The Archaeology of the Peasant Land Market in Pre-Plague England c ad 1290–1350: A Way Forward

Abstract

WHILE ARCHAEOLOGISTS are well informed about plague and climate change, many are less familiar with the emergence in pre-plague England of a vigorous market in peasant land in which both freemen and villeins were represented. Yet the tenant’s growing freedom to buy and sell land arguably played a larger part in transforming the social structure of late-medieval England than either the Black Death (ad 1348–9) or Great Famine (ad 1315–17). Accustomed to seeing the five decades before the pestilence as a final interlude of prosperity before the onset of recession, archaeologists have looked chiefly to the post-plague years for evidence of change. However, the toxic combination of a hyperactive peasant land market, combined with the worst subsistence crisis that England has ever known, had encouraged the growth earlier in the century of a rich and increasingly acquisitive and dominant peasant or ‘kulak’ class with properties it needed to protect. The large and more permanent village house, it is argued here, originated at this time. It is also suggested that it was successful peasant engrossers, rather than status-hungry, would-be gentry, who were probably the diggers of the overwhelming majority of non-manorial moats which survive in such numbers across England. Although more work is needed to date these moats archaeologically, it is already widely assumed that they belong primarily to the first half of the 14th century. If this is correct, the smaller domestic or ‘homestead’ moat, occurring in multiples of up to 13 in some parishes, can now be seen as persuasive material evidence of a catastrophic crisis in law and order which historians know only from the documentary sources.

Résumé

L’archéologie du marché des terres paysannes dans l’Angleterre avant la peste, vers 1290–1350 : une marche à suivre par Colin Platt†

Si les archéologues disposent de beaucoup d’information sur la peste et les changements climatiques, ils sont souvent moins au fait de l’émergence dans l’Angleterre d’avant la peste d’un marché florissant de terres paysannes faisant intervenir à la fois les paysans libres (freemen) et les vilains (villeins). Or, on pourrait avancer que la liberté croissante dévolue au métayer d’acheter et de vendre des terres a pesé bien plus que la peste noire (1348–1349), ou la Grande famine (1315–1317), dans la transformation de la structure sociale de l’Angleterre de la fin du moyen-âge. Accoutumés à voir les cinq décennies précédant la peste comme un dernier interlude de prospérité avant le début de la récession, les archéologues se sont contentés d’examiner les années postérieures pour déceler des traces de changements. Pourtant, la combinaison toxique d’un marché de terres paysannes hyperactif et de la crise de subsistance la plus grave que l’Angleterre ait jamais connue, avait contribué à l’essor au début du siècle d’une classe de paysans cossus, de plus en plus acquéreurs et dominants – les kulaks –, détenteurs de terres qu’il leur fallait protéger. C’est de cette époque que remonterait la grande maison de village, plus permanente. Il est également suggéré que c’étaient des paysans acquéreurs de terres, plutôt que des aspirants nobles à la recherche de statut, qui ont probablement creusé la grande majorité des douves non seigneuriales retrouvées en grand nombre à travers l’Angleterre. Bien que des travaux plus poussés s’imposent pour permettre la datation archéologique de ces douves, on part déjà de l’hypothèse qu’elles remontent principalement à la première moitié du 14^ème siècle. Si c’est le cas, les douves domestiques plus petites, ou fermières (homesteads), retrouvées dans certaines paroisses en multiples allant jusqu’à 13, peuvent désormais être considérées comme des éléments persuasifs attestant d’une crise catastrophique de la loi et de l’ordre public, que les historiens ne connaissent qu’au travers des sources documentaires.

Zusammenfassung

Die Archäologie des Bauernlandmarkts in England vor der Pest, ca 1290–1350 n.Chr.: Ein Weg nach vorn von Colin Platt†

Während Archäologen gut über die Pest und den Klimawandel informiert sind, sind viele weniger vertraut mit der Tatsache, dass in England vor der Pest ein dynamischer Bauernlandmarkt entstand, an dem sich sowohl Freie wie auch Leibeigene beteiligten. Und doch spielte die zunehmende Freiheit der Pächter, Land zu kaufen und zu verkaufen, wohl eine größere Rolle beim Wandel der gesellschaftlichen Strukturen des spätmittelalterlichen England als der Schwarze Tod (1348–1349 n.Chr.) oder die Große Hungersnot (1315–1317 n.Chr.). Archäologen sind daran gewöhnt, die fünf Jahrzehnte vor der Pest als letztes Intermezzo des Wohlstands vor dem Beginn der Rezession zu sehen, und haben daher hauptsächlich in den Jahren nach der Pest nach Hinweisen für diesen Wandel gesucht. Jedoch hatte die schädliche Kombination eines überhitzten Bauernlandmarkts und der schlimmsten Versorgungskrise, die England je erlebt hat, im früheren 14. Jahrhundert das Anwachsen einer reichen, zunehmend am Erwerb interessierten und dominanten Bauern- oder „Kulak”-Klasse mit Landbesitz zur Folge, den es zu schützen galt. Hier wird argumentiert, dass die großen und eher auf Dauer angelegten Dorfhäuser ihren Ursprung in dieser Zeit hatten. Ebenso wird vorgeschlagen, dass wahrscheinlich nicht die auf Status begierigen Möchtegern-Landadeligen, sondern die erfolgreichen bäuerlichen Landnehmer die überwältige Mehrheit der nicht um Herrenhäuser gezogenen Befestigungsgräben aushoben, die in so großer Zahl überall in England erhalten sind. Obwohl noch weitere Arbeiten nötig sind, um diese Gräben archäologisch zu datieren, wird bereits jetzt weithin angenommen, dass sie hauptsächlich in die erste Hälfe des 14. Jahrhunderts gehören. Falls das stimmt, kann man jetzt den kleineren Hausgraben oder „Gehöftgraben”, der in einigen Gemeinden in bis zu 13-facher Ausformung auftritt, als überzeugenden materiellen Beweis für eine katastrophale Krise der öffentlichen Ordnung sehen, von der die Historiker bisher nur aus Dokumentenquellen wissen.

