Feudal Society Alan Payne October 2023
Harold swearing an oath of allegiance to Duke William on holy relics shown in the Bayeux tapestry (courtesy Myrabella, Wikipedia)
We have virtually no contemporary information about the ordinary residents (the villeins) who lived in Box in the period from 1066 to 1348. But we can deduce a considerable amount from the history of their superior tenants and lords.
Service to the Lord
The bedrock of society in the late Middle Ages was the grant of land in return for obligations to the grantor. In this way holders of property could be recompensed by their tenants through work on the holder’s demesne (private land) or with services in his household. Originally most of these obligations were military (knight’s service), providing a person or resources to fund a fully-equipped man, his armour, weapons and horses either for war needs, escort duties or for guarding premises. The knight paid homage (pledged loyalty) to his lord.
The population of feudal Box was small compared to the modern area. In 1086 the village comprised five hides of arable land, which valued Box at just enough land to support a single knight’s service.[1] The lord charged fractions of a knight’s service to important free tenants (down to a twentieth). Because of sub-division through inheritances, this became increasingly complicated and was often commuted into scutage (monetary payments sometimes called knight’s fees).[2] There is a local reference to scutage in 1135 when Walter Croc of Hazelbury granted a mill to Farleigh Priory: free and quit of everything as free alms, except the scutage of a knight and so much Danegeld as is due from the mill.[3] This may have been Drewetts Mill.
Because the grants of land were personal under this system, changes in tenant required the lord’s permission and offered an opportunity for additional landlord income supporting the manorial system: heriot (the lord’s right to the best animal on a tenant’s death); relief (payment on property inheritance); selling wardships of tenant’s underage heirs; merchet (fees for permitting tenants to marry); demands expressed as gifts; and amercements (payments for incurring the displeasure of the lord). The inhabitants of the area had to pay the lord to use common-land; tolls to cross bridges; pavage for road repairs in the market place. It was a complex set of rules which suited the lord in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Common Law Comes to Box
The rule of law is something to which we have become accustomed in order to protect ourselves and our property. Modern law is largely based on written evidence: land registration, wills and proof of purchase. In an illiterate medieval society, evidence depended on people's vague memories and cases of dispute regularly ended in legal trials. There were different ways of deciding verdicts. Trial by Battle was physical combat. Trial by Ordeal meant having a red-hot iron (blessed by a priest) held on your hand. Trial by Oath involved swearing on the Bible or the relic of a saint with the potential threat of eternal damnation.
Finding a fairer system to adjudicate the law became a highly desirable (and lucrative) option. King Henry II introduced a system of independent royal justice in the period before his death in 1189.[4] Trial by a Jury of Presentment involved finding 12 neighbours to give evidence on your behalf (not the evaluation of evidence as by modern juries). Professional justices travelled to the shire in eyres (circuits) offering the same (common) justice based on precedent and custom. The system also offered speedier settlement of cases through new forms of writ such as novel disseisin (to recover land if dispossessed) and mort d’ancestor (the right to occupy father’s land).[5] These new courts covered all free people and action for perjury was issued in Box in 1181 against the lords of Box, Hartham, Shockerwick and others, which resulted in fines of one mark (two-thirds of a pound) and the Hundred of Chippenham two marks.[6] The king’s common law offered criminal redress not otherwise available in local manorial courts. The Crown Pleas of 1249 (issues of law-breaking which the king wanted to amend) record: Evildoers unknown came by night to the house of Alexandria of Riglay and killed her. It is not known who they were. They bound Emelota and Margery her daughters.[7] No outcome is known.
The king's law covered the whole country, not just the local area. A royal writ on 30 September 1306 in Box stated that William Holkeber of la Boxe and others: stole 2 cows at la Boxe and is a common thief.[8] A later instruction to the sheriff of Wiltshire ordered the criminals to be pursued: from county to county (to the point of outlawry) if they do not come, and, if they come, to take and keep them in prison.
