GuLLE y (o-1L.19) 19‘o . -044...f. ge1t4/1%) Vcre,.2. 294 Iv IMMO THE WALDEN LANDSCAPE Di THE EARLY FOURTEENTH CENTURY Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient data. Samuel Butler. (i) The Black Death: the arrest of early-medieval expansion. A relatively low density of population and a dispersed habitat did not significantly reduce the disruptive effect of the plague on economic life in the Weald. The marginal settlements and manors, nearest to large population centres in the surrounding regions, were especially attacked. At Lagban and Warden in Godstone the population was almost wiped out; in 1349 no one ground at the water-mill, 200 acres of sheep pasture in Warden and 200 acres of arable in Leghtus could not be farmed, both courts had no revenue from lack of suitors and the rent of free tenants in Laghan had fallen to 4/— from 30/— in the previous 1 year. In 1349 all save tea of the tenants of Paddington manor in 2 Abinger were dead and the capital messuage of Tandridge, not far away, 3 was broken down in 1351.(By contrast, Dorking manor had as many servile tenants shortly after 1349 as before and the number of rent—paying free 4 tenants had increased. ) Further east, the Black Death caused a severe, if temporary, disruption at Westerham. 1. PRO. C 135/104/20. Lagbamwas in the south of the pariah on the Weald. Clay, Warden in the north on the Lower Chalk. Warden settlement site (deserted apparently since 1349) lien near Warden Castle (ex. inf. ICJ Glasscock) and is now in Warlingham parish. 2. PRO.0 135/100. 3. PBO.0 135/113A. 4. VUH.ST.4, 1912. 418. 5. T.L.M. Bishop.1938.38, STOCK SALES UNOCCUPIED HOLDINGS —Rare arleolue ta. to et wens — Roe, Ofts1101 Ow was OWNS - Rola 4111•1161 fbe RPM waffle@ THE BLACK DEATH AT PETWORTH MURRAIN INCOME AND EXPENSE I34S-9 Fig. 27. Data from L.F.Salzman(ed.)1 955.In the graph of unoccupied holdings, - the account of 1349 is for the second half of the accounting year 1348-9. 295 These manors lay along the northern margin of the Weald, the nearest to London. Along the southern margin 2/3 of the population of Alciston manor died in 1349, including 8 tenants in the Wealden part 1 of the manor at Hellingly; in 1350 9 tenant holdings at Laughton had been vacated and re-leased whilst 13 still lay in the hands of the lord. In March 1349 12 deaths were recorded at Wartling and in October over 60; 3 25 of these left no heirs and 10 others left only minors. The effects of the drop in population were long felt in many cases; Shulbrede Priory complained in 1358 that its lands lay waste since its labourers had been 4 killed by plague and replacements could not be found and in Street 5 manor, 1366, there were still small holdings without tenants. By this time the second attack had come in 1360-1 and it was this which closed 6 the Tudeley ironworks in Kent; in l373-4 afterthe third attack in Winton 1369, there were more customary holdings without tenants than the] had been after the first attack in 1349. The effects of the first onset of plague on the actual processes of husbandry were mirrored in the surviving accounts of Petworth manor, 8 (Fig 27) where as many as 300 people appear to have died. The total receipts of the manor fell from £215 in 1347-8 to t158 in 1352-3; in 1351' though more barley was grown than 5 years before, the grain total was 1. W. Bugden. 1930. 124-5, from Gage MSS, Barbican. House. Lewes. 2. M. Add. Ch 32138. 3. L. Add. Ch 32656-7. 4, Bag. Chichester C f 67; the difficulties may have been exaggerated el the Priory was requesting the advowson of Midlavant church in recompt 5. W. Bugden. 1942. 34-5. 6. M.S. Guiseppi. 1913.148-51. 7. W. Hudson. 1911. 180-2; in 1356-7 and year after there were 9 custom holdings still not paying rent; in 1373-4 15 out of the 23 total wen in the lord's hands. 