Active Resource Management in the Anglo-Norman Kingdom
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© Copyright by Dolores M. Wilson December, 2003 RESOURCES, ROLES, AND CONFLICT: ACTIVE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGDOM _________________ A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston _________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts _________________ By Dolores M. Wilson December, 2003 RESOURCES, ROLES, AND CONFLICT: ACTIVE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGDOM ______________________________ Dolores M. Wilson APPROVED: ______________________________ Sally N. Vaughn, Ph.D. Committee Chair ______________________________ Martin V. Melosi, Ph.D. Department of History ______________________________ Catherine Patterson, Ph.D. Department of History ______________________________ ______________________________ John J. Antel, Ph.D. Richard A. Armstrong, Ph.D. Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Department of Modern & Classical Department of Economics Languages ii RESOURCES, ROLES, AND CONFLICT: ACTIVE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGDOM _________________ An Abstract of a Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston _________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts _________________ By Dolores M. Wilson December, 2003 iii Abstract Contrary to the view that the Middle Ages was simply a time of rapid environmental exploitation and degradation, legal documents of the Anglo-Norman kings who reigned England and Normandy 1066-1135 reveal that medieval landholders practiced conscious management of their resources. These resources centered on woodland and fisheries, both daily necessities. Because of the value of woodland products, foresters employed by the king, lay nobility, and ecclesiastics actively managed trees and vegetation. The understanding of ecosystem damage is evident in controls on fisheries, specifically restrictions on blocking the passage of fish in waterways. These conservation efforts were not aimed at environmental preservation because of altruistic motivations, but rather to preserve needed resources for economic and political ends. Because of the value of the environmental riches at their disposal, conflict was inevitable and could escalate to violence. These incidents reinforce the conclusion that the Anglo-Normans practiced a defacto active resource management. iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Bodleian Library and Koninklijke Bibliotheek for kind permission to reproduce several manuscript images in this thesis. I would also like to thank Phillimore & Co Ltd for permission to use modified map outputs from the Domesday Explorer CD-ROM. A special word of appreciation goes to the University of Houston Special Collections department who assisted me in countless hours of research with their Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: 1066-1154 volumes. v Table of Contents Abstract.............................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgements............................................................................................................. v Table of Contents............................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ...................................................................................................................viii List of Figures..................................................................................................................viii Perspectives & Sources of Environmental History for the Anglo-Norman Kingdom........ 1 Anglo-Norman Historical Sources.................................................................................. 2 Environmental History & the Middle Ages.................................................................... 8 Legal Basis of Norman Environmental Management................................................... 16 Multi-Use Management of the Medieval Anglo-Norman Forest ..................................... 21 Collecting Timber and Firewood.................................................................................. 29 Pasturing Livestock....................................................................................................... 39 Hunting for Game ......................................................................................................... 60 Control of Fishery Resources in Anglo-Norman Lands ................................................... 73 Agents of Medieval Resource Conservation..................................................................... 95 Noble Control of Resources.......................................................................................... 95 Foresters, Hunters, and Hawkers ................................................................................ 104 Contested Resources and Conflict Resolution................................................................ 116 Conclusions................................................................................................................. 136 APPENDIX A: The 1140 Calendar of St. Albans – Images of Agricultural Practice or Imagination? ................................................................................................................... 139 vi APPENDIX B: Translation of a Letter to King John ..................................................... 151 APPENDIX C: Glossary of Technical Terms ................................................................ 153 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 154 vii List of Tables Table 1. Religious Houses Granted Forest Concessions in England..............................26 Table 2. Religious Houses Granted Forest Concessions in Normandy ..........................27 Table 3. Summary of Domesday Fisheries .....................................................................76 List of Figures Figure 1. Woodlands listed in Great Domesday............................................................... 30 Figure 2. Woodlands listed with pigs in Great Domesday. .............................................. 43 Figure 3. Historiated initial KL for the month of October in manuscript produced at St. Albans monastery c. 1140 showing a swineherd knocking down acorns for a pig below (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. D.2.6, fol. 6r.).................................... 52 Figure 4. Historiated initial KL for the month of November in manuscript produced at St. Albans monastery c. 1140 showing a man killing a pig with an axe (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. D.2.6, fol. 6v.)............................................................. 52 Figure 5. Calendar image facing November calendar in Norman manuscript c. 1180 showing a swineherd knocking down acorns for pigs below (The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS. 76 F 13, fol. 11v)...................................................... 53 Figure 6. Calendar image facing December calendar in Norman manuscript c. 1180 showing the slaughter and cooking of a pig that was evidently fed in the woods (The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS. 76 F 13, fol. 12v).......................................... 54 Figure 7. Close-Up of Brookland Lead Font with Calendar Images. Knocking down acorns for a pig is shown for November in the center panel, lower left. The pig slaughter represents December in center panel, lower right. Francis Bond, Fonts and Font Covers (London: Oxford University Press, 1908), 80...................................... 55 Figure 8. Saint-Evroult-de-Montfort Lead Font with Calendar Images. November’s image of knocking down acorns for two pigs is on the left. December’s pig slaughter is on the right. Photograph courtesy of Kyle Wilson. ....................................................... 56 viii Chapter 1 Perspectives & Sources of Environmental History for the Anglo-Norman Kingdom Modern perception of human interaction with the environment is heavily rooted in our post-industrial setting. The environment comes to the forefront each year, especially for school children, via Earth Day celebrations. The first Earth Day in 1970 was organized as a ‘teach-in’ with both an educational and protest flavor.1 In tone, it was negative: a forum to express the American concerns about degradation of the land, rivers, lakes, and air.2 In this Earth Day setting, humans are viewed as the destroyer, the polluter of the environment. This has serious impacts on the perception of human historical interaction with the environment: If people have done such a bad job of keeping our environment healthy in spite of all of our modern scientific knowledge, how much more damage must they have done in the past in their ignorance? This thesis will counter this modern perception. Through an examination of the legal documents of the first three Anglo-Norman kings (William I, William II, and Henry I) who reigned from 1066 to 1135, we will investigate the level of awareness and control exercised by the medieval Anglo-Normans over their environmental resources. What were the resources they 1 Jack Lewis, “The Spirit of the First Earth Day,” EPA Journal (Jan/Feb 1990) 2 Senator Gaylord Nelson, “All About Earth Day,” The Wilderness Society, http://earthday.wilderness.org/history/ 1 attempted to manage? How did they exercise control? What types of conflicts developed over these coveted resources? Were the management practices truly active