The Hamlets Expand
The lord encouraged the development of outlying areas to increase his manorial revenues. As the population expanded, young men who wanted their own land would be offered outlying areas of wasteland with some cultivatable parts in return for funding a portion of a knight’s fee (called subinfeudation). The young man had to forcibly evict the existing occupier, both parties would appeal to the manorial court and agree a settlement in return for payment of a fine to the lord. They built houses and meeting halls of wood, wattle and daub. The timber structure posts went straight into the ground and rotted in damp conditions required rebuilding every generation. Accordingly, these settlements were somewhat transient locations. Some settlements prospered such as those at Henley, Alcombe and Ashley, whilst others like Hatt and Wormcliffe remained small with just a farmstead and a couple of cottages.
We see the development of the outlying areas in Box from very early times. A reference in 1181-82 lists the occupiers of settlements as Henrico de Hertham, Adam de Sokerwic (Shockerwick), Reginaldi de Bedeston. By about 1240 there were more: Robert de Asseleye (Ashley), Radulphus de Ruedone (Rudloe), John de Hatte (Hatt); and later John de Alecumba (Alcombe).[9] Each of these documents lists all the local tenants in order to ensure their agreement to Lord Bigod’s newly created hamlet. People became identified by their location including some people who are specifically referred to as coming from central Box: Radulphus de Boxa; Ebrardo de la Boxe (1181-2); and Ricardo persona de Laboxa (1190-1220).[10]
Food Production
The production of food was the main occupation of most people in Box. Mid-summer June was the hungry month when the old crop had been consumed and the new crop remained unharvested. By contrast November was the blood month when cattle were slaughtered and meat was in abundance. In 1257 the harvest failed and contemporary chronicler Matthew Paris wrote that: owing to the shortage of food an innumerable number of poor people died and dead bodies are found everywhere swollen through famine and lying in fives and sixes in pigsties and dunghills in the muddy streets. Parts of the common fields were used to grow a variety of crops: oats for horses; peas, beans and vetches (legumes) to add nitrogen to the soil and as animal feeds. Arable farming was vital but it could not exist alone and was inescapably linked to mixed farming. The steep hills of Box valley, were full of sheep who trod and worked light soils and their excrement fertilised the land over wide and often inaccessible areas. The woodland areas were used for breeding pigs.[11] Without sufficient winter fodder, the scale of dairy enterprise was minute compared to modern production. Ruald Croke had seven dairy farms in the New Forest each with 20 cows and a bull.[12] Because milk went off quickly, dairy herds were kept mostly for cheese and butter production. Meadows, particularly valley water meadows, were used for spring grazing and haymaking and the fields adjoining the By Brook would have been useful for this.
There were different levels of peasants, although terms were vague and altered in the feudal period. Most descriptions related to the occupier’s land holding: free tenants, villeins who were tied to the lord’s manorial land (sometimes called bondmen or serfs), cottars (villeins with smaller landholdings, sometimes sons of villeins), slaves, vagabonds and the destitute. All these groups were recorded in the Domesday records of Hazelbury and Ditteridge. The situation of many peasants altered, especially that of the cottars. The land they held (perhaps three to five acres) was insufficient to feed their household and they were obliged to take secondary work as hired labourers to fund food purchases and rent liabilities. Many peasants farmed and also provided services such as ploughmen, shepherds, carters and cowmen.
There are various estimates of population numbers in England but they are generally about 2 million in 1086, 5 million in 1230 and 6 million in 1348. At the same time, rates of pay declined or were modified. Fearing dispossession, some tenants on poorer land were obliged to accept inferior terms of tenure. Some were restricted to a specified area of land, obliged to work the lord’s demesne land for three or more days a week (at times seven days) or alternatively to accept greatly increased rental terms. The status of some fee tenants reduced to that of bondmen. Some peasants accepted tenancies on waste or marginal land to scratch out a living, particularly in the outlying areas which had less occupancy levels. To the north of Ditteridge, running along the banks of the river Lid, is the wasteland of Ditteridge manor, taken into cultivation only as a last resort. The field names indicate how poor the land was. Hangers refers to a field on a steep bank.[13] Coulde Harbor is a term of abuse for a poor-quality field.[14] This land was used for sheep farming.
