Box in 1400s and 1500s Alan Payne September 2024
Sowing corn depicted in the Lutterell Psalter (courtesy British Library)
Historians of the 1400s in England have largely focused on the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses. The former included Henry V’s victory at Agincourt and the ending of the war. The latter featured the private armies raised by the nobles and 9 changes of king in the seven decades from 1413 to 1486. Some of this is evident in the story of Box. Royal demands of purveyance (each county required to supply goods for the war sometimes paid for, sometimes not) continued (and was probably complained about as in 1330 by the men of Somerset and Dorset).[1]
After the Manor of Box was inherited by 4-year-old Eleanor Moleyns in 1430, it later passed to her husband, Lord Robert Hungerford, brother of Baron Walter Hungerford of Farleigh. Robert fought in the Wars of the Roses but beheaded for treason after a change in monarch in 1464.[2] The manor subsequently went to Robert’s granddaughter Mary and her husband Sir Edward Hastings, Lord of Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire, in about 1478.[3] It stayed with the Hastings family and George Hastings, who died in 1544.
Box Residents
Little of this appear to have affected he residents who lived in Box and the sources indicate a stable and peaceful local society. It is generally believed that the number of residents scarcely increased between 1348 and 1535. The 1377 Tax List numbered 175 adults over 14 years but this excluded clerics, servants, vagrants, children, and those too poor to be mentioned. The general consensus is that, to get the total population, we should double that number to 350 people.[4] But we do begin to get some idea of the range of residents. Cases of breeches of the peace listed at the legal Quarter Sessions between 1574 and 1592 mention various Box residents: 2 gentlemen, 4 yeomen, 9 husbandmen, 2 masons, 1 freemason (quarryman), and 1 tailor.[5] We get the appearance of a self-supporting Box village society. Yeomen often guaranteed their neighbours in amounts of £10, including John West and James Young alias Patrick (illegitimate son of Patrick). Frequently people stood as guarantors for each other: artisans matched their fellows, Thomas Keynes, mason stood as guarantor; Richard Broade and Clement Curtys, husbandmen, pledged £20 each. By 1620 we see Joan Avarice (alehouse keeper), John Jarvis (alehousekeeper), John Smithe (husbandman) and Richard Hedges (butcher) all cross-guaranteeing each other.[6]
There are just a handful of ordinary 16th century houses still standing, included Byways in Chapel Lane, the Old Dairy, and Hill House Farm with features from the 1500s.[7] The Allen maps of the early 1600s give an indication of where people lived in central Box, some gathered in residences around the church, the Manor House, the Market Place and up to Box Mill. Many people lived in the crofts surrounding common land, waste land, woodland and quarry areas.[8] Other houses bordered trackways in the hamlets at Ditteridge, Middle Hill, Rudloe, Ashley, and Wadswick. The residents grew fruit and vegetables in garden plots and kept chickens, goats and ducks.[9] Some farmed on their strips in the common fields; others worked as manual labourers for a cash income, which their wives could supplement by brewing and selling ale, making bread or selling goods from their house. Most residents were still involved in agriculture: a few yeoman farmers with 50 acres and more husbandmen with 10 acres. Squatters’ homesteads or temporary shacks were erected by landless artisans who set up temporary housing until the authorities moved them on. House building in Box was closely controlled by the vill (village or manorial court), such as a special licence granted to Anthony Vincent in 1591 to build a cottage.[10]
There were huge numbers of other people, like apprentices and servants (perhaps 25% of the population), who lived in their masters' (or mistress's) household and worked indoors or as servants in husbandry. Most worked for the gentry and yeomen farmers, were unmarried, young 14 to 25 years old, who were given clothes, food and lodging and received a small wage once a year. These people generally found places within 10 miles of their birth and 50% of them married a partner from the same parish. They were hired annually and as late as the 1800s there was still a hiring fair at Kingsdown.[11]
Rural Skills
By the late Middle Ages specialist rural workers lived the centre of the village, often farming as well as providing local people with skilled services. Carpenters repaired carts, millwheels and were undertakers and builders; leather workers made straps out of animal hides, rope manufacturers were needed for haulage purposes, butchers disposed of large animals and food sellers were needed to bridge harvest shortfall.[12] These people did not have shops as we know them but they combined small-scale farming with the provision of specialist services.
