MILLS IN THE MEDIEVAL ECONOMY
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MILLS IN THE MEDIEVAL ECONOMY
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MILLS IN THE MEDIEVAL ECONOMY England –
v John Langdon
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © John Langdon The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (marker) First published All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN --- Typeset by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn, Norfolk
For my mother,
Helen Langdon Edgson, and in memory of my father, Lloyd James Langdon
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Contents List of Plates List of Figures List of Maps List of Tables List of Abbreviations Preface
Introduction . The Milling Industry about .. The Number of Watermills and Windmills about .. The Nature and Structure of the Milling Industry about
. Mill Numbers and Revenues – .. Mill Numbers – ... Total Mills ... Regional Variation ... Types of Mill: By Power Source ... Types of Mill: By the Nature of Work Performed ... Ecclesiastical versus Lay Estates ... Rural versus Urban ... Tenant Mills .. Mill Revenues – .. Conclusion: The Durability of Milling
. The Technology of the Late Medieval English Milling Industry .. Watermills ... Horizontal versus Vertical Watermills ... Water Control Systems ... The Construction and Repair of Weirs, Water-Channels, and Millponds ... Waterwheels, Wheel Pits, and Tail Races ... Internal Mill Workings ... Fulling and Other Industrial Mills ... Mill-Houses
xi xii xiii xiv xvi xvii
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Contents
.. Windmills ... Post-Mills ... Tower Mills ... Post-Mill Foundations ... The Inner Workings and Housing of Post-Mills .. Horse-Mills and Hand-Mills .. Conclusion: Technical Creativity and Technological Systems
. The Operation of Milling .. Milling Operation and Performance ... The Capacity of Mills ... What Mills Were Grinding ... The Efficiency of Grain-Milling ... Other Services Provided by Millers ... Mills for Other Purposes .. Milling Supplies ... Timber ... Other Materials ... Millstones .. Conclusion: The Reliability of Supply
. Entrepreneurs .. The Demesne Sector: Investment in Milling by Lords .. The Demesne Sector: Mill Lessees ... Length of Leases ... Maintenance Costs Agreements ... Pledges and Securities ... Who Were the Lessees? ... Mill Lessee Families ... Cooperative Leasing ... Sub-leasing ... The Typicality of Mill Leasing .. The Tenant Sector .. The Borough and Domestic Sectors ... Borough Sector ... Domestic Sector .. Conclusion: Capital Fragmentation and Reformulation
. Workers and Customers .. Workers ... Operators
Contents ... Maintenance Workers ... Millwrights and Master Carpenters .. Customers ... Legal Commentary and Legislation on Suit of Mill and Other Milling Issues ... Case-Law in Medieval Milling: The Curia Regis Rolls ... Case-Law in Medieval Milling: The Year Books ... The Practical Effect of Suit of Mill upon Communities ... The Practical Effect of Suit of Mill upon Tenants ... Multure Rates: The Cost to the Customer ... The Reaction of the Customer .. Conclusion: The Social Interactions of Milling
Conclusion: The Later Middle Ages as an Era of Change Appendices . Mill Computer Program . Manors Sampled for the Mill Computer Program . Mills and Their Revenues on a Medieval Manor: Birdbrook, Essex, – . Construction of a New Windmill at Burstwick, Yorkshire . Survey of the Lawling, Essex, Windmill . Construction of a New Horse-Mill at Ivinghoe, Oxfordshire, – . Multure Rates
Bibliography Index
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List of Plates .. Luttrell Psalter watermill, early fourteenth century. BL Add. MS , fo. ; by permission of the British Library .. Mill with undershot waterwheel, first half of thirteenth century. Bodl. MS , fo. r; by permission of the Bodleian Library, Oxford .. Mill with overshot waterwheel, c.–. BL Cleopatra cxi, fo. ; by permission of the British Library .. Fulling-mill, . From Vittorio Zonca, Novo teatro di machine et edificii per varie et sicure operatione (Padua: P. Bertelli, ), ; reproduced by courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, General Library System, University of Wisconsin, Madison .. Bellows (or ‘blowing’) mill, c.. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Codex Latinus Monacensis , fo. v; by permission of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich .. Tool-grinding mill, . From Georg Andreas Böckler, Theatrum machinarum novum (Nuremberg: Paulus Fürsten, ), pl. ; reproduced by courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, General Library System, University of Wisconsin, Madison .. Tower mill from a Norman book of hours, c.–. Bodl. MS Auct. D. inf. . , fo. v; by permission of the Bodleian Library, Oxford .. Hand-mill shown in the Smithfield Decretals, c.. BL Royal E. , fo. ; by permission of the British Library .. Upper medieval millstone from Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire. Kindly supplied by Martin Watts .. Windmill, miller, and ‘cuddling couple’, Smithfield Decretals, c.. BL Royal E. , fo. ; by permission of the British Library .. Woman and miller arguing? Smithfield Decretals, c.. BL Royal E. , fo. v; by permission of the British Library .. Woman setting fire to windmill, Smithfield Decretals, c.. BL Royal E. , fo. ; by permission of the British Library)
List of Figures .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Movement of total mill numbers Movement of total mill numbers (expanded scale) Movement of mill numbers by region Movement of windmill numbers Movement of watermill numbers Movement of water grain mill numbers Movement of horse-mill numbers Movement of grain and industrial mill numbers Movement of fulling-mill numbers Movement of industrial mill numbers less fulling-mills Movement of ecclesiastical grain and industrial mill numbers Movement of lay grain and industrial mill numbers Movement of rural mill numbers Movement of urban mill numbers Movement of rural grain and industrial mill numbers Movement of urban grain and industrial mill numbers Movement of tenant mill numbers Horizontal watermill Vertical watermill Castle Donington, Leicestershire, twelfth-century dam layout Hypothetical drawing of Hollingbourne (Kent) pond and bay system, – ‘Compass arm’ waterwheel Elbow buckets and ‘clasp arm’ waterwheel Post-mill Tower mill The internal workings of a post windmill Evolution of post windmill supports The gearing for a horse-mill
List of Maps .. Watermills recorded in inquisitions post mortem, –. Reproduced from Langdon, ‘Lordship’, , by permission of the Past and Present Society .. Windmills recorded in inquisitions post mortem, –. Reproduced from Langdon, ‘Lordship’, , by permission of the Past and Present Society .. Distribution of manors in computer sample .. Foreign versus indigenous millstones across England, pre- .. Mill values per manor per year, –. Reproduced from Langdon, ‘Lordship’, , by permission of the Past and Present Society .. Mill values as a percentage of manorial values, –. Reproduced from Langdon, ‘Lordship’, , by permission of the Past and Present Society
List of Tables .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Comparison of mill numbers: versus the early fourteenth century Total mills: regionally corrected versus uncorrected indexes Percentages of types of mill in the computer sample over time Percentage grain versus industrial mills by region Mills on rural and urban manors Rental incomes from the bursar’s mills of Durham Cathedral Priory Revenues from the Birdbrook, Essex, mills, – to – Milling revenues: early sixteenth century compared to early fourteenth century Mill throughput figures from purveyance accounts Mill throughputs over time on four selected manors Single-year mill throughputs on selected manors Multure returns from various mills Milling efficiency for wheat from purveyance accounts Average millstone prices by region, – Gross investment rates for demesne mills Length of mill leases over time Length of leases by type of mill Repair agreements in mill leases Mill maintenance agreements versus length of lease Mill maintenance agreements versus annual rent levels Occupation, status, and gender names among mill lessees Mill leases arranged by number of lessees per lease Types of cooperative leasing for mills Types of tenant mill in computer sample Occupation, status, and gender names among tenant mill holders Cash elements in rents for tenant water corn-mills and industrial mills The labour component in mill construction costs
List of Tables .. .. .. .. .. A.. A.. A.. A.. A.. A..