The Statute of Merton in 1235 permitted the enclosure of common land provided the lord could show it was not needed by local freemen. The statute set out how the lord could assert rights over waste land, woods and pasture. It benefited lords to assart (clear) woodland and wooded pasture which provided little or no income and to let out plots as crofts and closes to tenants who did all the clearance work.[15] By 1258 we see an area at Hazelbury called Innok (land temporarily brought into cultivation from fallow) which is still recalled as White Ennox Lane and Ennox Wood.[16] At Ditteridge Ingrove refers to an enclosed wood created out of a previous common field.[17] At Ditteridge a field called Newlands was formerly part of Dichridg Vppar Feilde.[18]
The people who suffered most were the dispossessed peasants who lost their arable land and those people for whom woodland farming was vital to provide timber for fuel and building needs and communal grazing of pigs and hardier animals in woodland pasture. They also lost any accompanying rights on common land (rights appendant) such as putting plough animals onto the lord’s wasteland and other common land.[19] The landless turned to any work they could get to survive, mostly labouring, and in Box some developed new trades especially quarrying.
Local Stone Working
The Normans' use of stone to replace wooden castles and churches with stone buildings revitalised Box’s quarry industry. There is no mention of Box quarries in the Domesday Book but frequent references in the feudal period. The Allen maps mention Gree Cliffe at Hazelbury and fields called Cleeves at Kingsdown and Wormecliffe.[20] Clift and cleeve are words often used to describe escarpments into hillsides to excavate roof tiles.[21] We see this again with the enclosure of common fields re-named as Tile Pitte Field. The use of stone tiles was becoming more common locally by the late 1300s.[22]
Quarrying was a dangerous job often involving children sent into confined areas to handpick blocks away from the rock face. In 1249 the judges in the Wiltshire Eyre reported a misadventure: Thomas, son of Roger was crushed in a quarry. The finder ... is not suspected.[23] About 1240 we find the names of two local quarrymen: Roger le Quarreur and Everard le Quarreur.[24] There were associated tradesmen involved in the industry: masons, stone carvers, carpenters, carters, and candle makers to light underground workings. Normally Box stone went overland by cart because river transport was not possible on the shallow By Brook. It was carried enormous distances.
Shortly after 1154 Walter Croke of Hazelbury made a gift to an Abbey at Stanley near Chippenham of: the whole of my quarry of Haselbury from the land of Samson Bigot up to the ancient ditch and up to the old road.[25] This appears to be the northeast corner of Hazelbury Quarry, once part of the common fields. Walter gifted another quarry to Bradenstoke Priory about 1200: which extends from the East to the West from the road which leads to my mill up to the ditch which Radulphus de Boxa began
to dig.[26] This appears to be Quarry Close field leading down to Drewett’s Mill. In 1221 Richard Sired received £1.3s.4d for cutting 105 blocks of Hazelbury stone for the royal palace at Winchester to be used for buttresses and rebuilding the hall and chimney hoods.[27]
In December 1231, King Henry III visited Hazelbury. It was 16 years after Magna Carta and 4 years after Henry had formally taken the reins of power aged 20. The king was touring the country to assert his authority after William the Marshall’s regency and years of baronial rebellion. The king appears to have a direct interest in Hazelbury at this time which had escheated (defaulted) to the crown. He wanted to review his quarry possessions for his planned re-building of Westminster Cathedral and Windsor in the 1240s.[28] The king did not travel to central Box. Henry and his entourage probably pitched camp just off the old medieval road on their way to Bath. It would have been impossible for the whole court to have gone down the trackway to Box. We know of the king’s visit from an instruction he wrote to his officials authorising a gift to Edigius a member of the Chancellor's staff. Edigius was involved as the guardian of Henry Croke, the underage tenant at Hazelbury. His instruction to the Constable of Devizes was: let Egidius de Cancellis (Chancellor) have four oaks from the Forest of Chippenham as a gift from the king for his hospitality ... to house himself at Hazelbury.[29] The king signed the order, Attested by the King at Hazelbury. The house would have been small; the grant of four oak trees contrasting with a gift of 65 oaks to Ralph Fitz Nicholas to build a Great House at Corsham in 1230.[30] It was possibly a token offering after a not very successful visit.