The medieval use of timber shows how complicated woodwork had become. Wood was a vital commodity and its use was highly regulated. Tenants had customary rights to the lord's wood (estover) for specified purposes: firebote for domestic fires; housebote for repair of homes; ploughbote for repairing agricultural implements, carts and tools; and also haybote for fence repair.[13] Beyond these needs, large sections of timber had to be acquired for building, wheel-making and cart manufacturing purposes. Another specialist, the blacksmith, looked after repairs to the manor ploughshare; shod horses and oxen; sharpened axes and sickles; and made hooks and nails.[14] He was often granted a few acres of land as a general payment as well as charging for specific jobs. Often, he charged not cash but goods in kind, originally negotiated but later set by custom.[15]
Drewetts Millhouse is late sixteenth century. The miller gave free service on the lord’s grain but took an income on all other grain: a toll of one-twentieth of corn if the seed was taken to him or one-tenth if he did the transportation. The income was rightfully that of Farleigh Priory who farmed it out (charged) the miller a lump sum. The weight of corn was a constant source of dispute and in 1439 William Pycott, miller at Box, was fined 20d for a breach of this by the sheriff of the Hundred court.[16]
Rural artisans were vital to local self-sufficiency and perks were given to the manor’s officers; often small acreages in return for their work. The hayward often had a virgate for looking after fences; the tythingman had an acre and half. The carpenter, pound keeper and the priest were exempt from providing ordinary services to the lord. These people were an integral part of a tightly controlled rural community increasingly based on central Box. For more skilled work needing coopers (barrel makers) or joiners (furniture repairers) you went to the local Wednesday market in Corsham which was founded in 1285. For specialist work like church bells, you went to Bristol.
Cloth Making in Box
In the Late Middle Ages, manufactured woollen cloth became an important part of the English economy. Parts of North and West Wiltshire specialised in the manufacture of finished cloth using local fullers earth to absorb the wool’s lanolin and then cleaning the cloth with mechanised hammers in the mills of the fast-flowing rivers and streams, particularly on the By Brook. The staple product was broadcloth, so called because the spun wool was processed into cloth using a wide loom. The spinning and loom-weaving parts of wool processing were usually sub-contracted out to individual families.
Box did not become a fulling area to clean, thicken and felt raw wool like Trowbridge and Bradford, probably because the By Brook flowed too slowly through Box to power this type of mill.[17] Instead, Box was an outwork area where entrepreneurial cloth merchants put out wool yarn for people to manufacture into cloth in their own houses. The wool was spun and woven into fine, white (not dyed) broadcloth for export where it was later dyed and finished into clothes.[18] It was a comparatively low capital entry trade because self-employed weavers only required a loom, which could be owned or rented. The weavers took in yarn on credit; manufactured it into cloth in return for piecework wages; and handed the cloth back to the merchant. The economic role of women began to change and, at times, they were the major breadwinner. They often did the skilled processing work such as weaving, whilst men and children did the repetitive labour like spinning. Box's small-scale animal farmers also became weavers (either themselves or their wives) if they had time to combine both occupations and for landless cottage holders it became the main source of income. For the cottage holders who lived at Ashley Leigh, it enabled them to survive.
