How Did the Buildings and Landscapes of the Secular Elite Shape Medieval Settlement and Social Relationships - Term Paper Example

How did the buildings and landscapes of the secular elite shape medieval settlement and social relationships? You may consider the buildings themselves as well as their location in the wider landscape. Introduction In medieval times the feudal system was the norm. It has been described as a system of reciprocal obligations, both legal and military. Under this system everyone had a place in a very hierarchical society, each owing allegiance to the person above him in the social ladder, with the king being ultimate ruler under God. It was thought to represent the hierarchical structure of the created world with God /King at the apex – all powerful, and the peasantry at the base – no power and the need for total obedience. This was a very religious age and so religious ideas and images were important. Such a social hierarchy was thought of as being good and right, as it was the pattern set by God. The lower orders, at least 90% of the population, would pay for their lord’s protection by working for him and giving him a part of their produce. Free peasants such as blacksmiths and carpenters had to rent the land they occupied. Most people were given small plots of land on which to raise food. This was supposed to give them a form of security. In return they were each expected to put in a fixed amount of time working their lord’s lands. Razi and Smith (1996) mention one case in the1330’s where a lord demanded some 12,000 individual day or half day periods of service. In some cases military service was also expected. If the land on which they lived came under new ownership then they just acquired a new lord. The lords in their turn often did exactly what they liked. Their powers were political, judicial and monetary. A lord could order punishment and demand rent or service from his subjects. Some even minted their own coins. Hunting was an important part of the life of the nobility in medieval times. Kings, their courtiers and lesser noblemen, were all expected to excel at and to enjoy hunting on a regular basis. It was thought of as being both an art and a science and as such had its own rules and terminology. People of that period thought of three types of hunting:- Venery, the science used to take an animal out of its herd. Fowling, protecting crops against birds. Hawking, the use of birds of prey to hunt feathered game. In earlier times the hunters had just attacked the first prey they came across, but from the time of the Normans onwards it became a much more refined process with animals being bred specifically to be hunted, as in the case of deer and game birds, and with skilled huntsmen leading the hunters to the prey. The importance of animals, whether hunted or hunting, cannot be underestimated. The hunt would begin with men beating in the wood, and driving the game using both with dogs and horns, towards the hunters, a practice continued on occasion to this day. Most writers on the subject were French and in the 13th century ‘Le Dict de la Chace du Cerf’ (Rules for hunting deer) appeared, also ‘Livre de Roy Modus’ which described in detail how to hunt all kinds of game. Both of these works are cited by LaCroix. Deer Parks Freedom to act among the nobility could even include such things as removing a whole village, in order to provide themselves with leisure grounds, as is believed to have happened at Tatton in Cheshire, which has a thousand acre deer park and a lost village of Strettle as described by Mark Olly. No definite deer parks are known of in the Anglo Saxon period, although the park at Hanbury in Worcestershire was already in use at the time of the compiling of the Doomsday Book in 1086 and they are mentioned in several Anglo Saxon documents being referred to as Derhaye or deer-hay, according to the article ‘Okehampton Deer Park’. Generally speaking they were a Norman initiative with the majority being constructed within two or three generations of the Conquest among those with new found wealth. Deer parks were common features of the medieval countryside in both England and Scotland. All eight known castles which were built in North Staffordshire were each associated with a nearby deer park. Such parks would however only have been constructed in places where the lord might actually visit his lands, as described by Platt, page 47 (1994). Aston (page 61), 2003, credits the Normans with introducing a number of new species, including fallow deer, to live alongside the resident red deer and, by 1200, pheasants were being bred and farmed as game birds. Creighton (2009) describes how, although landscaping on a grand scale is often associated with the 17th and 18th century, such work actually began much earlier. Often the lord owned several properties. He would travel between these and receive guests in grand style. Both secular lords and wealthy churchmen maintained deer parks, these often being on a large scale. The bishops of Winchester owned a total of 8,000 acres in parks throughout Hampshire. James (2003, page 67) records that King John never spent more than a month at one place during the more than 17 years that he was the monarch. Burt (1999) describes how the Earl of Cornwall owned 21 such parks in various parts of the country and