E have seen in the last chapter that a piece of land called "church rein," meaning church strip, or church portion, formed part of the "town lands" of Handsworth Woodhouse. It is well known that modern scholars, such as Sir Henry Maine, have drawn parallels between the Indian and the English village community. These parallels are very close, and they furnish presumptive evidence of the origin of English "church lands." Mr. Gomme thus details the lands in an Indian village community which were "devoted to special purposes by custom or by grant. The lands held by grant from the village amounted to eleven and five-sixteenths cánis, or fifteen acres, and were in possession of a priest and ten other Brahmins. The lands appropriated by custom amounted to twenty-six and six-sixteenths cánis, or thirty-five acres. They were held as follows:
Now let us compare this Indian village community with the village community, or, as I have called it, the burghal community, of Sheffield. In Sheffield we have, or had, Church lands (lands used in connection with the temple or church) Town lands (lands held "for the benefit of the villagers generally") Lands for the village officers:— The accountant (the town collector or the bailiff) The village watchman (the "waits" or watchmen so often mentioned in the accounts of the "Town Trustees") The village carpenter (not found) The village blacksmith (as appears in Smithfield) With the exception of the "village carpenter" it will thus be seen that the Indian and the English example are exactly parallel. And even the carpenter is found as a village official in the Boldon Book.
It appears from plans in the Duke of Norfolk's office made in the last century that certain "church lands" in Sheffield are intermixed with the "burgess lands," and I have heard a surveyor remark that in one or two cases which he has come across in practice it was very difficult to draw the exact line of demarcation between the "church lands" and "burgess lands," now known as lands belonging to the "Town Trust." In the same office is a plan, dated 1758, which delineates, amongst other things, a piece of ground at Heeley Town Gate and near Heeley Green called "Semary (alias St. Mary) Walls Ch. Land." Here, as the surveyor correctly explains, Semary stands for St. Mary. And as "walls" means fields, Semary Walls means St. Mary Fields. Now the Patent dated 1554 which incorporated the Capital Burgesses and Commonalty of Sheffield, mentions, amongst other property affected thereby, "two crofts called Malkin Crofts in Heeley." Malkin means "little maid," and, as the Capital Burgesses had no other property in Heeley, it follows that Malkin Crofts and Semary Walls are alternative names of the same closes. The word "malkin" savoured of heathenism, and it was supplanted by the Christian "St. Mary."
In the "church rein" at Handsworth, in the intermixture of "burgess lands" and "church lands" in Sheffield, in the "church land" at Heeley, and in certain "church lands" at Dungworth included amongst the "parish lands" of Bradfield we have presumptive evidence that, in this district, communities of freeholders set apart portions of land for the use of their priests or their churches. The Indian parallel, remote as it seems, holds throughout.
On this presumptive evidence it will be assumed in this chapter that the Free Tenants of Sheffield, otherwise known as the Burgesses, set apart portions of the land which they held in common for the maintenance of their church and their priests, the priest being as much a village servant or official as the bailiff or the miller.