In 1254, the Sheriff of Wiltshire was ordered to carry 6 cartloads of Hazelbury stone to finish work for the king at Freemantle in Hampshire.[31]
Heaven, Hell and Purgatory
When Walter Croke made his gift of a quarry to Bradenstoke Priory he stated that it was for: the Salvation of my soul and the souls of all my forbears.[32] Later, in about 1220, he donated four acres to Box Church: for the salvation of my soul and the soul of my wife Christine and the souls of my antecedents.[33] The concept of gifts to buy salvation was prevalent for centuries, affecting all levels of medieval society, and was repeated many times in the gifts and wills of Box residents. All people feared a ‘bad’ death (dying suddenly) without the opportunity to receive the Last Rites from a priest: to confess sins, do penance and receive absolution. People who died without absolution would incur a long stay in Purgatory. The concept of Purgatory developed greatly after 1100. It was a state of suffering of unrepented sinners, before the Last Judgement when Purgatory is closed and everyone enters eternal Heaven or everlasting Hell. Time in Purgatory could be shortened by the granting of indulgences for the remission of temporal sins for oneself or one’s ancestors. This is the purpose of Walter’s gifts.
Peasants also wanted to pay for redemption and there were a variety of money raising schemes: church fabric funds, regular donations and payments for chantry altars.[34] As the population grew and the number of parishioners increased, the parish needed a bigger church to accommodate them all. The nave (the main body of the church which comes from the Latin navis, a ship) was extended out westwards and a new west window constructed.[35] Aisles (from ala, a wing) were built along the north and south sides of the nave, paid for by parishioners. It is believed that the aisles offered clear spaces for processions on saints’ days and subsidiary altars for the deceased.[36]
Service to the Lord
The bedrock of society in the late Middle Ages was the grant of land in return for obligations to the grantor. In this way holders of property could be recompensed by their tenants through work on the holder’s demesne (private land) or with services in his household. Originally most of these obligations were military (knight’s service), providing a person or resources to fund a fully-equipped man, his armour, weapons and horses either for war needs, escort duties or for guarding premises. The knight paid homage (pledged loyalty) to his lord.
The population of feudal Box was small compared to the modern area. In 1086 the village comprised five hides of arable land, which valued Box at just enough land to support a single knight’s service.[1] The lord charged fractions of a knight’s service to important free tenants (down to a twentieth). Because of sub-division through inheritances, this became increasingly complicated and was often commuted into scutage (monetary payments sometimes called knight’s fees).[2] There is a local reference to scutage in 1135 when Walter Croc of Hazelbury granted a mill to Farleigh Priory: free and quit of everything as free alms, except the scutage of a knight and so much Danegeld as is due from the mill.[3] This may have been Drewetts Mill.
Because the grants of land were personal under this system, changes in tenant required the lord’s permission and offered an opportunity for additional landlord income supporting the manorial system: heriot (the lord’s right to the best animal on a tenant’s death); relief (payment on property inheritance); selling wardships of tenant’s underage heirs; merchet (fees for permitting tenants to marry); demands expressed as gifts; and amercements (payments for incurring the displeasure of the lord). The inhabitants of the area had to pay the lord to use common-land; tolls to cross bridges; pavage for road repairs in the market place. It was a complex set of rules which suited the lord in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Common Law Comes to Box
The rule of law is something to which we have become accustomed in order to protect ourselves and our property. Modern law is largely based on written evidence: land registration, wills and proof of purchase. In an illiterate medieval society, evidence depended on people's vague memories and cases of dispute regularly ended in legal trials. There were different ways of deciding verdicts. Trial by Battle was physical combat. Trial by Ordeal meant having a red-hot iron (blessed by a priest) held on your hand. Trial by Oath involved swearing on the Bible or the relic of a saint with the potential threat of eternal damnation.