The labour component in mill maintenance costs Wages of millwrights and master carpenters for mill construction work Mill cases in the Curia Regis Rolls, – Frequency of suit-of-mill and miller violations from selected court roll series, pre- Frequency of suit-of-mill and miller violations from selected court roll series, post- Main documentary series for the mill computer program Multure rates: the far North Multure rates: Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire Multure rates: other counties and places Multure rates: places of unidentified or uncertain counties Multure rates: actual cases of toll taken
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Abbreviations AHEW
BL BRL CCA CRR CuRO DCD ESRO HRO NRO OED PRO SBT VCH WAM WaRO WCL WoRO WSRO
The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vols., general editors H. P. R. Finberg and Joan Thirsk (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, – ) British Library Birmingham Reference Library Canterbury Cathedral Archives Curia Regis Rolls, vols. (London: HMSO, –) Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle Dean and Chapter of Durham, Prior’s Kitchen, Durham Cathedral East Sussex Record Office, Lewes Hampshire Record Office, Winchester Norfolk Record Office, Norwich Oxford English Dictionary, nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ) Public Record Office, Kew, London Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon Victoria County Histories Westminster Abbey Muniments Warwickshire Record Office, Warwick Worcester Cathedral Library Worcestershire Record Office, Worcester West Sussex Record Office, Chichester
Preface It is common for researchers to feel ambivalent about the end result of a project, and I am no exception. Although this study has been twenty years in the making, there are a whole host of avenues which I freely confess have remained largely unexplored and could themselves have formed the basis of major projects, such as a more intensive look at the archaeological and iconographic evidence for milling, or, perhaps most urgently needed, a stronger topographical analysis of the subject by trying to examine on the ground the remains of those mills so richly documented in the archives. Although I have certainly incorporated a lot of this type of material by way of the published literature, it is fair to say that the study is predominantly, some might say obsessively, reliant upon documents as the main source of evidence. But perhaps all this is simply a way of saying that this study is not comprehensive, but instead microscopic, in nature. It attempts to examine minutely, through documents, one type of economic and technological activity over a period of years and over one country. Although this certainly seems broad enough, in terms of making larger comments on medieval society as a whole it is prudent to recognize its limitations. It might certainly be possible to see milling as only one species of economic activity, which, with its own singularities and peculiarities, may be representative of nothing but itself. Fortunately for my own peace of mind I do not believe this to be the case. Milling was an intensely human activity. It was as natural a part of medieval life as the car or television industries are today. It was not a preserve of the eccentric (as clocks might have been then) or even class-specific, since virtually all sectors of society participated in it, both at the production and at the consumption ends. Like the car industry today, it was a very large industry with a very high level of capital investment. It created a sort of technological excitement. And like cars, mills were commonplace yet highly regarded. And, just as the study of the automobile industry will tell us much about modern (particularly Western) society, so too will the milling industry tell us much about medieval society. As suggested above, the study also has its own particular methodological orientation. It relies heavily upon quantitative analysis, most of it flowing out of a creation of a mill database for manors across England, the details of which are discussed in Chapter . The creation of this base took far more time than I had ever anticipated, but in addition to providing profiles of mill numbers for the study, much incidental material was gathered along the way in creating an
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examination of other critical aspects of the subject, particularly in relation to the technical aspects of mills (Chapter ) and the actions of entrepreneurs (Chapter ).The main manuscript excursions outside the database were, first, a survey of manorial court roll series to determine the relationship between providers of the milling service and customers, as discussed in Chapter , and, secondly, the abstraction of much useful information on mills from purveyance accounts, which forms much of Chapter on the operation of milling. The latter developed rather accidentally out of a study on medieval transport which I am also undertaking, and comprises one of those happy accidents that will unexpectedly enrich a project. A good deal of printed material was also examined, as is most obvious in the analysis of the legal context for milling discussed in Chapter . Nevertheless, despite the use of a very large amount of material in manuscript and print for this study, the result is less a comprehensive, intuitive survey of the English milling industry than a detailed look at some aspects of it. This, however, is very much in keeping with my philosophy that the way forward in academic matters involves a certain deconstruction of the aspects of a subject, here by looking very closely at some of the problematic features of milling, much as a scientist might look at the leg or mouth parts of a flea under a microscope. I have as much as possible tried to reconstruct the ‘organism’ from these in-depth analyses, but I am aware that the effect might appear uneven and that certainly there are some very major questions left unanswered (not least how detailed case-law developed in regard to milling over the later Middle Ages in particular). Finally, if the reader feels at times that the author is a little too happily absorbed in the detail, I do try frequently to lift my eyes above it and consider the larger questions of the subject. But it is often a difficult thing to do, since the pattern of the minute is as fascinating as the pattern of the immense (as Darwin perhaps most clearly saw). I have many debts to acknowledge. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to those who were involved in the original research project on medieval mills in the mid-s at the University of Birmingham. Of prime importance here was Dr (now Professor) Christopher Dyer, who sponsored and supervised the project, upon which I and later Richard Holt worked as research fellows, as well as generously providing me with much information from his own research on west midlands estates. I am also grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council and to the Leverhulme Trust for funding for this project from to , which was so crucial in starting my research on mills. I left the project in to take up my position at the University of Alberta, but found this too a congenial home for continuing my interests in milling and other aspects of medieval technology and economy.The Social Sciences and Human-
Preface
xix
ities Research Council of Canada supported my research through several grants, the key one for this book being held from –. I was also fortunate to receive a McCalla Professorship for – in order to start writing the book, while the University of Alberta has been generous in giving me a number of sabbaticals and internal grants over the years which have helped immensely for both the research and writing of the book. In another direction I should also point out the unfailing courtesy and help in the various record offices across England which I have visited, especially those I used particularly heavily, such as the Public Record Office, Westminster Abbey Muniments, Canterbury Cathedral Archives, the Norwich Record Office, and the Hampshire Record Office. Similarly, I am grateful to the British Library, Bodleian Library, the Memorial Library at the University of Wisconsin, and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek for supplying illustrations and the permission to use them, while the Past and Present Society kindly allowed me to reproduce maps from one of my previous publications. I have also had help from several of my students during this period, most notably James Bothwell, Jeanne Crudin, Rob Falconer, Jill McLuckie, Margot Mortensen, Tish Prouse, Mary Stares, and Brad Wuetherick, and from those whom I hired as research assistants in England: John Bruton, Graham Dawson, Marilyn Livingstone, and Mary Saaler. Through the years, in addition to Chris Dyer and Dick Holt, I have received helpful advice, information, and support from many friends and colleagues, including Leigh Alston, John Ambler, Grenville Astill, Bart Ballaux, John Bedell, Richard Britnell, Bruce Campbell, Martha Carlin, Lesley Cormack, Anne deWindt, Edwin deWindt, the late David Farmer, James Galloway, Barbara Harvey, Paul Harvey, John Hatcher, the late Rodney Hilton, Nils Hybil, Derek Keene, Maryanne Kowaleski, Kay Lacey, Marjorie McIntosh, Mavis Mate, David Moss, John Muendel, Margaret Murphy, Janken Myrdal, Bjørn Poulsen, Georges Raepsaet, Robert Smith, Michael Stansfield, Erik Thoen, Robert Titley, Michael Toch, Bas van Bavel, Petra van Dam, the late Adriaan Verhulst, and Owen Ward. I would like to single out here the extremely useful comments by two anonymous referees, which greatly improved this study on several important points. Christopher Thornton and Adam Lucas have kindly allowed me to cite important material from as yet unpublished papers. Norah Carlin had similarly allowed me to cite her Oxford B.Litt. thesis; Richard Lomas has allowed me to do the same from his University of Durham Ph.D. thesis; Patrick Clay and Chris Salisbury have permitted me to reproduce a drawing of a mill-dam revealed by their excavation at Castle Donington; and Terence Paul Smith has let me reproduce in slightly altered form his typology of post windmill supports. Special mention must be made to the generosity of Martin Watts, whose thirty-plus years of experience in the
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maintenance and construction of watermills and windmills have been invaluable in elucidating some of the technical issues in this study. Martin also drew Figures . to . for me as well as supplying Plate .. Similarly, Jill Walker transferred the computer-generated data onto Excel for the creation of Figures . to ., while Michael Fisher drew Maps . and . for me. I would here also like to thank those at the Oxford University Press who guided me so helpfully and patiently through the submission and editorial process, especially Anne Gelling, Kay Rogers, and Laurien Berkeley. None of the above are in any way responsible for the errors or omissions in this book, which, I am only too painfully aware, are of my own commission. To Ditiane and Peter Mountford I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude for all my stays in London while on research. Finally, to those who have been around me day in and day out and who have had to listen to my meanderings on mills and other medieval matters far beyond what they would wish, I thank for their forbearance over the years Lynne Austin, Ann McDougall, and my sons, David, Daniel, Charlie, Ian, and Alex. The book is dedicated to my mother and in memory of my father, who died many years ago while I was in another career, but who would have appreciated its intent and its subject matter. J.L.
