Boom to Bust Alan Payne January 2024
Harrowing a field strip depicted in the Luttrell Psalter of about 1330 (British Library)
The feudal world of homage to overlords was already coming to an end by the late 13th century. The 1217 version of Magna Carta sought to limit the church’s privileges by prohibiting the practice of granting of land to the church and leasing it back to avoid feudal services. But by 1278 the Statute of Gloucester encouraged royal justices to ask tenants to justify their ownership of land and in 1285 the Statute of Winchester tried to lessen local power by making the whole hundred responsible for policing rather than the lord's manor. A new order emerged after consolidating Parliamentary Acts in 1290.
Parliamentary Acts of 1290
The most significant of three transformative Parliamentary Acts that year was the Statute of Quia Emptores (the first words of the Act meaning Because the Buyers) which affected the buying and selling of land. It banned subinfeudation whereby tenants could create their own bondmen tied to the land (a system similar to modern pyramid schemes). Henceforth, only substitution was permitted, releasing the old tenants from their obligations by allowing new tenants to take their place. As a result, there was only a single fealty rent and the whole system ceased if this link in the chain was broken. Another consequence was the creation of a right to automatic inheritance by children. In turn, this led to the accumulation of larger pieces of land by some aspiring peasants.
The second Act of 1290 was Quo Warranto (meaning By What Authority?) was an attempt to challenge claims that land was held by customary tenure. Saxon tenure was often based on kinship ownership (called folkland). The Normans altered this to primogeniture, defining holdings to leading barons and subinfeudation to other family members. The terms of Quo Warranto set a time limit (time immemorial) for tenure to the start of the reign of Richard I, repudiating any Saxon customary terms. The third Act in 1290 was the restatement of the 1279 Statute of Mortmain limiting grants of land in frankalmoin tenure (free of military or domestic obligations) to monastic institutions without royal consent.
Virgate Holders
We get the names of the wealthy peasants in Box from their liability to pay taxes. The Tax List of 1332 names 17 individuals including one person from central Box called William atte Boxe; individuals from the settlements at Alcombe, Ditteridge and John atte Pleistede possibly from Chapel Plaister; and the aspiring people including mill owner, William de Crokesmulle, and dairy farmer, Clement de Wyke.[1] The highest taxed person in the area was Bevis de Knoville (who probably resided at Ditteridge). The Knoville family inherited Ditteridge when Sir Bogo de Knoville, Earl of Chepstow, married Joan de la Hyde in 1272, whose family the Walerands probably came into the estate after the death of William Marshall in 1219. These people were local property holders whose concerns were far removed from those of military knights and their financial importance outweighed their status as free or unfree.
Even before the Conquest, some peasants had amassed substantial wealth. They might own three or four oxen, domestic equipment and furniture. In the 1200s, they built timber framed houses on stone foundations on plots of land enclosed by walls or hedges.[2] Their wealth arose from the amount of land they held: often a virgate (30 acres) or a half-virgate, particularly in the claylands of Wiltshire.[3] The virgate-holders became the normal basis of land holding but still comprised of separate strips in the open fields rather than unified blocks of land.[4] These people began to challenge the authority of the lord.[5] They grazed animals on his woodland without permission and took greater control in the management of the common fields when the lord focused his agricultural plans on his demesne land. Unfree virgaters performed labour duty as badly as possible and negotiated improved terms by claiming customary rights which could never be proven.
Economic Boom Slows
The Tax List of 1332 showed Wiltshire to be the fourth wealthiest county in England but the economy growth of medieval Box was slowing by the early 1300s.[6] Box did not experience a cloth and sheep farming boom nor was it a centre of trade. It was rooted in the old manorial agricultural system and traditional land use. Box's taxable value in 1332 (excluding church land, cottagers and those under a certain level) amounted to £3.7s.11¾d. Box had grown less than neighbouring villages: £4.17s.6¼d for Colerne, and less than Bremhill, Corsham, Kington St Michael, Lacock and Nettleton.