Finding a fairer system to adjudicate the law became a highly desirable (and lucrative) option. King Henry II introduced a system of independent royal justice in the period before his death in 1189.[4] Trial by a Jury of Presentment involved finding 12 neighbours to give evidence on your behalf (not the evaluation of evidence as by modern juries). Professional justices travelled to the shire in eyres (circuits) offering the same (common) justice based on precedent and custom. The system also offered speedier settlement of cases through new forms of writ such as novel disseisin (to recover land if dispossessed) and mort d’ancestor (the right to occupy father’s land).[5] These new courts covered all free people and action for perjury was issued in Box in 1181 against the lords of Box, Hartham, Shockerwick and others, which resulted in fines of one mark (two-thirds of a pound) and the Hundred of Chippenham two marks.[6] The king’s common law offered criminal redress not otherwise available in local manorial courts. The Crown Pleas of 1249 (issues of law-breaking which the king wanted to amend) record: Evildoers unknown came by night to the house of Alexandria of Riglay and killed her. It is not known who they were. They bound Emelota and Margery her daughters.[7] No outcome is known.
The king's law covered the whole country, not just the local area. A royal writ on 30 September 1306 in Box stated that William Holkeber of la Boxe and others: stole 2 cows at la Boxe and is a common thief.[8] A later instruction to the sheriff of Wiltshire ordered the criminals to be pursued: from county to county (to the point of outlawry) if they do not come, and, if they come, to take and keep them in prison.
The Hamlets Expand
The lord encouraged the development of outlying areas to increase his manorial revenues. As the population expanded, young men who wanted their own land would be offered outlying areas of wasteland with some cultivatable parts in return for funding a portion of a knight’s fee (called subinfeudation). The young man had to forcibly evict the existing occupier, both parties would appeal to the manorial court and agree a settlement in return for payment of a fine to the lord. They built houses and meeting halls of wood, wattle and daub. The timber structure posts went straight into the ground and rotted in damp conditions required rebuilding every generation. Accordingly, these settlements were somewhat transient locations. Some settlements prospered such as those at Henley, Alcombe and Ashley, whilst others like Hatt and Wormcliffe remained small with just a farmstead and a couple of cottages.
We see the development of the outlying areas in Box from very early times. A reference in 1181-82 lists the occupiers of settlements as Henrico de Hertham, Adam de Sokerwic (Shockerwick), Reginaldi de Bedeston. By about 1240 there were more: Robert de Asseleye (Ashley), Radulphus de Ruedone (Rudloe), John de Hatte (Hatt); and later John de Alecumba (Alcombe).[9] Each of these documents lists all the local tenants in order to ensure their agreement to Lord Bigod’s newly created hamlet. People became identified by their location including some people who are specifically referred to as coming from central Box: Radulphus de Boxa; Ebrardo de la Boxe (1181-2); and Ricardo persona de Laboxa (1190-1220).[10]
Food Production
The production of food was the main occupation of most people in Box. Mid-summer June was the hungry month when the old crop had been consumed and the new crop remained unharvested. By contrast November was the blood month when cattle were slaughtered and meat was in abundance. In 1257 the harvest failed and contemporary chronicler Matthew Paris wrote that: owing to the shortage of food an innumerable number of poor people died and dead bodies are found everywhere swollen through famine and lying in fives and sixes in pigsties and dunghills in the muddy streets. Parts of the common fields were used to grow a variety of crops: oats for horses; peas, beans and vetches (legumes) to add nitrogen to the soil and as animal feeds. Arable farming was vital but it could not exist alone and was inescapably linked to mixed farming. The steep hills of Box valley, were full of sheep who trod and worked light soils and their excrement fertilised the land over wide and often inaccessible areas. The woodland areas were used for breeding pigs.[11] Without sufficient winter fodder, the scale of dairy enterprise was minute compared to modern production. Ruald Croke had seven dairy farms in the New Forest each with 20 cows and a bull.[12] Because milk went off quickly, dairy herds were kept mostly for cheese and butter production. Meadows, particularly valley water meadows, were used for spring grazing and haymaking and the fields adjoining the By Brook would have been useful for this.