the Bishop of Durham had 13 at his disposal. Travel was difficult and so the medieval manor had to be more or less self sufficient. The land of each manor had to provide both land for arable use as well as pasture, together with woodland. Deer parks, according to Burt, utilized land that wasn’t the best for farming in the normal way. Razi and Smith (1996) page 167, mention the draining of swampy land, which rather goes against the idea that the peasants were prevented from farming by the construction of such parks and so perhaps not as many were removed from their land as might be supposed. They were of course prohibited from hunting the game within and would be severely punished if caught. Looking at things from a 21st century prospective it is perhaps difficult to understand that the view of the time was that everyone had their place and role in society and so such situations were generally accepted. They might however be allowed in to collect wood ‘by hook or by crook’ i.e. whatever dead wood they could pull down and collect, or to act as beaters for the hunt and to allow their pigs to eat fodder such as mast during autumn, a right known as pannage as described on the Metropolitan Museum web site . Burt points out that such parks often contained a warren so that rabbits could be easily caught. Rabbits are thought to have been had been introduced to England by the Romans, as had hares and pheasants according to Cross, 2006. Such a warren bank exists on ancient manorial land at Arksey in South Yorkshire, which runs next to an old Roman road, and to this day rabbits can be seen running there. Nearby are fish lakes, also often a feature of such parks, as described by Currie (1992). Often such parks would be well away from the main house and so hunting lodges would be built, often with three storey towers so that the land around could be viewed easily. Such lodges also provided shelter in bad weather as well as somewhere to eat, usually on the top floor, after the energetic activity of the day. Gilbert, 2003 (page 80) points out that any archeological evidence that remains is linked with both deer parks and the hunting lodges they contained. Gilbert describes two kinds of lodges - those in the style of mini castles and other lesser and less permanent structures. Skilled huntsmen were employed to lead the king or lord towards the possible quarry. They would also be the ones who dealt with the kill. Hunters would normally be expected to provide their own hunting equipment, but the local lord would provide provisions and shelter. Parts of the original hunting forests were deliberately kept free of trees in order to provide places for grazing. These were called hays or lawns. Often the landscaped parklands of the17th and18th centuries can be traced back to such areas with the main house having been built on the site of a former hunting lodge such as happened at Wakefield Lawn, near Towcester in Northamptonshire. The tower house type of lodge would provide a useful platform for archers. The amount of staff required to run the deer parks and all the accompanying creatures, both the prey and the hunters, was of course considerable, as described on the web page ‘Medieval Hunting History’. With the arrival of the Black Death in England in the summer months of 1348 the situation changed. The highest estimates claim that half the population died. Whether or not this is true it is certain that whatever the occupation, from lowly shepherd to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, there were sudden vacancies and that whole communities disappeared. Wharram Percy in Yorkshire, once a thriving village with a church that was extended on more than on occasion (plate 65, Aston, 2003) was left with only two people and the land was eventually given over to sheep. The ultimate lord was of course the king. Henry VIII took over the manor of Hyde and turned it into a deer park for his own pleasure and benefit, according to Columbia University Press. This process had begun much earlier. Some 2000 medieval deer parks are known to have existed according to Michael Reed who describes (page 125) Bradgate Park in Leicestershire, which had been enclosed some time before 1247. Usually such parks were oval in shape in order to allow for the least amount of boundary possible, and would have been surrounded by huge fenced banked ditches. These must have taken considerable labour to construct and were expensive to maintain. English Heritage reports one such ditch, in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, to have had a bank 3 meters in width and 0.85 meters in height. A fence or palisade known as a pale would have surmounted it. The same report mentions a ditch of 3 meters in width at its maximum and 0.3 meters deep. One at North Stoneham Park is described by Currie (1992) as having a broad bank, up to two meters at its greatest height and more than six meters in width. Sometimes part of the boundary would be made up of water, occasionally of stone. Deer from the surrounding countryside would be able to gain access via a deer leap, but would then be unable to leave because of the internal ditches. The area contained inside the ditches on average were about 200 acres, much smaller than the vast royal forests. Parks were of two main kinds. The uncompartmented parks were designed