Medieval and Types By M L RYDER

I It must be stressed at the outset that fleece Introduction variations, as with other breed differences, 'N THE PAPER I wrote twenty years ago on are caused mainly by genetic differences. the origins of British breeds of sheep, I Since there has been much discussion about I .attempted to integrate new evidence the distinction between shortwools and from archaeology with older documentary longwools during the Middle Ages one must evidence.' Medieval archaeology was in its repeat that they are distinct groups of breeds. infancy, and the bone remains from sheep This point is emphasized by the fact that each gave little information. Illustrations in illu- fleece type has a characteristic staple form minated manuscripts and later paintings that arises from the intermingling of varying gave better evidence than records. But the proportions of different fibre types. most striking new and incontrovertible Although better nutrition might make a evidence came from within the parchments short-woolled fleece grow somewhat lon- on which records had been written, viz in the ger, it cannot change it into a longwool type. form of remains of wool fibres from the animal whose skin had been used to make the II parchment. In the intervening period I have Tracing breeds back to the sixteenth century found many more illustrations, but the Table I shows a classification of British major advance has been the measurement of breeds based on face colour, the presence or the wool in the numerous textile remains absence of horns, and fleece type. It is a from medieval excavations, so that for the revised version of that given in previous first time we know exactly how fine in work. 2 The white-faced, horned, hill group modern terms woo! was in the Middle Ages. tends to comprise old breeds that are horned The approach I propose to make in this in the rams only. The wool is generally paper is first to look at modern breeds, and coarse but not hairy. The related white-faced their distribution in the recent past, to see short-woolled group has breeds with finer how far their ancestry can be pushed back wool than the white-face horn, and those towards the Middle Ages. Then a brief with horns are horned in both sexes. The consideration will be given of the meagre longwools have a white face and no horns. pre-medieval evidence, including the origin These were a development of the eighteenth of British sheep, and finally the Middle Ages century. will be covered in greater detail, taking each The black-faced, horned group has breeds source of evidence in turn. Although I have with longer, hairy fleeces, and horns in both used new evidence from wool in textile sexes. The black-faced shortwools lack remains, it has not been possible to relate the horns, and were mostly developed during findings to medieval cloth descriptions used the nineteenth century as Down breeds. The by economic historians. figures in this Table indicate the proportion of animals with a certain blood type, and it

' M L Ryder, 'The History o fSheep B reeds in Britain', Ag Hist Rev, 12, I, t964, pp ~-t2; ~2, 2, 1964, pp 65-82. -'Ryder, op cit; M L Ryder and S K Stephenson, Wool Growth, 1968. I4 MEDIEVAL SHEEP AND WOOL TYPES 15 TABLE I Classification of British Breeds

Wild ancestor Mouflon* 0.70 short tail Brown Soay* 0.96 short tail Vari-coloured ]" -- short tail Shetlandt o.69 short tail St Kilda (Hebridean) *(4) Black short tail Manx Loghtan *(4) Brown short tail Jacob *(4) Piebald tail not short

White-faced, horned hill Black-riced, horned hill Herdwickt 0.7I * o. 72 Cheviott o.54] 'Green * o.8I Welsh Mountaint o.54~ Hill' Swaledale* o.85"~ heather Radnort o.471 breeds * o.63.1 hills * o.45 o. 57 White-faced, shortwools Kerry Hill 0.42 Black-faced, shortwools o.2 3 Whiteface Woodland* Clun 0.4 I * o. I4 Shropshire o.25 Norfolk I.o * 0.49 Portland* Suffolk o.42] Oxford 0.26| Horn* 0.65 Down Closewool Southdown o.44~ Hampshire 0.54| breeds o.491 Demi-lustre longwools The Southdown has almost lost its of medium length face colour, and like the Ryeland has Romney Marsh o.53) white-faced a woolly face. o.I2./ polled Lustre longwools Teeswater o. 54 Wensleydale o. 59 Leicester o.o6 Lincoln White- Cotswold faced Dartmoor o. 13 polled Devon Longwool o. 13 South Devon 0.20

* both ewes and rams horned "[" only rams horned (4) = 4 horns

The gene frequencies for high blood potassium shown in this table and those for haemoglobin A ~ shown in Fig I provide supporting evidence for the affinities of different breeds. But too much reliance should not be placed on these alone because they are likely to change be selection in different environments. Haemoglobin A gene frequencies are likely to change less, however.