There were different levels of peasants, although terms were vague and altered in the feudal period. Most descriptions related to the occupier’s land holding: free tenants, villeins who were tied to the lord’s manorial land (sometimes called bondmen or serfs), cottars (villeins with smaller landholdings, sometimes sons of villeins), slaves, vagabonds and the destitute. All these groups were recorded in the Domesday records of Hazelbury and Ditteridge. The situation of many peasants altered, especially that of the cottars. The land they held (perhaps three to five acres) was insufficient to feed their household and they were obliged to take secondary work as hired labourers to fund food purchases and rent liabilities. Many peasants farmed and also provided services such as ploughmen, shepherds, carters and cowmen.
There are various estimates of population numbers in England but they are generally about 2 million in 1086, 5 million in 1230 and 6 million in 1348. At the same time, rates of pay declined or were modified. Fearing dispossession, some tenants on poorer land were obliged to accept inferior terms of tenure. Some were restricted to a specified area of land, obliged to work the lord’s demesne land for three or more days a week (at times seven days) or alternatively to accept greatly increased rental terms. The status of some fee tenants reduced to that of bondmen. Some peasants accepted tenancies on waste or marginal land to scratch out a living, particularly in the outlying areas which had less occupancy levels. To the north of Ditteridge, running along the banks of the river Lid, is the wasteland of Ditteridge manor, taken into cultivation only as a last resort. The field names indicate how poor the land was. Hangers refers to a field on a steep bank.[13] Coulde Harbor is a term of abuse for a poor-quality field.[14] This land was used for sheep farming.
The Statute of Merton in 1235 permitted the enclosure of common land provided the lord could show it was not needed by local freemen. The statute set out how the lord could assert rights over waste land, woods and pasture. It benefited lords to assart (clear) woodland and wooded pasture which provided little or no income and to let out plots as crofts and closes to tenants who did all the clearance work.[15] By 1258 we see an area at Hazelbury called Innok (land temporarily brought into cultivation from fallow) which is still recalled as White Ennox Lane and Ennox Wood.[16] At Ditteridge Ingrove refers to an enclosed wood created out of a previous common field.[17] At Ditteridge a field called Newlands was formerly part of Dichridg Vppar Feilde.[18]
The people who suffered most were the dispossessed peasants who lost their arable land and those people for whom woodland farming was vital to provide timber for fuel and building needs and communal grazing of pigs and hardier animals in woodland pasture. They also lost any accompanying rights on common land (rights appendant) such as putting plough animals onto the lord’s wasteland and other common land.[19] The landless turned to any work they could get to survive, mostly labouring, and in Box some developed new trades especially quarrying.
Local Stone Working
The Normans' use of stone to replace wooden castles and churches with stone buildings revitalised Box’s quarry industry. There is no mention of Box quarries in the Domesday Book but frequent references in the feudal period. The Allen maps mention Gree Cliffe at Hazelbury and fields called Cleeves at Kingsdown and Wormecliffe.[20] Clift and cleeve are words often used to describe escarpments into hillsides to excavate roof tiles.[21] We see this again with the enclosure of common fields re-named as Tile Pitte Field. The use of stone tiles was becoming more common locally by the late 1300s.[22]
Quarrying was a dangerous job often involving children sent into confined areas to handpick blocks away from the rock face. In 1249 the judges in the Wiltshire Eyre reported a misadventure: Thomas, son of Roger was crushed in a quarry. The finder ... is not suspected.[23] About 1240 we find the names of two local quarrymen: Roger le Quarreur and Everard le Quarreur.[24] There were associated tradesmen involved in the industry: masons, stone carvers, carpenters, carters, and candle makers to light underground workings. Normally Box stone went overland by cart because river transport was not possible on the shallow By Brook. It was carried enormous distances.
