The widow of the copyholder, during the nonage of the heir, is his guardian by custom.
16th Edward IV. the manner of the lord's taking stray is thus set forth: a horse came within the jurisdiction of the manor, and was seized as a stray, and proclaimed according to custom, and nobody challenging him in a year and a day, he was appraised in open court, and sold.
I could not forbear observing these customs, because they shew us the former slavish condition of the villeins and copyholders.
Gissinghall Manor in Gissing
Was held by Alstan, a freeman under Edric (the ancestor of Robert Malet, lord of Eye) in the Confessor's days, and by William, (sirnamed De Gissing,) of the said Robert, in the Conqueror's time, as of the honour of Eye, and soon after the Conquest, the manor of Gissinghall in Roydon was joined, and constantly attended this manor till 1579.
The other parcels also were afterwards added to this manor, and that is the reason that it was partly held of Eye honour, and partly of the Abbot of Bury; for in Henry the Third's time it was thus distinguished:
Gissing. Pro parte Honoris Eye. Pro parte Abbatis Sci. Edmundi.
In 1179, William de Gissing held it; he left it to Bartholomew de Gissing, his eldest son, who, in 1189, sold his inheritance to Walter de Gissing, his brother; for in the Pipe Rolls of the 34th Henry II. and the 1st of Richard I. it is found, that Walter de Gissinges paid King Henry II. one mark, that it might be recorded in the great roll, that Bartholomew, his elder brother, and heir to his father, released his inheritance to him in the King's Court. This shews the regard which those times had for the Rolls of the Pipe, there being many instances in those Rolls of such entries, a collection of which hath been made, and several of them printed, by Mr. Maddox, in his History of the Exchequer. This Walter left it to
Roger, his son, in 1198, at whose death it descended to
Sir Robert de Gissing, Knt. his son, who settled Roydon on his wife Joan; by deed dated 1287, he confirmed to Thomas de Hastyngs, and his heirs, for his homage and service, and two besants fine, all the tenement which the ancestors of Thomas held of his ancestors in this town. In 1286, he settled this manor on
Sir Adam de Gissing, his son, who the year after joined in a deed with his father, to settle Roydon
