Put simply, a manor is an area of landed property, with tenants, held by a single landlord who exercises jurisdiction through various types of manorial courts.
During the Middle Ages, the manor was the main local government and economic unit in a locality (and often the only source of written records), but from the 16th century the authority and nature of manors changed greatly. Manors still exist today but their major responsibilities and powers have all disappeared. Their role in land ownership, for example, was abolished by the Law of Property Act 1922, when copyhold property was turned into freehold property.
Descriptions of how manors operated can be found in Sidney and Beatrice Webb's The Manor and Borough vol. 1 (London 1908). Philip Riden's Record Sources for Local History (Batsford 1987) places manors in the wider context of English local administration. Descriptions of the sorts of records left by manors are given in Denis Stuart's Manorial Records (Philimore 1992) and P.D. Harvey Manorial Records (British Records Association, 1985).
Huntingdonshire Archives
holds court rolls or books for about 40 Huntingdonshire manors, and other sorts of documents for many more. The main collection of manorial records is the HMR collection. Other manorial records may be found by tying the name of the manor in the AnyText field in our CALM online catalogue.
The quickest way to discover the history of a specific Huntingdonshire manor is to look it up in the relevant volume of the Victoria County History (three vols, London 1926-1936).
Please click on the link below to a PDF file which contains full details of all manorial records held at Cambridgeshire Archives.