10. Life in Villages and Cities of the High Middle Ages, 1000

Thinking Like a Historian: Social and Economic Relations in Medieval English Villages

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Social and Economic Relations in Medieval English Villages

Medieval villages have often been portrayed as squalid hamlets where downtrodden peasants lived in an unchanging equality of misery under the harsh control of a lord. Do sources about actual rural life support this view of village social and economic relations, do they refute it, or do they make it more complex?

1	Extent of the village of Alwalton, 1279. Extents were surveys taken by landholders that listed the land and obligations of each household in a village.

The abbot of Peterborough holds the manor at Alwalton and village from the lord king directly. . . . Hugh Miller holds 1 virgate [about 25–30 acres] of land in villeinage by paying thence to the abbot 3 s. 1 d. [3 shillings, 1 denarius, or pence; there were 12 pence per shilling]. Likewise the same Hugh works through the year except 1 week at Christmas, 1 week at Easter, and 1 at Whitsuntide that is in each week 3 days, each day with 1 man, and in autumn each day with 2 men, performing the said works at the will of the said abbot as in plowing and other work. Likewise he gives 1 bushel of wheat for seed and 18 sheaves of oats for foddercorn. Likewise he gives 3 hens and 1 cock yearly and 5 eggs at Easter. Likewise he does carrying to Peterborough and to Jakele and nowhere else, at the will of the said abbot. Likewise if he sells a brood mare in his courtyard for 6 s. or more, he shall give to the said abbot 4 d., and if for less he shall give nothing. He gives also merchet [a payment when his daughters marry] and heriot [a payment when a family member dies] and is taxed at the feast of St. Michael, at the will of the said abbot. There are also 17 other villeins . . . paying and doing in all things, each for himself, to the said abbot yearly just as the said Hugh Miller. . . .

Henry, son of the miller, holds a cottage with a croft which contains 1 rood [¼ acre, a square about 100 feet on a side], paying thence yearly to the said abbot 2 s. Likewise he works for 3 days in carrying hay and in other works at the will of the abbot, each day with 1 man and in autumn 1 day in cutting grain with 1 man. . . . Likewise William Drake holds a cottage with a croft which contains half a rood [⅛ acre], paying to the abbot 6 d.; and he works just as the said Henry. There are also 18 other crofters . . . doing all things just as the said Henry.

2	Extent of the manor of Bernehorne, 1307.

John of Cayworth holds a house and 30 acres of land and owes yearly 2 s., at Easter and Michaelmas; and he owes a cock and two hens at Christmas, of the value of 4 d.

And he ought to harrow for 2 days at the Lenten sowing with one man and his own horse and his own harrow; the value of the work being 4 d.; and he is to receive from the lord on each day 3 meals, of the value of 5 d., and then his food will be at a loss of 1 d. Thus his harrowing is of no value to the service of the lord.

And he ought to carry the manure of the lord for 2 days with one cart, with his own 2 oxen, the value of the work being 8 d.; and he is to receive from the lord each day 3 meals of the price as above. And thus the service is worth 3 d. clear.

And he shall find one man for 2 days of mowing the meadow of the lord, who can mow, by estimation 1 acre and a half, the value of the mowing of an acre being 6 d.: the sum is therefore 9 d. and he is to receive each day 3 meals of the value given above; and thus that mowing is worth 4 d. clear. . . .

And he ought to carry the hay of the lord with a cart and 3 animals of his own . . . and in autumn carry beans and oats for 2 days with a cart . . . and carry wood from the woods of the lord as far as the manor house for two days in summer. . . . And he ought to find 1 man for 2 days to cut heath [for fuel] . . . and carry the heath that he has cut . . . and carry to Battle [a nearby town] twice in the summer season, each time a half a load of grain.

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3	Cart being pulled and pushed up a hill. This marginal illustration comes from the Luttrell Psalter, an illuminated manuscript commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell (1276–1345), the lord of a manor in Lincolnshire, and made by scribes and artists whose identity is unknown.

4	Village bylaws, Great Horwood, 1306 and 1319. Villagers themselves set rules regarding activities that they saw as problems. (“Gleaning” was picking up small bits of grain that had fallen from the stalks, an activity reserved for the elderly, small children, and ill or handicapped people.)

No one shall accept any outsider as a gleaner in autumn nor any man or woman to glean who is able to earn a penny a day for reaping if he finds someone who wishes to hire him.

Nor shall anyone pay in the field with whole sheaves, only handfuls of grain.

Nor shall anyone reap or cart except by day.

Nor shall anyone allow his calves or foals to go into the common fields of grain.

Nor shall anyone gather straw in the fields unless it be each from his own land. . . .

And if anyone is found guilty he shall pay the lord 4 d.

5	Court records from the village of Broughton, 1286. Several times a year villagers gathered for court proceedings during which the legal and financial affairs of both the lord and village were handled; this is a small part of the records from one day in one village.

John Nuncium le Mung [was fined] 12 d. because he did not send to the first day of service for the lord as many men as he had at his own work. . . .

William de Broughton is compelled to answer at the next court for the damage done by his two horses in the lord’s peas.

Richard de Broughton [is compelled to answer] because he did not come to work for the lord in ditching. . . .

Alice Robynes is compelled to pay 6 d. for her geese damaging the lord’s grain. . . .

Thomas Prat acknowledges that he is in debt to Agnes Gylot for goods to the value of 6 d. Therefore he shall make satisfaction to her for the aforesaid 6 d.

The chief pledges [male villagers responsible to know what was going on] say that the bailiff of the lord abbot made two pits in the town, to its nuisance. Therefore the bailiff is ordered to put them right. . . . And they say that Hugh Knyt harbored a strange woman who is not profitable to the town. Fined 6 d. . . . And they say that Robert Strypling pastured the grass of the neighbors by night. Fined 12 d. . . . And they say that the wife of Thomas le Hund was a gleaner against the common statute of the town. Fined 12 d. . . . And they say that Reginald Gylbert overused the pasture with twenty sheep. Fined 12 d. And they say that William Kepline paid with sheaves in the field in autumn contrary to the common statute of the town. Fined 12 d.

ANALYZING THE EVIDENCE

What types of obligations did peasants owe their lord? What types of obligations did they have to each other? How were these enforced?
What concerns of the villagers themselves emerge in the bylaws in Source 4? What do these concerns suggest about village society?
Are all villagers equal? What social and economic differences do you see among them?
What evidence do you see of growing commercialization, such as money, wage labor, market exchange, and considerations of market value?

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Using the sources above, along with what you have learned in class and in this chapter and Chapters 8 and 9, write a short essay that analyzes social and economic relations in an English village in the High Middle Ages. To what extent is the traditional view of village life as uniformly oppressive warranted? If you believe that the traditional view is not accurate, what would be a better description?

Sources: (1, 2) Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, vol. 3, no. 5 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Department of History, 1897), pp. 4–7, 10–11; (4, 5) Warren O. Ault, Open Field Farming in Medieval England: A Study of Village By-Laws (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972), pp. 86, 89, 155–159.