The industry was subject to deep economic downturns, however, which brought considerable hardship. In 1450 the recession ended in the rebellion of Jack Cade in Kent and the period 1450-80 saw violence in areas around Box; the bishop of Salisbury killed in 1450; and attacks on property at Tilshead, Devizes and Wilton involving hundreds of men.[19] The boom years were the early 1500s when it became a specialist trade in the west country and local cottages were the heartland of broadcloth manufacture.[20] It was the exciting new industry and at times colossally profitable to the likes of the Methuens at Bradford-on-Avon. In 1540 John Leland said: al the toune of Bradeford standith by clooth making and that Trowbridge was: very well buildid of stone and [21]flourisheth by drapery.[22] A number of common surnames derive from these activities: Walkers, Fullers and Tuckers were the people who cleaned and felted the material by treading it in tubs of water, urine and fullers earth.[23]
It was not always a stable industry, however, and after the loss of Calais in 1552, the foreign market collapsed, prices tumbled, and depression brought unemployment, a new phenomenon. By 1604 broadcloth manufacture was in chronic depression and the industry changed to manufacturing new draperies (serge and medley cloth like denim) made using imported wool.[24] A new type of merchant arose in the area in the 1600s, small local wool broggers (unlicensed dealers), who sourced wool locally instead of the great merchants and fellmongers (dealers in sheep skins for gloves) who provided for the latest fashion trend.
Quarry Workers
Without heavy lifting equipment, the cost of quarrying stone for buildings was limited to those who were wealthy; at first just church buildings but by the mid-1400s the most important families. In 1465 Thomas Tropenell acquired Hazelbury quarry for building Great Chalfield Manor.
In 1573 Sir John Thynne bought Hazelbury Quarry for 40 shillings for their redevelopment of Longleat.[25] He was steward to Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector, who had built Somerset House, The Strand, London and inspired Thynne.[26] Sir John also demolished parts of Farleigh Hungerford Caste for additional stone. The family held the quarry rights until 1868 when they sold it to Job Pictor.
Religious Devotions
One consequence of the plagues was an increase in piety and pilgrimages as redemption for the sins of ancestors and to prevent new epidemics. Pilgrimages were penitence but they were also exciting. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales depicts the fun that travellers enjoyed: Here at this inn another company As merry as the one that's gathered now. Chapel Plaister was a hospice (hostel), a stopping point on the pilgrim’s way to Glastonbury to see the shrine of Joseph of Arimathea, the first keeper of the Holy Grail. The local route is still identifiable from placenames - Stanton St Quinton, Kington St Michael, Holy Well near Biddestone, and Cross Keys (the sign of St Peter) at Pickwick.[27] There are dozens of similar church buildings in Wiltshire, with one or two rooms, tiny wooden bell-cots, and seating about 40 people.[28]
The building at Chapel Plaister was always a capella (chapel not church) with no incumbent priest, no right to give the sacraments, and no burial ground. Preaching rights were a source of income from pilgrims keen to learn of stories about Glastonbury: the thorn tree which took root from Joseph’s staff; the spring where the Holy Grail was buried; and speculation whether Joseph had brought his great nephew, the infant Christ, with him when he visited Britain (as per William Blake centuries later in his poem Jerusalem). In about 1470 the building at Chapel Plaister was widened, a porch and a second story added to accommodate male and female visitors.[29] When John Leland visited the area in 1540, just after the dissolution of the monasteries, society had changed and the chapel was little used: I left on the lift hand on the toppe of a little hille an heremitage withyn a litle as I turned doun to Haselbyri.[30]
The amount of tax due to Box Church before the Reformation was invasive to an economy that was trying to reinvest its profits to encourage growth. The great tithes on corn which were payable to Farleigh Priory, the rector (or its agent), mostly affected the peasants still working the common fields. The lesser tithes on livestock, fruit and other crops, due to the vicar, covered every aspect of local agriculture often in minute detail. In the early 1600s the lesser tithes included: wool, lambs, cow white (milk), coppices, wood, groves... underwood and hedgerow which is sold.[31]
In 1678 we get precise details of the tithes due: 10th cock (stack) of hay and of french grass called sainfoin [St Faen] (grass plant) or the seed of it. 3d at Lammas (the loaf mass on 1 August) for every calf fallen in the parish. If sold, tenth of the money; if killed by the owner, 1 shoulder... The tenth of the locks of wool of all sheep kept in the parish... If sold before shearing for every sheep 1/4d for every month they have been kept within the parish paid at Ladyday (25 March) ... the tenth, or if no more, the seventh lamb ... The tenth or seventh of all pigs. For every hen 1 egg, for the cock 2. The tithe of apples, pears and all other fruit. The tenth acre or tenth perch (51/2 yards) of all coppice woods.[32] As field enclosure increased, the importance of hedgerows grew: Of hedgerows that are sold the tenth of the money. The tenth of all hedgerows reserved by the owner to his own use if they are above 1 perch broad. At Ditteridge the tithes included honey, yermoth (the second crop of grass) and fitches (vetches or legumes).[33] The tithe list intruded in everyday life: The Easter offering of every communicant 2d and for every garden 1d.
