Volume X 1962 Part I

VOLUME X 1962 PART I PRINCIPAL CONTENTS Some Differences between Manors and their Effects on the Condition of the Peasant in the Thirteenth Century by J. Z. TITOW The Re-leasing of the Ellesmere Estates i637- i642 by E. HOPKINS , The Rural Economy of a Kentish Wealden Parish i65 o - I750 by C. W. CHALKLIN THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW VOLUME X PART 1 • 1962 CONTENTS Some Differences between Manors and their Effects on the Condition of the Peasant in the Thirteenth Century j. z. Titow page i The Re-leasing of the Ellesmere Estates, 1637- ~642 E. Hopkins 14 The Rural Economy of a Kentish Wealden Parish, i65o-i75o C. W. Chalklin 2 9 List of Books and Articles on Agrarian History issued since September i96o Joan Thirsk 4 6 Reviews: Structures Agraires et Paysages Ruraux, by E. Juillard and others Joan Thirsk 57 Gdographie et Histoire Agraires Joan Thirsk 57 English Farming Past and Present, by Lord Emle G. E. Mingay 58 Readings in the History of American Agriculture, ed. Wayne D. Rasmussen G. E. Fussell 61 Studies in the Industrial Revohttion, ed. L. S. Pressnell IV. E. Minchinton 6z The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire, by A. H. Smith M. W. Beresford 63 Books Received 64 Letter to the Editor 28 Notes and Comments 55, 56 Notes on Contributors 45 Some Differences between Manors and their Effects on the Condition of the Peasant in the Thirteenth Century 1 By J. Z. TITOW OR the study of the English peasantry in the late Middle Ages the fourteenth century is extremely important, since it was in that century that l~ the two best things to have happened to the peasantry as a whole took place. The first half of the century saw the great famines of x315-i7, and the second half was overshadowed by the great plague of I349 and its recur- rences. It may seem callous to call disasters of such magnitude a "good thing." In terms of human suffering and misery they were indeed great tragedies, but seen in "historical perspective they emerge clearly as the turning-points at which the downward trend in peasant prosperity was first checked and then decisively reversed. There was, of course, nothing new in people dying of epidemics, or from starvation following bad harvests; such happenings were commonplace throughout the Middle Ages. What was new was the scale of these disasters, and the point I am trying to make here is that the position was already so serious that nothing less than disasters of this magnitude could have had anything but a passing effect. 2 At the root of the decline of peasant prosperity over the thirteenth century lies undoubtedly the great increase in population which occurred at the time. Professor Postan long ago expressed his belief that the rural population of this country in the thirteenth century was equal to that in the early eighteenth century and possibly even greater, 3 and I fully subscribe to that view. But whatever may be argued about the magnitude of this increase in absolute terms, there can be very little room for argument, on existing evidence, as to the state of relative overpopulation prevailing at the time on a great many 1 This article is based on the paper read at the Annual Conference of the British Agricultural History Society at Newton Abbot, 7 April 1961. 2 1 should perhaps make clear at this point that I see the condition of the peasantry as a whole over the thirteenth century as one of growing impoverishment unchecked until the great famines of the early fourteenth century and reversed only with the advent of the Black Death and subsequent epidemics. 3 View put forward at the Annual Conference of the Economic History Society in May 1949. 2 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW manors. Conditions differed, naturally, from place to place and manor to manor, but if one disregards small local variations due to a variety of causes it is possible to distinguish certain types of manors--or perhaps it would be more correct to speak of certain factors present on some manors and absent from others--which would noticeably affect the condition of the people living on them. At least three lines of division spring to mind at once. It may be argued that peasants living on manors with an exclusively arable economy would be worse off than peasants living on manors with extensive opportunities for pastoral activities. On the latter the meagre income from land could be sup- plemented by the profits of sheep-farming or stock-raising. Personally, I do not believe that this aspect of peasant economy was ever of very great impor- tance except, perhaps, in a few rather exceptional cases. 1 Another line of division would run between manors on which, by virtue of their location, large-scale emigration would be possible, and those on which it would not. By reducing the number of mouths to be fed such emigration would alleviate the lot of the remaining villagers, but in the thirteenth century emigration was very seldom on a sufficiently large scale to make any significant difference. The most important division of all is a different one. Since in the thirteenth century the problem everywhere was one of too many persons chasing too few acres, the most important line of division would be between those manors on which new land was still available and those on which it was not--between the colonizing and non-colonizing manors. It is not my purpose in this article to discuss differences in the condition of the peasants characteristic of all these major types of manor. What I intend to do is to examine the more important differences between colonizing and non-colonizing manors only, partly because I consider availability of land by :far the most important factor in peasant prosperity, and partly because existing evidence for the Winchester estates is inadequate for the proper study of other manorial types. The method I propose to adopt is to discuss the conditions on the Somerset manor of Taunton, the most extreme case available to me of an anciently settled manor with no colonizable resources worth speaking of left to it by the middle of the thirteenth century, and to draw comparisons at various points with corresponding developments on the Berkshire manor of Wargrave and the Oxfordshire manor of Witney, the two most colonizing manors of the bishopric. Out of the forty-odd manors regularly represented in the Winchester account rolls some twenty-six have custumals dating from about the middle i Such as the economy of special regions, e.g. the Fenland. SOME DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MANORS 3 of the thirteenth century. Taunton, Wargrave, and Witney are all among them. These custumals make it possible to examine the pattern of land- holding and thus provide a good starting-point for an investigation of the peasants' economic position. Statistics based on custumals, however, are subject to one important reservation. There can be no doubt that there has always been a great deal of land transference between peasants, either by permanent alienation or through short- and long-term leases. Since the custumals are not concerned with sub-tenancies the tenurial pattern depicted in them may not necessarily correspond with the pattern of actual occupa- tion. It must therefore be borne in mind that the figures calculated on the basis of custumals may, and almost certainly do, underestimate the number of smallholders. When holdings recorded in the custumals are sorted out and those expressed in customary units (such as virgates and their fractions, and cotlonds) converted into acres, and all the tenants are grouped according to the totality of their holding, the following figures are obtained. At Taunton 56 per cent of the tenants had under 15 acres each and only 7" 6 per cent more than 3° acres. At Wargrave 66.2 per cent of the tenants had under x5 acres each and I2.5 per cent more than 3° acres. At Witney some 73" 6 per cent of the tenants had under 15 acres each and only some 5" 3 per cent more than 3° acres.1 On the face of it there does not seem to be very much difference between these manors, and such differences as there are seem to be in favour of Taun- ton. The figures show the same striking feature everywhere: a very high percentage of smallholders. The main difference between the two colonizing manors and Taunton is the higher proportion of tenants with only a few acres to their name on the former; 5 I. 5 per cent of tenants with less than 5 acres apiece at Witney and 45" 5 per cent at Wargrave as against only 13 per cent at Taunton. This was only to be expected, for at Wargrave and Witney, with new land being made continuously available, a great number of hitherto landless persons could receive some land and enter into our purview as tenants. On the non-colonizing manors, like Taunton, this was not possible, but the fact that the percentage of smallholders was there very much smaller does not mean that the land situation on such manors was healthier. Paradoxically, perhaps, it meant the opposite, for the number of landless peasants concealed behind the facade of tenancies and dependent on the tenants for their means of subsistence must have been on such manors very much greater. This brings out in a striking manner the greatest deficiency of custumals and ren- tals as guides to the general level of peasant prosperity.

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