The Domesday Book.
The Manorial economy.
Villages and agriculture.
Bibliography
for all segments (opens in separate page)
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| Harold Godwinson's death as depicted in scene 57 of the Bayeux tapestry. |
Unlike the massive immigrations that led to Anglo-Saxon control of England, the Norman Conquest did not force massive numbers of natives from their villages. However, the Norman tenants-in-chief did displace significant numbers of tenants without regard to their status prior to the Conquest. The confiscated lands became Norman-controlled private lands, called demesnes. Agricultural labor was conscripted from the displaced peasants.
The Domesday Book:
Some twenty years after the decisive Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror ordered an inventory of the wealth of England and its population. With 275,000 heads of households, the population probably approximated 1.5 to 2 million.
(searchable online copy of Domesday Book with links to map)
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| Closeup of Domesday entry for: The Land of St. Peter of Westminster In ‘Ossulstone’ Hundred |
The Domesday Book.
Villages and agriculture.
The Manorial economy:
After the Norman Conquest, the countryside was organized around permanent manorial units. The lord’s manor comprised both the demesne and peasant held lands. The lord directly exploited the lands of his demesne and collected rents, fees, and services from the peasant tenants. In principle, the king granted lands to feudal lords (military land-owning aristocracy) in return for the lords’ pledges to supply men-at-arms for the king. The manorial system supported the feudal aristocracy – binding the peasants to cultivate manorial demesnes for one week each year, and to provide military service on demand. A feudal lord provided protection and granted land (fief) to a vassal in return for labor and military services. Only petty knights or minor lords, owners of a one or a few manors, resided at their manors to oversee their estates. Earls, counts, abbots and bishops controlled “honors” comprised of numerous manors scattered across many counties.
System of Estates table.
Ultimately, the military role of the great lords shifted to an economic role. Knightly military service and peasant labor service came to hinge upon payment of money. After 1200, the leasing of manors became less frequent as lords began to manage their own estates. The population had expanded and the growth of town markets facilitated the exchange of produce for cash. Tenants and villeins prospered from the sale of agricultural surplus at the town markets, but the lord benefited more – both from the sale of produce and from increased tenant rents.
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| Aerial view reconstruction drawing of Wharram Percy in the 13th century. Based on the well-preserved and extensive earthworks of the deserted medieval village (below, viewed from different angle). |
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| First mapped by the Ordnance Survey in 1850. The deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy and its environs were intensively excavated and researched by Professor M Beresford and Dr J Hurst from 1952-92. As a result it is the most famous and best understood example of its type. This site is now in the care of English Heritage (2010). |
The Norman Invasion (1066 AD).
The Domesday Book.
The Manorial economy.
Villages and agriculture:
Economic prosperity and population growth began in the eleventh century and continued through to the thirteenth century. Settlements sprang up across Britain – homesteads, hamlets, and villages. Villagers comprised the vast majority of the population. Ultimately, the forests were largely cleared, and villages in the densely populated areas impinged upon one another’s borders. The majority of the population of medieval Britain spent their entire lives confined to the neighborhood of their village, and the local fairs and markets.
Village buildings clustered around the nuclear church or manor house, and lay surrounded by cultivated fields, meadows, orchards, marshes, and forest. The buildings, longhouses or sunken huts, straggled around the nucleus, each on small plots bordered by hedges, fences, or ditches. Village buildings and areas were divided into public, communal, and private elements.
Peasants’ dwellings were rarely of stone except in areas like the Cotswolds, which was endowed with plentiful stone but scarce timber. Houses continued to be flimsy – timber framed, with clay daubed over wands of oak, hazel, or willow. Roofs were thatched with straw, broom, heather, reeds or rushes – despite the certain problem of vermin and the potential hazard of fire. Most village houses had attached yards and gardens. The smaller “toft” fronted onto the street and was surrounded by a ditch or fence to contain animals. The toft comprised house, storage sheds, and barns or animal pens for privately owned chickens, pigs, cows and oxen. The “croft” lay to the rear – a large garden cultivated by spade. Ditches aided drainage through the yards, and a latrine trench sufficed for ablutions.