' Both from Evans et al, Proc Roy Soc B I48, I958, pp 249-62. 16 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW

0.93 StlETLAND 0.80 SCOTS BLACKFACE 0.43 ~k HEVIOT \ 0.27 WENSLEYDALE 0.8o / o.ol / \ / BORDER / \ 0.00 \ / LEICESTER/ 0.21 DARTMOOR \ / ~ / TEESWATER AND DEVON \ ~o.'o / \ / o.05 \ / LEICESTER LINCOLN

~ l / NORTHERN 1 / BI.ACK-FACED BREEDS MIDLAND LONGWOOL mean 0'57 l MEDIEVAL ~ ROMNEY I.ONGWOOL 0" I I 0.32 0"34 0'06 NN~ WELSH ~ RADNOR CLUN MOUNTAIN /", COTSWOLD\ 0.05 0.03 SHROPSItlRE RYELAND 0.19 0'12 ~ \~'N/ OXFORD SUFFOLK

tlEREFORD\ \ "., 0.00 • ,. ~, NORFOLK \\\ .. \ ~'48 0.116 "\SOL'TIll)OWN ~ IIA.MP.qIIIRE WILTS!tIRE l ~ / SOUTH-WEST .*------TAN- OR WHITE- ,, x I)ORSFT BERKSIIIRF x \I)OWN HORNED FACED HORNED .x \ (Seem to be closer to \ X Soay than others are) \ \ \ \k .,/ 1 x \\ EXMOOR 0.09 \ x\ DORSET \ X x BLACK-FACED HORNED HORN \ (Argali-likehorns and \ hai~' fleeces; probably \ of Asiatic origin) MAINLY HORNLESS WHITE-FACE (Medieval illustrations show mostly this type) SOAY The figures indicate gene frequencies of haemoglobin A.

FIGURE I Probable lines of evolution of British breeds of sheep (from Ryder, I964') MEDIEVAL SHEEP AND WOOL TYPES I7 can be seen that breeds found to be similar on which was used in the development of all other grounds tend to have similar blood other Down breeds from the late eighteenth type figures. century onwards. The Southdown is still Fig I, also from my I964 article, shows noted for fine wool, although the fleece of some of the relationships and lines of course belongs to the British shortwool type evolution of British breeds. The recent and is not as fine as that of the . stages are based on breed records of the last It appears to be possible to push back these 2oo years, and so are more reliable than the broad groups to the sixteenth century when earlier stages for which records do not exist. they formed regional types that gave rise to The lines do not necessarily imply direct the native breeds of each county evident at links. Three main types of sheep or possible the end of the eighteenth century? The waves of introduction, can be discerned: emergence of county breeds corresponds to First, the short-tailed prehistoric type that the changes of the sixteenth and seventeenth survives as the small brown Soay, and the centuries from the largely subsistence farm- vari-coloured Orkney and ; second- ing of the Middle Ages to the commercial ly, there is the white-faced polled type, and agriculture carried out by yeoman farmers. thirdly, the black-faced horned. The source When uniformity in breed appearance and evolution of these types will be discussed came about is not known, although most in greater detail later. medieval illustrations show moderately uni- It is possible to plot on a map the form flocks. Yet during recent visits to the distribution of the main types of sheep at the Balkans I have seen flocks containing all end of the eighteenth century when accurate possible combinations of face colour, horns breed descriptions first begin to appear. (See and fleece type. Mere segregation of the Fig z from my 1964 article which owes much animals in such a flock could produce several to the summaries of Trow-Smith, to which 'breeds', which poses the question of the are added the descriptions of sheep in each extent to which some breeds differ only in county given by such authors as Youatt). 3 their superficial appearance. The white-faced horned type was concen- trated in and western parts of Britain; this type may have been influenced III most by the first sheep to arrive in Britain British sheep prior to the Middle Ages during pre-historic times. The longwools The domestication of sheep did not take extended across a wide area of the Midlands, place in Britain, and so the first domestic and these might derive more or less directly animals were introduced by Neolithic set- from stock that was introduced about tlers about 4ooo BC. The only evidence of Roman times. The black-faced horned type these sheep comes from bone remains, and was found mainly in the east and north of they probably had a coat not very different , whence it was entering Scotland to from that of the wild ancestor, in which become the Scottish Blackface. bristly fibres, known as kemps, obscure an Finally, two small areas, Hereford and undercoat of fine wool. Sussex, were noted for fine wool. In The Bronze Age breed of Europe is Hereford the sheep in question had been thought to be represented by the small, known as the Hereford breed, and this later brown that survives in a emerged as the modern Ryeland. In Sussex state on St Kilda off north-west Scotland. the fine-woolled breed was the Southdown Evidence for this comes from the similarity of skeletal remains with those of the Soay, J R Trow-Smith, A History of British Husbandr), to t 700, ! 957; A History of British Livestock Husbandry t7oo-t9oo, !959; W Youatt, Sheep, ! 840. 4Ryder, op cit., I8 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW

