Definition
A historical manorial custom specific to the manor of Writtle in Essex, England, by which the lord of the manor was entitled to collect a toll of four pence (4d.) from any cart passing over Greenbury within the manor's boundaries. Carts belonging to noblemen were exempt from the charge. The custom was local in the strictest sense — it existed nowhere else in the legal record and belongs entirely to the corpus of manorial incident law.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a textbook example of a purely local manorial custom with no generalized legal principle behind it. Researchers encountering "lep and lace" in historical documents, estate surveys, or manorial rolls should treat it as a site-specific toll right, not a transferable legal category. Its survival in the major dictionaries derives almost entirely from Blount's Fragmenta Antiquitatis (Antient Tenures of Land and Jocular Customs of Some Manors), the foundational antiquarian source on manorial curiosities. Any researcher tracing this term should go directly to Blount rather than expect independent legal development in the case law.
The term is unlikely to appear in any form outside of manorial records for the manor of Writtle specifically, or in antiquarian and legal dictionary literature citing Blount. It has no modern legal relevance and no statutory successor. Its presence in Black's, Rapalje & Lawrence, and Bouvier's reflects the Victorian and early-American legal dictionary tradition of comprehensively cataloguing defunct English manorial customs — a tradition that researchers should understand as archival rather than doctrinal. Do not assume that analogous local toll customs elsewhere in England shared this name or these terms.
One practical trap: the second edition of Black's entry is truncated in the surviving text ("every cart which" — sentence incomplete), suggesting a printing or transcription defect in that edition. Researchers relying on the second edition should cross-reference the first edition or Bouvier's for the complete formulation.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four dictionary sources agree on the substance: a four-pence cart toll on Greenbury within the manor of Writtle, with a nobleman's exemption. Bouvier's is the most informative, adding the explanatory note — drawn from Blount — that Greenbury was "conceived to have been accidentally a market-place, on which account this privilege was granted." This context is important: it situates the custom within the broader logic of market tolls, suggesting the lord's entitlement derived from a quasi-market function historically associated with the location, even if no formal market grant was ever documented.
Rapalje & Lawrence and Black's (1st ed.) reproduce the substance without Bouvier's explanatory gloss. The second edition of Black's is, as noted, truncated. None of the dictionaries provide independent analysis or cite anything beyond Blount. This means the entire legal dictionary tradition on this term rests on a single antiquarian source, and the dictionaries are essentially retransmitting Blount rather than reflecting any accumulated legal usage or litigation.
Jurisdictional Note
Purely English manorial law, specific to the manor of Writtle, Essex. No American, Scottish, or Irish legal counterpart exists. The custom has no application outside its original manorial context and is of historical interest only.