Shortly after 1154 Walter Croke of Hazelbury made a gift to an Abbey at Stanley near Chippenham of: the whole of my quarry of Haselbury from the land of Samson Bigot up to the ancient ditch and up to the old road.[25] This appears to be the northeast corner of Hazelbury Quarry, once part of the common fields. Walter gifted another quarry to Bradenstoke Priory about 1200: which extends from the East to the West from the road which leads to my mill up to the ditch which Radulphus de Boxa began
to dig.[26] This appears to be Quarry Close field leading down to Drewett’s Mill. In 1221 Richard Sired received £1.3s.4d for cutting 105 blocks of Hazelbury stone for the royal palace at Winchester to be used for buttresses and rebuilding the hall and chimney hoods.[27]
In December 1231, King Henry III visited Hazelbury. It was 16 years after Magna Carta and 4 years after Henry had formally taken the reins of power aged 20. The king was touring the country to assert his authority after William the Marshall’s regency and years of baronial rebellion. The king appears to have a direct interest in Hazelbury at this time which had escheated (defaulted) to the crown. He wanted to review his quarry possessions for his planned re-building of Westminster Cathedral and Windsor in the 1240s.[28] The king did not travel to central Box. Henry and his entourage probably pitched camp just off the old medieval road on their way to Bath. It would have been impossible for the whole court to have gone down the trackway to Box. We know of the king’s visit from an instruction he wrote to his officials authorising a gift to Edigius a member of the Chancellor's staff. Edigius was involved as the guardian of Henry Croke, the underage tenant at Hazelbury. His instruction to the Constable of Devizes was: let Egidius de Cancellis (Chancellor) have four oaks from the Forest of Chippenham as a gift from the king for his hospitality ... to house himself at Hazelbury.[29] The king signed the order, Attested by the King at Hazelbury. The house would have been small; the grant of four oak trees contrasting with a gift of 65 oaks to Ralph Fitz Nicholas to build a Great House at Corsham in 1230.[30] It was possibly a token offering after a not very successful visit.
In 1254, the Sheriff of Wiltshire was ordered to carry 6 cartloads of Hazelbury stone to finish work for the king at Freemantle in Hampshire.[31]
Heaven, Hell and Purgatory
When Walter Croke made his gift of a quarry to Bradenstoke Priory he stated that it was for: the Salvation of my soul and the souls of all my forbears.[32] Later, in about 1220, he donated four acres to Box Church: for the salvation of my soul and the soul of my wife Christine and the souls of my antecedents.[33] The concept of gifts to buy salvation was prevalent for centuries, affecting all levels of medieval society, and was repeated many times in the gifts and wills of Box residents. All people feared a ‘bad’ death (dying suddenly) without the opportunity to receive the Last Rites from a priest: to confess sins, do penance and receive absolution. People who died without absolution would incur a long stay in Purgatory. The concept of Purgatory developed greatly after 1100. It was a state of suffering of unrepented sinners, before the Last Judgement when Purgatory is closed and everyone enters eternal Heaven or everlasting Hell. Time in Purgatory could be shortened by the granting of indulgences for the remission of temporal sins for oneself or one’s ancestors. This is the purpose of Walter’s gifts.