Riassunto

L’archeologia del mercato terriero nel periodo precedente la peste in Inghilterra, 1290–1350 d.C. ca: la direzione da seguire di Colin Platt†

Gli archeologi sono molto bene informati sulla peste e sul cambiamento climatico, però molti di loro non hanno grande familiarità con il periodo precedente la peste in Inghilterra e con la comparsa di un vigoroso mercato delle terre dei contadini in cui figuravano sia gli uomini liberi che i ‘villani’ o servi della gleba. Eppure la libertà crescente del possidente di vendere e comprare terreni ha avuto probabilmente una parte ben più importante nella trasformazione della struttura sociale dell’Inghilterra tardomedievale sia della peste nera (1348-49 d.C.) che della grande carestia (1315-17 d.C.). Abituati a considerare i cinque decenni che precedettero la pestilenza come l’ultima parentesi di prosperità prima dell’avvento della recessione, è soprattutto negli anni successivi alla peste che gli archeologi hanno cercato le ragioni del cambiamento. Tuttavia l’insieme tossico di un mercato di terreni agricoli iperattivo e della peggiore crisi di sussistenza che l’Inghilterra abbia mai conosciuto aveva portato, all’inizio del secolo, alla crescita di una classe ricca e sempre più acquisitiva e dominante di agricoltori, di ‘kuliaki’ che avevano possedimenti da difendere. La grande e più permanente casa del villaggio, si sostiene qui, nacque in questo periodo. Si afferma inoltre che a scavare la maggior parte dei fossati che circondavano le dimore non feudali e che sussistono tuttora in gran numero in Inghilterra furono probabilmente accaparratori di successo appartenenti alla classe contadina, e non aspiranti alla nobiltà minore, bramosi di affermare la loro posizione sociale. Per stabilire la cronologia di questi fossati sarà necessario molto lavoro, tuttavia è opinione largamente diffusa che risalgano alla prima metà del XIV secolo. Se questo è vero, allora il fossato domestico di dimensioni minori, o fossato di casa colonica, presente in muultipli che in alcune diocesi arrivano fino a tredici, può rappresentare la convincente prova materiale di quella crisi catastrofica della legalità che gli storici conoscono solo attraverso le fonti documentarie.

Notes

¹ Medieval Archaeol, 1 (1958), 183; <www.medievalarchaeology.co.uk> [accessed 24 September 2016].

² Ibid, 2.

³ Papers in Gilchrist and Reynolds 2009, 4, 144, 161–3, 178, 259, 386, 410, 453. See also the opinion piece by Aleksandra McClain 2012.

⁴ For example see Martin 1989, 14; 2000, 5–7; and Brown and Taylor 1991, 28. For a critique and an alternative explanation for moat-building at homestead level, see Platt 2010, 115–33.

⁵ Brooke and Postan 1960; Harvey 2010, 2.

⁶ For Eastrop, a manor of Edington Priory, see Faith 1984, 149.

⁷ Jones 2001, 51–67.

⁸ Kanzaka 2002, 594, 598; Schofield 2003, 16–17; Dyer 2005, 34–5. For another view, emphasising the role of the greater landowners in resisting calls for freedom, see Razi 2007, 182–7. Also see A T Brown’s demonstration of wide variation in management practices in the Durham episcopal estates (Brown 2014, 716–7).

⁹ Raftis 1997.

¹⁰ Kilby 2010, 7–27.

¹¹ Razi 1980, 79–81.

¹² Ibid, 37, tab 5; Platt 2012, 292–8.

¹³ Razi 1980, 40.

¹⁴ For the Bishop of Winchester’s relative success in bucking the trend on his own estates, see Mullan and Britnell 2010, 132–6 and throughout. For comment on the origins of this class, see Schofield 2003, 72–4.

¹⁵ Smith 1984, 165–70.

¹⁶ Ibid, 169.

¹⁷ Bailey 1998, 240–1 and throughout.

¹⁸ Briggs 2009, 215, 217 and throughout. However, widespread dispossession of the cottager class resulted from the Great Famine years (1315–17) — their holdings snapped up by richer villagers.

¹⁹ Schofield 2008, 43–9 and throughout.

