Durham E-Theses

Durham E-Theses The historical geography of county Durham during the middle ages Dickinson, Paul How to cite: Dickinson, Paul (1957) The historical geography of county Durham during the middle ages, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/8268/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my obligation to those without whose constant advice and encouragement this study would never have been begun, or completed; to my supervisor, Professor W. B. Fisher, for his guidance in the selection and treatment of the material, and for his unsparing interest in every stage of its preparation; to Professor H. C. Darby, whose expert advice was of great value in understanding the problems involved in this work; and to Dr. Davies, through whose good-will the Durham records were made accessible to me, and through whose teaching I learned, slowly, to read them. I also wish to thank the members of the staff of the Department of Geography of the Durham Colleges in the University of Durham, who have helped me in ways too numerous to mention. Finally I owe a great debt to our technical assistant Mr. Gordon McWhirter for his skill and care in photographing maps for this thesis. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Volume I. Index Page Chapter I. The Materials examined in the Study 1 II. The Settlements and their Distribution 19 III. The Distribution of Prosperity and Population. 1. Bo1don Book. The Land 38 IV. The Distribution of Prosperity and Population. 2. Bishop Hatfield's Survey. The Land. 58 V. The Distribution of Prosperity and Population* 3. Bishop Langley's Survey. The Land. 84 VI. The Distribution of Prosperity and Population. Population 103 VII. The Distribution of Prosperity and Population. Values 120 VIII. Woodland 141 IX. Pasture 158 X. Meadow 183 XI. Waste 201 XII. Livestock Farming 216 XIII. Arable Farming 236 XIV. Rural Industries. Part I. Mills & Fisheries 259 XV. Rural Industries. Part 2. Forges. Bakehouses. Limekilns. Breweries 288 XVI. Urban Life 303 XVII. Mining 323 Conclusion. Chapter I. THE MATERIALS EXAMINED IN THE STUDY. - I. - The value of early surveys for the geographer An examination of the evidence provided by early surveys for the reconstruction of the geography of Medieval England is at once a fascinating and a peculiarly difficult task. Prom such surveys the geographer may obtain valuable information on the appearance of the countryside, and on the daily life and work of the- people, although the information he gathers rarely appears in the arrangement, or in the detail,, he would, like. He is constantly beset by textual difficulties,, peculiarities of orthography and interpretation and, if more than one manuscript survives, by the difficulty of reaching a satisfactory and reasonable compromise between the various documents. If he is looking for a complete and orderly account, then he is invariable doomed to disappointment: at one moment he may congratulate himself on having discovered exactly the kind of detailed information, he is seeking, but how often he turns the page only to find, the account incomplete, and he sees the words with, which he all too soon becomes familiar - "it is not known.... therefore let it be inquired into>.M Nevertheless,, in spite of their uncertainties and omissions, the records give a picture, more or less accurate, of the general features of contemporary geography; there emerges from them some account of the main elements of the landscape- - 2 - of the Middle Ages. The Doomsday Survey That studies in historical geography are beginning to receive the attention, they deserve is the result of Professor Darby's work on the Doomsday Geography of England, in the volumes which together bear that title (1), the English counties are considered in turn, and the various items of information which the survey contains-, about each are examined within this regional framework. However, since Durham, (together with Northumberland, Cumberland, and much of Westmorland) was not visited, by King William's commissioners, it is not included in the survey. The earliast Durham survey Not until. 1183 did any record, appear o.f the County Palatine, for not until then were the adverse conditions of the unsettled times, the hostility of. the local inhabitants, and the difficulties involved in the great, distance from the centre of administration in the south of England, to some extent overcome by the authority of. the prince bishops. By that date,, a knowledge of the resources of his bishopric in men,, money, and land, was as important to the Bishop of Durham as had been a similar account to the King of England a hundred years, earlier. Accordingly "lord Hugh, Bishop of Durham, - 3 - caused to be described in the presence of himself and and of his court,, in the eleven hundred and eighty third year of our lord's incarnation, at the feast of Saint Cuthbert in Lent, all the returns of his whole, bishopric, assizes and customs, as they then were,, and as they had been aforetime". (2). The introductory paragraph of these returns,, which were later to; be known as Boldon Book, thus conveniently records the date of the original compilation of the survey,, and briefly summarises its contents. The Nature and value of Boldon Book The book contains a list of the bishop's tenants,, their holdings,, and the rents and services they must perform, and is intended for use in the administration of a great estate. It is not a regional survey comparable with those of Doomsday Book, since it covers, not the whole county, but only those areas occupied by the bishop's tenants. How far the economic conditions typically found in the bishop's vills resemble those of the vills of the Prior and Convent,, and of the lay barons of the county, cannot be finally determined. However,, it is not unreasonable to: suppose that, within the fairly limited area of the Palatinate, the pattern of the economy, and its effect upon the landscape„ would be influenced, not so much by differences in landownership - 4 - and control, as by the more fundamental geographical conditions of position, relief, soil, and the like. It is significant that the bishop held lands in all parts o>f the county: in the east of the county are the areas around Houghton (Houghton-le-Spring), Easington, Middleham (Bishop Middleham), and Stockton; in the centre are the lands tributary to Darlington, Bishop Auckland, and Chester; and almost the whole of the west and north west of the county was included in the bishop's manore of Wolsingham and Lanchester. Although the statistics of Boldon Book cannot be used to provide a complete map of the county, they supply material for the reconstruction of representative sections of the geography of Durham as a whole. The arrangement of Boldon Book The information contained in Boldon Book is arranged on a geographical basis. Each of the bishop's vills was surveyed in turn, and the order in which they were recorded, although at first sight seemingly fortuitous, there being no apparant division into wards or hundreds, is in reality well planned. The arrangement of vills in the survey closely reflects their actual disposition on the map. Groups of vills may be distinguished, each group being marked by - 5 - historical and economic connections, as well as by geographical proximity. Wearmouth, Ryhope, and Burdon, for example, vills which follow each other in order in the survey, are linked historically; together they form part of a grant of land reputed to have been made by King Athelstane to the Bishopric, and recorded by Symeon in the "Historia Ecclesiae Dunelmensis". (3). Moreover, these same vills are bound together by economic tiest they perform the same services, render the same money payments, and have their demesne in common. These three are typical of other vills grouped together in the survey, and appearing as clusters on the map, united, more or less closely, by the historical and geographical influences they have shared. The limitations of Boldon Book The record of the scribe concerning the vills surveyed varies considerably in its detail and in its va lue for mapping purposes. The inhabitants may be carefully enumerated, and classified according to their social status - so many villeins, so many cotmen, and so many "others", the smith, the carpenter, and the pinder. On the other hand, should the vill happen to be at farm only the name of the tenant in chief is recorded, and no details are given of the number and status of - 6 - the inferior tenants. The four transcripts of Boldon Book The original manuscript of Boldon Book has long since disappeared. The oldest transcript is contained in a volume of thirteenth century copies of Durham Records, the "Liber Irrotulatus Prioratus Dunelmensis,, (4).

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