| Abstract: | In the mid-thirteenth century the cathedral priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, was still farming out its manors for either a fixed money rent or a composite bundle of goods and money, but using its own monks as farmers. Although Prior Thomas Ringmere stopped this practice at a time of great indebtedness, his main concern was to improve monastic discipline by keeping the monks within the confines of the cloister. The adoption of direct management did not immediately lead to any increase in revenues. After the Black Death, Christ Church, like other monastic houses, was very unsure of what path to take and switched back and forth between farming out its manors and keeping them in hand, before finally moving over to wholesale leasing in the 1390s. As earlier, the form of management, whether direct or leasing, did not make any significant difference to the amount of money available to the central treasurers. What may have finally persuaded the monks of the advantages of leasing was the willingness of some local lords, who served as farmers, to lend the convent money and then repay themselves out of their farm. |
