Havering's freedom from external authority enabled the tenants to develop their own economic lives without restriction or serious exploitation by a manorial lord or the government. The opportunities available to them as landholders were exceptionally favourable. Havering's location amidst woods open to assarting led to wide variation in sizes of holdings rather than standard groupings at set fractions of virgates. Weak seigneurial control and the freedom of Havering's tenure promoted a vigorous market in land. Purchase and sale of entire holdings, not merely of secondary pieces, were common by the early thirteenth century. By 1251 the distribution of holding sizes had assumed an atypical shape, with a heavy weighting of very large estates, fewer tenancies of middle rank and many smallholders. Chapter 3 first examines the way in which the holdings developed up to 1352/3 and then looks at the great extent of that year. Next we turn to the characteristics of tenure, inheritance and the market in local land. We end with consideration of the size and composition of the population before 1460, emphasising the place of outsiders and newcomers.

Between 1350 and 1460 Havering already displayed the patterns of a commercialised economy. Those 100 tenants who worked 30 acres or more were in a position to grow produce for regular sale to London, transactions facilitated by the market at Romford. Craft activity and trade, again centred around the market, were attractive to some of the manor's smallholders; others were employed as wage labourers.