Although some villages had private wells, most used a communal well. Village sheep grazed in fallow fields, meadows or marshes, but were held in the manor fold in winter – manure was a valuable commodity and the lord profited from this arrangement. The villagers cultivated mostly wheat. In addition, they raised rye, barley, oats, beans, peas, and other vegetables. Although the value of manure as a fertilizer was recognized, the scarcity of pasture land in areas devoted to tillage led to a vicious cycle of reciprocal scarcity.
Advances in agricultural techniques accumulated and spread slowly. Technical advancements were afforded by the newly introduced horse collar, and by horseshoes, horsecollars, traces, and whippletrees. Horses offered several advantages over oxen as farm animals. Horses were nimbler, longer-working, and faster for the ploughing of light soils. They were superior to oxen as cart animals. The increased use of horses stimulated cultivation of oats for fodder. Oats as a spring crop (together with barley, beans, peas, and vetch) proved ideal for crop-rotation. Stall-feeding of draught animals increased supplies of manure for fertilizer, and leguminous fodder crops restored soil nitrogen to the fields.
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| The whippletree linkage enabled multiple horses, or horses and oxen, to push (thanks to the horsecollar, not pull) a load together. |
In the middle of the fourteenth century the Black Death ravaged first England and later, Scotland. From 1348 to 1350, the bubonic plague killed about a third of the population – and killed numerous cattle. The devastation was less severe twelve years later when plague broke out again. The plague caused immense socio-economic and cultural impacts. Sporadic outbreaks continued until 1666 (the Great Fire swept through London in September, 1666.)
Severe shortage of agricultural labor resulted from the enormous mortality rate, and intensified the commutation of labor – the transition to wages and rents. Increasingly, tenants paid rents rather than providing services to the landlord, and living conditions improved as rural proto-industry provided the means to supplement incomes. Many landlords turned to sheep-rearing because it required less agricultural labor. Wages were high, inflation was rampant, and attempts at government intervention failed miserably (sound familiar?)
According to the results of a late fourteenth century poll tax, the most densely populated English common-field counties lay in the Midlands.
The Roman Empire gained supremacy by virtue of its superior tactics, discipline, and technology. The second episode of feudalism developed after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. In Britain, Anglo-Saxon chiefdoms and small kingdoms (king, thegn, and coerl) were eventually supplanted by Norman feudalism – the economic gulf between peasants (serfs) and their overlords widened. Societies governed by a powerful ruling or conquering aristocracy are divided according to “free” status – slave, serf, villein, free-man, petty knight, knight, Count, Earl, Duke, Baron, King.
As states evolve, agricultural economies become money-based. Land comes to represent a cash potential. Social schisms come to be based on wealth as well as on hereditary status. At the agricultural level, ambitious, hard-working, or unscrupulous farmers can attain greater wealth compared to other locals. While this situation also favors the already-wealthy, an agrarian middle class is interposed between the hereditary aristocracy and the landless poor. At the end of the fifteenth century, Britain was headed toward a socio-economic position that would challenge the sovereign authority.
The Norman Invasion (1066 AD).
The Domesday Book.
The Manorial economy.
Villages and agriculture.
Playlist Wild Food.
Playlists
BBC Farm Series.
Magna Carta concession to forest access > .
Magna Carta accedes to dis-afforestation > .
What was the Charter of the Forest? | Magna Carta Series > .
What was Feudalism? > .
Carta Foresta 1217 - TrId >> .
Magna Carta concession to forest access > .
Magna Carta accedes to dis-afforestation > .
What was the Charter of the Forest? | Magna Carta Series > .
What was Feudalism? > .
Carta Foresta 1217 - TrId >> .
Land Use in Britain – Beyond
Early Modern.
Land Use in Britain (full version) – The Agricultural Revolution.
Land Use in Britain (full version) – The Agricultural Revolution.
