The text in question: "for the redemption of my soul and thanks to a great weight of money given to me for this, surrender in perpetuity to St Peter a certain oppression of depraved custom which came down to me not through the right of ancient practice but from the time of my father, who set the little store by first harassing the poor with this [custom]."
This is from "Nivelon of Freteval's Preparations for the Journey" in which he is doing SOMETHING to obtain money for himself for Crusade and his sister and brother to live on I suppose. I'm trying to understand what "custom" is though. I THINK it's land, but I really can't tell.
Can any of you help?
(Proper citation I was provided if it helps: Cartulaire de Saint-Pere de Chartres, 2 vols., ed B. Guerard (Paris, 1840) v. 2, p. 428-429. Translated in L. Riley-Smith and J.S.C. Riley-Smith, eds., The Crusades: Ideal and Reality, 1905-1274 (London, 1981), 98-100)
More likely than not, he's giving up a right over some piece of land that's in dispute between himself and the monastery of Saint-Pere -- exacting a toll on a road, demanding service from that piece of land, etc. The language, laying out how "terrible" that custom was, is likely because (as was common from throuh the 10th and 11th centuries) the charter itself was written by the monks of St-Pere.
PS -- here's the original Latin in case you're interested.