‘TO BEG A TREE AND TARRY HIS PLEASURE TO ASSIGN IT TO ME’ — THE ROLES OF LORDS, LANDLORDS AND TENANTS IN HOUSE BUILDING AND IMPROVEMENT

David Clark in Vernacular Architecture vol. 44 drew together thoughts from papers at the Vernacular Architecture Group Winter conference in January 2013 and suggested what might be the standard model of the medieval house, its use and meaning.1 As a premise it was proposed that customary tenants, the successors of the unfree villeins of the earlier medieval period, holding a single virgate of land, usually built their own house, albeit with the lord possibly supplying materials. This paper examines whether there is evidence that this was usually the case, and considers the availability or otherwise of building materials and the complex relationship between landlords and their tenants, leasehold, as well as customary, when new building or repair was required. This article should to be read alongside C. R. J. Currie, “Why Historians Believe that Customary Tenants Normally Paid for Their Own Buildings: A Reply to Pamela Slocombe,” Vernacular Architecture 49 (2018): 38–43.