During the 13th century the domestic quern thus became the subject of fierce controversey when, for example, the Abbot of St. Albans Abbey in Cirencester confiscated some eighty querns from the populace and paved a floor of the abbey with the stones.

During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, the locals entered the abbey and tore the confiscated quern stones from its floor. This only led to further victimisation and the folk took their case to the Cirencester Assizes where it was settled in the favour of the Abbot.

It was thus that the milling of corn became the monopoly of the Lord of the Manor or monastic institution (soke) and farmer or artisan had to take their corn to the watermill to have it ground into flour and pay for the privilege in kind by foresaking one sixteenth of the load by way of toll.

Thus the situation remained until Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century released many watermills from monastic control and many millers might well have become mill owners or more independent tenants.