Legal Definitions - multure

Multure

Historically, multure refers to the payment, typically a portion of the grain itself, that a farmer or individual would give to a mill owner or miller in exchange for the service of grinding their grain into flour or meal. It also describes the established right of the miller to receive this payment for their work.

• Example 1: The Farmer's Payment
  Imagine a farmer in 17th-century rural France bringing a cartload of freshly harvested rye to the local watermill. After the miller processes the rye into flour, the farmer sets aside a specific amount, perhaps one-tenth of the newly ground flour, and gives it to the miller. This portion of flour given as payment for the grinding service is the multure.

• Example 2: The Miller's Customary Right
  A miller operating a vital community mill in a medieval village would have a customary right to collect multure. This means that anyone bringing grain to their mill for grinding would be expected, by tradition and often by local ordinance, to pay a certain percentage of that grain as a fee. The miller's livelihood depended on this established right to receive a share of the processed grain.

• Example 3: A Manorial Agreement
  In a historical manorial system, a lord might have owned the only mill in the area and required all his tenants to use it. A written agreement or charter for the manor could explicitly state that tenants must bring their grain to the lord's mill and pay multure, perhaps specifying it as "one measure of grain for every ten measures ground." This clause legally established the lord's (and by extension, his miller's) right to collect this specific form of payment.