                          100                            £2,140

1602            £3.020                                          179                            £1,690

1641            £5,200                                          219                            £2,360

These estimates apparently offer corroboration for his arguments and, prima facie, support one another.

Nonetheless, it is the purpose of this note to question whether this was or is the case by using Stone’s analysis of the manorial samples drawn from the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 and the Close Rolls for 1597-1608 and the annual values adjusted for the Phelps-Brown price index for consumables to indicate how many manors the peerage appeared to hold at the relevant dates. It may, however, be helpful to begin by trying to assess how many manors the peerage held before the dissolution of the monasteries whilst accepting Stone’s explicit endorsement of Helen Miller’s findings about the reliability of the subsidy assessments of the peerage in the 152os and 1530s. If this exercise is undertaken, the results for 1534-1535 are:

Total Landed Income     Price Index      V.E. mean                No. of manors                Average   

£49,734                             60                      £29.9                       1,663.34                        30.80

                                                                C.R.mean

                                                                     £28.99                      1,715.56                        31.77

Assuming for the sake of argument that one or other manorial sample applied to the holdings of the peerage in 1534-1535, it looks as though the number of manors held by the peerage at that time was approximately half the 3,390 Stone had calculated to have been held by the peerage in December, 1558. If the Valor Ecclesiasticus sample was an underestimate by ten or twenty per cent of manorial value in the mid-1530s, then the total and average numbers of manors held then would have been correspondingly lower.

For 1558-1559, the results are:

Total Landed Income        Price Index      V.E. mean             No. of manors                Average

£135,000                             100                   £49.83 rec.           2,709.21                          43.00

                                                                   C.R. mean

                                                                     £48.32                  2,793.87                          44.35

These calculations suggest a much more modest growth in the total number of manors held and in average holdings per family. Even so, if sound, this process must have represented a significant accretion in landed wealth for the peerage.

In 1602, the alleged nadir in the peerage’s landed fortunes (according to Stone), the results are:

Total Landed Income         Price index       V.E.mean            No. of manors               Average

£175,000                              179                    £89.20                 1,961.88                         34.42 (for 57)

                                                                                                                                          38.83 (for 58)

                                                                    C.R. mean

                                                                      £86.50                 2023.12                           35.49 (for 57)

                                                                                                                                          34.88 (for 58)

On the basis of Stone’s own contentions, the peerage at the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign apparently held more manors in total and on average than it had done in 1534-1535. This suggests that his major hypothesis about the impoverishment may need modification.

Making calculations for 1641 is complicated by Stone’s observations about the changing composition of casualties and the degree to which casualties should be excluded from assessments of the peerage’s landed income. Taking these reservations into account, the results are:

Total gross rental        Price Index         V.E. mean             No. of manors            Average

£505,000                      219                      £109.13                 4,627.51                      38.24

                                                               C.R.mean

                                                                 £105.82                 4,777.25                      39.44

If this exercise is repeated including casualties in total landed income, the results are:

Total Landed Income     Price index      V.E.mean             No. of manors           Average

£630,000                           219                  £109.13                5,772.93                    47.71

                                                                 C.R.mean

                                                                  £105.82                5,953.51                    49.20

It is more than clear that, if Stone’s claim that the dispersion of manorial vales about the mean probably did not alter very much between 1602 and 1641 is valid, then his own figures for the estimated landed incomes of the peerage over this period suggest an even more spectacular improvement in the position of the peerage than that between 1534-1535 and 1558-1559. Alternatively and more probably still, the implications of manorial counts had escaped him as much in 1965 as they had a decade and a half earlier.