Peasants also wanted to pay for redemption and there were a variety of money raising schemes: church fabric funds, regular donations and payments for chantry altars.[34] As the population grew and the number of parishioners increased, the parish needed a bigger church to accommodate them all. The nave (the main body of the church which comes from the Latin navis, a ship) was extended out westwards and a new west window constructed.[35] Aisles (from ala, a wing) were built along the north and south sides of the nave, paid for by parishioners. It is believed that the aisles offered clear spaces for processions on saints’ days and subsidiary altars for the deceased.[36]
References
[1] Based on the Saxon fyrd measure that equated 5 hides with one militia man
[2] Frank Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, p.159 and 168
[3] Frank Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, p.185
[4] Frank Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, p.46
[5] Frank Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, p.185
[6] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.47
[7] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 16, p.190
[8] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 33, p.149, 160
[9] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.249, 295 and 296
[10] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.249 and 252
[11] Victoria County History, Vol IV, p.8
[12] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.33
[13] JEB Gover, Allen Mawer and FM Stenton, The Placenames of Wiltshire, 1939, Cambridge University Press, p.121
[14] JEB Gover, Allen Mawer and FM Stenton, The Placenames of Wiltshire, 1939, Cambridge University Press, p.451
[15] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, p.161
[16] JEB Gover, Allen Mawer and FM Stenton, The Placenames of Wiltshire, 1939, Cambridge University Press, p.86 and 134
[17] John Field, A History of English Field-names, 1993, Longman, p.234
[18] John Field, A History of English Field-names, 1993, Longman, p.81
[19] Nathaniel J Hone, The Manor and Manorial Records, 1971, Kennikat Press, p.110
[20] Pamela M Slocombe, Medieval Houses in Wiltshire, 1992, Alan Sutton Publishing, p.27
[21] Pamela M Slocombe, Medieval Houses, p.27
[22] Pamela M Slocombe, Medieval Houses, p.27
[23] Wiltshire Record SocietyS, Vol 16, p.189
[24] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.120
[25] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.292
[26] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.291
[27] CF Salzman, English Industries of the Middle Ages, 1923, p.86 and HM Colvin, The History of the King’s Works Vol 2, 1963, p.858
[28] Victoria County History, Vol XX, p.413
[29] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.64
[30] CJ Hall, Corsham: An Illustrated History, 1983, CJ. Hall, 1983, p.6
[31] Victoria County History, Vol IV, p.247
[32] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.291
[33] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.253
[34] Richard Morris, Churches in the Landscape, p.275
[35] Martin and Elizabeth Devon, St Thomas à Becket Church Guide and Brief History, p.13
[36] Richard Morris, Churches in the Landscape, p.289 on
[1] Based on the Saxon fyrd measure that equated 5 hides with one militia man
[2] Frank Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, p.159 and 168
[3] Frank Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, p.185
[4] Frank Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, p.46
[5] Frank Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, p.185
[6] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.47
[7] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 16, p.190
[8] Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 33, p.149, 160
[9] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.249, 295 and 296
[10] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.249 and 252
[11] Victoria County History, Vol IV, p.8
[12] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.33
[13] JEB Gover, Allen Mawer and FM Stenton, The Placenames of Wiltshire, 1939, Cambridge University Press, p.121
[14] JEB Gover, Allen Mawer and FM Stenton, The Placenames of Wiltshire, 1939, Cambridge University Press, p.451
[15] Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, p.161
[16] JEB Gover, Allen Mawer and FM Stenton, The Placenames of Wiltshire, 1939, Cambridge University Press, p.86 and 134
[17] John Field, A History of English Field-names, 1993, Longman, p.234
[18] John Field, A History of English Field-names, 1993, Longman, p.81
[19] Nathaniel J Hone, The Manor and Manorial Records, 1971, Kennikat Press, p.110
[20] Pamela M Slocombe, Medieval Houses in Wiltshire, 1992, Alan Sutton Publishing, p.27
[21] Pamela M Slocombe, Medieval Houses, p.27
[22] Pamela M Slocombe, Medieval Houses, p.27
[23] Wiltshire Record SocietyS, Vol 16, p.189
[24] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.120
[25] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.292
[26] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.291
[27] CF Salzman, English Industries of the Middle Ages, 1923, p.86 and HM Colvin, The History of the King’s Works Vol 2, 1963, p.858
[28] Victoria County History, Vol XX, p.413
[29] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.64
[30] CJ Hall, Corsham: An Illustrated History, 1983, CJ. Hall, 1983, p.6
[31] Victoria County History, Vol IV, p.247
[32] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.291
[33] GJ Kidston, A History of the Manor of Hazelbury, 1936, p.253
[34] Richard Morris, Churches in the Landscape, p.275
[35] Martin and Elizabeth Devon, St Thomas à Becket Church Guide and Brief History, p.13
[36] Richard Morris, Churches in the Landscape, p.289 on