ABSTRACT
Since Morgan Gough came from the West Country, it seems likely that on Micheldever's death Alice appointed him as her new receiver for her estates there. It is not clear, since the term is generic, whether in a comparatively small household such as hers the household steward was also involved in the management of the estates and manorial courts. It does appear, however, that there was a certain flexibility of roles in the estate management at Acton and a man like John Pellican, custodian and receiver of Alice de Bryene's East Anglian estates, accompanied the stewards when they held courts where she had jurisdiction. Just as the actual supervision of the household was often a married woman's task while her husband was away fighting, attending to business or extending his patronage, so too she would have busied herself with the management of the estates.
