The Normans - Part 1

Shortly after the Battle of Hastings and his installation upon the throne of England, William the Bastard (later, the Conqueror) granted land to the retainers who had fought at his side against the Saxons. In some cases, the grants were unconditional, but in most, they were in return for services which the grantee was required to render to the King. Shortly after his coronation, William conferred upon Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville, one of his most trusted friends, the entire county of Middenshire. This was, of course, in addition to the many other lands granted to Sir Geoffrey in other parts of the realm.

Sir Geoffrey visited the county in December 1068, staying only long enough to burn down a couple of villages. He then returned to the King, who was at that time in Winchester, and said that, having seen the county, he really didn't want it. Far from being consumed with anger, William was probably secretly pleased, for it enabled him to divide the county amongst a number of minor retainers and clerics, who had somehow been forgotten when lands were apportioned after the conquest. Thus, men who had never before held land became tenants in chief, answerable only to the King, and William was absolved of his guilt at giving them nothing previously. For six men, Christmas came early in 1068. An additional gift was that of a Shire Reeve, to oversee the six manors and help the Middenshire lords to adapt to their new role.

The new Lords of Middenshire had little contact with the rest of the Kingdom. Living as they did in a poor shire where few people were above the subsistence level, they made a conscious decision to distance themselves from the greed and infighting which was rife between rival barons in the rest of the kingdom. The causeway made the shire easy to defend, always supposing any more powerful magnate had decided to indulge in some land grabbing. But, there was no reason for them to worry. The truth was that no one wanted anything to do with Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville's cast offs. So, these Middenshire Lords, on the lowest rung of the Norman Ladder, made the most of what little they had. After all, poor land was better than no land at all.

The Annals of St. Peter's tell us that the Lords set up a feudal system in Middenshire, modelled as closely as possible on that operated on the mainland. In this, the native English were held by the Normans in varying degrees of freedom or slavery. First were the freemen, who had their own land, but were still required to lend a helping hand with the Lord's crops at busy times of the farming year. Next came the villeins, who held 20 to 30 acres each of arable land, scattered in small strips about the common fields. They paid rent to the Lord (often in grain, animals or vegetables early on in the period) and were bound to spend two or three days a week working in the demesne, or Lord's fields. In practice, this meant gathering the manorial crops while their own rotted. A similar position was occupied by craftsmen, such as smiths and (in Middenshire) mudders, but their land allocation was rather less and there were less demands on their time by the Manor. Lastly, and at the bottom of the pile, were the serfs, or slaves. They held no land, were required to work the whole time on the Lord's own holdings, and were forbidden from leaving the village. There were a number of other restrictions on the lives of the people in general, which they must have found galling. They were forbidden from grinding their own corn at home, being required instead to use the lord's mill and pay for the privilege. In 1102, Ergot of Rye, Abbot of Middenbury, ordered all privately owned millstones to be seized from the serfs on his manor, and used them to re pave the floor of his tithe barn, but not before he and his monks, in a rare moment of relaxation from the rigours of monastic life, 'played at millstone rolling within the cloister upon the day of St. Gug.' Not content with making money from this, the lord also insisted that peasants baked their bread, at a price, in the Manorial Oven near the manor house. Perhaps this was not such a bad idea after all. The use of a roaring bread oven in the middle of a village made almost entirely of wood and straw would not have been a particularly sensible idea. The Annals record that in 1087, the entire village of Gargley was 'razed to the ground by a fierce and tempestuous fire, blame for which rested on a villein and a bunlet he had been unlawfully baking in his hovel.'

In overall charge of the villiens, and responsible for the work they did on the manor, was the Reeve. He could be free or bond, and was usually chosen by his fellows. He had to make sure that peasants rose early enough to work; supervised ploughing, sowing, reaping and all other farm work; kept an eye on the bone idle or careless; and presented wrong doers to the manor court. Basically, he was required to be 'a verray peyne in al mennes arses,' and could make life very difficult for those in his charge. He could also be corrupt. When, in 1290, the Reeve of Lower Thuckworthy was sent to Portland with £6 to buy new millstones, neither he nor the money ever returned. The manor court records describe the incident as 'A grave and strange mystery, and one for which there appears to be no answer.' Three years later, the Mystery of the Lost Reeve was still being talked about on the manor. Not all Reeves disappeared; most just used their office to their own private advantage and managed to cover up any irregularities when the Exchequer's men carried out their periodic audits. To their credit, Reeves were usually scrupulously fair they deceived and cheated everyone equally.

During the early years, there is no evidence of protest or rebellion by the native Middenites against their new masters. When faced with the question, 'Why not?', the Chronicler of the now Norman run Middenbury Abbey, who is clearly not a Norman himself, provides us with an answer of sorts:

These cruel men would stop at naught to gather such riches as were available from the people. Not an ear of corn, a nugget of dung, nor a single duck escaped their notice. Any man fool enough to make feeble entreaty to mercy was cowed by terrible frowns and cluckings.

So it seems that Middenshire was subdued not by violence, but by a few lower order Lords looking ratty and tutting a bit. The new owners probably wore mail coats and iron caps, which added to their fierce appearance, and got into the habit of baring their teeth and grasping their sword hilts in a martial manner if any dirty Saxon got a little too close. They were trying to live up to a reputation they had gained by the defeat of the Saxons at Senlac. In fact, they probably just wanted a quiet life, and the killing of peasants must have come very low down their list of Things To Do In Middenshire. In any case, their armed retinues were very small, as were the number of peasants at their disposal, and it would have seemed pointless to slaughter the very people they relied upon to work their land. Again, it should be remembered that these men were not experienced in causing misery on a grand scale, unlike some of their mainland counterparts. The past master of mayhem was, of course, the King himself, who laid waste huge areas of the North of England in the twenty years after the Conquest, in an effort to bring the native English to their knees in submission. The Middenites were unaware of their overlords' lack of experience in peasant management, and knew nothing of this murder and mayhem. They simply accepted the change. It is more than likely that they couldn't have cared less about the conquest, believing, rightly or wrongly, that a Norman Lord was no worse than any other. In any case, the system was not totally alien to the Middenites. Most of them had been subject to the authority of some individual more powerful than themselves, even prior to the conquest, so they were already quite accustomed to being treated like dirt; it was their lot in life. The Middenshire Lords were, on the whole, benevolent, and took pains to assure the people that the manorial system was nothing personal.

In the next post, we'll take a look at Domesday.