End of Medieval Box Alan Payne September 2024
Recorded apprenticeships became commonplace (such as this for Elizabeth Burgess)
The story of the Middle Ages is one of constant change. By the start of the Tudor period, we can see how much society had altered since Norman times. Military and labour services due from peasants to the lord had gone and serfdom withered away. Instead of directly farming demesne land, the lords enclosed small landholdings and rented them out in family blocks suitable for pasture and dairying. By the close of the medieval period, the area was increasingly owned by yeomen farmers aspiring to become gentlemen.
For ordinary people, the agricultural depression which had affected most of the country in the early 1400s was delayed in Box by the rise of dairying and the clothing trade but then the crisis came suddenly when the wool trade declined after 1450. Increasing food prices and steep population rises caused vagrancy and popular unrest which the government was attempted to regulate.
The old Catholic religion, as represented by Farleigh Priory, and the social order which it brought were seen as increasingly outdated by the early 1500s and higher levels of literacy encouraged popular challenges to the established ways. Many of the changes came at a price which ignored whole sectors of Box’s society. The story of the next 130 years in Box was one of religious conflict and civil war to rectify inequalities until social cohesion in the village was achieved through a formalised village structure.
Changes in the Landscape
The topography of Box has altered constantly but the road structure was not significantly changed during the medieval period. This did not apply to the course of the By Brook with a significant amendment for the harnessing of the spring at the church area to create Becket’s Mill at The Wilderness before flowing into the brook. It is also probable that the route of the brook was altered by slowing the flow to produce early grass for over-wintered animals. Perhaps, the most significant visual change in the area was field patterns. The huge open fields had been nibbled into with stone walls and hedgerows to accommodate the shift from open, arable common fields to enclosed animal husbandry.
There were also new fashions in building materials and the design of homes. The period started with few stone-built structures possibly just Ditteridge Church (dated as 1097) and Box Church allegedly about 1200 AD. Peasant houses were single-storey with wattle and daub walls, thatch roofing and a overhanging outbuildings for domestic and animal use.[1] These houses were not permanent structures and many needed to be rebuilt every generation or so.
When the Speke family became lord of the manor in the early seventeenth century the house they built for their leading tenant, the Manor House, was a statement of innovation with gable ends, internal chimney stacks and reception rooms on the ground floor – all completely different to traditional Late Medieval manor houses which had a great chamber with central hearth on the first floor over a vaulted cellar below and a solar or parlour for the lord’s accommodation.
For ordinary people, the agricultural depression which had affected most of the country in the early 1400s was delayed in Box by the rise of dairying and the clothing trade but then the crisis came suddenly when the wool trade declined after 1450. Increasing food prices and steep population rises caused vagrancy and popular unrest which the government was attempted to regulate.
The old Catholic religion, as represented by Farleigh Priory, and the social order which it brought were seen as increasingly outdated by the early 1500s and higher levels of literacy encouraged popular challenges to the established ways. Many of the changes came at a price which ignored whole sectors of Box’s society. The story of the next 130 years in Box was one of religious conflict and civil war to rectify inequalities until social cohesion in the village was achieved through a formalised village structure.
Changes in the Landscape
The topography of Box has altered constantly but the road structure was not significantly changed during the medieval period. This did not apply to the course of the By Brook with a significant amendment for the harnessing of the spring at the church area to create Becket’s Mill at The Wilderness before flowing into the brook. It is also probable that the route of the brook was altered by slowing the flow to produce early grass for over-wintered animals. Perhaps, the most significant visual change in the area was field patterns. The huge open fields had been nibbled into with stone walls and hedgerows to accommodate the shift from open, arable common fields to enclosed animal husbandry.
There were also new fashions in building materials and the design of homes. The period started with few stone-built structures possibly just Ditteridge Church (dated as 1097) and Box Church allegedly about 1200 AD. Peasant houses were single-storey with wattle and daub walls, thatch roofing and a overhanging outbuildings for domestic and animal use.[1] These houses were not permanent structures and many needed to be rebuilt every generation or so.
When the Speke family became lord of the manor in the early seventeenth century the house they built for their leading tenant, the Manor House, was a statement of innovation with gable ends, internal chimney stacks and reception rooms on the ground floor – all completely different to traditional Late Medieval manor houses which had a great chamber with central hearth on the first floor over a vaulted cellar below and a solar or parlour for the lord’s accommodation.
The enclosed rabbit warren at Hazelbury in Allen's 1630 map (courtesy Wilts History Centre)
Vestiges of Medieval Period
Having said all this, vestiges of the old society continued to crop up throughout the Tudor and Georgian history of the village.
