Two Wiltshire Manors and Their Markets

Fwo Wiltshire Manors and their Markets By D L FARMER

Abstract The accounts of the Glastonbury Abbey manors of Longbridge Deverill and Monkton Deverill provide unusually detailed information of the places where, and the persons with whom, the manors traded. Most of their grain went to markets within ten miles, though more distant markets were used more in years when grain fetched higher prices. Livestock was purchased at fairs further away than most of the grain markets. The majority of wool buyers came from towns within about twenty miles of the manors. Lengthy journeys were sometimes necessary to fetch items like millstones. Much of the manors' trading was informal, and with their own tenants. 'ITmN what geographical range nearest markets, others to any markets did medieval English manors buy within the county, whereas others must W their necessities and sell their go to Winchester itself or to London. 3 The produce? The evidence is fragmentary and custumals certainly suggest an extensive often contradictory. Many years ago Nor- long-distance trade in grain, not only to man Gras drew attention to the long- London but also to major regional centres. distance grain trade suggested by the Some elements of this trade were indeed carrying-services listed in the surveys of in place before the earliest of the manorial manors belonging to the abbeys of Ramsey accounts, as the arrangements for provi- and Bury St Edmunds, and Professor Mil- sioning Henry II's Irish campaigns testify; ler's study of the Ely estates revealed an other elements persisted after the last series even more comprehensive network ofaver- of manorial accounts fell silent, as the agia and summagia linking the bishop's accounts of the Peterborough Abbey manors to London, to regional centres officials confirm. 4 Among other commodi- like Cambridge, Norwich and Bury St ties, there is ample evidence of a long- Edmunds, and to King's Lynn, the great distance trade in livestock, to towns such entrep6t from which grain was shipped to as Gloucester as well as to London, and of London or to northern ports like New- heroic journeys to fetch millstones from castle and Berwick. I Gras also noticed in the ports, and one hardly needs to com- the early bishopric of Winchester pipe rolls ment on the travels of English and Welsh the records of the bishop's manors in the wool to the collecting points at Boston, Thames valley and the Chilterns sending London or Southampton before shipment hundreds of quarters of grain each year to Flanders or even the Mediterranean.S to his manor-cure-palace at Southwark, Yet the long-distance traffic may have which then sold the bulk of what it had been only a minor aspect of grain market- received - presumably to the Londoners ing, and may not have been the major across the river.'- A mid-I25OS survey of characteristic of the livestock trade or even most of the Winchester manors prescribes of the wool trade. London held under 2 the obligations of their customary tenants to carry the lord's corn and malt, or drive ' BL, MS Egerton 24x8. his livestock, to a variety of destinations: 4 Pipe P,oll 17 Henry II, pp 84, 88-9, 113, 131; D L Farmer, 'Some Price Fluctuations in Angevin England', Econ Hist Rev, znd some tenants had to go only to the four ser, IX, 1956, pp 34-4o; J Greatrex, (cd), Accoum Rolls qf the Obedientiaries of Peterborough, Northampton Record Society ' N S B Gras, The Evolutioll of the English Corn Mark,:t, Cambridge, XXXIlI, 1984, pp 165, 179, 193. Mass., 1926, p 21; E Miller, The Abbey aml Bi.;hopric of Ell,, H P R Finberg, 'An early reference to the Welsh cattle trade', Cambridge, I951, p 85. Professor Miller kindly supplied me Ag Hist Rev 2, 1954, pp 12-13; Merton College Moniments 4496 with additional information. (for millstones carted from Southampton to Oxford); R A ' Gras, Ioe cir. Donkin, The Cistercians, Toronto, 19"/8, pp 144-54.