Rise of Peasant Meritocracy
The Bonham family were typical of the rising gentry class in the Tudor period. They came from humble yeomen beginnings and rose through hard work and judicious marriage, including John Bonham's wedding to Ann Croke, heiress of John Croke of Hazelbury. The marriage in 1475 is documented in English reflecting the local rural accent: Thys indentur ... wytnessythe ... to the seyd John Bonham and to Ann hys wyffe the dowzter (daughter) of the seyd John Croke.[9] Anne’s marriage settlement included the Manor of Hazelbury and 1 dovecote, 1 garden, 140 acres of land, 6 acres meadow, 40 acres pasture and 120 acres wood there.[10] The third John Bonham bought the dissolved abbey at Lacock in 1540 and in 1544 Farleigh Priory’s possessions in Box from Sir William Sharington. This included the rectory and advowson (right to nominate the vicar) of Box Church, various lands and tenements, 1½ virgates in Wadswick called Raylands, a tithe barn and the Great Tithes (corn and hay) in Rudloe.[A11] Matthew Smyth (agent for Sir John Smyth of Long Ashton) took possession of the advowsons of Box and Hazelbury Churches in 1578 when the family defaulted on their 1574 mortgage.[16] Sir John Young of Bristol acquired whatever was left of the estate in 1580. It was not to be long lasting, however, because the Youngs held the property for less than 30 years, before selling to the Spekes in 1602.
After the Manor of Box was inherited by 4-year-old Eleanor Moleyns in 1430, it later passed to her husband, Lord Robert Hungerford, brother of Baron Walter Hungerford of Farleigh. Robert fought in the Wars of the Roses but beheaded for treason after a change in monarch in 1464.[2] The manor subsequently went to Robert’s granddaughter Mary and her husband Sir Edward Hastings, Lord of Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire, in about 1478.[3] It stayed with the Hastings family and George Hastings, who died in 1544.
