History of Corn Milling

HISTORY OF CORN MILLING. :: IN PREPARATION, UNIFORM WITH THE PRESENT VOLUME, Vol. II —WATER AND WIND MILLS.—The Greek or Norse Mill : The Roman Mill Floating Mills : Mills of Mediaeval Europe : Early British Mills : Domesday Mills : Tide Mills : Post Windmills : Tower Windmills Horizontal Windmills. Vol. III.—FEUDAL LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF MILLS.—Compulsory Milling Soke : Its Origin and Incidence : Laws Relating to Ownership : Customs Affecting Millers : Status of Millers : Toll : Offences, and. Punishinents : Pesage or Weighing Tax, Vol. IV.—SOME FAMOUS FEUDAL MILLS.— Kings' Mills : Ardee, Dublin Castle, Dee Mills Chester, Liverpool. Alienation of Kings' Mills. Monastic Mills : Shrewsbury. Rectorate Mills : Wigan. Civic Mills London. Rights of Feudal Mills Extin- guished by Ratepayers : Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield. THE LAWS, CUSTOMS AND ASSIZES OF BREAD BAKING. THE WHOLE RICHLY ILLUSTRATED AND REPLETE WITH RECORDS FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES, us %00 Uj 5> o» u. CD I CO ^ I 5: C3 HISTORY OF CORN MILLING VOL. I HANDSTONES, SLAVE & CATTLE MILLS WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY RICHARD BENNETT AND JOHN ELTON LONDON SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND COMPANY LTD. LIVERPOOL EDWARD HOWELL, CHURCH ST. 1898, [All Riffhtt of Traruilation Iteterved.] PRINTED BY THE NORTHERN PUBLISHING CO., LTD., LIVERPOOL. TO THE PRESIDENT, WM. SMITH, ESQ., LANCASTER, AND MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BRITISH AND IRISH MILLERS TO WHOSK DIRECTING AND CONSOLIDATING INFLUENCE DURING RECENT YEARS BRITISH MILLING IS INDEBTED FOR MUCH OF ITS HITHERTO UNPARALLELED PROGRESS AND SUCCESS THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHORS. PREFACE. A FEW words may be appropriate regarding the influences which have prompted, and the principles which have guided, the production of this work. We had long been impressed by the scantiness of the bibliography of corn milling ; and had felt it strange that in this literary age—while, on the one hand, there should be extant various valuable milling works of a technical character, and an excellent milling press—yet that, on the other hand, there should be available no published history, however crude, of the origin and progress of this ancient and important industr)'. This strange circumstance is due to no lack of interest. Corn milling possesses a distinctive historical interest over every other manufacturing art known. Without doubt it is the oldest continuously conducted industry of the world. The earliest efforts of primeval man, in the peaceful arts, were directed to pounding, from such grain, nuts and berries as he possessed, a rude kind of meal ; while, centuries later, if the irrigation water- driven wheel were one of the first power machines devised by human ingenuity, the water corn mill was its immediate successor. Whether by hand or by power, therefore, corn milling may claim to rank among the first fruits of man's inventive ingenuity. vni. PREFACE. Nor yet is the lack of published history due to any dearth of records. In mediaeval ages circumstances arose which centred upon corn milling, for many a century, an interest that, among all industries, is unique. The ownership and working of corn mills at the birth of feudalism were constituted prerogatives of the rulers of the people. None but they or their nominees could "presume to set up corn mills;" and the law of "milling soke" —the common law of the land by immemorial custom, and older than any English statute—bound the people to support mills thus set up by their lords. From the reign of the Conqueror, to the opening of the Victorian era, these owners of exclusive rights, from kings to abbots and squires, have continuously drawn large revenues from corn mills ; have tenaciously held to their privileged monopoly of ownership; and, when occasion has arisen, have upheld it by might as well as by legalised right. Records of the craft are thus to be found scattered through charters of kings and barons, customs rolls of mediaeval manors, chartularies of monastic houses, muniments of ancient cities, national archives of sovereigns and Parliaments, pleadings and awards in the law courts ; and, even, minutes of municipal authorities, who in recent times have raised rates to purchase and extinguish legal milling obligations created by ancient feudalities. Whatever may be urged for or against the exercise of such a privilege (and a good deal is possible either way), the milling archaeologist has reason to be grateful for the records of the craft which it has bequeathed ; and which at the present day enable us to trace the vicissitudes of milling more perfectly than those of any other of the industries of the world which have neither been repressed by legislation nor hampered by monopoly. Still, closely, as in the past, the trade has ever been associated with affairs of national concern, and intimately as it must continue to