There were signs that the economy was unsustainable. By the 1300s the climate was changing. Every year between 1260 and 1290 there were good harvests but the warm period was ending heralding the advent of the 'Little Ice Age’ with colder winters and wet summers. The downturn started with the ‘Great Famine’, a decade of disastrous, European-wide corn failures starting in 1315. The seriousness of the ‘Great Famine’ can be seen from contemporary accounts in Winchester.[7] Conditions were wet in the winter of 1314; the hay did not dry, rivers and ponds overflowed. The grain harvest in 1315 was very poor with insufficient seed for planting in the autumn. Rain fell again that winter and the next summer, grain prices tripled, peasants sold their precious oxen and starvation increased. The period of wet years continued for a decade and wet ground brought outbreaks of foot rot in animals, pests and plant disease.[8]
The economy was heading for the cliff edge even before the weather problems. There was a shortage of land at a time when too many people cultivated their daily food needs. Farming methods were inadequate to increase productivity and no more land was available. Box’s population was as large in 1348 as it was in 1700.[9] This situation was not sudden; it existed for a century before the end of the feudal period. We can see how much society had moved on from the growth of the economy in the feudal period. In 1100 coinage in circulation was £37,500 but by 1320 this had increased to £1 million.[10] But feudal administrative structures hadn't moved forward sufficienty to solve the problems.
End of Feudal Box
The underlying problem was that feudal society had become too complex: restrictively based on knight’s service and too localised at the manorial level. We can see how much society had moved on from the growth of the economy in the feudal period. In 1100 coinage in circulation was £37,500 but by 1320 this had increased to £1 million.[11] The response of the authorities was to turn the clock back and reaffirm feudal values.
The tension caused by these difficulties became so large in Box that they caused a sudden break with the past and the departure of the village’s main feudal developer, the Bigod family. Writing three centuries later, John Aubrey described the change in 1341 simply as: Henry Bigod de la Boxe sold the manor of Box to Sir John Molyns.[12] Worse was to follow when Box’s economy burst dramatically in 1348 with an outbreak of plague that we call the Black Death. The feudal gravy train came to an abrupt end but its demise posed another problem: what system could be introduced instead?
Parliamentary Acts of 1290
The most significant of three transformative Parliamentary Acts that year was the Statute of Quia Emptores (the first words of the Act meaning Because the Buyers) which affected the buying and selling of land. It banned subinfeudation whereby tenants could create their own bondmen tied to the land (a system similar to modern pyramid schemes). Henceforth, only substitution was permitted, releasing the old tenants from their obligations by allowing new tenants to take their place. As a result, there was only a single fealty rent and the whole system ceased if this link in the chain was broken. Another consequence was the creation of a right to automatic inheritance by children. In turn, this led to the accumulation of larger pieces of land by some aspiring peasants.
The second Act of 1290 was Quo Warranto (meaning By What Authority?) was an attempt to challenge claims that land was held by customary tenure. Saxon tenure was often based on kinship ownership (called folkland). The Normans altered this to primogeniture, defining holdings to leading barons and subinfeudation to other family members. The terms of Quo Warranto set a time limit (time immemorial) for tenure to the start of the reign of Richard I, repudiating any Saxon customary terms. The third Act in 1290 was the restatement of the 1279 Statute of Mortmain limiting grants of land in frankalmoin tenure (free of military or domestic obligations) to monastic institutions without royal consent.
Virgate Holders
We get the names of the wealthy peasants in Box from their liability to pay taxes. The Tax List of 1332 names 17 individuals including one person from central Box called William atte Boxe; individuals from the settlements at Alcombe, Ditteridge and John atte Pleistede possibly from Chapel Plaister; and the aspiring people including mill owner, William de Crokesmulle, and dairy farmer, Clement de Wyke.[1] The highest taxed person in the area was Bevis de Knoville (who probably resided at Ditteridge). The Knoville family inherited Ditteridge when Sir Bogo de Knoville, Earl of Chepstow, married Joan de la Hyde in 1272, whose family the Walerands probably came into the estate after the death of William Marshall in 1219. These people were local property holders whose concerns were far removed from those of military knights and their financial importance outweighed their status as free or unfree.
Even before the Conquest, some peasants had amassed substantial wealth. They might own three or four oxen, domestic equipment and furniture. In the 1200s, they built timber framed houses on stone foundations on plots of land enclosed by walls or hedges.[2] Their wealth arose from the amount of land they held: often a virgate (30 acres) or a half-virgate, particularly in the claylands of Wiltshire.[3] The virgate-holders became the normal basis of land holding but still comprised of separate strips in the open fields rather than unified blocks of land.[4] These people began to challenge the authority of the lord.[5] They grazed animals on his woodland without permission and took greater control in the management of the common fields when the lord focused his agricultural plans on his demesne land. Unfree virgaters performed labour duty as badly as possible and negotiated improved terms by claiming customary rights which could never be proven.