Box Residents
Little of this appear to have affected he residents who lived in Box and the sources indicate a stable and peaceful local society. It is generally believed that the number of residents scarcely increased between 1348 and 1535. The 1377 Tax List numbered 175 adults over 14 years but this excluded clerics, servants, vagrants, children, and those too poor to be mentioned. The general consensus is that, to get the total population, we should double that number to 350 people.[4] But we do begin to get some idea of the range of residents. Cases of breeches of the peace listed at the legal Quarter Sessions between 1574 and 1592 mention various Box residents: 2 gentlemen, 4 yeomen, 9 husbandmen, 2 masons, 1 freemason (quarryman), and 1 tailor.[5] We get the appearance of a self-supporting Box village society. Yeomen often guaranteed their neighbours in amounts of £10, including John West and James Young alias Patrick (illegitimate son of Patrick). Frequently people stood as guarantors for each other: artisans matched their fellows, Thomas Keynes, mason stood as guarantor; Richard Broade and Clement Curtys, husbandmen, pledged £20 each. By 1620 we see Joan Avarice (alehouse keeper), John Jarvis (alehousekeeper), John Smithe (husbandman) and Richard Hedges (butcher) all cross-guaranteeing each other.[6]
There are just a handful of ordinary 16th century houses still standing, included Byways in Chapel Lane, the Old Dairy, and Hill House Farm with features from the 1500s.[7] The Allen maps of the early 1600s give an indication of where people lived in central Box, some gathered in residences around the church, the Manor House, the Market Place and up to Box Mill. Many people lived in the crofts surrounding common land, waste land, woodland and quarry areas.[8] Other houses bordered trackways in the hamlets at Ditteridge, Middle Hill, Rudloe, Ashley, and Wadswick. The residents grew fruit and vegetables in garden plots and kept chickens, goats and ducks.[9] Some farmed on their strips in the common fields; others worked as manual labourers for a cash income, which their wives could supplement by brewing and selling ale, making bread or selling goods from their house. Most residents were still involved in agriculture: a few yeoman farmers with 50 acres and more husbandmen with 10 acres. Squatters’ homesteads or temporary shacks were erected by landless artisans who set up temporary housing until the authorities moved them on. House building in Box was closely controlled by the vill (village or manorial court), such as a special licence granted to Anthony Vincent in 1591 to build a cottage.[10]
There were huge numbers of other people, like apprentices and servants (perhaps 25% of the population), who lived in their masters' (or mistress's) household and worked indoors or as servants in husbandry. Most worked for the gentry and yeomen farmers, were unmarried, young 14 to 25 years old, who were given clothes, food and lodging and received a small wage once a year. These people generally found places within 10 miles of their birth and 50% of them married a partner from the same parish. They were hired annually and as late as the 1800s there was still a hiring fair at Kingsdown.[11]
Rural Skills
By the late Middle Ages specialist rural workers lived the centre of the village, often farming as well as providing local people with skilled services. Carpenters repaired carts, millwheels and were undertakers and builders; leather workers made straps out of animal hides, rope manufacturers were needed for haulage purposes, butchers disposed of large animals and food sellers were needed to bridge harvest shortfall.[12] These people did not have shops as we know them but they combined small-scale farming with the provision of specialist services.
The medieval use of timber shows how complicated woodwork had become. Wood was a vital commodity and its use was highly regulated. Tenants had customary rights to the lord's wood (estover) for specified purposes: firebote for domestic fires; housebote for repair of homes; ploughbote for repairing agricultural implements, carts and tools; and also haybote for fence repair.[13] Beyond these needs, large sections of timber had to be acquired for building, wheel-making and cart manufacturing purposes. Another specialist, the blacksmith, looked after repairs to the manor ploughshare; shod horses and oxen; sharpened axes and sickles; and made hooks and nails.[14] He was often granted a few acres of land as a general payment as well as charging for specific jobs. Often, he charged not cash but goods in kind, originally negotiated but later set by custom.[15]
Drewetts Millhouse is late sixteenth century. The miller gave free service on the lord’s grain but took an income on all other grain: a toll of one-twentieth of corn if the seed was taken to him or one-tenth if he did the transportation. The income was rightfully that of Farleigh Priory who farmed it out (charged) the miller a lump sum. The weight of corn was a constant source of dispute and in 1439 William Pycott, miller at Box, was fined 20d for a breach of this by the sheriff of the Hundred court.[16]
Rural artisans were vital to local self-sufficiency and perks were given to the manor’s officers; often small acreages in return for their work. The hayward often had a virgate for looking after fences; the tythingman had an acre and half. The carpenter, pound keeper and the priest were exempt from providing ordinary services to the lord. These people were an integral part of a tightly controlled rural community increasingly based on central Box. For more skilled work needing coopers (barrel makers) or joiners (furniture repairers) you went to the local Wednesday market in Corsham which was founded in 1285. For specialist work like church bells, you went to Bristol.