Introduction
W and windmills provide one of the most enduring images of the Middle Ages. Although medieval Europe cannot necessarily claim to have originated the development of machines powered either by water or wind,¹ a prominent historical view is that they adopted such machines more readily than any other area of the world at the time.² This was particularly the case, as has been argued by many, in the realm of industrial activity, where watermills in particular were used for a myriad of industrial activities, such as fulling cloth, breaking up bark for tanning, or—eventually—rags for making paper, operating trip-hammers for iron forges, or crushing ore and bellows for blast furnaces, powering grindstones for sharpening tools, and even providing the power for automatic saws.³ Although this enthusiasm for the industrial dimension of milling should not persuade us to disregard what always remained the chief function of mills, that is, the grinding of grains for preparation into various forms of food or drink, nonetheless mills at an early stage epitomized the potential of new technology in the Middle Ages. Accordingly they have captured the interest of many modern scholars, as they did for people at the time, judging from the great frequency with which mills appeared in medieval iconography, often heavily imbued with symbolic meaning.⁴ The modern historiography of English milling and its role in the medieval society and economy is now over a century old.⁵ Its inauguration was signalled by the publication of Richard Bennett and John Elton’s four-volume History of Corn Milling, which still stands as the most useful overview of (mostly) English
¹ Watermills were well known during the Roman period and in China among other places and times, while the windmill seems to have appeared earlier in the Middle East or eastern Mediterranean than in the rest of Europe: e.g. Wikander, Exploitation of Water-Power; id., ‘Archaeological Evidence’; Needham, Science and Civilisation, iv/. –; Lewis, ‘Greeks’. ² e.g. White, Medieval Technology, esp. ch. ; Gimpel, Medieval Machine. ³ Gimpel, Medieval Machine; Blaine, ‘Enigmatic Water-Mill’. ⁴ White, ‘Iconography of Temperantia’; Salmon, ‘Windmill in English Medieval Art’. ⁵ In concentrating on English milling, I do not want to appear dismissive or ignorant of the fine work that has been published on milling for other parts of early Europe, such as that by Paul Bauters, Anne-Marie Bautier, Philippe Braunstein, Georges Comet, Yves Coutant, Michael Lewis, Dietrich Lohrmann, John Muendel, Bjørn Paulsen, Robert Phillippe, Colin Rynne, Raymond van Uytven, and Örjan Wikander, many of whom have been cited in this study.
Introduction
milling from its early days to the nineteenth century.⁶ In many ways a survey of the documentation of milling, from Domesday onwards, rather than an interpretation of the importance of the activity, Bennett and Elton nevertheless laid the foundation for the examination of milling over its entire history, and in many ways it is still a unique study. Indeed, more than thirty years passed before the examination of milling was taken up again. By now, much of the interest in the subject had shifted to the medieval period, increasingly seen as the most formative in the development of powered milling and an object of interest in terms of understanding the development of medieval society itself. Much of this was due to the path-breaking work of Richard Lefebvre des Noëttes, whose treatise on the development of horse-harnessing in the Middle Ages spurred an interest in technological development as a whole for the period.⁷ One of the fruits of this new-found interest in medieval technology was an article on milling which the great French historian Marc Bloch published in .⁸ Bloch argued that the spread of watermills and later windmills arose out of the power that lords were able to exert over their tenants. Of particular importance for Bloch was the ban, or seigneurial right, known as ‘suit of mill’, whereby tenants were forced to patronize the mill of the lord. In effect, Bloch was arguing that the spread of water- and later wind-powered milling was due not so much to the natural economic forces of supply and demand, but rather to the socio-political forces inherent in feudalism.⁹ As an elegant and powerful explanation, Bloch’s thesis concerning milling immediately gained widespread acceptance, and to a certain extent the problem of explaining the spread of milling seemed to be solved, at least for the early period. An equally influential article by Eleanora Carus-Wilson appeared in in which she claimed that the adoption of water power for fulling launched a major shift in the cloth industry from town to country during the thirteenth century, where, in her words, ‘it [the cloth industry] began to concentrate on the swift, clear streams of the north and west’.¹⁰ Although subject to considerable criticism,¹¹ Carus-Wilson’s thesis has been remarkably durable in promoting a vision of vigorous, water-powered mechanization of the cloth industry. This vision was aided considerably by R. A. Pelham’s patient plotting of many of the known early fulling-mills, which
⁶ Published in –. ⁷ Lefebvre des Noëttes, L’Attelage. ⁸ Bloch, ‘Avènement et conquêtes’. It is the English translation, ‘Advent and Triumph’, to which further references will be made. ⁹ The core of the argument is given in Bloch, ‘Advent and Triumph’, –. ¹⁰ Carus-Wilson, ‘Industrial Revolution’, . ¹¹ Notably Miller, ‘Fortunes’; van Uytven, ‘Fulling Mill’; Bridbury, Medieval English Clothmaking, ch. ; and Holt, Mills, ch. .
Introduction
revealed their distribution to be found mainly towards the West and North of England (and also in southern Wales) just as Carus-Wilson had predicted.¹² After the Second World War, itself the epitome of new (if destructive) technology, the growing belief in the Euro-centred ‘West’ as a uniquely technological society began to encourage historians to try to determine the roots of this strongly technophilic strand in Western society.¹³ It was easy enough to make this connection to the Greek and Roman world, seen as the foundation of Western culture and having significant technological accomplishments in its own right. But the problems associated with the collapse of the Roman empire in the West and the gradual withering on the vine of the empire in the East created a discontinuity in this story of technological achievement which was troubling to historians. As a result, the Middle Ages began to be examined as a previously overlooked breeding ground for new technology. This idea had already been sounded as early as in the periodical literature,¹⁴ but it achieved breakthrough with two separate publications in . One was Georges Duby’s L’Économie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans l’occident médiévale.¹⁵ Duby argued that much of the great agricultural upsurge observed from the tenth to the early fourteenth century was based upon a number of important new technologies, such as the heavy plough, the greater use of iron, horse traction, and, of course, watermills and windmills.¹⁶ But even more influential in establishing the thesis of a technologically active European Middle Ages was Lynn White Jr’s Medieval Technology and Social Change. An academic work which enjoyed extraordinary popularity,¹⁷ it established the Middle Ages as a period of key interest for the development of European technology. It was reinforced by the publication in the following decade of another popular work, Jean Gimpel’s La Révolution industrielle du moyen âge.¹⁸ Although White’s and Gimpel’s enthusiasm often drew sharp reaction,¹⁹ the view of the Middle Ages as a notable period technologically had been firmly established. Historians
¹² Pelham, Fulling Mills, esp. pl. . ¹³ This found its first large-scale expression in the inauguration of multi-volume histories of mostly Western-oriented technology, especially Singer et al., History of Technology; Daumas, History of Technology and Invention. ¹⁴ e.g. White, ‘Technology and Invention’; as another early contribution, see Gilles, ‘Le Moulin à eau’. ¹⁵ Subsequent references will be to the book’s English translation, Rural Economy and Country Life. ¹⁶ Duby, Rural Economy and Country Life, –, –. ¹⁷ See Hall, ‘Lynne White’s Medieval Technology and Social Change After Thirty Years’, for a retrospective of the book and its legacy. ¹⁸ Published in English as The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, ); repr. Harmondsworth: Penguin, , the edition used in this study. ¹⁹ For a hostile review of White’s book, for example, see especially Hilton and Sawyer, ‘Technical Determinism’.
Introduction
since White and Gimpel have largely been trying to explain this phenomenon or to add subtlety to the argument.²⁰ It is within this overall historiographical context regarding medieval technology that the study of medieval English milling has taken place. For some years after the Second World War the debate around milling simply revolved around Carus-Wilson’s fulling-mill argument,²¹ but in the late s a marked expansion in the subject occurred. It was started by the publication of Edward Kealey’s Harvesting the Air in , an adventurous book, which tried to claim that the windmill was an English invention from the early twelfth century.²² Much more influential was the appearance a year later of Richard Holt’s The Mills of Medieval England. For the most part a survey of English milling from Domesday Book () to the advent of the plague in the middle of the fourteenth century, Holt’s book set out in clear and admirably trenchant fashion the key issues involved in the development of milling during the period. As part of a research project supervised by Christopher Dyer at the University of Birmingham in the mid-s, it spawned a series of publications by Holt and myself, to which have been added several contributions from others working in the field.²³ Parallel to these mainly documentary-based studies has been the growth in knowledge about medieval wind- and watermill sites derived from archaeology and, to a lesser extent, iconography. Archaeological excavations have led to a steady increase of knowledge about the layout and physical details of mill sites, the most extensive excavation to date of a post-Conquest site being the apparent metal-working mill at Bordesley Abbey in Warwickshire.²⁴ The gradual accumulation of known medieval watermill (including weirs) and windmill sites,²⁵ whether by planned excavations or through rescue, has grown considerably over recent years. Not only do these excavations add new information of a particularly tangible kind, but they often provide crucially different perspectives. For example, the metal-working mill at Bordesley contradicts the general
²⁰ e.g. Langdon, Horses, Oxen; Persson, Pre-industrial Economic Growth; Mokyr, Lever of Riches, esp. chs. and ; Myrdal, ‘Agricultural Transformation’. ²¹ Esp. Miller, ‘Fortunes’; Bridbury, Medieval English Clothmaking, ch. . ²² Kealey, Harvesting the Air. For a more sober assessment of the evidence relating to early English windmills, dating their first appearance to somewhere in the s, see Holt, Mills, –. ²³ Holt, ‘Whose Were the Profits?’; id., ‘Milling Technology in the Middle Ages’; id., ‘Medieval Technology’; id., ‘Mechanization’; id., ‘Medieval England’s Water-Related Technologies’; Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’; id., ‘Birth and Demise’; id., ‘Lordship’; id., ‘Mobilization of Labour’; Papworth et al., ‘Watermills’; Lewis, ‘Mills of Meaux’. For the Birmingham mills project, see Holt, Mills, pp. ix–x. ²⁴ Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex. ²⁵ There are too many to list here, but many of these archaeological studies have been used for Ch. (see various footnote references).
