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Peepz and Cultz > Medieval Rural Landscape > Flashcards

Medieval Rural Landscape Flashcards

1
Q

Approaches and perspectives

A
  • Historians and archaeologists began to unite to study themes such as settlement abandonment
  • Environmental determinism and culture history approach
  • Empirical school of thought - real work done in field
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2
Q

W.G. Hoskins’ The Making of the English Landscape (1955)

A
  • First narrative history of countryside
  • Key themes:
  • Antiquity of the landscape
  • Diversity and variety of historical and social processes
  • How to identify visible aspects of the past landscape in the present
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3
Q

Post-war period

A
  • Interest in local and economic history, and archaeology as by-product
  • Emphasis on getting out into the field and using sources like Ordnance Survey and place-names
  • Long-running research excava9ons on rural settlement
  • Processual archaeology adopted late in medieval archaeology
  • Landscape archaeology since 1990s - integrated approach
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4
Q

Changes in Late Saxon and Norman period

A
  • Small estates based on the manor
  • Nucleated settlement in villages
  • Development of open fields
  • Parochial system and churches
  • Castles
  • Feudal land holding
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5
Q

Themes in the medieval rural landscape

AD 850-1300

A
  • The manor
  • Nucleation of settlement
  • Open fields
  • The parish
  • Feudal system
  • Castles
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6
Q

Themes in the medieval rural landscape

1300-1500

A
  • Population decline
  • Climate deterioration
  • Economic troubles
  • Settlement desertion
  • Feudal collapse
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7
Q

Regional variations

A
  • Patterns of settlement and field systems developed in radically different ways in different areas of England
  • ‘Ancient’ vs ‘planned’ countryside
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8
Q

Champion or planned countryside Grey’s ‘Midland system’

A
  • Nucleated villages, open fields
  • Predominantly clayland of Midlands
  • Also light soils of heaths, wolds and downs in S and E England
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9
Q

Open fields

A
  • Great fields without internal hedges or boundaries
  • Several hundred acres each
  • Divided into narrow strips
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10
Q

Crop rotation system

A
  • Three-field system comprised main crop (wheat or rye), fallow field and additional crop such as legumes
  • Fallow field used for communal grazing
  • Also meadow and rough pasture used as common land
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11
Q

Problems with open-field system

A
  • People had to walk over your strips to get to theirs
  • Soil exhaustion common problem
  • Land had to lie fallow for longer periods to recover
  • Animals trampled crops and spread disease
  • No flexibility
  • Peasants taxed heavily
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12
Q

Landscape character areas

A
  • Landscape historian Joan Thirsk identified a number of ‘regions’ in England characterised by variations in landscape character
  • Also known by French term pays - areas of innately distinctive topographical or cultural identity
  • ‘Leicester’ school - English Local History department
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13
Q

Fenland

A
  • Waterlogged, low-lying peat areas
  • Settlements around margins and on ‘islands’
  • Plentiful natural resources
  • Wealthy monastic houses
  • Examples: Norfolk Broads, Somerset Levels
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14
Q

Marshland

A
  • More tamed than fens, with permanent settlements from early on
  • Beside coast and in former estuaries Moated site at Manxey, Pevensey Levels
  • Valuable pasture and grazing land
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15
Q

Downland

A
  • Chalk of S England
  • Light, freely-draining soils
  • Linear settlement patterns along valley bottom or on escarpment/spring-line
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16
Q

Wolds

A
  • Once-wooded open upland underlain by limestone or chalk
  • Transhumance economy - summer grazing
  • Sheep kept for wool
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17
Q

Moorland

A
  • Originally signified barren wastes
  • Now refers to dry heathland
  • Peaty, with heather, ling and berries, reeds, mosses…
  • Few permanent settlements, but transhumance
18
Q

Livestock management

A
  • Keeping animals involved moving them
  • Had to be moved frequently to avoid grass ‘sickening’ and parasites infesting animals
  • Had to be moved off emerging crops
19
Q

Lordship and feudalism

A
  • Lords drew income from work of rest of society and required working peasantry
  • Numerous tiers of hierarchy - no single authority with complete control
20
Q