Ag Hist Rev, 37, I, pp i-II I THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW per cent of England's population, and there more distant markets within range. '~ Even were only a few regional centres which within the manorial community there were could not be fed from their immediate many who had to buy food, sometimes hinterlands. By I220 the trade Gras under the duress of the lord (like the bishop reported had ceased: Southwark - at least of Winchester's customary tenants on his according to the surviving Winchester pipe manors near Taunton), but more often rolls - never again sold off surplus grain because they held no land, or held too little despatched by the bishop's manors up the to support their families. Did the demesnes Thames. The city of Winchester itself, sell their surpluses to distant markets or to according to the evidence presented in its buyers close at hand? civic court, normally got its corn from In fact, the manorial accounts, surviving less than seven miles away - despite the in their thousands and so informative on carrying services available on the bishop's many aspects of the medieval economy, manors all over Hampshire. ~ David Postles are usually reticent on what happened to has concluded that 'carrying services were the marketable harvest surpluses. It may essentially local in the thirteenth and four- even be hard to tell what was marketed teenth centuries'.V Most of the non-resident and what was not. Accounting practices traders appearing before Exeter's courts allowed the reeve or bailiff to claim fair lived within five miles of the city; early market value for the corn, malt and live- fourteenth-century Colchester, in a stock supplied to the lord's household, and countryside of woodland, marsh and soil often one cannot be sure which 'sales' were fit mainly for rye, obtained its wheat from of this fictitious nature. Some accounts 'villages up to about eight miles away by describe other transactions as made in foro road'. 8 As Dr Brimell has demonstrated, or i1.1 nundinis, but without naming the the thirteenth century saw a remarkable market or the fair; others state the place, multiplication of markets in most parts of but do not say whether the deal occurred England. `) Some of these served as collect- in the town's market, or at its annual fair, ing points for supplying cities - as Henley or was entirely private and informal. It is and Marlow did for London, and Sherston rare, though, for a compotus to give any and Hawkesbury for Bristol - but most information at all about the purchaser or were centres of consumption by the arti- the destination to which produce was car- sans and craftsmen who settled in the new ried or driven. There are a few well-known market towns and villages. '° More mar- exceptions: Professor Harvey has shown kets, surely, shortened the distance prod- how the Merton College manor of Cux- uce need travel from manor to customer; ham, whose tenants had sworn in I279 on the other hand, the almost-universal that they were not obliged by manorial adoption of the horse to haul carts brought custom to carry to any destination except Wallingford, Henley and the neighbouring manor of Ibstone, almost always sent its wheat the nine miles or so over the Chil- " D Keeue, Survey qfMedieval lVillchestrr, O×ford, sgl~5, p -'7o. tern escarpment to Henley, the great inland v D Postles. 'Customary carrying services', .J~tl Tran.q, ort Hist. 3rd series 5 (No 2), 1984, p 15. port where much of London's grain was x M Kowaleski, 'Local Markets and Merchants in late Fourteenth- bulked before shipment down the Century Exeter', unpublished Phl) thesis, Univ of Toronto, 1982, p 329; R H Britnell, Growth alld declim' in Colchester, Thames.'2 In contrast, Merton's manor of 13oo-1525, Cambridge, 1986, p 44. '~ R H Brimell, 'Tile proliferation of markets in England, 12oo-q349', Econ Hist Rev, 2nd ser, XXXIV, z981, pp 2ot,~2h "j Langdon, Horses, O.veJ~and Tedu~olo,qical lnnavalian, Cambridge, '° Gras, op tit, p 165; A Harding, (ed), Roll qt'tl~e SImv~shi,'t' E),re 1986, p 96. aflz56, Selden Society 96, 198o, pp 16~-2; R H Hilton, 'Medieval '; P D A Harvey, (cd), Mam,'ial Records of Cuxham, O.x:lbrdshire, Market Tow~s', PP