BLACK-FACED HORNED WHITE-FACED HORNED

LONOWOOLS

SHEEP NOTED FOR FINE WOOL NO CLEAR INFORMATION ¢~

I

FIGURE 2 Distribution of the breed types about the year I8OO (from Ryder, I964') MEDIEVAL SHEEP AND WOOt n'PES ~9 and the similarity of wool in Bronze Age Middle Ages. The modern types on the right cloth with the fleece of the Soay. s and at the bottom began to appear in Roman The primitive features shared by the Soay times, and I will say more about these later. with the wild ancestor are a short tail (all Colour changed next with the appearance modern breeds have a long tail), a coloured of white sheep in the Iron Age. Some white fleece in which the belly is white (most wool came from a Scythian burial mound in modern breeds are completely white), and central Asia, and is dated 4oo BC. But there thirdly an annual moult (the wool of was in fact a range of colour, black, white, virtually all modern breeds grows con- and grey, in addition to the brown of the tinuously). To these major and obvious Soay. Evidence for this again comes from differences between wild sheep and modern textile remains and surviving breeds. domestic breeds can be added the change Among the 57 wool samples from Vindo- from a hairy coat to a woolly fleece, and the landa, the Roman site on Hadrian's Wall, wool of the Soay is already much less hairy only 9 per cent were completely coloured than the coat of the wild sheep, but there are and so were either black or brown indicating hairy and woolly types. a move away from the Bronze Age Soay The evolution of the fleece is illustrated in type; 40 per cent had no pigment and so were Fig 36 which shows histograms of wool fibre white, while as many as 51 per cent had a diameter distribution in microns (I micron, mixture ofcoloured and white fibres, being ~m = o.o0I mm). The diameter is shown therefore grey (Table 2). A sheep with this along the horizontal axis, and the number of range of colours which appears to be a fibres on the vertical axis. The fibre diameter survival of the Iron Age vari-coloured type is distribution of the wild sheep is shown at the the native Orkney breed that remains on the top, and the big difference in diameter island of in the Orkney between the coarse outer coat and the fine group. The wild-pattern white belly is rare, under wool is very striking. The first and so this marks the Soay as unique amongst evolutionary change after domestication domestic sheep. was a narrowing of the outer coat kemps to The change in colour provides the main produce the hairy medium fleece type of the difference from the Soay, however, since the hairy Soay. Further narrowing of these hairy Iron Age type represented by the Orkney fibres (fine kemps), presumably as a result of and Shetland breeds still has hairy and by man, changed them woolly fleeces like the Soay. During the into the wool fibres of medium diameter found in the woolly Soay. TABLE 2 In evolutionary terms this is a generalized Extent of Natural Pigmentation type forming an important link between in the Vindolanda (actual number) more primitive hairy fleeces, and the more highly-evolved modern ones. The diameter Ioo% mixture no distributions of surviving breeds have been pigme,ted ('grey') pigment total shown in Fig 3, but all except that of the wild Hairy -- -- I i animal at the top have been found in old Hairy medium 3 I I 5 I9 textiles. The hairy medium and generalized Gen. medium I 12 6 19 medium types appeared first in the Bronze Fine, gen. Age, and were common until after the medium I 3 6 I0 Fine -- 2 3 5 Shortwool -- -- 2 2 ~M L Ryder, 'Changes in the fleece of Sheep following Domestica- tion', in P J Ucko and G W Dimbleby (eds), The Domestication and Medium -- I -- I Exploitation of Plants and Animals, 1969, pp 495-521. ~'Taken from my Sheep and Man, 1983. 9% 5I% 40% 20 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW

