The third of these articles about farming life from Medievalists.net looks at the potential for fraud by a farm manager as described by Robert Carpenter in his formulary written in the 1260s.
Like all fraud these schemes require a degree of planning and on occasion co-conspirators. It is not clear if these are examples the author has come across or whether he is admitting to having committed them himself. Their relatively small scale and necessarily ‘hands-on’ nature are a reminder that this was a world where much of life was inevitably local, and low cunning could thereby make a return for its practioner. After all the sheep cannot testify in the manor court…
The article can be read at The secrets of defrauding your medieval lord
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