Agriculture in Kent in the High Middle Ages

Campbell, B. (2010). Agriculture in Kent in the High Middle Ages. In S. Sweetinburgh (Ed.), Later medieval Kent1220 — 1540 (pp. 25-53). Boydell and Kent County Council.

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Download date:24. Jun. 2020

KENT HISTORY PROJECT

9

LATER MEDIEVAL KENT,1220–1540

KENT HISTORY PROJECT

ISSN 1352–805X

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Volumes in progress

Early Medieval Kent, 800–1220, ed. Jake Weekes, Andrew Richardson and IanCoulson

LATER MEDIEVAL KENT,1220–1540

EDITED BY

SHEILA SWEETINBURGH

THE BOYDELL PRESS

KENT COUNTY COUNCIL

© Kent County Council 2010

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislationno part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,

published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,

without the prior permission of the copyright owner

First published 2010The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, and

Kent County Council

ISBN 978 0 85115 584 5

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer LtdPO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK

and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA

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Contents

List of illustrations viiList of tables viiiNotes on contributors ixList of abbreviations xi

Introduction: Sheila Sweetinburgh xiii

1. The Economy of Kent, 1200–1500: An Age of Expansion, 1200–1348: 1Mavis Mate

2. The Economy of Kent, 1200–1500: The Aftermath of the Black Death: 11Mavis Mate

3. Agriculture in Kent in the High Middle Ages: Bruce M. S. Campbell 25

4. Timber and Iron: Natural Resources for the Late Medieval Ship- 55building Industry in Kent: G. M. Draper

5. The Religious Houses of Kent, 1220–1540: 79Barrie Dobson and Elizabeth Edwards

6. The Hospitals of Medieval Kent: Sheila Sweetinburgh 111

7. Kentish Towns: Urban Culture and the Church in the Later Middle 137Ages: Sheila Sweetinburgh

8. Heresy and Heterodoxy in Late Medieval Kent: Rob Lutton 167

9. Witchcraft and Magic in Kent, 1396–1543: Karen Jones 189

10. The Landed Elite, 1300–1500: Peter Fleming 209

11. Kent and National Politics, 1399–1461: David Grummitt 234

12. Kent and National Politics, 1461–1509: Malcolm Mercer 251

Bibliography 273Index 297

Illustrations

Plates

1. Impact of ‘mildew’ on wheat harvest in late 1330s2. Impact of cattle plague during the Great Famine3. Discovery of early post-medieval vessel at Maytham4. St Thomas’ Shrine, Holy Trinity Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral5. Ruins of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury6. Ruins at Monks Horton7. Cobham College8. St Mary’s Hospital, Dover9. Rochester and Dover seals10. Moot horn from Faversham11. Sandwich Custumal12. Misericord from Thanet – association of women with the Devil

Figures

‘Kentish’ land-use and agriculture 30Kent unit land values and yields per acre 36Kent demesne production trends, 1275–1374 43Kent yields per seed 1280–1379 45Kent and England grain yields per seed 1280–1379 46Impact of the 1319–20 cattle plague in Kent 49

Maps

1. Late medieval Kent – locations 562. The Religious Houses of Kent, 1220–1540 80

Front coverSeal of the Corpus Christi Fraternity, Maidstone. Reproduced with permissionfrom Maidstone Borough Council, held at Centre for Kentish Studies.CKS–U1823/89

Tables

1. Kent demesnes: mean yield per seed gross of tithe and net of seed 372. Kent demesnes: mean seed sown per acres (bushels) 383. Kent demesnes: mean yield per acre gross of tithe and net of seed 39

(bushels)4. The religious houses of Kent 885. Late medieval chantry college in Kent 1086. Citations for sorcery, incantations and using magic 2007. Kentish gentry 221

The author and publishers are grateful to all the institutions and individuals listedfor permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Everyeffort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for anyomission, and the publishers will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledge-ment in subsequent editions.

Notes on Contributors

Bruce Campbell is Professor of Medieval Economic History at The Queen’sUniversity of Belfast, where he has taught since 1973. His research currently focusesupon the economic history of late-medieval Britain and Ireland, with particular refer-ence to human–environment interactions during the fourteenth century and trends inagricultural output and productivity from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries. He isthe author of English Seigniorial Agriculture 1250–1450 (2000), with Ken Bartley,England on the Eve of the Black Death: An Atlas of Lay Lordship, Land, and Wealth,1300–49 (2006), three collections of essays in the Ashgate Variorum Series, and theonline database Three Centuries of English Crop Yields, 1211–1491 [URL http://www.cropyields.ac.uk]. He delivered the 2008 Tawney Memorial Lecture to theEconomic History Society and is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and Fellow ofthe British Academy.