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I J MEDIEVAL SHEEP AND WOOL TYPES 21 nineteenth century the Orkney and Shetland wools had developed during Roman times in breeds formed a single population, but the Britain, but neither became common until Shetland has since been bred for white, after the Middle Ages. 9 woolly fleeces, so the Orkney now repre- Another line of development involved sents the ancestral type. They also have a a change of the short, shedding kemps tendency to moult so that in the past these of the hairy medium wool into long, breeds were plucked instead of being shorn. continuously-growing hairs, to produce the These breeds also have a short tail like the true hairy type of fleece (bottom left). This Soay, but many of the ewes are polled. The appeared during the Iron Age, but it was rare skeleton is otherwise similar to that of the until after the Middle Ages, and today wool Soay. of this type is used mainly in carpets. Its Roman textiles from Britain and the development appears to have been associated Continent show that more changes in the with selective breeding for continuous fleece fleece type were taking place at that time growth following the invention of sheep (Fig 3). The predominant wool type during shears. the Roman period, in addition to being These changes can be considered along white, is fine to the naked eye, but microsco- with other evidence in terms of breed types pic examination reveals that the wool (Fig 4). Following the prehistoric types, the contains medium fibres, and so is of next main influx of sheep may have occurred generalized medium type. Hairy medium immediately before or during the Roman wools were still common, however, at period. Textilc remains show that many Vindolanda for instance (Table 2). 7 The way Roman sheep were white, and evidence from in which the new types probably evolved by illustrations and sculptures on the Continent selective breeding is shown in Fig 3. indicates white-faced sheep with a tail of Ifthe medium fibres had become narrower medium length. There were also horned and by selective breeding then the fibre diameter polled animals which appear to be the rams distribution of the true fine type seen in the and ewes of a single type. It is possible that modern Merino would have been produced crosses between these sheep and native (bottom right). The development of the true animals produced a new type that later fine wool began in the Middle East probably emerged in breeds such as the Cheviot and soon after I o00 Bc, 8but the emergence of the Welsh Mountain. Merino as a distinct breed occurred in the late Then, as already indicated, evolution Middle Ages in Spain. within the Roman type itself could have If, on the other hand, the finer fibres had produced a primitive longwool. It is possible become coarser by breeding, then the true that this was similar to the modern Romney medium wool diameter distribution of the breed, which has a shorter and less lustrous modern longwool would have been fleece than the true longwools, and I shall say obtained (top right). Thirdly, if both more about this later. The other type that changes had taken place together, and the could have developed from the Roman sheep range of fibre diameter become shortened to is the shortwool for which I will be give a mean between the fine and medium reviewing evidence in the Middle Ages. A values, the distribution would be compara- survivor of this type appears to be the ble with that of the modern shortwool Ryeland breed. (middle right). Textile remains indicate that The third main British type is the Black- a few medium (diameter) wools and short- face horned, and whether or not this evolved locally, or was introduced during Saxon or 7M L Ryder, 'Wools from Vindolanda', jo.r Arch Sci, 8, 1981, pp 99-1o3. SRyder, 'Changes in the fleece. , .' op cir. ~Ibid. J 22 THE AGRICULTURALHISTORY REVIEW

9ooo BC Domestication of w I L D S H E E P ( kemp and wool )

Neolithic Palustris-studeri 'turbary' > modern 'hair' sheep (kemp and wool)

narrowing of kemp 1 loss of kemp "~ Bronze Age generalised medium ( hairy medium (hairy and woolly Soay) 1 ,l increase in the range ofcolour Iron Age generalised medium hairy medium changeof most kemps to ha~);- modern hairy car pet fleece 1 JR (modern Orkney and Shetland) o white generalised medium (ancient fine wool ) l I 1 IstC. AD ? to Britain with Romans

narrowing WHITE FACED HORNED Middle Ages of British medieval fine wool Cheviot medium (mainly hornless white face) Welsh Mountain fibres coarsening o~shortening of fibre 1 fine fi~/ X-~eter range TRUE FINE WOOL PRIMITIVELONGWOOL OLDSHORTWOOL BLACK FACED HORNED (Ryelandand Southdown) J present day 1 T, Spanish Merino LUSTRE LONGWOOLS DOWN BREEDS (Scottish Blackface) (Leicester) (Suffolk)

FIGURE 4 Suggested lines of evolution of fleece types and some main breed types (from Ryder, I983 (' modified from Ryder, I969 s)

TABLE 3 Danish times, is not yet clear. An example of Comparison of Roman and Saxon Wools this type is the Scottish Blackface. Sheep were found everywhere in England all other during Saxon times, as .judged by the Roman Saxon number of place names that embody a (incl (England reference to sheep. The Saxon wools I have Vindolanda Europe) oul),) examined '° were comparable with those of Hairy (I) m __ the Roman period ~' (Table 3), ranging from Hairy medium 34% (I9) I4%(I2) 23% (IO) hairy medium wools through the general- Generalized ized medium type to the true medium fleece, medium 34% (I9) I5% (i3) 23% (Io) and the Sutton Hoo burial yielded some Fine, generalized interesting examples of fine wools. medium I8°/o( Io ) 39%(34) 3o%(I3) True medium 2°/o(t) 3.5%(3) 5%(2) '°Ibid. Shortwool 4.0/0(2) I. 5°/o(I) -- "M L Ryder, 'Wools from Antiquity', Textih' History, 5, J974, Fine pp ma--m; 'Wools from Vindolanda', op cit. 90/0(5) 27% (23)I9% (8)

