At Coventry, in
what are called Lammas Lands, the allowance is two horses and one cow.
How very wise and necessary these limitations were may be gleaned from
the following extract from a decree in Chancery in 42 Elizabeth. The
bill--we have modernized the spelling--recites that,
"Divers years past sundry godly and well-disposed persons having
commiseration of the poor estate of the said town and parish, did in
sundry times in divers kings' reigns assure certain lands, tenements,
rents, common of pasture, of profits of markets and fairs and other
annual commodities under divers and sundry persons for the ease and
relief of the same poor inhabitants of the said town and parish, and
namely one William, sometimes Lord of the Town and Borough of Torrington
Magna aforesaid, by his deed did assure unto the free burgesses of the
said town, and some others of his free tenants of his said manor
dwelling in the parish of Torrington aforesaid, common of pasture for
their beasts and cattle in and throughout his waste grounds within his
manor of Great Torrington, lying within the aforesaid parish and known
by divers names there, by the name of the Wester Common and one other by
the name of Hatchmoor Common with, others, which waste grounds in the
whole do contain about five hundred acres of land and are lying very
near adjoining to the said town on each side thereof, the which hath
been and so might continue and be very profitable and commodious for all
the poor inhabitants of the said town and other free tenants of the said
manor that by the same grant ought to have common of pasture therein, if
the same were used in any reasonable rate or with any indifferency
according to the good and charitable mind and intent of the said granter
thereof, but in what form or what the words of the deeds are the said
complainants could not express.
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