Economic Boom Slows
The Tax List of 1332 showed Wiltshire to be the fourth wealthiest county in England but the economy growth of medieval Box was slowing by the early 1300s.[6] Box did not experience a cloth and sheep farming boom nor was it a centre of trade. It was rooted in the old manorial agricultural system and traditional land use. Box's taxable value in 1332 (excluding church land, cottagers and those under a certain level) amounted to £3.7s.11¾d. Box had grown less than neighbouring villages: £4.17s.6¼d for Colerne, and less than Bremhill, Corsham, Kington St Michael, Lacock and Nettleton.
There were signs that the economy was unsustainable. By the 1300s the climate was changing. Every year between 1260 and 1290 there were good harvests but the warm period was ending heralding the advent of the 'Little Ice Age’ with colder winters and wet summers. The downturn started with the ‘Great Famine’, a decade of disastrous, European-wide corn failures starting in 1315. The seriousness of the ‘Great Famine’ can be seen from contemporary accounts in Winchester.[7] Conditions were wet in the winter of 1314; the hay did not dry, rivers and ponds overflowed. The grain harvest in 1315 was very poor with insufficient seed for planting in the autumn. Rain fell again that winter and the next summer, grain prices tripled, peasants sold their precious oxen and starvation increased. The period of wet years continued for a decade and wet ground brought outbreaks of foot rot in animals, pests and plant disease.[8]
The economy was heading for the cliff edge even before the weather problems. There was a shortage of land at a time when too many people cultivated their daily food needs. Farming methods were inadequate to increase productivity and no more land was available. Box’s population was as large in 1348 as it was in 1700.[9] This situation was not sudden; it existed for a century before the end of the feudal period. We can see how much society had moved on from the growth of the economy in the feudal period. In 1100 coinage in circulation was £37,500 but by 1320 this had increased to £1 million.[10] But feudal administrative structures hadn't moved forward sufficienty to solve the problems.
End of Feudal Box
The underlying problem was that feudal society had become too complex: restrictively based on knight’s service and too localised at the manorial level. We can see how much society had moved on from the growth of the economy in the feudal period. In 1100 coinage in circulation was £37,500 but by 1320 this had increased to £1 million.[11] The response of the authorities was to turn the clock back and reaffirm feudal values.
The tension caused by these difficulties became so large in Box that they caused a sudden break with the past and the departure of the village’s main feudal developer, the Bigod family. Writing three centuries later, John Aubrey described the change in 1341 simply as: Henry Bigod de la Boxe sold the manor of Box to Sir John Molyns.[12] Worse was to follow when Box’s economy burst dramatically in 1348 with an outbreak of plague that we call the Black Death. The feudal gravy train came to an abrupt end but its demise posed another problem: what system could be introduced instead?
References
[1] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 45, p.101
[2] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, 2002, Yale University Press, p.171
[3] John Hare, A Prospering Society, 2011, University of Hertfordshire, p.29, 41
[4] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, p.97
[5] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, p.180
[6] Derek Parker and John Chandler, Wiltshire Churches: An Illustrated History, 1993, Alan Sutton, p.32
[7] Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Times of Feast, Times of Famine, 1972, George Allen & Unwin, p.46
[8] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, p.229, 254
[9] Christopher Taylor’s commentary on WG Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape, 198, p.96
[10] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, 2002, Yale University Press, p.101
[11] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, 2002, Yale University Press, p.101
[12] John Aubrey, Wiltshire Topographical Collection, re-published 1862, The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, p.56
[1] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 45, p.101
[2] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, 2002, Yale University Press, p.171
[3] John Hare, A Prospering Society, 2011, University of Hertfordshire, p.29, 41
[4] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, p.97
[5] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, p.180
[6] Derek Parker and John Chandler, Wiltshire Churches: An Illustrated History, 1993, Alan Sutton, p.32
[7] Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Times of Feast, Times of Famine, 1972, George Allen & Unwin, p.46
[8] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, p.229, 254
[9] Christopher Taylor’s commentary on WG Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape, 198, p.96
[10] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, 2002, Yale University Press, p.101
[11] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, 2002, Yale University Press, p.101
[12] John Aubrey, Wiltshire Topographical Collection, re-published 1862, The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, p.56