J MEDIEVAL SHEEP AND WOOL TYPES 23 Many northern areas were occupied by IV Vikings, and it is possible that the Herdwick Medieval sheep (i o66-155o) breed of the contains Norse (a) evidencefrom records influence. Most of the Norse wools mea- The main function of sheep in the early sured were from Scotland, ~2 and the general Middle Ages was to provide milk to make impression is that these are more hairy but cheese for winter food; wool, manure and have less pigmentation than Roman and meat were by-products in that order of Saxon wools. Orkney and Shetland were importance. The Lutrell Psalter dated 134o occupied by Norsemen until the fifteenth shows some sheep being milked. They century, but although the sheep husbandry appear to have a white face, and only two are of these islands contains considerable Norse horned. Their curls suggest a longwool influence, the sheep (as already indicated) sheep having wool of medium diameter, but appear to date back to an earlier period. Even a longwool with such a short fleece today if Norse settlers introduced sheep, they are would have been recently shorn. unlikely to have been very different from Records of that date provide no clue as to those already there. the size and type of livestock. The similarity The area occupied by the Danes before the in price between rams and ewes in the twelfth Norman Conquest roughly coincides with century suggests a lack of breeding policy, the area in which the black-faced, horned but there was a difference in price between type of sheep emerged into history. This led fine-woolled sheep at Iod each, and coarse- to the suggestion that this main stock was woolled sheep at 6d. This indicates an interest introduced by the Danes. In the past in fine wool, but less than I per cent of Denmark had a similar type, like the manors had such a flock, t5 surviving Heath breed of Germany, and I originally debated whether these coarse- some of the Danish wools from York were of woolled sheep were of true hairy type, and true hairy type. But the Continental Heath the fine-wools ofshortwool type. The new sheep appear to have more affinities with the evidence from textiles that I shall be sum- vari-coloured type than with the Scottish marizing suggests rather than the coarse ones Blackface and, as we shall see, there are no were hairy medium wools, and the fine ones illustrations of the black-faced horned type generalized medium wools. In an illustration before the eighteenth century, so it could in a twelfth century psalter from York, the have evolved locally. ,3 wool staples have a pointed tip indicating Five raw wool staples from Coppergate, hairiness, but the relatively short length York, had no natural pigmentation, but the suggests a hairy-medium rather than a true fibres had soft root ends indicating that this hairy fleece. was skin wool pulled from skins after Since breeding in isolation and wide slaughter. One was a true hairy type, two out-crosses are regarded by geneticists as were hairy medium wools, one was a two important ways in which breeds origi- generalized medium fleece, and there was nated, the considerable stock movements also one shortwool. Nineteen yarns from that took place during the Middle Ages are Pavement, York, examined earlier I4 com- important. Introductions of new, and possi- prised three true hairy fleeces, seven hairy bly better, stock into an area, such as when medium wools, five of generalized medium monasteries were established in the north type, and four of true medium type. and west during the twelfth century, consti- tuted one form of selective breeding. But '"M L Ryder, 'The Evolution of Scottish breeds of Sheep'. Scottish monastic records give no indication of Studies, x2, I968, pp 126-67. '3See Ryder, Sheep and Man, I983, p 192. ,4 Ryder, 'Wools from Antiquity', op cit. '~Trow-Smith, I957, op cit. z4 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW selective breeding for wool despite its too great to be accounted for by pasture economic value. They merely list the num- differences. More fleece weights quoted by bers of animals kept, and the value of their Postles pointed to an average figure about sheep and wool, with hardly anything to mid-way between these two values. ~7 But it show what the animals were like. does accord with the much-repeated state- In the mid-fifteenth century, 70 per cent of ment of Eileen Power that long wool was the wool production of Fountains Abbey produced by a different breed from that was of 'optima' quality, and among the which grew short wool. '81 consider that this poorer qualities, 4 per cent was black. Now statement is only acceptable if the long medieval illustrations show occasional black woolled breed was like the modern sheep. Also listed at Fountains Abbey was 8 Romney. I9 This is a primitive longwool per cent 'grisia' wool, which can be trans- with a fleece no more than about 7 in in lated as grey and brown. An English bestiary length today, whereas the lusture longwools of the thirteenth century has a hint that two of such as the Leicester have curly wool a foot or the sheep are grey, and one brown. The wool more in length. There is no conclusive is shown wavy, but it is short, and the only evidence for the existence of lustre long- polled adult is suckling a ewe, so it may be wools during the Middle Ages, and I shall say that the horned animals are wethers -- more later about their origin. castrated males -- that were used for wool Wool price lists provide the main production during the Middle Ages. The documentary evidence of sheep type, and records at any rate show that coloured sheep one can express the prices cartographically. persisted into the Middle Ages, but perhaps In the list of 1343 the most highly priced, and not in such great numbers as in earlier times. presumably therefore the finest wool, came Although breeds in the modern sense did from the Welsh Border. In the list of1454 the not exist, a classification of sheep by fleece dearest wool came from around Leominster type was already in use by wool buyers. in Herefordshire, and much has been written