Peasant debt in English manorial courts: form and nature

Introduction Investigation of the evidence of indebtedness in English manorial courts of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, has, to date, presented us with a seemingly unavoidable truth, namely that the majority of debts escape the record. For the greater part, the record of debt in these courts is essentially that –a record of debt not of credit, a record of attempts to recover debt far more than a record of credit extended at or proximate to the moment that it was extended. That..