Introduction
lack of information for such types of mill in the documentary evidence.²⁶ This might well be explained, as discussed in the next chapter, by the fact that the better-documented mills tended to be of the ‘service’ kind, that is, providing a one-process service, such as grinding grain or malt, fulling cloth, or sharpening knives, for a set fee. Mills that were subsumed in larger workshops, as possibly in the case of Bordesley, did not appear as strongly in the documentary record, sometimes meriting only an isolated reference.²⁷ In other words, archaeological evidence can make up for the deficiencies in the documentary record. More generalized landscape studies can tell how mills were situated in the environment as a whole,²⁸ while iconographic evidence from illuminated manuscripts and other pictorial sources from the later Middle Ages can do a similar thing by giving us a better sense of what medieval mills may have actually looked like. Some of these representations seem to be little more than caricatures (e.g. Plate . below), but others are surprisingly detailed (e.g. Plates . and .). In general, however, iconographic evidence has been underemployed for milling.²⁹ This study attempts to bring together many of these disparate sources of information to present an in-depth look at one of the premier economic activities of the later Middle Ages. It is primarily documentary in nature, bringing together a range of manuscript materials in a very systematic fashion, but also introducing archaeological and iconographic material when relevant.The period of study was chosen with some care. As most recent studies, particularly by Kealey and Holt, have concentrated on the expansionary period from the late eleventh century to the middle of the fourteenth century, it was felt that a study of the following period was merited. In particular, the profusion of records from the mid-thirteenth century onwards allows more systematic methodologies for such things as actually counting mills. Furthermore, the early decades of the fourteenth century saw a peak in mill numbers and overall investment in the industry, representing a turning point in the cycle, much as for the human population as a whole. As a result, a starting date of seemed logical. The ²⁶ e.g. Holt’s caution about the number of medieval metal-working mills: ‘Mechanization’, –; see also Table . and Fig. ., which show a very low level of industrial mills, other than for fulling, until towards the end of the th century. Interestingly, this contrasts sharply with the Chinese situation, where the use of water power for industrial uses—evident as early as the Han dynasty ( – )—seems to have pre-dated its use for grinding grain: Needham, Science and Civilisation, iv/. –. ²⁷ As in the case of the leather-works at Beaulieu Abbey, where in the account-book of only a single line indicating repairs to the tanning mill tells us that water power was being exploited: Account-Book of Beaulieu Abbey, . ²⁸ e.g. Bond, ‘Estates of Evesham Abbey’, esp. –; id., ‘Medieval Topography’, esp. –; id., ‘Reconstruction’, esp. –; J. Bennett et al., ‘Medieval and Later Water Mill’; Faull and Moorhouse, West Yorkshire, esp. –; Skelton and Harvey (eds.), Local Maps, –, –. ²⁹ Systematic studies or surveys of iconographic sources for mills are rare, probably the best so far being Salmon, ‘Windmill in English Medieval Art’.
Introduction
end date of the study, , was dictated by documentary considerations. The year marks the dissolution of the monasteries and, as a result, the closing out of an important group of documentary collections. As a good deal of the study depended upon the continuity of sources, especially Chapter , again it seemed logical to stop here, although, as I shall discuss in a number of instances below, it was less satisfactory in not finishing at the turn of a cycle, but just as it was seemingly starting to move sharply upward again. Nevertheless, for the most part, the study is a bridging one between the two expansionary periods of the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. As such, it covers a very turbulent period in English history, not only politically but economically and socially. It is a period important for a number of theoretical constructs, especially those of Marx and Weber, and for a number of key debates.³⁰ It is often seen as a mysterious period, as the evidence for many crucial aspects of medieval life, particularly concerning agricultural production and practice, began to dry up as manorial assets were leased rather than operated directly through a reeve, bailiff, or sergeant. Milling fortunately tended to suffer less in this regard. Although a considerable reduction of material concerning the construction and maintenance of mills occurs from the end of the fourteenth century onwards, the presence of mills on manors was still dutifully recorded even when they were leased.³¹ For some aspects of milling, indeed, the evidence remains impressively abundant throughout our period (see especially Chapter ). Altogether, although a certain flexibility of approach is often needed to accommodate changes in the evidentiary mix, the information for looking at milling in the later Middle Ages is still immense and capable of revealing much. As a consequence, one of the aims of this study is to take a much more multidimensional look at this particular economic activity than is normally possible for the age. The concern is not only to examine the mills themselves, but also to consider them as being part of an overall industry, with all the issues of economic and social organization which this entails. Also of key concern are the various mental constructs—technical, legal, and economic—which seemingly directed such an industry. Along the way, the study will investigate many contentious theoretical issues. One dominating problem is how we should assess the later Middle Ages as a period of transition. Did it mark a fundamental rupture between ‘medieval’ and ‘modern’, or was it much more a period of continuity, stabilizing rather than destabilizing? The interplay between the detailed ³⁰ Notably the Dobb-Sweezy and Brenner debates: Hilton (ed.), Transition; Aston and Philpin (eds.), Brenner Debate. ³¹ Only when manors, or sometimes demesnes, were leased out as a whole do mills lose their documentary visibility; otherwise the dedication by officials in having them recorded year in and year out, especially in accounts, is quite remarkable.
Introduction
workings of the industry and these larger questions forms a major part of this inquiry. The Preface has already indicated some of the organization of the book. Chapter gives a sense of what the milling industry looked like in . The next two chapters look at the mills as objects, both in terms of their numbers and revenue potential over the period (Chapter ) and in terms of their technological development (Chapter ). Chapter examines them as functioning units, while the next two chapters look at the humans involved in milling, first as entrepreneurs (Chapter ) and then as workers and customers (Chapter ). The Conclusion will draw together the findings and discuss how they challenge or confirm current notions about the later Middle Ages.
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v F the start it is important to realize when considering the medieval milling industry around , and especially its technological aspects, that it was already ancient. Watermills for grinding corn were known in Europe from Roman times, well over a thousand years before. In our time, when industries surrounding such technologies as the automobile, the aeroplane, the refrigerator, the television, and the computer (to name only a very few) have scarcely been in existence for a century and a sense of novelty still exists, it may seem paradoxical if not illogical that medieval people would have considered a very longestablished activity in the same way. Indeed, it could be argued that this supposed medieval enthusiasm for milling is simply a construct of overenthusiastic historians. On the other hand, as mentioned in the Introduction, medieval artwork does suggest a certain contemporary fascination with mills. It can also be argued that in pre-industrial times fascination or excitement over technological change was stretched out over longer periods.Thus, a technological change that took place over, say, five hundred years might well be recognized by such a society as significant and ‘recent’. What complicates this idea of very slow technological change with a long memory to match is that in medieval society was well accustomed to relatively new developments, such as the windmill, mechanical clocks, the introduction of the horse to agriculture, or more generally the development of military technology, so that a long societal memory may not have been necessary for the medieval appreciation of technological change. Nor is it easy to envisage societal memory as maintaining a strong grasp of a technology over such long periods. Rather, it appears more likely that early societies accepted technological developments maturing over centuries as simply being an integral part of their society. Perhaps this accounts for the failure of many early societies, not least in the Middle Ages, to preserve the memories of inventors of new techniques. Medieval technological innovations seldom came with the pedigrees of inventions nowadays with their
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patents, company prospectuses, advertising, media reportage, and subsequent historical analysis (both at the popular and academic level)—a sort of particularity which medieval people only tended to reserve for family or ethnic lineages. With modern hindsight, however, we can—to some extent at least—construct the pedigree of early milling. In the past the origins of milling have perhaps been too narrowly associated with the Roman world, particularly in the use of water power, for which much has been attributed to the writings of Lucretius, Vitruvius, and others in the first century .¹ The use of both water and wind power, however, has had long roots in several different cultures. The use of water power for grain-milling in Rome, for instance, possibly derived from the animal-driven water-lifter called a saquiyah, first developed in the Middle East,² and a strong but separate tradition of using water power formed at about the same time in China.³ Wind power similarly seems to have been known in the Middle East and parts further east, before windmills were developed in western Europe towards the end of the twelfth century.⁴ The spatial adoption of water versus wind power could take on quite distinctive patterns. For England, this can be seen from inquisitions post mortem, which record, among other things, watermills and windmills on the demesnes of lay estates, as shown in Maps . and . for the early fourteenth century.⁵ As can be seen, for reasons to be discussed later, the distribution of windmills was not as extensive as that of watermills.