Io9, ~985, pp 7-~ ~. c.1200-1349, London, 1976, p 607 and p,lssinl. TWO WILTSHIRE MANORS AND THEIR MARKETS 3 Holywell had an obvious market hard by, chamberlain therefore ran them for the among the bakers and brewers of Oxford, maximum cash income they would yield, and it almost never sent its produce to a and kept them in hand long after Glaston- more distant market. The reeve of Combe bury and other estates had leased out virtu- (Hants) in the summer of 13o7 made seven- ally all their other manors. For some fifty teen journeys to the markets of Newbury years before the Black Death the manorial and Andover (respectively eight and ten accounts frequently state the destinations miles away) to. sell the manor's grain; Ken- to which the Deverills sent their grain, and net (Cambs) in the Iz7os sent wheat and occasionally name the buyers; for a shorter large quantities of barley to Bury St period the compoti also name the buyers Edmunds, ten miles distant. '3 In I35z/3 the of wool, and intermittently over a much bishop of Winchester's Wiltshire manors longer period they record the fairs at which carted large amounts of wheat to Sou- the manors bought and sold livestock and thampton for sale (at a high price) to the the places where they obtained hay and king. '4 But the bailiff of the small Essex similar needs. manor of Langenhoe sold its surplus The manors lie about two miles apart in almost entirely to the people of Colchester the upper Wylye valley, which is narrow four miles away, and Westminster's manor and steep-sided between the downs at of Birdbrook, too far away to play any Monkton Deverill but more open at Long- regular part in supplying the abbey's own bridge Deverill. Direct journeys between needs, sold its produce in Richard II's reign the Deverills and any of their markets to its tenants and villagers and to the people except Warminster necessitated climbing of the hamlets and small towns nearby on over the 5oo-foot contour; journeys over the border of Essex and Suffolk. 's downland to the southern markets were more strenuous than to those in the west. The modern landscape is largely man- I made: Longleat Park occupies much of In most cases these glimpses of a variety the area between Horningsham, Corsley, of marketing patterns span only a few Warminster and Longbridge Deverill, years. The most continuous and compre- while the Stourhead estate lies between hensive records of manorial trade may well Mere and Kilmington. The present roads be those in the compoti of Longbridge in many cases do not follow the tracks Deverill and Monkton Deverill ('East likely to have been used in the past; conse- Monkton') in south-west Wiltshire. Both quently, Figure I does not attempt to show manors belonged to Glastonbury abbey, either, and all distances cited here are 'as and their revenues were assigned to the the crow flies'. By Longbridge Deverill abbey chamberlain.':' They were too far the River Wylye now flows with width from Glastonbury to be a convenient and depth enough to carry the small barges source of the monks' grain and malt. The often used for medieval grain cargoes, but the level has been raised artificially, and u M Chibnall, (ed), Select Doe.racists of the E~e.lish Lands ,:f the Abbey o]'Bec, Camden Society, 3rd ser, LXXIII, t95t, pp t57-8; the manorial accounts contain no sign that PRO, SC6/768/5, 6. the river was ever used for transport. The ~4 Hampshire Record Office, Eccles. 2/I 59363. ,5 R H Britnell, 'Production for the market on a small fourteenth- old forest of Selwood and other woods, century estate', Ecoll Hist Re1,, 2nd ser, XIX, 1966, pp 381-3; which supplied the Deverills with fencing Westminster Abbey Muniments 25472-25492. '" Tile MSS are the property of the Marquess o," Bath at Longleat and hurdles, survive only patchily, and the House, Wilts. I relied exclusively on the admirable nticrofihns hardwood trees of the past have largely made of them by Cedric Chivers Ltd, of Bath, but used cautiously tile dates assigned to tile documents in tile accompanying Index. given way to alien conifers, particularly to In subsequent (ootnotes the prefix L indicates a Longlcat Ms. the north of Penselwood. The Stourhead ~Sri~ol .,"