be combined with imperial prosperity in the future, British historians seem consistently to have overlooked its rich store of records, and ignored its national interest and importance; preface; IX." while even such of our standard county historians who may incidently quote early mediaeval milling charters seem, as of one accord, to pass them over in silence without translation or expla- nation as though trifling matters unworthy of attention. The literature of other nations is little richer. The classics, it is true, abound in fragmentary allusions to early stone-grinding and mythical theories as to the origin of the process. But it was not till about two centuries ago that even these ancient references were attempted to be gathered together in the monograph of Heringius. In the next century, the treatises of Hoheisel, Ayrer, and Goetius followed on the same limited scope; and none of these works (in which the subject was not brought down to date) appeared out of their Latin editions. Early in the same century the French economic writer, La Mare, and the German chronicler, Beckman, reviewed the topic : the articles of the former being once trans- lated into Italian and the one chapter of the latter into English. Finally the disjecta membra of Marquardt, Paulys, etc., completed the brief continental record of the craft. Since the period of these latter writers, corn milling has undergone that vital revolution of processes which, within comparatively a very few years, has placed the manufacture in the front rank of the scientific industries of the Victorian era. F^r centuries, millers, accustomed to the click of the wheel and the whirl of the sail, and dreaming of no improvement in their antique machines or methods, seemed to regard the unrelieved monotony of the past as the due and proper condition of affairs at the mill ; and appeared well satisfied with their few simple efforts to easily and comfortably keep abreast with the require- ments of the times. It is not more than a score of years ago that engineering science broke in upon the seclusion and of, we may say, this forsaken or neglected industry apathy ; rollers then rapidly supplanting stones, and milling attaining to a position of scientific and economic efficiency never before X. PREFACE. possible. No more essentially critical a revolution occurred when Rome abandoned slave and cattle labour for water power, than when, in recent years, water and wind gave place to steam and electricity, and stones were abandoned in favour of rollers. But so far as we perceive, the history of this great achievement, though technically described in detail in scientific milling treatises and related in more or less fragmentary form in the pages of the contemporary milling press, still remains to be published. And, since in milling as in other matters, there is no finality, and improvements are still emanating from the engineer with whom the future welfare of the trade mainly rests, the prospect ahead is by no means one of apathy or rest: and the miller who shall keep level with the times will not only be constrained to maintain the most perfect machinery for the production of flour, but to rely largely upon commercial knowledge and skill for dealing in the vast markets of the world which influence the present conditions of trade. The present work is an attempt to collate the scattered muniments of the industry, ancient and modern, and frame them in intelligible form: eventually preparing the way, perhaps, for something better qualified to embody the theme. Whatever its imperfections, it may claim to have suggested a basis for the subject; and arranged its details, out of a chaos of confusion and error, into some definite order with, it is hoped, some approach to accuracy. In the section " Histories of Some Famous Feudal Mills," compiled from original sources hitherto unapproached in the interests of milling, and illustrating the incidence of feudal milling law, seems to be opened out a new and interesting branch of local archaeology. The volume now issued deals with the practical foundation of the whole work ; reviewing the gradual evolution of all varieties of handstones and labour mills during their use, as premier mills, from the earliest periods to the end of the 4th century; and continuing their history, as secondary mills among primitive PREFACE. XI. peoples, till the present day. Our chief quoted authorities are necessarily the classics, each of whose salient allusions we have transcribed in the original with its exact reference, as a convenience for future enquirers. We have to express our sincere thanks to the many friends and correspondents upon whose kindness and courtesy we have relied, either to obtain special information or to facilitate our researches ; including, in addition to those specially mentioned in this volume. Dr. Flinders Petrie, Mr. Seton Karr, M.P.; Dr. Garnett, C.B., Mr. C. H. Read, F.S.A., British Museum; Dr. M. DefFner, National Library, Athens; Mr.

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