.. As to the number of watermills and windmills in England at the beginning of the fourteenth century, we are fortunate to have the Domesday Book as a base. The number of mills (all powered by water) recorded in , as calculated by H. C. Darby and his team, comes to ,.⁶ This is a figure that should probably be considered a minimum, since many mills were not recorded for the far north, which was not included in the survey. Both Richard Holt and I have attempted ¹ e.g. Reynolds, Hundred Men, –. ² N. A. F. Smith, ‘Origins’, esp. –. ³ Needham, Science and Civilisation, esp. vol. iv/; see also Reynolds, Hundred Men, –. ⁴ Lewis, ‘Greeks’. ⁵ Map . represents a sample of over , water-mills, while Map . displays over windmills. For the raw data from the inquisition post mortem sample and discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of these inquisitions as a source, see Langdon, ‘Lordship’, – (tables and ) and –. ⁶ Darby, Domesday England, .
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M .. Watermills recorded in inquisitions post mortem, –
• Manor with watermill(s)
• Manor with windmill(s)
M .. Windmills recorded in inquisitions post mortem, ‒
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to estimate the number of watermills and windmills in England about by comparing the number of mills on manors represented both in Domesday and in documents around . From doing this mainly from the Hundred Rolls of the late s and various estate surveys, Holt calculated that the number of mills about ranged between , and ,.⁷ From work based on West Midlands mills, I was inclined to agree with his minimum figure but thought the maximum figure might have reached as high as ,.⁸ Since then, I have performed a more broad-ranging comparison geographically. Using the data from the manors providing the base for the mill demography in Chapter , I was able to make—with reasonable credibility—the comparison between the number of mills on manors in the early fourteenth century with the number of mills on these same manors in . The results are shown in Table ., arranged by region, the total at the bottom of the table giving the result for the entire manors. The comparison gave some surprising results. The first is that the total of mills in the early fourteenth century, now including windmills and horse-mills, was only per cent of the mills at Domesday. That is, the number of mills on these manors had only risen between a quarter and a third from to the early fourteenth century. Also, the number of watermills actually seems to have declined slightly (from to ). This is accentuated even more when considering that of the ‘water-mills’ in the early fourteenth century were fulling or other industrial mills. Assuming that all the Domesday watermills were for grinding grain, water-powered grain mills on these manors thus declined from to from to the early fourteenth century. Two things would seem to be suggested by this. One involves Richard Holt’s point about tenant mills (or ‘independent mills’, as he calls them—see below), which formed as a milling sector distinct from the demesne in the twelfth century, presumably including many mills that existed in .⁹ These mills often tended to ‘go underground’ in the documentation, especially in manorial accounts, the rents for which mills were normally entered anonymously in the ‘Assised Rents’ section by being grouped together with rents for other properties in one undifferentiated lump sum. Clearly, since my early fourteenth-century sample here does depend upon a lot of account material, some of this has occurred in the data making up Table . (particularly for the South, where the number of mills overall, including windmills and horse-mills, shrank markedly from to the early fourteenth century). The other point that Holt makes which is supported by the data in Table . was that in some cases watermills appearing in the Domesday survey had, by the ⁷ Holt, Mills, ch. . ⁸ Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, –. ⁹ See Holt, Mills, esp. chs. and .
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T .. Comparison of mill numbers: versus the early fourteenth century County
No. of manors
No. of mills at Domesday
No. of mills in the early th century
Water East Anglia Cambridgeshire Essex Norfolk Suffolk
Wind
Horse
All
—
— — — —
Regional subtotal
—
Home Counties Berkshire Buckinghamshire Hertfordshire Middlesex Oxfordshire Surrey
—
— — —
— — — — —
Regional subtotal
a
—
— — — —
—
— —
— — —
Regional subtotal
—
East Midlands Huntingdonshire Leicestershire Lincolnshire Northamptonshire Nottinghamshire Rutland
— —
— — —
— — — — — —
Regional subtotal
—
—
—
—
The South Hampshire Kent Sussex Wiltshire Regional subtotal South-West Cornwall Devon Somerset
West Midlands Cheshire Derbyshire
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T .. Continued County
No. of manors
No. of mills at Domesday
No. of mills in the early th century
Water
Wind
Horse
All
Gloucestershire Shropshire Staffordshire Warwickshire Worcestershire
— —
— —
— — — — —
Regional subtotal
—
—
The North Yorkshire Regional subtotal
Includes ½ mills at Chartham, Kent, in , which were rounded up to mills. For mill fractions in Domesday, through such actions as split inheritance or perhaps two manors or villages sharing a mill, see Darby, Domesday England, . a
Sources: Domesday Book; early th-century sources as indicated in App. .
early fourteenth century, been replaced by windmills. This is particularly the case for the regions of East Anglia, the Home Counties, and the East Midlands, and also the county of Kent in the South and Yorkshire, the sole county represented in the North. All these areas display both a decline of watermill numbers in Table . from to the early fourteenth century and, as evident in Map ., substantial numbers of windmills by the beginning of the fourteenth century. Although Holt and I have both written of the windmill supplementing rather than supplanting the watermill,¹⁰ it does appear from Table . that the phenomenon of wind power replacing rather than simply adding to water power for milling was occurring with greater frequency than either of us thought. In any case, there does appear to have been a very sharp distinction between the formation of new sites for water-powered corn-milling in the South and East of the country compared to that in the North and West. If one takes the number of watermills for East Anglia, the Home Counties, the South, and the East Midlands shown for the early fourteenth century in Table .—that is, watermills in all—and subtracts the fulling-mills that were ¹⁰ Holt, Mills, esp. ; Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, .
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among these mills, this results in water corn-mills. This is only . per cent of the mills recorded at Domesday for these manors (Table .), indicating that these regions had an apparent shrinkage of around per cent in the number of water corn-mills evident in . Although some of this may well be a result of some of the Domesday mills’ sliding into the murkier tenant sector, this still seems excessive and suggests that there was in fact a rather greater replacement of watermills by windmills in these southern and eastern regions than previously considered. In contrast, when one examines the regions of the South-West, West Midlands, and the North (as represented by Yorkshire) in Table ., the number of watermills in the early fourteenth century comes to . Subtracting the fulling-mills among this number leaves water-powered corn-mills, which is . per cent of the mills recorded at Domesday for these same manors.¹¹ Clearly new watermills were still being built in some numbers after Domesday in these northern and western areas, as seems clear in the case of Cornwall and Devon in particular and in Yorkshire.¹² The striking difference between these figures and those for the southern and eastern regions also makes it unlikely that this is explained solely by the under-recording of tenant mills. In short, there were very real differences in the experiences between southern and eastern parts of the country and those in the North and West. However, we should beware of seeing the situation in the South and East as being one of simple deterioration in the exploitation of water power, since even here there were notable complexities. For instance, while mills on lesser water-courses were seemingly often giving way to windmills, there was also a counter-tendency to build new watermills on major rivers, a situation that led to conflict with boat transporters in particular.¹³ Indeed, the grinding capabilities of these mills on larger water-courses may have been considerably improved, so that, even if numbers of watermills shrank overall in southern and eastern counties, their grinding potential may actually have increased. When the new windmills are added, the overall grinding potential, even in areas where mill numbers rose modestly, would have been sharply improved. With these points in mind, what can we say about the possible number of watermills and windmills in England about ? If we take the , apparent watermills recorded in Domesday Book and multiply this by the ratio of the number of mills in the early fourteenth century in Table . (that is, ) over the number at Domesday from the table (), then a total of , mills is obtained ¹¹ I have also published these results in ‘Inland Water Transport—View from the Mills’, esp. . ¹² For the growth in mills in Devon and Cornwall, see e.g. Holt, Mills, . ¹³ e.g. Langdon, ‘Inland Water Transport—View from the Mills’, ; Holt, Mills, .