Cloth Making in Box
In the Late Middle Ages, manufactured woollen cloth became an important part of the English economy. Parts of North and West Wiltshire specialised in the manufacture of finished cloth using local fullers earth to absorb the wool’s lanolin and then cleaning the cloth with mechanised hammers in the mills of the fast-flowing rivers and streams, particularly on the By Brook. The staple product was broadcloth, so called because the spun wool was processed into cloth using a wide loom. The spinning and loom-weaving parts of wool processing were usually sub-contracted out to individual families.
Box did not become a fulling area to clean, thicken and felt raw wool like Trowbridge and Bradford, probably because the By Brook flowed too slowly through Box to power this type of mill.[17] Instead, Box was an outwork area where entrepreneurial cloth merchants put out wool yarn for people to manufacture into cloth in their own houses. The wool was spun and woven into fine, white (not dyed) broadcloth for export where it was later dyed and finished into clothes.[18] It was a comparatively low capital entry trade because self-employed weavers only required a loom, which could be owned or rented. The weavers took in yarn on credit; manufactured it into cloth in return for piecework wages; and handed the cloth back to the merchant. The economic role of women began to change and, at times, they were the major breadwinner. They often did the skilled processing work such as weaving, whilst men and children did the repetitive labour like spinning. Box's small-scale animal farmers also became weavers (either themselves or their wives) if they had time to combine both occupations and for landless cottage holders it became the main source of income. For the cottage holders who lived at Ashley Leigh, it enabled them to survive.
The industry was subject to deep economic downturns, however, which brought considerable hardship. In 1450 the recession ended in the rebellion of Jack Cade in Kent and the period 1450-80 saw violence in areas around Box; the bishop of Salisbury killed in 1450; and attacks on property at Tilshead, Devizes and Wilton involving hundreds of men.[19] The boom years were the early 1500s when it became a specialist trade in the west country and local cottages were the heartland of broadcloth manufacture.[20] It was the exciting new industry and at times colossally profitable to the likes of the Methuens at Bradford-on-Avon. In 1540 John Leland said: al the toune of Bradeford standith by clooth making and that Trowbridge was: very well buildid of stone and [21]flourisheth by drapery.[22] A number of common surnames derive from these activities: Walkers, Fullers and Tuckers were the people who cleaned and felted the material by treading it in tubs of water, urine and fullers earth.[23]
It was not always a stable industry, however, and after the loss of Calais in 1552, the foreign market collapsed, prices tumbled, and depression brought unemployment, a new phenomenon. By 1604 broadcloth manufacture was in chronic depression and the industry changed to manufacturing new draperies (serge and medley cloth like denim) made using imported wool.[24] A new type of merchant arose in the area in the 1600s, small local wool broggers (unlicensed dealers), who sourced wool locally instead of the great merchants and fellmongers (dealers in sheep skins for gloves) who provided for the latest fashion trend.
Quarry Workers
Without heavy lifting equipment, the cost of quarrying stone for buildings was limited to those who were wealthy; at first just church buildings but by the mid-1400s the most important families. In 1465 Thomas Tropenell acquired Hazelbury quarry for building Great Chalfield Manor.
In 1573 Sir John Thynne bought Hazelbury Quarry for 40 shillings for their redevelopment of Longleat.[25] He was steward to Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector, who had built Somerset House, The Strand, London and inspired Thynne.[26] Sir John also demolished parts of Farleigh Hungerford Caste for additional stone. The family held the quarry rights until 1868 when they sold it to Job Pictor.