The lords of the manor clung on to their established ways for generations as benefitted them. After the Reformation Sir John Young referred to the ancient breeding of rabbits for food when he made his will of 1598, leaving to his wife Joan his mansion in Bristol and his warren at Hazelbury where she was allowed two hundredth cupple (sic) of connies yearlie to be taken upon the warren groundes there to her said use at such time as she shall require the same.[2]
We get a fine summary of the Late Middle Ages from the will of Hugh Speke in 1626 which details how he assembled a new manorial lordship in Box from the small parcels of property into which the village had divided. After listing his acquisition of Box Manor and the advowson of Box and Hazelbury Churches, the largest block of land (previously held by Sir John Young) was:
1300 acres of land, 140 acres of meadow, 800 acres of pasture, 200 acres of wood, and £6 rent in Box, Haselbury, Wadsick alias Waddeswicke, and Ditcheridge, and the free fishery in the water of Box and the list goes on to record 20 messuages, 20 cottages, 2 dovecotes, 40 gardens, 40 orchards.
Thereafter, it mentions the small parcels of land which had been bought by separate agreements, including 2 small closes of land called “Tyle Quarres,” containing 6 acres, and of one coppice and one parcel of land containing (illegible), near “Kingsmore Coppice” and 3 parts (? illegible) lying in the common fields of Haselbury and Box aforesaid, containing 2 acres, one acre lying in “Chappellfield,” and abutting upon “Coniger wall,” near “le gate,” on the west and upon “Bradforde way” [on the east?] ; and another lying in the same field, “in proxima cultura” (illegible), north and south between “Haselbury Land” formerly of Sir Walter Longe, knight, upon the west . . . . and the lands, lat of Henry Long, gentleman, late in the tenure of John Clarke, containing half-an acre, and the other piece of land lying in “le Quarrefield” near “le oulde churche,” and containing half an acre. In total, there were fourteen individual acquisitions which list field by field how the new lordship was acquired and became the basis of part of the estate bought by the Northey family, together with more land at Ashley bought from the Long family and at Box Hill from other estates, including the Hartham territories.
Other parts of the village did not come under the Speke control, such as Rudloe held in 1533 by Robert Leversage, Esquire and in 1589 to 1629 by the Hungerford family of Corsham and later by Thomas Goddard. Alcombe was bought by Peter Webb, in 1633, possibly from the Hungerford estate. By historic tradition these areas were associated and part of Box village but it took the creation of the civil parish and the passing of the old manorial structures to formally recognise their inclusion.
Having said all this, vestiges of the old society continued to crop up throughout the Tudor and Georgian history of the village.
The lords of the manor clung on to their established ways for generations as benefitted them. After the Reformation Sir John Young referred to the ancient breeding of rabbits for food when he made his will of 1598, leaving to his wife Joan his mansion in Bristol and his warren at Hazelbury where she was allowed two hundredth cupple (sic) of connies yearlie to be taken upon the warren groundes there to her said use at such time as she shall require the same.[2]
We get a fine summary of the Late Middle Ages from the will of Hugh Speke in 1626 which details how he assembled a new manorial lordship in Box from the small parcels of property into which the village had divided. After listing his acquisition of Box Manor and the advowson of Box and Hazelbury Churches, the largest block of land (previously held by Sir John Young) was:
1300 acres of land, 140 acres of meadow, 800 acres of pasture, 200 acres of wood, and £6 rent in Box, Haselbury, Wadsick alias Waddeswicke, and Ditcheridge, and the free fishery in the water of Box and the list goes on to record 20 messuages, 20 cottages, 2 dovecotes, 40 gardens, 40 orchards.
Thereafter, it mentions the small parcels of land which had been bought by separate agreements, including 2 small closes of land called “Tyle Quarres,” containing 6 acres, and of one coppice and one parcel of land containing (illegible), near “Kingsmore Coppice” and 3 parts (? illegible) lying in the common fields of Haselbury and Box aforesaid, containing 2 acres, one acre lying in “Chappellfield,” and abutting upon “Coniger wall,” near “le gate,” on the west and upon “Bradforde way” [on the east?] ; and another lying in the same field, “in proxima cultura” (illegible), north and south between “Haselbury Land” formerly of Sir Walter Longe, knight, upon the west . . . . and the lands, lat of Henry Long, gentleman, late in the tenure of John Clarke, containing half-an acre, and the other piece of land lying in “le Quarrefield” near “le oulde churche,” and containing half an acre. In total, there were fourteen individual acquisitions which list field by field how the new lordship was acquired and became the basis of part of the estate bought by the Northey family, together with more land at Ashley bought from the Long family and at Box Hill from other estates, including the Hartham territories.
Other parts of the village did not come under the Speke control, such as Rudloe held in 1533 by Robert Leversage, Esquire and in 1589 to 1629 by the Hungerford family of Corsham and later by Thomas Goddard. Alcombe was bought by Peter Webb, in 1633, possibly from the Hungerford estate. By historic tradition these areas were associated and part of Box village but it took the creation of the civil parish and the passing of the old manorial structures to formally recognise their inclusion.
References
[1] John Hare, A Prospering Society: Wiltshire in the Later Middle Ages, 2011, University of Hertfordshire Press, p.144
[2] Joseph Bettey, Wiltshire Farming in 17th Century, Wiltshire Record Society, Volume 57, 2005, p.293
[1] John Hare, A Prospering Society: Wiltshire in the Later Middle Ages, 2011, University of Hertfordshire Press, p.144
[2] Joseph Bettey, Wiltshire Farming in 17th Century, Wiltshire Record Society, Volume 57, 2005, p.293