/ • Stockley(?) • Marlbo~ughI

"'''".., ; J~ Oldford-by-Frome ° Priddy'.. ! •Mells "~ Binegar " Frome 1 o Wells • Frome ,""'" Do~Iting ~" Warminster i • Glastonburv ] " Evercreech'".... 7 ...... IO~ DEVERILL ~/ i Ditche:t~ "''--~NQNKTONDEVERIL~/ve / /" - a~ ...... ~.~.. ~ l /-- " Trudoxhi11 .," Bruton• For other 'nearer' "'"~'~':~ ..... ~i~ •"• ' • Castle. Combe market..... Flqurel.. "-'""-"~ - Somertqfi Yarlington ~~lisbury .'" J Salisbury ...... " ~ " Shaftesbury T

• Sherborne

Penselw~od " -~.-~.~• //-West Knov~ !0 6', 12, 18,, miles ~ _ " Silton Upt~ 0 lO 20 30 ~Warehame ~ !~

I _j I i6 ~. ../../ / j ./" // /"/~

FIGURE i FIGURE 2 The Nearer Markets ofLongbridge Deverill and Monkton Deverill Other Places with which Longbridge Deverill and Monkton Dever- (places to which the customary tenants delivered grain are underlined). ill traded ('more distant' places to which the customary tenants delivered grain are underlined). TWO WILTSHIRE MANORS AND THEIR MARKETS 5 gardens and the Longleat Safari Park now the type of grain carried, for the tenants accommodate other imported flora and who performed the carrying services. The fauna, accounts do not say so, but these payments The only surviving custumal for the were probably for expenses, rather than as Deverills dates from the second quarter wages. For many of the years between of the thirteenth century. '7 The typical I296/7 and I345/6 the compoti record only virgater, Ralph son of Maud, then had to how much was taken to the distant markets carry on the abbot's command to Ditcheat, and how much to the nearer ones, without Cranmore, Wilton or elsewhere within fif- naming them. For some years, one has to teen leagues; at other times the chamberlain deduce from the payments whether the might require him to carry to Glastonbury, grain was taken adfora remota - at the rate but not de jure; the chamberlain had to of Id per qr for wheat or barley - or ad provide what was necessary for him and fora propinquiora, less than seven leagues his horses. The virgater must carry the away, at V2d per qr. About half the accounts, monks' cloths either from Winchester fair however, name some or all of the desti- to Longbridge Deverill, or from Long- nations to which the tenants carried the bridge to Glastonbury (again with his lord's crop. In sum, the evidence shows expenses ad custom camerarii); he could not how the reeves of Longbridge Deverill be obliged to carry the lord's wool or and Monkton Deverill used the carrying cheese further than fifteen leagues. This services to deliver grain to a variety of distance, nominally 22V2 miles, brought markets within a radius of some twenty Glastonbury, Wells and Salisbury within miles - reaching Salisbury in the east and range. Six other virgaters at Longbridge Glastonbury in the west - or, less com- Deverill held by the same service. They monly, to take it to the homes of buyers were more fortunate than the virgaters who had bargained for it privately with on the nearby manor of Bishopstrow, a the chamberlain or other official. property of Lacock abbey; according to The markets most commonly served the c. I260 custumal, these might have to were the near ones, it~a septem leucas, carry to Canford, Southampton or Bris- within about IoV2 miles, probably the tol. ,s maximum distance the villager could travel By the end of the thirteenth century, the out with his load and return home the practice at the Deverills had changed a same day. In twelve of the years in this little. Though the manors' compoti lack period, tenants carried grain to the cloth 'works accounts', they record payments to town of Frome (with markets twice a those who carried or carted the demesne week), and equally often to the hamlet of grain for delivery elsewhere. The custom Trudoxhill (where there appears to have of the manor now prescribed a small pay- been no chartered market at all). As Table 2 ment, scaled according to the distance and shows, Shaftesbury, Nunney and Hindon were each named as destinations in ten of ,7 C J Elton, (ed), Remalia et Custumaria Michadis de Ambreslmry the years. ''~ Despite a few anomalies - 1235-1252 et Rogt'ri de lhv'd t,SZ-tz6z, Abb,uum Monasterii l~eatae Mariae Glastoniae..., Somerset Record Society V, Taunton Shaftesbury was a short haul from Monk- 189t, p 136. When preparing his masterly study of the Glaston- ton Deverill, but a long journey from bury estates, Dr Keil examined only a sample of the l)everill accounts; their number made 'selection imperative' (l J E Keil, Longbridge, and the Monkton reeve once 'The Estates of the Abbey of Glastonbury in the Later Middle Ages', unpublished Phi) thesis, University of Bristol, 1964, p t2). No extent for either Deverill manor survives in the collection "~ Shaftesbury is usually cited in tile documents by its old form of of Glastonbury extents in the British Library (MS Egerton 3321). Shas'ton or Shes'ton. When l first reported on this material (at ,s W G Clark-Maxwell, 'The Customs of Four Manors of the the Medieval Workshop at the University of British Columbia Abbey of Lacock', Wilts Ardl & Nat Hist Mayazim', XXXIL in November 1986) [ incorrectly took these forms to refer to 19o2, p 321. Sherston, in north Wiltshire. THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW TABLE 1 Grain carried to Markets from Longbridge Deverill and Monkton Deverill