During the Middle Ages Britain grew the about the fineness of 'Lemster' wool. It wool with the finest fibres, and this fetched seems likely that Leominster wool was the highest price since the supply did not grown by the ancestor of the Ryeland breed. meet the demand. Much wool of inferior The Ryeland was known in the past as the type was also produced. There was plenty of Hereford, and this area had a reputation for fine wool on the Continent, and English fine wool at least as late as 18oo. But Hereford wool was apparently unique because of its also grew coarser wool during the Middle greater length, which enables it to be combed Ages that did not fetch such a high price. This to make worsteds. ,6 The question of wool breed lacks horns and has a white face like length is a recurring theme in English most medieval illustrations. medieval wool, and although staple length is The next highest priced wools in I454 basically determined by heredity, better were Cotswold and Lincoln wools. This nutrition can make the fleece grow longer must mean that these were shorter and finer and therefore heavier, a fact which was than the fleeces so named today, which are known as early as the sixteenth century. lustre longwools. Canterbury wool from Some of the extra length recorded may Kent and Sussex was, on the other hand, therefore be due to the richer British pasture relatively low in price. The export of acting on a sheep with basically short wool. 'Canterbury' fleeces from the Midlands in The range of fleece weight recorded by Trow-Smith from I. I to 2. I lb, seems to be 'TD Postles, 'Fleece weights and the wool supply, e 125o-c HSo', Textile History, 12, 1981, pp 96--IO3. ,s E Power, The Wool Trade in Em~lish Medieval History, Ox ford, 1941. 'e'E Lipson, A Short History qf Wool and its Matmfacture, 1953. "~ Ryder, 'History of Sheep Breeds', op cir. MEDIEVAL SHEEP AND WOOL TYPES 25 the thirteenth century suggests a link be- (C) evidencefrom wool in cloth remains tween the Midland longwool and the fore- More direct evidence comes from wool in runner of the modern Romney. The wool textile remains, but material has been made elsewhere in Kent and Sussex was of average available for study only from recent excava- price, and here the fine-fleeced Southdown tions in Southampton, Winchester, London, breed emerged later. York, Perth, and Aberdeen. The measure- ments made are difficult to illustrate and (b) evidencefrom skeletal remains summarize (Table 4), but from the overall Skulls which were excavated at Kirkstall percentages at the bottom it can be seen that Abbey in the I95os indicate the presence of the generalized medium fleece type polled as well as horned sheep. The first predominated. 24 This is the type that appears surveys of medieval sheep bones revealed fine to the naked eye and it formed over little difference in stature between the one-third, and there were nearly as many animals of earlier periods and surviving Soay hairy medium wools. Most sites had a few and . ~° And more recent true hairy fleeces, and on nearly half the sites measurements have not altered this the generalized medium wools were particu- conclusion. ~l Noddle, however, found that larly fine. the length of the neck of the shoulder blade There were a few true medium wools, that varied between primitive short-tailed is having the fibre diameter distribution of breeds, and modern breeds with a long tail, the modern longwool. But what had been and she found that most shoulder blades thought to predominate in the Middle Ages, from medieval sheep had a neck of in- either the shortwool or true fine type, termediate length, with some being of formed overall only 8 per cent and 6 per cent short-tailed type, and some approaching the respectively. The fine wools need not have modern type. been imported from the Continent since More recent work has confirmed the occasional fine fleeces with a symmetrical presence of a sheep that was hornless in both fibre diameter distribution are found in such sexes. 2-~ This was identified with the medi- primitive breeds as the Orkney. The wool eval fine wool described by me in I964, :3 evidence therefore indicates that the pre- which I now regard as being a generalized dominant sheep type during the Middle medium wool. There was also a type that Ages was of hairy-medium/generalized- was horned in the rams only, as well as more medium type. It was probably comparable than one type horned in both sexes. That is with the surviving short-tailed and vari- despite the fact that there are hardly any coloured Orkney and Shetland breeds, medieval illustrations showing a horned which we noted in earlier periods, and in ewe. The three modes of horn inheritance which it is mainly the rams that are horned. seen today were therefore in existence, but The bone remains accord with such an this does not necessarily indicate distinct animal, but the illustrations show that the tail breeds since they could have been present in had already increased in length. Records and an inter-breeding population. textiles confirm the persistence of some coloured sheep, although illustrations tend :°M L Ryder, 'The Livestock Remaios from four medieval sites in to indicate only the occasional black animal. ', Ag Hist Rev, 9, 1961, pp Ios-Io. :'B A Noddle, 'A Comparison of the animal bcnes from eight Skeletal remains indicate a greater range of medieval sites in Southern Britain', in A T Clason (ed), horn type than suggested by the illustrations. Archaeozoological Studies, Amsterdam, 1975. :: P L Armitage andJ A Goodall, 'Medieval horned and polled Sheep: But such anomalies are probably due to the the archaeological and iconographic evidence', Antiq jour, 57, considerable variation that must have existed pp 73-89; B A Noddle, 'The Animal Remains', in H Clarke and A Carter, Excavations in King's Lynn 1963-~97o, 1977, pp 378-4oo. :4 Ryder, 'Medieval sheep and their wool types', in D W Crossley (ed), :3 Ryder 'History of Sheep Breeds', op cir. Medieval Industry, 198I. 26 THE AGRICULTURALHISTORY REVIEW TABLE 4 Summary of Fleece Types in British Medieval Wools