²⁰ As at Ramsey, where the abbot’s officials eventually stopped listing his fugitive villeins (Raftis 1997, 40).

²¹ Campbell 2005.

²² Harvey 1984, 351.

²³ For the substantial timber-framed cottages of some Midlands villagers, see Alcock and Miles 2013, 157–9; for a comment on the stone-and-timber longhouses of comparable quality at Wharram Percy in North Yorkshire, see Wrathmell 2012, 314–5, 327–30, 340–2, 348–55.

²⁴ Rigby 1995, 45–9.

²⁵ Bailey 2007, 59–61.

²⁶ Campbell and Bartley 2006, 41.

²⁷ For low-level ‘economic crime’, as in ‘subsistence poaching’ and park-breaking, see Way 1997, 76, Appendix 7; also Mileson 2009, 160–72 and throughout.

²⁸ Britton 1977, 117; cited by Hogan 1979, 142 and throughout, where Hogan compares her own findings at Warboys (Huntingdonshire) with those of Britton at Broughton. With only one manor to draw on, Britton’s numbers are necessarily small. However, his conclusions are supported by Barbara Hanawalt’s work in Norfolk: in particular Hanawalt 1976 and 1979.

²⁹ For a recent restatement of this traditional Marxist view, see Razi 2007, 182–7.

³⁰ Franklin 1996, 162–98. Local peasant risings and other forms of dissent are usefully discussed by Schofield 2003, ch 8.

³¹ For this general point, see Hatcher and Bailey 2001, 99–106; for the main families looking after their own, see Harvey 1984, 352–4.

³² Franklin 1996, 170–1, 190–1.

³³ Bailey 1998, 226–7.

³⁴ For a discussion of the emergence and subsequent development of the English village, see Rippon 2008, 251–68 and throughout. More recently, John Blair’s major research project on English settlement and landscape ad 600–1100 has persuaded him that ‘the “classic” Midland village, with its linear house-plots and houses grouped tightly along street-frontages, was introduced no earlier than the 11th century, and probably after the Norman Conquest’, which makes equal division at least possible (Blair 2014, 15).

³⁵ Hatcher and Bailey 2001, 101.

³⁶ As, for example, at Havering in Essex, an ancient demesne manor of the crown (Campbell 2005, 58–9); and for rents rising as holdings decrease in size, see Kanzaka 2002, 600. For fragmentation and the efforts of a great landowner to keep his yardland tenements intact, see Page 2013, 23–43.

³⁷ Smith 1984, 185; Campbell’s word for the same phenomenon is ‘frenetic’ (Campbell 2005, 68); see also Schofield 2008, 47–9.

³⁸ Briggs 2009, 220.

³⁹ For the recent literature on the agrarian crisis and its relevance to archaeology, see Platt 2012.

⁴⁰ Wrathmell 2012, 340–2.

⁴¹ Alcock and Miles 2013, 200–9; Aston and Gerrard 2013, 203, 205; for the substantial 13th-century moated site at Site H, Lydd Quarry, see Barber and Priestley-Bell 2008, 287, fig 44 (reconstruction).

⁴² For the potential aspirations of such a class, see Creighton 2002, 195; and 2009, 88.

⁴³ Glasscock 1975; and see especially the recent coverage of all three returns in Campbell and Bartley 2006.

⁴⁴ Dyer 2013, 25. For a useful introduction to the commercialization debate, see Hatcher and Bailey 2001, 121–73; also Langdon and Masschaele 2006, 35–81. For some reservations on the sensitivity of 14th-century farm managers to price fluctuations, see Schneider 2014, 66–91.

⁴⁵ Prestwich offers a few sentences in his Oxford History on moats (2005, 19). For a more extended treatment, see Bailey 2007, 15–16.

⁴⁶ Taylor 1973, 125–7; Taylor had previously tried out his ideas in 1972, 239–40, 248.

⁴⁷ Taylor 1973, 127; but for an early expression of the case against Taylor’s ‘only answer’, see Platt 1978, 111–13; 2007, 98–9; 2010; and 2012, 294.

⁴⁸ As in Lewis et al 2001, 120.

⁴⁹ For the traditional interpretation of the moat as status symbol, see Fenwick 2012, 290; supported by Dyer 2013/14, 239, n 3. See Dymond and Martin 1999, 60–1 for a possible link with chivalric symbolism at this time.

⁵⁰ Davis 2006–7, 233; Platt 2007–8, 203–7.

⁵¹ For this see Platt 2010, 117–18. See also, for example, Heawood et al 2004, 157–61, and Price and Molyneux 2012, 139 with a focus on Lancashire and the Midlands.

⁵² For a bibliography, see Platt 2012, 295–8. Also Stone 2014, 435–62.

⁵³ For multiple moats in Bedfordshire, see Lewis et al 2001, 118. Also Dean 2014, 24–32, for data on substantial moat clusters in northern Suffolk.

⁵⁴ Campbell 2010, 285.

⁵⁵ Platt 1996, but for the less usual case of a community where land continued in demand after the Black Death and where falling grain prices stopped living standards rising in the aftermath of the pestilence, see Sapoznik 2013, 187–205.