Account Year' Wheat price Sourcess Total Grain Can'ied to Carried to per qr" sales nearer ,tore distant Inarkets~ markets4 1296/7 4s Iod L io5q 7V2b 29q 21q 1297/8 5s 2d L 59q 71/2b I298/9 4s 7d L I45q 5b 24q I299/I3OO 3s Iod L 41q oV2b I3OO/1 6s L ~oSq 1oq 11q I3OI/2 4s 4d L II4q 5b t3o2/3 13o3/4 2s 11d L, M 231q 3V2b 48q 7b 12q I3o4/5 6s L 95q 5V2b 56q Ib I3O5/6 5s 3d L, M 26Iq 4V2b 2ioq 12q I3O6/7 4s 4d M 9Iq 5V4b 79q I3O7/8 5s 6d L, M I48q 6b I lq 4b tsq I3o8/9 7s 8d L 14oq 2¥4b 12q 6b 13o9/IO 6s 8d L, M 225q ol/2b I lq 58q 5b 13IO/I 7s 8d L, M 286q IV4b 3q 7b 3oq I3II/2 4s 4d M 6oq 34q 1312/3 4s 8d L, M 2olq 31/4b 18q 24q I313/4 4s 6d M 99q 6Vzb 28q 5b I314/5 5s 2d M 84q 6b 59q 6b I315/6 9s L, M 137q oYab 79q Ib 12q 1316/7 I3S 4d L, M I43q 61/2b 24q I317/8 9s L, M 121q 7b 4q 8q I318/9 3s 8d L, M 22oq 4b I oq 92q 1319120 6s 8d M 72q 5Vab 132o/i 5s 8d M 64c i oq l oq I32I/2 lOs 2d L, M 165( 7Vab 132213 8s L, M 195c 6b I323/4 6s 6d L 9oc 6b 16q I324/5 5s 8d M 81c 5"¼b I325/6 4s 8d M t07c 6V2b 1326/7 4s 4d M i lOC 4V2b I327/8 6s L 92c 1I/2b I328/9 7s 4d L, M II9C II/2b I329/3o 7s L, M 227, 2¥4b 8q 4b I33O/1 9s L, M 242c 3Y4b 133I/2 9s L, M 3211 53/4b 4q 88q 1332/3 7s 4d L, M 256c ol/2b I37q 7b I333/4 5s 6d L, M 3431 3"V4b 191q 6b 45q I334/5 6s 4d M 89q It/4b 12q I335/6 5s xd L, M 223q 2¥4b 42q 38q I336/7 5s 2d M 172q 7b 14q 32q t337/8 5s 4d L, M 271q 3V2b 124q 12q I338/9 5s 4d L, M 389q oV4b 272q I339/4o 9s L 132q 31/2b 75q 12q 134o/I 5s lod L, M 268q 2V2b z3~ q 6b 4q I34I/2 6s L I45q I¥4b 97q I342/3 4s L, M 269q 21/4b 93q 1343/4 6s 8d L, M 226q I V2b 186q 4b 26q 1344/5 4s 4d M 97q 4b I345/6 4s 8d L, M I98q Io3q 1oq Totals 8o99qoV2b 2o66q 7b 777q 6b Percentages: ~oo 25.5 9.6

Nolc$ ' From Michaehnas to Michaehnas. :Mean of selling prices recorded on both manors (if available). ~L = Longbridge Deverill; M = Monkton l)everill. 4Distances are measured 'as the crow flies' fi'om a point mid-way between Longbridge Dcverill and Monkton l)everill; see Figure I. " " TWO WILTSHIRE MANORS AND THEIR MARKETS 7 TABLE 2 Markets to which the Deverills' customary tenants carried grain

Nearer Markets More Distant Markets Destination Meau Distance Number of years Destination Mean Distance Number of years (miles) wheu journeys (mih's) when journeys recorded recorded

Frome 8 12 Oldford-by-Frome 8 V2 I Trudoxhill 8 12 Glastonbury:]: 19 V2 9 Hindon 5 I o Salisbury 18 V2 5 Shaftesbury* I o I o Wells 2o 4 Nunney 9 m East Pennard:]: I7 3 Mere 4 6 Combe-by- Maiden Bradley 3 V2 5 Salisbury I7Vz 3 Warminster 4 3 Lamyeat x3 2 West Knoyle 4 2 Wishford 13 V2 2 BrewhamJ" 9 I Sherborne 20 2 Kihnington 6 t Ditcheat:t: 15 I Gillinghamt 8V2 I Stockley (?) x8 I Tisbury 71/2 I Wilton 15V2 I

NOTES * From Longbridge 1)everill, Shaftesbury was reckoned as 'more distant'; most journeys, though, were from Monkton Deverill. ]" These journeys, despite the modest distances, were paid for at the higher rate; most of these anomalies are in the Monkton Deverill account for 1343/4 (LmT14). :]: Some of these may have been fictional sales, recording transfers to the abbey or to other Glastonbury manors.