to be accessible to the deer throughout the year as described on the Okehampton Deer park web page. The trees would be pollarded in order to protect any regrowth, and new trees would grow up in the protection of thorny shrubs and hollies. The other type were compartmented parks. Such a park would be divided into several coppices. Each of these would have the trees felled as required and then the area was fenced to allow the trees to grow until they were mature enough to withstand deer damage. Open grazing areas or lawns would have pollarded trees. Deer parks were formed only on those estates of the very rich, nobility and the great clerics, who spent much of their time hunting, however by the end of the15th century, according to Michael Reed (page 124) the wood contained in the parks had become more valuable than the deer. Deer are notorious for stripping bark and so destroying woodland and the animals would be excluded in order to allow the trees to grow undamaged. Occasionally land in private ownership would pass back into public ownership as when Henry VIII gave his private hunting ground, Sutton Park to the people of Sutton Coldfield in 1528, as described on the web page Sutton Coldfield, but this did not necessarily mean it could then be farmed. When poor men hunt it is called poaching and punishable, but it was the rich who had the horses, weapons and birds of prey, so once again it was they who were the main beneficiaries. The deer park was of economic importance in that it provided food, leather, wood etc, but also employment for many people. Just as with the fish ponds they provided an easily available larder of fresh food before the advent of modern day preserving methods and chill rooms and freezers. Hunting was an expensive pastime but there were other advantages in that if the king was kept happy then social advancement was possible. The Medieval Source Book recording an Inquest of the Sheriffs Regarding the Forests in 1170 mentions reward, promise and friendship as being the products of hunting.. Hunting Hunting was both a pleasure and a necessity – a way of entertaining guests and also of filling their bellies. By the later medieval period new methods of farming were being used and hunting for survival was no longer required. Instead hunting moved on from being a necessity into a stylized pastime for the aristocracy.James III of Scotland in the 15th century had several hunting lodges, as described by Gilbert, 2003, (page 42). Hunting, whether in forest or deer park, was an important way of interacting socially, something it has never lost. It also provided training for war A good hunter would also be a good soldier- hunting down the foe, shooting, riding in difficult terrain etc.The weapons used were the same or similar to those used when at war – bow, crossbow, lance and sword. Perhaps as much as these hunting served to set certain people apart as being priveliged beyond the norm. They were the ones who owned the weaponry, but also the three essentials - horses, hounds and hawks and the money to pay for them and their upkeep. The animals required training and special care as well as buildings dedicated to their use, stables, kennels and mews, each of which had their own staff as described on the web page Falconry/hawking. This provided work for many people, but often the animals must have lived in better conditions than some of the peasantary around them. The falconer was responsible for the care and training of his master’s birds ensuring that each was ready and able to hunt whenever required, just as the stable hand looked after the horses and the dog handlers the hounds.. These birds would be valuable assets which were also dangerous and fragile. The birds would be taken from their nests when very young and were carefully trained for the hunt. This took up considerable time, skill and patience. Also many different accessories were needed such as lures, hoods, jesses and bells. There were rigid rules. The ‘Boke of St Albans’ laid down which type of hawk could be used by each layer of society. Only the king could use a gyr falcon, princes could use a peregrine falcon, dukes rock falcons and so on. There were severe penalties for those who did not keep to such rules as described by Bellerby. The peasants were officially allowed to use kestrals – this put them on the same level as the children of the gentry, but falconry was referred to as a royal sport and poor people just could not afford the time and money needed to own and maintain such birds. These hunting birds needed considerable daily human contact and attention or they would soon revert to the wild and become unreliable. Forests were also used for hunting and had their own set of laws as described by Bellerby ( 2008) although these laws actually covered other large areas of land as well – anywhere designated as for hunting. This included areas of various kinds as well as wooded land - grassland, wet lands and heath land would be covered by such laws. The forest laws were designed mainly to preserve, for the use of the sovereign, for his amusement, but also his benefit. They protected both the animals he hunted and the plants that sustained them – the ‘venison’ and the ‘vert’. Winchester ( 2000) reports two types of forest, the ‘closed’ forests which were dominated by stock farming for land owners , but also and the forests where peasant settlement and where grazing were allowed. Laws covered both and included trespass. At their peak in the 14th century such areas covered one third of England, so made vast inroads into the available land mass that could be cultivated or used as pasture. For a fee the nobility were allowed the rights of ‘chase and warren’ i.e. to hunt. Both William Ist and his son William Rufus, keen hunters both, saw that such laws were kept to the harshest extent e.g. poaching deer could lead to be blinded. Royal connections According to the laws of the time all deer belonged to the king as described on the web page “Fallow Deer”. He in his turn would grant licenses so that his subjects, the richer ones, could enclose land for deer parks. During the early years of the Norman Conquest there were only a few such licenses granted, but numbers increased until they reached a peak at the time of the Black Death of 1347. The licenses would have of course been obtained at a cost, a royal fund raiser. The Black Death resulted in a great loss of population, and so a decline began and only the larger parks survived. The English Heritage report of 1999 claims that the creation of such parks brought about important changes in land use, which included the abandoning of many farms and small villages. This was a continuation of changes brought about in earlier times, for instance many medieval manors were built on land once occupied by Romans or Roman or Romano-Britons. The same document also reports on twelve hunting lodges built in Hampshire and later abandoned, presumably because people had other things to do such as fighting wars. Their boundary fences and ditches served to remind the population that these were private places accessible only to the elite. The situation did not last however. In Feckenham, Worcestershire formerly enclosed land was deforested by 1629 and was then used to grow tobacco which apparently did well as reported in ‘A history of the County of Worcester, volume 3.’ (1913). In Scotland there was a lodge at Kinclevin Castle, described by Gilbert (page 80), 2003, as a simple rectangular simple castle with buildings surrounding a courtyard and no projecting towers. At Newark the lodge consisted of a simple tower house. In England under Henry III in 1217 the laws were modified somewhat. People who lived in such a forest were for instance from this period allowed the right of pannage i.e. their pigs could feed freely. They would not of course be allowed to shoot the deer or other game. In return for their lord’s protection, about which they had no real choice, they gave up this and many other rights. Was it worth it? The peasants concerned may well have answered yes. They had protection, shelter and land to grow crops. Little else would have been expected. However in 1381, according to Snell, a rebellion by peasants did occur in England, possibly spurred on by changes in society brought about by the Black Death which had invaded the country a generation earlier. No longer willing to accept the difficulties of their lives many thousands of peasants called for legal recourse for what they saw as the injustices of an inherited life of servitude. They actually achieved very little immediately but changes were afoot. Conclusion Because hunting was such a widespread activity over such an extended period it obviously had its effect upon the landscape and the people of its time. Some poorer people would have benefited because they gained employment directly associated with hunting. Others lost out, perhaps having to move out of their homes and loosing land rights and established farms. Unfortunately it is true that during the medieval period there were wide differences between the haves and have-nots. The feudal system allowed men of rank to hold land as tenant in chief. The peasants were his tenants in their turn. A portion of land would be granted in exchange for service. In the cases where people did have to move to make room for such things as deer parks they would have been provided for in most cases as this was the way society worked at the time. The lord needed staff, he needed to have his land worked and in exchange he offered protection and shelter. By the 16th century feudalism was long gone Many parks, once the ultimate in expensive status symbols, fell into disuse. The deer were slaughtered and the trees removed so that the land could be better used to feed the ever increasing population either by turning it into pasture for sheep and cattle, or arable land for the cultivation of crops. There was increasing provision made for common land for grazing as described by Bellerby. In some cases though, the deer parks would become the basis for large leisure grounds of the stately homes of the17th and18th centuries. Even King Henry’s Hyde Park had been opened for public use by 1637 and in modern times people of whatever status have access to many of these former parks, providing of course that they pay their entrance fees. References ASTON, M., 2003, The Story of England, Stroud, Tempus BELLERBY, R., 2008, Life in an English Medieval Forest, available from http://medievalhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/life_in_an_english_medieval_forest ( accessed 2nd March 2010) BURT, J. 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