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for the early fourteenth century. As mentioned above, the mills in the far north—that is, the counties of Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland—were not included in Domesday, and if they plus any new watermills and windmills constructed in these northern counties from Domesday to about are considered, it might add another ,. If yet another , are added for those mills (especially watermills) that might have gone ‘underground’ in the tenant sector, then we would be creeping towards , mills altogether around .¹⁴ As Holt has rightly pointed out, we should be very wary about attaching any firm numbers to such speculations,¹⁵ but, judging from Table ., we might be safer with a figure of around , watermills and windmills about rather than, certainly, the upper limit of , I advanced as a possibility or even Holt’s highest estimate of ,.
.. These difficulties in trying to obtain reasonable estimates about the numbers of English water- and windmills around (not to mention the unknown numbers of horse-mills and hand-mills) are matched by complexities in the actual nature and structure of the industry. As alluded to in the Introduction, the mills which we see mostly in the documentation are single-process service mills. In the case of corn-mills, this meant that customers normally came to the mill with their grain, paid a multure fee—that is, the fraction of the grain relinquished by the customer for the milling process (one-thirteenth, one-sixteenth, onetwentieth, or whatever: see Chapter and Appendix )—and, after grinding, received the remaining grain back as flour. In the case of fulling or other industrial mills, presumably a cash fee was paid.¹⁶ Since these mills operated as distinct economic activities, especially when associated with the demesne (see below), their revenue streams and cost inputs were entered in their own sections in manorial accounts or they (that is, the mills) were listed as separate entities in documents like manorial surveys or inquisitions post mortem. The second way that mills operated economically was where the mill was subsumed as a piece of machinery in some larger activity, perhaps even some¹⁴ One might also add those mills subsumed in larger economic activities (see below), which often do not appear in the record. ¹⁵ Holt, Mills, . ¹⁶ Or so it appears from the rare cases where fulling-mills in particular were operated directly under a manager. Here the ‘issues’ (i.e. revenues) from the mills were expressed in cash, not, say, in pieces of cloth: e.g. for the fulling-mills at Bocking, Essex, in – and – (CCA DCc Bocking , ).
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thing we could call a ‘factory’. This might be as simple as a peasant household having a hand-mill as part of the process of making its own bread, or it might mean the presence of a watermill in an iron-producing, leather-producing, or even cloth-producing establishment. Here mills have a much less prominent profile in the records of such enterprises. For example, in the section of the c.– account-book for Beaulieu Abbey dealing with the abbey’s leatherworking facilities, repairs to a tanning mill are indicated by a single-line reference.¹⁷ Without this casual mention we would not know of the mill at all, and the same is also indicated from archaeological evidence of mills not matched by references in documents, as in the case of the iron-working mill at Bordesley Abbey in Warwickshire, which operated from the twelfth to the fourteenth century.¹⁸ It is possible, of course, that mills could operate within both economic frameworks. A hand-mill, for example, might be used to grind the family’s own corn while occasionally grinding the grain of other families for a cash or grain payment. Similarly iron works, like that at Bordesley Abbey, could be employed for the abbey’s own iron needs, as well as producing iron goods for sale on the market, while at the same time providing a service for outside customers bringing items for repair.¹⁹ It is as a service industry, however, that English milling in the later Middle Ages is most visible. As I have outlined elsewhere, when we include horse-mills and hand-mills, the service aspect of the milling industry can be broken down into four sectors: demesne, tenant, borough, and domestic.²⁰ Mills in the demesne sector were those that were attached to the lord’s farm or demesne of each manor. It is hard to guess at the mentality that lay behind the original building of demesne mills, but it may have arisen first out of a concern to have a mill to serve the lord’s household and its servants on a manor, which may then have been gradually extended to include the manor’s tenantry.²¹ If this was the case, then certainly there also arose the notion, as we shall see in Chapter , that the tenantry were normally supposed to use this mill and none other. Demesne mills, however, could also serve people outside the manor, and attempts were sometimes made to attract this outside clientele by offering lower rates than those that had to be paid by the tenantry. As for the feelings of the lords themselves, there does at times seem to have been a genuine belief on their part that no manor was suitably equipped unless it had a mill.²² This is a sentiment that might have had roots in the lordly concern (‘the love of the lord’) for his tenantry, but it might also reveal an eye for profit, as the care to record the revenues from mills in manorial accounts would later testify. It seems likely that the ini¹⁷ Account-Book of Beaulieu Abbey, . ¹⁸ Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex. ¹⁹ Ibid., pp. xiii, , . ²⁰ Langdon, ‘Lordship’, –. ²¹ Ibid. –. ²² Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, .
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tial building of watermills back in the Anglo-Saxon or even Roman period was effected within a demesne (or villa) context, and that, say, in , all , plus mills in Domesday were so-called demesne mills.²³ However, during the century or so after Domesday many of these demesne mills slipped into hereditary tenure. The process started, perhaps even before Domesday, as lords gave their mills, some of which may have been suffering declining profitability, to tenants who were willing to take them on at a set rent per year. Probably originally at short terms, over the twelfth century in particular leases lengthened to many years and perhaps ‘lives’ (that is, some mills were leased for the life of the tenant and even perhaps one or two of his or her descendants).²⁴ By force of custom many of these mills eventually slipped into hereditary tenure, either free (probably most common) or customary. Holt has chosen to call these mills ‘independent’,²⁵ but I feel ‘tenant’ is a much more accurate description, since it equates to the distinction between demesne and tenant lands generally. In any case, mills in hereditary tenure increasingly became an accepted fact during the twelfth century, establishing a sector of the industry in their own right. As the economic resurgence of the thirteenth century gained momentum, however, along with a notable rise of population which began to make cornmills in particular more attractive as enterprises, lords began to regret the trend of the previous century. Not only did they bring demesnes, also leased out in the twelfth century, back into what has been called ‘direct management’ (that is, where the demesne was run by a bailiff, reeve, or other official and the profits sent directly into the lord’s coffers),²⁶ they attempted to do the same with tenant mills, taking them back in their own hands over the course of the thirteenth century or the early fourteenth when the twelfth-century leases expired or when the hereditary tenure of mills failed for lack of heirs, or perhaps when such mills made their way back to the demesne through purchase or gift.²⁷ Nevertheless, lords were not able to do this completely and, as a result, tenant mills retained a significant presence in the industry,²⁸ and, as we shall see, strengthened that presence towards the end of the period of this study. Perhaps most critically the legal distinction between demesne and tenant mills was established and became increasingly powerful throughout our period. ²³ e.g. Holt, ‘Whose Were the Profits?’, –; Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, . ²⁴ Holt, ‘Whose Were the Profits?’, esp. –; id., Mills, –. ²⁵ e.g. Holt, Mills, ch. . ²⁶ For a general survey of the farming of manors and demesnes and their subsequent reclamation, see Miller and Hatcher, Medieval England: Rural Society, –. ²⁷ For example, a tenant watermill was purchased at Birdbrook, Essex, by the Abbey of Westminster in : WAM . For more on the process of bringing tenant mills back into the demesne, see Holt, Mills, –. ²⁸ Although the proportion of tenant to demesne mills clearly varied from county to county: Langdon, ‘Lordship’, n.
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Demesne and tenant mills existed within a manorial context. Mills belonging to borough corporations, to some extent at least, were outside this framework, being found in communities that had obtained, to quote Susan Reynolds, ‘their political and juridical separation from the countryside’.²⁹ Of a very practical concern for this study was the fact that boroughs established their own particular types of documentation.³⁰ Mills falling within borough boundaries or jurisdictions usually had their own records, that is, separate accounts for the mill itself,³¹ rather than having the reckoning for the mill subsumed in a larger accounting unit, as in the case of manorial accounts. As such, it is more difficult to follow the fortunes of all the mills within a borough, and a mill count as attempted in Chapter mostly from manorial records is extremely difficult here. What we can say about borough mills generally is that they tended to be very large, often being separated into specialized wheat- or malt-grinding establishments.³² They also had strong legal foundations, commanding patronage in the same way lords did (or at least attempted to do) with demesne mills.³³ Indeed, it was the owners or proprietors of borough mills who were often the most tenacious in guarding their monopoly rights in subsequent centuries.³⁴ Finally, it should be emphasized that there was no strict equivalence between ‘borough’ mills and ‘urban’ mills. As has been frequently observed, many communities we would classify as ‘urban’ in medieval society remained under strong seigneurial control right through the period,³⁵ and so any mills in these communities should, strictly speaking, be considered in the ‘demesne’ sector. In Chapter I shall try to cut across this ambiguity between borough and demesne by adopting a more flexible definition of ‘urban’, but for now it is enough to say that borough corporations held within them a goodly number of large (and especially water grain-milling) establishments which constituted a significant element of the milling industry. Finally, we come to what has been termed elsewhere the domestic sector.³⁶ These were mostly hand-mills and perhaps occasional horse-mills which were ²⁹ Reynolds, Introduction, . ³⁰ Ibid. . ³¹ As in the case of the Dee Mills in Chester, for which a separate set of accounts has been preserved from – onwards in PRO / etc. For a history of the Dee Mills, see Richard Bennett and John Elton, History, vol. iv, ch. . ³² As in urban situations generally: see Sect. .. below. ³³ For example, the bakers at Exeter were forced to patronize the city mills at Duryard: Kowaleski, Local Markets, –. ³⁴ As at Wakefield, Leeds, Bradford, or Manchester, where the jealous guarding of ‘soke’ rights continued to the th century: Norman, ‘Wakefield Soke Mills’; Bennett and Elton, History, iii. –. See also Thompson, ‘Moral Economy’, –. ³⁵ Especially towns held by monasteries, such as Abingdon, Bury St Edmunds, and St Albans: e.g. Reynolds, Introduction, –. ³⁶ See e.g. Langdon, ‘Lordship’, .