or twice claimed unsuccessfully that jour- be demonstrated confidently. The famine neys from his manor to Frome merited the and mortality of the I3IOS had no obvious higher payment - one can reconstruct a effect, though for a dozen years the quan- fairly accurate picture of the distribution tities sold were less than before or subse- between near and distant markets. The quently, and the accounts for this period identifiable journeys took 2o66qr 7b of record carrying services only rarely. From grain (or 72 per cent of the total thus the early I33OS, though, the Deverills sold transported) to the markets usually large amounts of grain in almost every regarded as nearer, and 777qr 6b to those year, and the customary tenants had to held more distant. transport much more than in recent dec- Higher prices justified more costly car- ades, occasionally over 2ooqr a year. The riage, and a more distant market some- evidence is not detailed enough to allow times promised a better price. In the years one to examine these temporal changes when the mean price of wheat sold by more fully, or to reveal different policies those manors was 6s or more per qr, the in the marketing of the cheaper grains tenants took 42 per cent to the further (wheat being much the largest component markets, but only I9 per cent when wheat of the trade). fetched less than 6s. An auditor's note in the margin of the 13 15 / 16 account warned the Longbridge Deverill reeve against car- II rying grain to various markets unless to get Though most of the grain thus carried was a 'better sale'. -'° The correlation between taken to markets, the tenants delivered higher prices and haulage to more distant some consignments to buyers who had markets is probably the only or:e that can purchased privately from the chamberlain or his reeve, thus by-passing the formal au LIo688. market: in I339/4o, for example, the men THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW of Longbridge Deverill carried I2qr of cally from grain sold to the tenantry. In wheat to the house of John Hychcok at 1331/2 the Longbridge tenants bought at Wells. =' Sometimes the cash delivery para- least 2oqr of the 62qr Ib of barley the graphs of the compoti name other buyers, manor sold. =4 Monkton Deverill in 1328/9 to whom the tenants did not transport their sold z8qr of wheat and 51Aqr of barley to purchases: in I338/9 Thomas the Baker the lord's villeins, and in 13 31/2 received bought 2oqr of wheat (and at the end of £3 from barley sold to the tenantry. =5 As the account year still owed £I of the pur- it is rare for any purchaser to be named, chase price of £5); next year, William of these few specific sales to the villagers may Dunkerton bought 24qr of barley and 12qr well point to a normal and extensive trade of oats from Longbridge Deverill, as well between lord and peasant. If most of the as more than 4r/2 sacks of wool. -`= These other buyers who fetched grain directly may have been 'farm-gate' sales, negotiated from the manor were also local men, the directly between the reeve and the buyer; proportion of the saleable surplus sold to on other occasions, though, letters or war- buyers more than seven leagues away may rants .front Glastonbury authorized the have totalled little more than the 9.6 per reeve to hand over grain to some6ne who cent which Table I lists as carried to the had made his bargain with the abbey distant markets by the tenants. William of chamberlain and brought his carts to col- Dunkerton, wool merchant as well as corn lect his purchases. dealer, may well have served a more distant As far as one can tell, the Deverills did market, and one cannot exclude the possi- not use their demesne carts to deliver corn bility that Robert Bronekyng and even to markets or to private customers. Prob- some of the lord's tenants who bought ably most - and possibly all - the grain grain would also take it to sell at a remote sold, but not carried away by the tenants, market; but it seems probable that by far was handed over to buyers who themselves the greater part of the Deverill corn was fetched it front the granaries. Very consumed locally. occasionally a single buyer is named: in Just before the Black Death the accounts 1327/8 Monkton DeveriI1 sold all its sur- suddenly fall silent on grain marketing. plus grain in grosso to Robert Bronekyng, The Monkton Deverill compotus for 1345/6 the manor's own reeve, and obviously an listed payments to tenants who carried entrepreneur as well. =3 William of Dunker- grain to Shaftesbury, Frome and Tru- ton was certainly a dealer in grain; perhaps doxhill, but these entries were then crossed John Hychcok and even William the Baker out and nothing like them was ever rec- were as well. No account ever names a orded subsequently.-'" Though demesne fair as the destination of Deverill grain; the cultivation continued and the manors tenants' journeys were always to a market stayed in hand until the late fifteenth cen- or a private customer, or, rarely, to the tury (apart front an interruption at Monk- abbey or another of its manors. ton Deverill from I428 to 145o), the The Deverills also sold grain to their accounts give no clues to how and where own tenants. Of the 36qr 41/2b of wheat the corn was marketed. So early an end is sold by Longbridge in I328/9, 3oqr 7b unfortunate, as it prevents any study of the were recorded as velldebantur villa,is domirli. effects of the Black Death on the Deverills' Next year, out of a total income of £31 9s grain marketing practices. 61/4d from grain sales, £18 lOS came specifi-