The manorial system

A 
Shepherd’s (1923) Historical Atlas 
• Basic unit of lordly landholding and estate administration 
• Manor and village not same 
• Demesne = for lord’s own use 
• Peasantry had varying obligations
21
Q

The manor: origins and development

A
  • Land grants to churches and nobles in 8th-9th centuries
  • Estate fragmentation and localised lordships > manors
  • Local lordship associated with emergence of major components of landscape: parish church, nucleated village, common field system
22
Q

The manor: size and composition

A
  • Size varied considerably from area to area
  • Regional differences in territorial division
  • Two types of manorial tenant: villein and freeman
23
Q

Manorial customs and regulations

A
  • Good organisation essential in such a communal system, especially with open-field farming
  • Manor court upheld rights and obligations
24
Q

Castles

A
  • High-status private residences and estate centres as well as military
  • Highly visible and in significant places
  • Hub of wider network of estates rendering services and rents to sustain seigneurial centres
25
Q

Castles in the rural landscape

A
  • Should be seen in context of landscape character areas and regional cultures
  • Key role in rural economy and variety of administrative functions
26
Q

Designed landscapes

A
  • Powerful social role of parks and other elite landscapes
  • Natural environment manipulated for visual impact and social expression
  • Sense of control over nature - order from chaos
27
Q

Influence of the Church Roche Abbey, S Yorks (EH)

A
  • Most powerful landowner - by 14th century owned quarter of all land
  • Carried out major land improvements
28
Q

Churches in the landscape

A
  • Reveal much about development of landscape
  • Olen places of long-term significance
  • Rebuilding or lack of - indicator of wealth
29
Q

Houses and vernacular buildings

A
  • Most surviving standing buildings on powerful/monastic estates
  • Longhouse tradition in upland areas
30
Q

Diet and the landscape

A
  • Grain most important component of diet
  • Production of other foodstuffs often linked to lordly/ecclesiastical activity
  • Changes in agricultural production and demographics before and after Black Death prompted shifts in consumption
31
Q

Gardens and orchards

A
  • Grounds of monasteries and manor houses main focus
  • Part of ‘designed landscape’ - display of wealth and exclusivity
  • Provided food and medicines for community
32
Q

Salt production

A
  • One of most important commodities
  • Domestic as well as ecclesiastical use
  • Produced on fens and in littoral zone
33
Q

Fish

A
  • Fish important part of medieval diet - partly for religious reasons
  • Fishponds status symbol as well as functional
  • Fish-traps and weirs
  • In use in Severn estuary since at least late Saxon period
34
Q

Rabbit warrens and pillow mounds

A
  • Kept for meat and fur
  • Meat primarily consumed by elite classes
  • Coneygarths or warrens for breeding rabbits
  • Elongated, cigar-shaped mounds
  • 10-40m in length
  • Drainage ditch and on slope to keep tunnels and chambers dry
35
Q

Dovecotes

A
  • Doves and pigeons kept for meat, feathers and manure

* Symbol of status and regulated part of manorial system

36
Q

The Black Death

A
  • Early 14th century
  • Climatic deterioration
  • Crop failure and poor harvests
  • Insufficient food supply
  • Population particularly vulnerable to several plague outbreaks from 1348 onwards
  • Between third and half of population wiped out
37
Q

Rural economy and labour

A
  • Peasants’ Revolt of 1381

* Decline of feudal system

38
Q

Wharram Percy, N Yorkshire

A
  • One of largest and best preserved DMVs
  • Occupied from 9th/10th to 16th century
  • Fieldwork ran for over 40 years
39
Q

Hound Tor, Devon

A
  • 4 Dartmoor longhouses - cattle kept under same roof

* Abandoned in 14th or 15th century, perhaps due to deteriorating climate

40
Q

Why were settlements abandoned?

A
  • Black Death usually cited as main reason, but just one of range of causes
  • Climate, poor harvests
  • Retreat from marginal land
  • Consolidation of estates with diminishing acreages
41
Q

Changing farming system

A
  • Restructuring of farming
  • Conversion from arable to pasture
  • Wool particularly profitable in 15th century
42
Q

Late medieval landscape and society

A
  • Shift from arable to pasture
  • Population contraction
  • Surplus wealth
  • Rise of gentry farmer

Peepz and Cultz (9 decks)

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