Fine Hairy Generalized generalized True Hairy medium medium medium medium Short Fine Winchester I I th cent 14%(1) 57%(4) 29%(2) London, Baynard's Castle 1200 -- 25%(2) 63%(5) ------I2%(1) York I2th-i3th cent 27%(3) 37%(4) 27%(3) -- 9%(I) Southampton I3th-I4th cent -- II%(2) 58%(II) -- 5%(I) 5%(I) 2I%(4) Baynard's Castle I4th cent I3%(3) 8%(2) 8%(2) 38%(9) 4%(I) I3%(3) I6%(4) Baynard's Castle 15th cent 7.5%(2) 1I°/o(3) 15%(4) 18°/o(5) 11%(3) 30%(8) 7.5%(2) Yorkshire 15th cent -- 33%(2) 66%(4) -- -- Perth I2th-i 4th cent I9%(17) 44%(39) i8%(16) 6%(5) 8%(7) 5%(4) -- Aberdeen I3th-x4th cent 12.5%(2) 19%(3) 44%(7) 6%(I) I2.5%(2 ) -- 6%(i) overall I3% 3o% 26% IO% 7% 8% 6%

among medieval sheep, coupled with some animals that are probably rams. The sheep evolution towards modern breeds. are invariably shown with short wool, and If the actual measurements from Perth and often appear like the modern Merino, Aberdeen are compared one can see that Ryeland or Romney breeds. Although no hairy medium wools were more common at illustrations oflongwoolled sheep have been Perth, and generalized medium wools pre- recorded, some fleeces have short curls like dominated at Aberdeen (Table 5). Only 30 those of a recently-shorn longwool. Like- per cent of the Perth wools lacked pigment, wise no picture of a sheep with a true hairy another 30 per cent were black or brown, and fleece, or a black face was found before the the remainder were varying shades of grey. eighteenth century. Eleven of the sixteen Aberdeen yarns were Although I was criticized by Armitage and light grey. This high proportion ofcoloured Goodall for grouping Continental illustra- wools, and particularly grey fleeces, sup- tions with English ones, 25 I have now ports the conclusion from diameter recorded 40 illustrations originating in Eng- measurements that the Orkney-Shetland land between the ninth and eighteenth type maintained its predominance from the centuries, and they have not greatly altered Iron Age into the Middle Ages. the original conclusions of my 1964 article. There were four unspun wools from Perth These authors, however, did confirm my comprising one hairy medium fleece 25 mm suspicion that bestiary illustrations and (I in) long, and three hairy fleeces, two of zodiac signs tend to follow patterns and which were 40 mm (I.6 in) long, and the traditions, and so are less reliable than other 60 mm (2.4 in) long. These lengths are nativity scenes and depictions of farming the same as found among staples from operations. Such paintings are a valuable Baynard's Castle, London, but are shorter source of historic information regarding than the modern woolly Shetland fleece, and such items as clothing, and used with only half the length of hairy Shetland wool. discretion I think they can provide biological evidence, too. (d) evidencefrom illustrations The polled sheep on the brass of an Most medieval paintings show white-faced unknown woolman in Northleach church, hornless sheep, with occasional horned :s Armitage and Goodall, op cit. MEDIEVAL SHEEP AND WOOL TYPES 27 TABLE 5 Wool Fibre Diameter Measurements and Incidence of Hairy and Pigmented Fibres (the measurements are in microns, ie thousandths of a ram)

overall Medullated diam. Modal diam. Mean diam. (hairy)fibres % Pigmentedfibres % Fleece type No. range range mean range Overallmean range mean range mean Hairy P 17 12-124 20-30 24.5 33.4-46.8 39.8 1-57% 22% O-lOO% 35% A 2 12-128 54&66 6o.o 52.6&54.9 53.8 I9&3I% 25% 7&I3% lO% Hairy med P 39 12-IOO 20-4o 26.3 26.4-43.3 34.5 o-51% 17% 0-1oo% 57% A 3 I4-9o 24-30 26.6 26.8-32.8 29.6 5-9% 7% 2-1o% 5% Gen med P 16 10-6o 2o-31 24.9 24.4-33.3 29.5 0-1o% 4% 1-1oo% 25% A 7 lO-58 20-24 22.6 21.6-3o.8 26.7 o-11% 3 % 0-21% 6% Fine gen P 6 I2-52 23-24 23.8 24.2-28.8 26. 7 2-20% 4% 0-100% 7% medium A I 12-56 -- I6 -- 23.6+9.6 ------8% True med P 7 lO-66 26-4o 32.3 31.0-38.6 33.7 o-65% 15% 0-1oo% 14% A 2 I4-6o 3o&32 31.o 28.2&32. 5 30.4 I&4% 2.5% o&4% 2% Short P 4 10-5o 24-30 27.0 26.o-28. 9 27.6 o-46% 22% 0 0 A -- Fine P -- A I I2--36 -- 18 -- 21.0-----4.3 -- O -- O