:t L9632. -'~ L8o8o, LSoSz, L8o8?. :: Lio594, L9632, '~ L9728, L973o. 2~ Lio616. '" L9734. TWO WILTSHIRE MANORS AND THEIR MARKETS III I424/5 and I457/8, and in other years to Prominent earlier, by the fifteenth century Somerton fair and Binegar fair, and to sheep farming dominated the Deverill Evercreech, Sturminster Newton, Shaftes- economy. The accounts record where the bury, Maiden Bradley, Yarlington and manors bought and sold some of their Warminster (some of these last may have livestock. Whereas almost all the surplus been markets rather than fairs). Sheep were stock went to the St Luke's fair at Hindon, both bought and sold at Hindon fair, and the Deverills made their purchases at a in a few years Longbridge Deverill also wide variety of fairs, as well as in private sold pigs there. There was also some very transactions which by-passed such formal local trading, with tithe lambs bought, or occasions. At least a few of the purchases bought back, from the vicar of Longbridge were from their own tenants or other Deverill parsonage in four years in the smallholders nearby, as well as from clergy I46os, and from the rector of Corsley in who had received tithe lambs. The reeve two years in that decade. Other lambs were and shepherd normally drove the animals bought in the hamlet of Horningsham in to the fair, perhaps relishing an expenses- I457/8, and from the villager Stephen paid jaunt, or perhaps because many of the Botell of Monkton Deverill in I464/5. other villagers were at Hindon for their The Deverill reeves and shepherds, own purposes. In I324/5, however, Monk- despite such local purchases, seem to have ton Deverill paid 3d to villagers who drove bought most of their animals at the well- 3 oxen and 34 wethers ad N1mditlas et ad established country fairs, often in places mercatas for sale. -'v more distant than the markets to which Before the Black Death, the Deverill the tenants carried grain. Even so, of the accounts mention the purchase of oxen at fairs mentioned above, only Somerton was Shaftesbury in I31O/I1, at Binegar and further away than the 'fifteen leagues' the Bruton in 1331/2, and at Frome, Nunney Glastonbury custumal had envisaged as the and Bishopstrow in I33Z/3; in none of limit of carrying services, and then by these cases are we told whether it was at only a mile or two. The officials of other a market or at a fair that the transaction manors often travelled much further in took place. But the manors bought 3 search of livestock: the bailiff of the Met- horses specifically at Binegar fair in I34o/~, ton College manor of Elham (near the 3 oxen at Priddy fair in 1354/5, and an south coast of Kent) sometimes went to ox at Hindon fair in I434/5. Longbridge the Cotswold fairs at Winchcombe and Deverill sold a palfrey at Salisbury fair in Chipping Campden to buy horses. The I36I/2. The bailiff and reeve of Monkton obedientaries of Durham cathedral priory Deverill in I472/3 spent 8d fruitlessly try- bought stock as far away as Ripon, Pen- ing to sell a horse at Shaftesbury fair, and rith, Kendal and Tweedside; those of Peter- then spent a further 5d in expenses before borough abbey bought 23 oxen at selling the animal at Warminster fair for 1 IS Coventry fair in I5O5/6. :9 These country 8d. 's Longbridge Deverill bought horses at fairs retained their vitality in the south Charthugh (probably near Holt) in I438/9, even when the great Winchester fair was and both plough-horses and oxen at Glas- little more than a memory. At the begin- tonbury in 1454/5. ning of the fourteenth century, Longbridge It was to buy sheep and lan:bs, though, Deverill had paid the Glastonbury cham- that the manorial officials travelled most berlain's expenses while attending Win- widely: to Castle Cary fair in I4~8/19, :'~ C M Fraser, 'The pattern of trade in the north-east of England, -'7 L9727. 1265-135o', Northern Hist IV, 1969, pp 49-5o; Greatrex, (ed), :s L98o3. Account Rolls . . . qt'Peterborough, p 195. IO THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW chester fair with his party - 36s 23/4d and their payments to him and merely collect- 3qr lb of wheat in 13o4/5, for example. 3° ing from Longbridge the wool for which But from the I3IOS he seldom went there, they had contracted. Most of the buyers and the tenants obliged to help carry his one can identify came from within the purchases back from Winchester to Long- fifteen-league radius. bridge, or from Longbridge to Glaston- The purchases of deadstock also help bury, thereafter had that duty commuted to delineate the Deverills' marketing area. for cash. The chamberlain still visited Salis- They fetched iron (or possibly horse-shoes) bury fair most years in the fourteenth from Salisbury in 13o3/4, and from South- century, and frequently in the fifteenth~ ampton in 13o5/6 and 13o6/7. They century as well. As Salisbury had bought tar (for treating sheep scab) at developed as a great centre of the cloth Salisbury, Hindon and Shaftesbury, and trade, there was no need for the chamber- laths at Shaftesbury and Gillingham. Mill- lain to go further. 31 stones usually came from La Penne, and at Marketing the Deverills' wool appears least once each from Wareham, Fonthill to have. been independent of the fairs, at and Salisbury. Hurdles for penning the least in the period spanned by the accounts. flocks were fetched from as far as Gil- In some of the early years the fleeces were lingham, as well as from Chaddenwick, sent to the chamberlain at Glastonbury, Silton and, most often, Merewodelond. and one cannot tell how he disposed of Fencing (claustura) came most commonly them. In the first half of the fourteenth from West Knoyle, occasionally from century, however, the buyers usually came Chaddenwick, Chicklade and Selwood. to Longbridge Deverill to inspect the The large flocks raised on downland fleeces from both manors, to strike their needed more hay than the manors' limited bargains and to carry away their purchases. meadows could supply; this was often In 13Ol/2 it was a burgess of Bristol who fetched from as far away as Gillingham. bought the wool crop; in 130314 and Longbridge Deverill brought 13 cartloads I3o7/8 it was Robert Cnowel or Knowel of hay from Glastonbury itself in 13o4/5, of Salisbury (who sold the manor a mill- and Monkton Deverill 7 loads from there stone in I3O9/IO). In 13IO/II the wool in I352/3. The Deverills also bought it at buyer was Stephen Russel of Winchester; West Knoyle, Evercreech, Frome and (very in I32O/I it was a Marlborough man, and frequently) Mere. Straw for the oxen was in I322/3 two men from Wells. In 1328/9 once bought at Heytesbury. Building stone and again in 1332/3 the fleeces were bought came from Doulting, Mere, Fonthill and by Thomas le Lange and John le Whyte, Tisbury, tiles from Frome and Upton, lime burgesses of Salisbury; in I33o/I four mer- from Frome and Mells. chants of Salisbury bought them. In 134o/I the purchasers were Richard Le Deyar of Leigh, and William le Pahner; in I34I/Z IV John Pew and Richard Weston, both from Intermittently covering a couple of centur- Frome, bought the Deverill clip. After a ies, the accounts show the two manors long silence the accounts name two more trading actively within a range of about buyers: John Lane of Glastonbury in ten miles, going fairly often the twenty I452/3 and John Sheoler of Wells in miles to Salisbury or Glastonbury, and 1454/5. In other years the purchasers dealt venturing further afield - for millstones or directly with the chamberlain, making Spanish iron - only on rare occasions. There is no information on grain market- •~° L9638. .u Victoria Cou,lt), History of Wiltshirr, vol iv, p 124. ing after I345/6, but for other commodities