8. Calculation of loss from defaulted tenements plus heriets of others' cam 296 substantially lower. Totals of the major crops and of all grain had bee' 1 yet lower in the intervening plague years. Three years after the major outbreak of plague in 1349 the decline in production had not been by any means recovered; there were signs of recovery-grain sales were increasing again by 1353, the value of defaulted rents was dropping as 2 surviving tenants began to lease unused lands - but crop totals were still substantially lower and labour costs higher than before the plague If little land was left unutilized by 1353 much land formerly tilled was leased as grazing - the intensity of land-use had fallen; at Chalvington further east the plague left an extreme labour shortage during which animals strayed for lack of herdsmen and destroyed much of the arable produce. ,Ty 1352 animal husbandry had not recovered either. In that year the stock of Petworth comprised 153 cattle, 24 calves, 446 sheep, 238 lambs and 81 swine; in 1347-8 there had been 220 cattle, 24 calves, 666 sheep, 36661ambs and 273 swine. The sale of stock and their products fell also. Plague hit tillage directly by reducing agricultural labour and the market for food; its effects on stock were more indirect. /iving 100 men as dying, plus at least 200 wives and dependants. The accounts are 1347-50 & 1352-3. 1. The trends of the crops differed; rye declined over the period; barley remained stable 1347-50, sharp rise by 1352-3, but judging from earlier accounts much barley waspurchased and this rise may be deceptive: large eats, an unimportant grain, declined to almost nil: small eats, the chief grain, fell over 50$ 1347-53. Wheat and grey-peas came almost wholly ire the subsidiary Download manors to the south. L.P. Salzman(ed.) 1955. 12-4 2, The first referenceto the pestilence comes in mid-1349: U. Salmman(ed. 1955. 31-3. In 1349-50 18 tenant holdings and 9 cottage holdings defaults on their rents and duel* and were in the lord's hands. Their later leash, is portrayed in Fig. 26.27 297 lit the dislocation of the plague years led to widespread neglect of the stock at Petworth; only thus can the large toll of murrain during the plague years be explained. In 1347-8 61 animals died of murrain, in the next two years when the plague raged 81 and 125; by 1352-3 the figure 1 was down again. These figures come from the demesne stock and the smaller peasant flocks must have been affected similarly; also the many heriots demanded from heirs in these years, whilst they contributed to 2 the demesne stock, further reduced the resources of the tenant farmers. Such were the substantial and long lasting effects of the Black Death on one Walden manor. Economic stagnation in later medieval Europe generally, or in the Weald particularly, cannot be attributed 3. The costs of machinery-ploughs and carts-also increased; ib 5-12, 47-51, 67-8. 4e ib. xxxiii, cit. Sussex Arch. Trust, Barbican House Lewes Ch.251. 5, Sale 1347-8 was 42/13/3; 1349-50 0/3/3; 1352-3 29/17A. Over these years there were major changes in the importance of items sold; in 1347-8 cows, ewes and bacon in that order were chief, in 1352-3 wool, pigs and caws. By the later year the chief sales were mobile goods i ch could travel further to find a market - wool which could be carrio and swine which could be driven long distances with less harm than could cattle or sheep. 1, 1352-3 figures only exist for sheep and cattle - 12 died; cf. 64 for these two groups 1349-50. 2. 5 heriots 1347-8, 17 in first half of 1348-9, 41 second half; none 1349-50. 298 solely to the Black Death but the effects of the plague were symptomatic of what followed. The later medieval years were years of a stagnant or declining population and the plague outbursts were the first and most violent incidents in this development; during the years immediately after 1349 emd. characteristics of the later medieval period as a whole became clear for the first time — decline in the cultivated area, decline in production for market, decline in demesne farming and the spread of leasing. If the first symptoms that early medieval expansion had ended did appear before 1349 it was the Black Death and its trail which clearly marked the end of the period which had preceded. (ii) Timber and its utilisation. In the early fourteenth century most estates and farms included woodland but its proportion to the total area varied; on one farm unit 1 of 70 acres in Bolney 1352, wood was 14% of the whole, on a small farm 2 of 20 acres in Cowden 1327 wood was only 8% but on a 338 acre unit in 3 lisborough Green 1372 it exceeded two—thirds. Generally a, wood VAS 4 within one ownership, but a few were subdivided; much woodland lay inside parks, where the largest continuous blocks of woodland were to be 5 found. In 1329 Etchingham Park had 400 acres of timber and copse and a • 1.