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not, in fact, tied directly to land tenure, as watermills and windmills generally were, but considered as moveables. Many of the hand-mills in particular were operated illegally, not being authorized by the lord either for use on the holding or, more probably the main concern of lords, for the grinding of grain for the general public. As I shall discuss in Chapter , some lords made notable efforts to have these mills confiscated. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, they probably constituted an important element of commercial milling, offering to customers a cheaper alternative to demesne, tenant, or borough watermills and windmills. Unfortunately, we only see these activities when they run foul of manorial authority and so how the industry was constructed at this level is largely a matter of conjecture. Among other things, though, women may have played a more prominent role here.³⁷ It is very difficult to assess the size of these various sectors at the beginning of the fourteenth century, in terms of either the amount of goods (grain or otherwise) processed by mills or the number of customers patronizing them. A very preliminary attempt to assess the amounts of grain processed by the corn-mills in each sector suggested that something like per cent of the milled grains about went through demesne corn-mills, per cent through tenant mills, per cent through borough mills, and per cent through the hand-mills and/or horse-mills of the domestic sector.³⁸ Although these figures are undoubtedly gross over-simplifications, they do indicate the competitive nature of milling by the early fourteenth century. As I have discussed elsewhere (and will do again in Chapter ), the view of Marc Bloch that it was an economic activity almost totally controlled by the lords is too simplistic. By the early fourteenth century a broad range of people in English medieval society were deriving all or part of their income from participation in the milling industry. Looking solely at those involved in operating and maintaining mills, the number of equivalent full-time personnel employed in the industry was probably at least , and possibly up to ,.³⁹ If we include the dependants of these ‘employees’, the number of people obtaining some degree of sustenance from milling easily exceeded , and possibly approached some , individuals. Add to these those who derived profits as the proprietors or owners of mills (as against their employees), and we have a significant proportion of the population involved. Finally, almost everyone in English society was a customer of a mill at one time or another. Taking all this together, the industry and its objects—the mills—were ³⁷ As in a case at Sowerby, Yorkshire, in , where a woman was charged with having a hand-mill, while eight other tenants—all men and presumably customers—were simply charged with withdrawing suit from the lord’s mill: Court Rolls of . . . Wakefield, v. . ³⁸ Langdon, ‘Lordship’, –. ³⁹ Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’.
The Milling Industry about
exceedingly pervasive throughout English society by the beginning of the fourteenth century. As we shall see in succeeding chapters, already by it was a very mature economic activity, having established strong technological traditions, capable of attracting high levels of capital investment, and drawing around itself an extensive and varied workforce, as well as a constellation of important sub-industries, especially for millstones. Willing or not, it also had an extensive consumer base. All of this was arguably in jeopardy after . As I have already mentioned, this study begins at more or less the medieval peak of the industry. In terms of feasible capital investment, it was already reaching its limits by , and the cataclysm of the plague was on the horizon. I will now consider how the industry responded in gross numerical and revenue terms to the often unsettled conditions of the next years.
Mill Numbers and Revenues –
v I is a curious fact when studying the Middle Ages that it is usually easier to measure possessions than people. This is certainly the case with watermills and windmills, which are recorded in a great variety of document types for medieval England. Much of this derives from the increasing tendency for English government and manorial officials to keep records for practical purposes over the Middle Ages, a phenomenon described as ‘pragmatic literacy’.¹ Coupled with England’s fortunate history of being able to preserve its records, this has meant that many critical series of documents have survived for assessing the fortunes of milling in later medieval England, especially from the late thirteenth century onwards.These include on the government side documents such as inquisitions post mortem, mentioned in the last chapter, and on the manorial side, accounts, surveys, extents, and court rolls. Some of these documents—for example, inquisitions post mortem—became increasingly sporadic in recording manorial assets, but others like manorial accounts continued to record mills and their revenues right through the period, even after demesnes had been leased out. As a result, it is possible to follow the careers of mills on many individual manors right through the period –. Systematic and thorough searching of these records can often reveal the mill history of various manors in remarkable detail (e.g. see Appendix ). For the purposes of this chapter the mill histories for manors across the country were constructed, drawn mostly from large estates like the bishopric of Winchester or the earldom (from , duchy) of Lancaster. This was necessary because it is only for such large estates that records have survived in enough number to be able to follow the fortunes of individual mills over long periods of time. ¹ For a recent survey of the rise of this practically oriented literacy in medieval Europe, see Britnell, ‘Pragmatic Literacy’.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
• Manors in the computer sample
M .. Distribution of manors in computer sample
One of the main drawbacks to this reliance upon a relatively small selection of large estates (about in all; see Appendix ) is readily apparent in Map .. The manorial holdings of these particular estates tended to cluster in various parts of the country, giving some counties an over-abundance of manors in the sample, while other counties had only one or two manors representing them and in one case, Dorset, none at all. A more thorough examination of all possible archives might have filled in gaps, but some imbalance due to the nature of surviving records would undoubtedly have remained. In some cases the geographically skewed nature of the data can be dampened by breaking down the sample into regions and weighting each region according to some factor like population, an exercise performed below when merited. Nevertheless, even within individual counties, the data are often concentrated in particular areas. Nowhere is this better seen than in Yorkshire, the county with the most manors
Mill Numbers and Revenues
() in the sample, of which virtually all are squeezed into Holderness or into the southern half of the West Riding, a reflection of the fact that these were all drawn from within the duchy of Lancaster’s honours of Pontefract or Tickhill or the Crown’s holdings in Holderness. Indeed, from these lands were in effect joined through the Lancastrian succession to the throne, and so the fortunes of all the mills in the sample for Yorkshire after that point are essentially viewed through the perspective of a single lord—the king. In terms of region, the number of manors also vary considerably, from manors in the East Midlands to in the West Midlands. This is accompanied by widely varying differences in the type of lordship. In the sample East Anglia, the Home Counties, and the South are dominated by ecclesiastical estates, the East Midlands mostly by lay estates. Only the South-West, West Midlands, and the North have mixes of ecclesiastic and lay estates close to the proportion of one ecclesiastic estate for every two or three lay estates probably existing for the country as a whole.² Other distortions also occur within the sample, a rather obvious one being that the sample is skewed towards those that had the readiest access to largescale capital. Less obvious is that the sample has been drawn mostly from manorial accounts, which have left the most consistent strings of records throughout the period considered by this study. The most visible mills in accounts are those in the demesne sector, and as a result the preponderance of mills examined in this study were from the demesne sector, generally comprising – per cent of the mill sample.³ As Holt has pointed out, tenant mills are under-recorded in much manorial and other documentation.⁴ Although Holt is undoubtedly justified in highlighting this problem, he is unduly pessimistic about the possibilities of revealing these mills. Even manorial accounts will mention tenant mills with some frequency. In the later Middle Ages, for instance, they will often appear in ‘Defective Rents’ sections when such mills fall out of use. Moreover, the same entry will continue to appear in succeeding years in the accounts, and so identifying them is not solely dependent upon precisely (and luckily) choosing the year when they went out of operation. Similarly, ‘New Rents’ sections will record the addition of new tenant mills as ² The manors per region are as follows: East Anglia, manors ( ecclesiastic, lay); Home Counties, manors ( ecclesiastic, lay); the South, manors ( ecclesiastic, lay); the South-West, manors ( ecclesiastic, lay); the East Midlands, manors ( ecclesiastic, lay); the West Midlands, manors ( ecclesiastic, lay); the North, manors ( ecclesiastic, lay). Total: manors ( ecclesiastic, lay). See Langdon, Horses, Oxen, –, for an indication of the proportion of ecclesiastic to lay manors existing countrywide in medieval England. ³ See Table ., where the percentages for tenant mills are given. Those for demesne mills can be calculated by subtracting the tenant percentages from . ⁴ Holt, Mills, esp. ch. .