Religious Devotions
One consequence of the plagues was an increase in piety and pilgrimages as redemption for the sins of ancestors and to prevent new epidemics. Pilgrimages were penitence but they were also exciting. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales depicts the fun that travellers enjoyed: Here at this inn another company As merry as the one that's gathered now. Chapel Plaister was a hospice (hostel), a stopping point on the pilgrim’s way to Glastonbury to see the shrine of Joseph of Arimathea, the first keeper of the Holy Grail. The local route is still identifiable from placenames - Stanton St Quinton, Kington St Michael, Holy Well near Biddestone, and Cross Keys (the sign of St Peter) at Pickwick.[27] There are dozens of similar church buildings in Wiltshire, with one or two rooms, tiny wooden bell-cots, and seating about 40 people.[28]
The building at Chapel Plaister was always a capella (chapel not church) with no incumbent priest, no right to give the sacraments, and no burial ground. Preaching rights were a source of income from pilgrims keen to learn of stories about Glastonbury: the thorn tree which took root from Joseph’s staff; the spring where the Holy Grail was buried; and speculation whether Joseph had brought his great nephew, the infant Christ, with him when he visited Britain (as per William Blake centuries later in his poem Jerusalem). In about 1470 the building at Chapel Plaister was widened, a porch and a second story added to accommodate male and female visitors.[29] When John Leland visited the area in 1540, just after the dissolution of the monasteries, society had changed and the chapel was little used: I left on the lift hand on the toppe of a little hille an heremitage withyn a litle as I turned doun to Haselbyri.[30]
The amount of tax due to Box Church before the Reformation was invasive to an economy that was trying to reinvest its profits to encourage growth. The great tithes on corn which were payable to Farleigh Priory, the rector (or its agent), mostly affected the peasants still working the common fields. The lesser tithes on livestock, fruit and other crops, due to the vicar, covered every aspect of local agriculture often in minute detail. In the early 1600s the lesser tithes included: wool, lambs, cow white (milk), coppices, wood, groves... underwood and hedgerow which is sold.[31]
In 1678 we get precise details of the tithes due: 10th cock (stack) of hay and of french grass called sainfoin [St Faen] (grass plant) or the seed of it. 3d at Lammas (the loaf mass on 1 August) for every calf fallen in the parish. If sold, tenth of the money; if killed by the owner, 1 shoulder... The tenth of the locks of wool of all sheep kept in the parish... If sold before shearing for every sheep 1/4d for every month they have been kept within the parish paid at Ladyday (25 March) ... the tenth, or if no more, the seventh lamb ... The tenth or seventh of all pigs. For every hen 1 egg, for the cock 2. The tithe of apples, pears and all other fruit. The tenth acre or tenth perch (51/2 yards) of all coppice woods.[32] As field enclosure increased, the importance of hedgerows grew: Of hedgerows that are sold the tenth of the money. The tenth of all hedgerows reserved by the owner to his own use if they are above 1 perch broad. At Ditteridge the tithes included honey, yermoth (the second crop of grass) and fitches (vetches or legumes).[33] The tithe list intruded in everyday life: The Easter offering of every communicant 2d and for every garden 1d.
Rise of Peasant Meritocracy
The Bonham family were typical of the rising gentry class in the Tudor period. They came from humble yeomen beginnings and rose through hard work and judicious marriage, including John Bonham's wedding to Ann Croke, heiress of John Croke of Hazelbury. The marriage in 1475 is documented in English reflecting the local rural accent: Thys indentur ... wytnessythe ... to the seyd John Bonham and to Ann hys wyffe the dowzter (daughter) of the seyd John Croke.[9] Anne’s marriage settlement included the Manor of Hazelbury and 1 dovecote, 1 garden, 140 acres of land, 6 acres meadow, 40 acres pasture and 120 acres wood there.[10] The third John Bonham bought the dissolved abbey at Lacock in 1540 and in 1544 Farleigh Priory’s possessions in Box from Sir William Sharington. This included the rectory and advowson (right to nominate the vicar) of Box Church, various lands and tenements, 1½ virgates in Wadswick called Raylands, a tithe barn and the Great Tithes (corn and hay) in Rudloe.[A11] Matthew Smyth (agent for Sir John Smyth of Long Ashton) took possession of the advowsons of Box and Hazelbury Churches in 1578 when the family defaulted on their 1574 mortgage.[16] Sir John Young of Bristol acquired whatever was left of the estate in 1580. It was not to be long lasting, however, because the Youngs held the property for less than 30 years, before selling to the Spekes in 1602.
