(5): Contenement.

This word, which occurs in Glanvill and in Bracton, and also (in its French form) in the Statute of Westminster, I., as well as in Magna Carta, has formed a text for many commentators from Coke’s days to our own. By comparing the entries from exchequer rolls brought together by Madox, it appears that to save a man’s “contenement” was to leave him sufficient for the sustenance of himself and those dependent on him. The word comes from the French “contenir,” and has many shades of meaning, as capacity, maintenance, appearance, social condition or grade. A free man is not to be so crushed by an amercement that he cannot maintain himself in his former condition. Several entries on Exchequer Rolls of Henry III. and Edward I., collected by Madox, throw light on the way in which a “contenement” might be saved to the man amerced. Thus in 40 Henry III. the officials of the exchequer, after discussing an offender’s failure to pay an amercement of 40 marks, ordered inquiry to be made, “how much he was able to pay the King per annum, saving his own sustenance and that of his wife and children,” an excerpt which illustrates the more humane side of exchequer procedure. In 14 Edward I. again, the officials of that day, when ferreting out arrears, found that certain poor men of the village of Doddington had not paid their amercements in full. An inquiry was set on foot, and the barons of exchequer were ordered to fix the dates at which the various debtors should discharge their debts (evidently an arrangement for payment by instalments) “salvo contenemento suo.”

These illustrations of the procedure of later reigns, agreeing closely with the rules laid down by the Great Charter, show how a man’s contenement might be saved to him without loss to the Crown. Magna Carta apparently desired that time should be granted in which to pay up debts by degrees. Meanwhile, the amerced freeman was not forced to part with what was necessary to maintain him, with his wife and family, in his proper station in life.