i / TWO WILTSHIRE MANORS AND THEIR MARKETS II the places visited seem much the same in officials did not travel as far as some reeves the mid-fifteenth century as before the did to find the livestock they needed. Black Death. Yet one may offer a few tentative obser- Dare one assume that the Deverills' pat- vations and conclusions. Despite the tern of trading was typical? Unfortunately, Deverills' isolation, most of the grain trade this would be rash. Longbridge Deverill was local - possibly some 9o per cent and Monkton Deverill were more remote of it was 'within seven leagues'. By the than most from their parent monastery, fourteenth century, if not before, fairs were which reIied upon nearer manors for most unimportant in marketing grain." While of its supplies. 3: The Deverills could not the Deverills bought stock from fairs up use the River Wylye to carry produce to or a little beyond the fifteen-league downstream cheaply to Wilton and Salis- range, most of what they sold went to bury. They were almost equidistant from the nearby outlet at Hindon. Save for the several towns of middling size - Frome, unnamed 'merchant of Bristol', the wool Shaftesbury and Gillingham - and equidis- buyers were 'up country' dealers based in tant also from what were probably the the smaller cities and towns, as likely to more substantial markets of Salisbury, supply local weavers as they were to sell Glastonbury and Wells. They therefore to exporting wool merchants. Millstones, lacked a single dominant market or obvi- building materials and sometimes even hay ous route of trade, such as Holywell and might require long journeys by the Cuxham had, or even a medley of prosper- demesne carts. Above all, the compoti of ing local centres of coqsumption like the Longbridge Deverill and Monkton Dever- textile villages around Birdbrook. If, as ill testify to the flexibility of medieval has been suggested, much of the grain marketing arrangements, and to the ingen- trade around the Deverills was very lim- uity and enterprise of those who bought ited, the corn marketing areas of most and sold the produce of the countryside. manors may have been even more restric- ted. On the other hand, the Deverill .u While one should ,lot take the international cloth fairs, such as those of St lves and Winchester, as in any way typical of the ~: See tile Table of Sources in [ Keil, 'The Granger of Glastonbory country fairs, it is worth noting that l)r Moore cites very few Abbey, I361-62', Somersel & Dorset Notes & Queries, XXVIII, examples of grain dealers or transactions at the fairs she studied 1968, pp 87-8. (E W Moore, The Fairs of Medieval England, Toronto, 1985).