References
[1] Bradley J Wuetherick, A re-evaluation of the impact of the Hundred Years War on the Rural Economy and Society of England, University of Alberta, p.41-42
[2] John Hare, A Prospering Society: Wiltshire in the Later Middle Ages, 2011, University of Hertfordshire Press, p.35
[3] John Aubrey, Wiltshire - Topographical Collections, edited Canon Jackson, The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 1862, p.56
[4] See John Hare, A Prospering Society: Wiltshire in the Later Middle Ages, 2011, p.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
[5] Wiltshire Record Society, Volume 3
[6] NJ Williams, Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 15, 1960, p.24-31
[7] www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/england/wiltshire/box
[8] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.17
[9] John Hatcher, The Black Death, p.2-4
[10] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 3, p.142
[11] See page NOT DONE YET
[12] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.140 and Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, p.35
[13] Nathaniel J Hone, The Manor and Manorial Records, p.85
[14] Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, p.35
[15] Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol XXXII, p.301-303
[16] Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol XIII, p.117
[17] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.179
[18] Peter J Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, p.vii
[19] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.203
[20] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.179
[21] RJ Tucker, Box Freestone Mines 1966 Free Troglophile Association, p.5
[22] Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol. I, p.149
[23] Bruce Watkin, A History of Wiltshire, 1989, Phillimore & Co Ltd, p.53
[24] Peter J Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, p.44
[25] RJ Tucker, Box Freestone Mines 1966 Free Troglophile Association, p.5-6
[2] Kenneth Hudson The Fashionable Stone, 1971, Adams & Dart, p.18-19, 23
[27] Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol X, p.266
[28] Ashton & Lewis, The Medieval Landscape of Wessex, p.71
[29] John Aubrey, Wiltshire - Topographical Collections, edited Canon Jackson, The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 1862, p.59
[30] Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol I, p.144
[31] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 56, p.42
[32] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 56, p.43
[33] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 56, p.144
[1] Bradley J Wuetherick, A re-evaluation of the impact of the Hundred Years War on the Rural Economy and Society of England, University of Alberta, p.41-42
[2] John Hare, A Prospering Society: Wiltshire in the Later Middle Ages, 2011, University of Hertfordshire Press, p.35
[3] John Aubrey, Wiltshire - Topographical Collections, edited Canon Jackson, The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 1862, p.56
[4] See John Hare, A Prospering Society: Wiltshire in the Later Middle Ages, 2011, p.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
[5] Wiltshire Record Society, Volume 3
[6] NJ Williams, Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 15, 1960, p.24-31
[7] www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/england/wiltshire/box
[8] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.17
[9] John Hatcher, The Black Death, p.2-4
[10] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 3, p.142
[11] See page NOT DONE YET
[12] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.140 and Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, p.35
[13] Nathaniel J Hone, The Manor and Manorial Records, p.85
[14] Rodney Hilton, Bondmen Made Free, p.35
[15] Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol XXXII, p.301-303
[16] Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol XIII, p.117
[17] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.179
[18] Peter J Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, p.vii
[19] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.203
[20] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.179
[21] RJ Tucker, Box Freestone Mines 1966 Free Troglophile Association, p.5
[22] Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol. I, p.149
[23] Bruce Watkin, A History of Wiltshire, 1989, Phillimore & Co Ltd, p.53
[24] Peter J Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, p.44
[25] RJ Tucker, Box Freestone Mines 1966 Free Troglophile Association, p.5-6
[2] Kenneth Hudson The Fashionable Stone, 1971, Adams & Dart, p.18-19, 23
[27] Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol X, p.266
[28] Ashton & Lewis, The Medieval Landscape of Wessex, p.71
[29] John Aubrey, Wiltshire - Topographical Collections, edited Canon Jackson, The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 1862, p.59
[30] Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Vol I, p.144
[31] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 56, p.42
[32] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 56, p.43
[33] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 56, p.144