P = Perth A = Aberdeen

dated about I485, has wavy but pointed Goodall consider indicates that they have staples indicating a hairy, or rather a hairy been shorn. The tail length is either long or medium, fleece, since it is shorter than the only of medium length, and whereas one true hairy type. It is well known in wool sheep has ram's horns, those in the other biology that staples with a pointed tip animals are smaller and of a different shape, indicate hairiness, and so I think that and I agree with the interpretation of Armitage and Goodall were wrong to Armitage and Goodall that this indicates identify this as longwool. Another polled wethers. sheep on the brass of John Taylour (c 149o) The sheep on the Fortey brasses (c 145o), has a fleece indicated by wavy lines, which also at Northleach, are large, polled animals. they consider indicate long wool, whereas I The wool is shown by short curls like those have always thought that this common way on a shorn longwool, and is uncannily like of depicting wool was too generalized to that of the modern Cotswold breed. Armi- indicate a particular fleece type. This sheep tage and Goodall sum up the evidence from has a tail of medium length, which Armitage the brasses with the statement that although and Goodall consider has been docked. But they indicate different types of sheep, they docking usually results in a short tail, and a are unlikely to indicate regional variation tail of medium length results either from since they were all made in London. i breed variation or from a cross between a Since they consider that there is no long-tailed sheep and one with a naturally medieval illustration of horned ewes, it is short tail. worthwhile pointing out what appears to be The Bushe brass at Northleacb (1526) has a horned ewe in the late sixteenth-century several small, horned sheep shown with Bradford Table carpet in the Victoria and IiJt shorter staples, which therefore appear to be Albert Museum. This has a heavily-horned shortwools. The fleece of three of the animals ram, the sex of which is confirmed by the is shown by short flecks which Armitage and depiction of a scrotum. There are also five 28 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW polled ewes, together with a sheep with Merino breed in Australia, the only mutant smaller horns than the ram. Although the that has been observed in the Romney, in fact detail is insufficientto make one sure that this in New Zealand, is a true hairy type known is not a wether, it was usual to run wethers in as the N-type or Drysdale. Another sugges- separate flocks. Again the animals are tion is that it could have originated through white-faced shortwools with a moderately the introduction of exotic stock into native long tail. These illustrations also give British sheep in a complicated genetic husbandry details. The shepherd shown has change. And this complex biological mys- a pouch and carries a crook, and he runs to tery provides a suitable note on which to end. throw earth beyond two straying ewes in order to startle them back into the flock. Summary I conclude with a brief consideration of the The wool in the earliest textile remains (from post-medieval evolution of the longwool. the Bronze Age) indicated a fleece type like The modern Cotswold breed may be quite that of the modern brown Soay sheep (hairy different from the fine-woolled breed so medium, and woolly-generalized medium). named in the sixteenth century. It is unmis- By the Iron Age it appears that there were takenly of curly lustrous type, but it seems black, white, and grey sheep, in addition to less-highly developed than other lustre brown fleeces, but they were still of primi- longwools. The fleece is only zo in long, tive hairy and woolly type. Roman wool whereas that of the Lincoln breed for remains indicate that the modern true hairy, example can exceed z3 in. true medium (longwool), shortwool, and Bowden thought from the increased fine types were evolving. supply of long wool during the sixteenth and During the Middle Ages the predominant seventeenth centuries that longwoolled sheep type still appears to have had a hairy sheep were a direct result of improved medium/generalized medium fleece type, pasture resulting from the enclosures. 26 But the animals perhaps being comparable with we have already seen that there is a limit to the the surviving short-tailed and vari-coloured i length of wool that can be grown as a result of Orkney and Shetland breeds in which most better nutrition, and in any case the lustre of the ewes lack horns. Skeletal remains longwool is a different type of sheep. The support this conclusion, but virtually no biologist's interpretation of the historical illustrations of short-tailed sheep have been evidence is therefore that the better pasture recorded. Records and the wool in cloth allowed larger longwoolled sheep to be kept. remains confirm the persistence of some Enclosure also allowed the segregation of coloured sheep, although illustrations indi- inferior animals so that selective breeding cate only the occasional pigmented animal. could take place. In most illustrations the only horned sheep The origin of the lustre longwool is such appear to be rams (or at least wethers) an intriguing biological problem that it is whereas skeletal evidence suggests two other worthwhile mentioning one or two of the types in addition, either horned in both possibilities. One suggestion is that thelustre sexes, or polled in both sexes. This, and other longwool originated as a mutant in the anomalies in the evidence, can probably be Romney type. But although a lustre mutant explained by the greater variability of the has been observed in the fine-woolled animals in the past, coupled with evolution towards new types as shown by the medium ~pJ Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, 1962. and shortwool fleece remains.