T. S. Eliot wrote in his Tradition and the Individual Talent—“The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence”. Among the plethora of public spectacles related to the past with which this country is so richly endowed, it would probably be one of the more widely known events that any person claiming to possess a sense of history would select as kindling his interest and stimulating his imagination. To the truly discerning in this field, however, there is an occurrence of abundant historical background, which illustrates perfectly Eliot’s aphorism, here in London, of which few have heard let alone witnessed, perhaps because it does not possess vast public appeal and is on what could be regarded, by any standards, as a modest scale. Nevertheless, what this small ceremony may lack in other directions it certainly makes up for in its antiquity and eccentricity. It brings to the majesty of the Supreme Court of Judicature a breath from the long distant past, redolent of farming in the Shropshire countryside, a blacksmith plying his craft at the side of a Tilt-Yard, and the romantic activities of the Knights Templars.

Feudal in origin and character, the ceremony represents the rendering of rents and services in respect of the tenure of two pieces of land, one of which is described as “a piece of waste land called ‘The Moors’ in the County of Salop”, and the other as “The Forge in the Parish of St. Clement Dane”.

The tenure of land was the basis of the Feudal system for no man, however powerful, could own land himself absolutely. What was permitted was for a man to hold land as tenant of the King either directly, or through an intermediate Lord. Such a holding brought with it the obligation to render specified services to the Sovereign or, as the case may be, to the immediate Lord. These services ranged from military duties to labour on and cultivation of, the land. Later in history it became possible for these services to be rendered otherwise than in kind, by the payment of an appropriate amount of coin of the Realm. It was also possible, within the Feudal system, for the King to commute, if he so chose, the services rendered by a tenant by requiring only a token payment in kind; such payments are what are known as Quit Rents. This designation arises because, as Blackstone says, the tenant thereby goes quit and free of all other services.

Turning to the first of the two rents referred to in this article, the Quit Rent in respect of “The Moors” consists of a blunt billhook and a sharp hatchet. Although originally referred to as knives, one to be sharp and the other very bad, or with a poor edge, there is good authority for accepting that the term “knife” was merely the ancient