Abbey Land Rentals

A list of the Lord's tenants and their rents was prepared annually and is recorded in the Libri Assedationis. The same does not appear to have happened for the tenants of the Abbey Lands. Various records of the rentals have survived however and are outlined below.

In 1540 the Abbey lands were incorporated into the Liber Assedationis for that year. The relevant entries have been extracted and transcribed and are recorded in Davey and Roscow's recent monograph (see References).

From 1540 and for at least a number of years afterwards, the Abbey accounts (including the names and rents of tenants) appear in the returns to King Henry VIII's Court of Augmentation. Transcripts of certain of these returns also appear in the above monograph. This category of records is described separately on this site.

The Derby Papers contains a record of the rents and customs of the Abbey Lands made in 1607 (reference MS06523 1715/4). This is easy to read and contains the tenants names, rents, customs and tythes. It also details which tenants had compounded for their lands. It does not however give the names of tenant's land nor organise this into categories smaller than parishes.

An Abbey Rent book for 1740 survives, although I have not examined it. It is probably contained with MS 2018.

Three volumes of Abbey Rentals (1786-1911) are held in MS10057 at the Manx National Heritage Library. These have essentially the same format as the Libri Assedationis of the same time frame. In particular they record the names and rents of each quarterland (etc.) and also the years of changes of tenant. Unlike the Lord's tenants the rents include customary payments in kind (such as hens, geese, turf and boon days) for some farmers. Demense lands and tenants are also included.