Barrie Dobson was a lecturer at the University of York until he became Professorof Medieval History at the University of Cambridge in 1988. After his retirement in1999 he returned to York, where he now lives. Among his various works on that city,his chapter on ‘York Minster, 1215–1500’ for a collaborative history of that cathedralwas written shortly after his book on Durham Priory, 1400–1450. He also contributeda chapter to A History of Canterbury Cathedral (1995). Among his other publicationsare studies devoted to the medieval English Jewry, to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381and to town government and finance.

Dr Gillian Draper, FRHS, FSA is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Kent,and Events and Development Officer for The British Association for Local History.Recent publications include Rye: a History of a Sussex Cinque Port to 1660 (2009)and The Sea and the Marsh: the Medieval Cinque Port of New Romney (Pre-ConstructArchaeology monograph 10, 2009).

Dr Elizabeth Edwards is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School ofHistory, University of Kent, where she developed and taught on the regional and localhistory programmes from 1994 to 2007, specialising in the late medieval and earlymodern periods. She has contributed to Archaeologia Cantiana and An HistoricalAtlas of Kent and has edited volumes on various aspects of Kentish history.

Dr Peter Fleming is Principal Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of theWest of England, Bristol. His University of Wales PhD thesis dealt with the gentry offifteenth-century Kent, and he has published several articles on the social and polit-ical history of later medieval Kent. His other research interests include medieval

urban history, with particular reference to Bristol, and migration. He is the co-author,with Madge Dresser, of Bristol: Ethnic Minorities and the City, 1000–2001 (2007).

Dr David Grummitt is a Lecturer in British History at the University of Kent. Hepreviously worked at the History of Parliament Trust and has completed biographiesof all the MPs who sat for Kent and the Kentish towns and Cinque Ports in Henry VI’sParliaments. He has published extensively on Calais under English rule and the reignof Henry VII. He is currently preparing a new study of Cade’s Rebellion of 1450.

Dr Karen Jones taught History in secondary schools in Canterbury for many years.Her PhD thesis (University of Greenwich) was based on Kentish sources and her bookGender and Petty Crime in Late Medieval England (2006) won the Women’s HistoryNetwork Book Prize for 2007.

Dr Rob Lutton is a Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Nottinghamand is the author of Lollardy and Orthodox Religion in Pre-Reformation England:Reconstructing Piety (2006).

Mavis E. Mate is an Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Oregon. Shehas written extensively on the agricultural and economic history of south-eastEngland and two books on the position of women in Kent and Sussex. Recently, sheworked with colleagues on a history of Sandwich.

Dr Malcolm Mercer is currently Curator of Tower History with the Royal Armouriesat the Tower of London. He has previously worked as Senior Medieval RecordsSpecialist at The National Archives and Senior Research Archivist at CanterburyCathedral Archives. His research interests are focused primarily upon the politicalculture of Late Medieval and Early Modern England, and he has published widely onsubjects including gentry behaviour during the Wars of the Roses, Kentish politicalsociety, and the Anglo-Irish political community.

Dr Sheila Sweetinburgh is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Kent, and afreelance documentary researcher, principally for Canterbury Archaeological Trust.She is the author of The Role of the Hospital in Medieval England: Gift-giving and theSpiritual Economy (2004) and has written numerous articles on medieval Kentishsociety.

X NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Abbreviations

Arch. Cant. Archaeologia CantianaBL British Library, LondonCCAL Canterbury Cathedral Archives and LibraryCChR Calendar of Charter Rolls [1226–1517], 6 vols (London,

1903–27)CCR Calendar of Close Rolls [1272–1509], 47 vols (London,

1892–1963)CFR Calendar of Fine Rolls [1272–1509], 22 vols (London,

1911–62)CKS Centre for Kentish Studies, MaidstoneCPR Calendar of Patent Rolls [1232–1509], 52 vols (London,

1891–1916)EKA East Kent Archives, WhitfieldFA Feudal Aids 3, 1284–1431, Kent–Norfolk (London, 1904)Hasted, History E. Hasted, History and Topographical Survey of the County of

Kent, 12 vols (1797–1801, repr. 1972)HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission: 5th Report (1876); 9th

Report (1883); Canterbury (1882)IPM Inquisition Post MortemLetters and

PapersLetters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign ofHenry VIII, ed. J. S. Brewer et al., 22 vols (London, 1862–1932)

LPL Lambeth Palace LibraryODNB Online Dictionary of National BiographyPCC Prerogative Court of CanterburyPRO Public Record OfficeTNA The National Archives, KewValor Eccles. Valor Ecclesiasticus, ed. J. Caley and J. Hunter, 6 vols,

Record Commission (London, 1810–33)VCH Kent Victoria County History: Kent, 3 vols (London, 1908–32)