Mill Numbers and Revenues
they appear on the manor (and again, once recorded, will tend to appear year after year). Even in cases where the tenant mill was present in and continued to be until the end of our period, such cases will occasionally be revealed through entry fines in the ‘Fines and Marriages’ section of an account, when the mill was transferred from a recently deceased tenant to his or her heir. Consequently, even though the percentages of tenant mills in our sample generally fall in the – per cent range (see Table .), we can still tell some significant things about their performance during the period. Even more problematic is that mills in borough corporations are almost totally missing from the sample, largely because, as discussed in the last chapter, it was not possible to give them the same sort of territorial basis as mills found in manorial documents. As a result, the more general classification of ‘urban’ was employed for the computer sample, which included not only mills in borough corporations, but also manors in an urban situation, such as the bishopric of Winchester’s manors of Southwark and Wolvesey, in Winchester,⁵ or manors attached to boroughs, as, for example, the bishopric of Winchester’s manor of Downton, Wiltshire, the account for which was recorded alongside that for the borough of Downton itself.⁶ The end result is that of the manors (. per cent) in the sample have been classified as urban.⁷ The mill counts resulting from this more general categorization of ‘urban’ probably act as a reasonable surrogate for the more narrowly defined borough mill sector. Finally, the sector ignored most by the sample is that we have designated as the domestic sector. Although some horse-mills do occur in the sample, it is likely that they are significantly under-represented, since horse-mills were probably more often attached to peasant holdings or subsumed in particular industries such as brewing.⁸ Similarly, hand-mills were not included at all in the sample, since they were apparently not considered by lords as sufficiently important to act as commercial enterprises, as watermills, windmills, and (occasionally) horse-mills were. As I have written elsewhere, however, hand-mills were important accoutrements to mostly peasant holdings and might often have been operated commercially—that is, they not only milled grain for immediate household use but also for outside customers. Such hand-mills, in fact, may have accounted for as much as per cent of the grain milled in ⁵ In general, those manors in the sample that appeared in Beresford and Finberg’s English Medieval Boroughs were counted as ‘urban’. On the other hand, manors that might have had some vestigial or informal urban status (along the lines indicated in Dyer, ‘Hidden Trade’), such as holding a market but not being a borough (or very near one), were not included. In short, if anything, we are probably underestimating the ‘urban’ element in the sample, but, as such, are likely erring on the better side. ⁶ See e.g. Pipe Roll . . . –, –. ⁷ See App. for the manors designated as such (indicated by a ‘U’). ⁸ Langdon, Horses, Oxen, n.; Martha Carlin, Medieval Southwark, .
Mill Numbers and Revenues
medieval England around .⁹ As capital investments, however, they were greatly overshadowed by the other types of mill and so do not play a major part in this chapter. The above qualifications throw doubt on how effective the results from the sample will be in giving a ‘true’ picture of milling from to . Certainly more manors could have been included, but those repositories about which I know and which were not consulted would probably only have accentuated the abnormalities in the sample.¹⁰ One can only say that the sample does go further than anything previously attempted in trying to generate hard numbers about the fluctuation of mill numbers over the period to , especially those powered by water and wind. As we shall see, it is particularly useful in outlining the fortunes of the various types of mill (water versus wind, grain versus industrial). The manorial mill histories were merged together by means of a computer program, described in Appendix , while Appendix indicates the whereabouts of the manors and some indication of the sources employed. Of these manors had no mills at all, but the other manors provided histories for at least mills. The sample was also broken down by: region; power source for the mills (water, wind, horse); mill function (grinding grain, fulling, etc.); landlord (lay versus ecclesiastic); urban versus rural; and mill sector (especially that of tenants). Care had to be exercised over these subdivisions of the sample, since analyses with a very small number of manors or mills can yield very misleading results. Finally, a problematic point during the period was the middle of the fourteenth century, where the advent of the plague sent a shock not only to population but also—through reduced demand—to mill numbers at the time. The computer program, however, has a tendency to smooth out the sudden impact of the plague. For example, if a manor had a mill recorded in a document from but that mill was not found in the next surviving (or next sampled) document of, say, , the program would show that reduction as a steady decline from to , when in fact it is most probable that the mill went out of operation sometime after . In those cases where it was felt to be particularly problematic, especially for mills processing grain, an alternative position was created by having the computer assume that the number of mills on a particular manor in was the same as that shown in the nearest preceding document for the manor (for instance, in the example just discussed, the program would assume the existence of one mill from to , then a decline to ⁹ Langdon, ‘Lordship’, –. ¹⁰ For example, the manors of Winchester Cathedral Priory could have been examined, but this would have overloaded even more the heavy representation for the county of Hampshire in particular.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
no mills to ). It is felt that this alternative, shown as a dashed line in some of the figures that follow, might be more accurate in describing change around .
.. ‒ ... Total Mills Figure . shows the total number of mills over the period –.¹¹ There are a number of intriguing features about the figure.The first is the static nature of mill investment in the first half of the fourteenth century. Even under the most optimistic interpretation (the dashed line), the number of mills remained relatively unchanged from to the advent of the plague. Some new mills were certainly built during the period, but almost as many mills fell of out oper-
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¹¹ To save time and for clarity of presentation, the year-by-year data from the computer program were plotted using Excel for every fifth year (that is, , , , etc., as is most obvious in Fig. .) with an additional point for the plague year of . I found that plotting the figures for every year gave a very discontinuous, choppy line.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
ation. The figure gives support for the pessimist case regarding the state of the medieval economy and population in the early fourteenth century. It seems obvious (from this sample at least) that milling investment had reached a peak by the beginning of the fourteenth century and was, at best, only holding its own in the half-century leading up to the Black Death. Much of this is evident in the increasingly marginal nature of investment at this time. A good example is provided by a fulling-mill built on the abbot of Westminster’s manor at Westerham, Kent, in –.This was a tiny operation, built at a cost of only s. d., with the millpond put in the garden of the parsonage. Rented out for the relatively modest sum of s. per year, the fulling-mill was clearly in trouble by –, when the abbot could not find a lessee. It was revived briefly for a rent of d. per year in –, but soon fell into disrepair after that.¹² Such stories were common during this period, and generally the early part of the fourteenth century was a very uncertain time for milling investment.¹³ Deteriorating weather also played a part, particularly around the period –, when flooding caused severe damage to a number of mills.¹⁴ This shows up as a small depression in Figure . for this time (shown more clearly in Figure .), but was probably not of long-lasting effect, since weather-affected mills at this time were usually repaired very quickly.¹⁵ War might have been a more long-running problem, particularly in the North, where damage to mills by raiding Scots became endemic.¹⁶ Civil war occasionally threatened the viability of mills as well, as at Tickhill, Yorkshire, in –, where it was recorded that only £ s. was received from the farm of two watermills, a windmill, and tolls from the market ‘and no more because of the war happening at the same time’.¹⁷ Nevertheless, if the period in the half-century or so before the plague displayed an uncertain environment for English milling, the period immediately after demonstrated how resilient it could be. Although clearly the massive drop in population had some impact upon the fortunes of individual mills, it was not as dire as one might have expected. Figure . expands the scale of Figure . so that some of the subtler variations in the period can be observed. As expected, ¹² WAM –. ¹³ e.g. Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise; id., ‘Lordship’, –. ¹⁴ As at Warwick, where the four watermills were destroyed by flood waters on the vigil of St Luke ( Oct.), : PRO C/, m. . ¹⁵ As for Warwick in the note above. ¹⁶ This was not strongly indicated in the sample, because of the relative lack of manors in the sample from the very far north, but the destruction of mills by the Scots clearly shows up in inquisitions post mortem from onwards for communities as far south as the North Riding of Yorkshire: PRO C//, m. , /, m. ; /, m. ; /, m. ; /, m. ; /, m. ; /, m. ; /, m. ; /, m. ; /, m. , m. ; /, m. ; /, m. . ¹⁷ PRO SC /. Profits from the mills and market were normally worth around £, as in –: PRO SC /.
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there was a sharp decline in mill numbers immediately after the onset of the Black Death, so that within a decade after the plague arrived, mill numbers in the sample were reduced by around per cent of what they had been at the beginning of the century. Grain mills, the most sensitive to the collapse in demand, fell in number by about per cent by the s (see Figure .), the loss of mills and milling revenues in general being attributed by officials to the lack of tenants or to deaths among the holders or operators of the mills themselves. Thus, at Loose, Kent, in – it was reported that only quarters of barley were taken as ‘profit’ of the mill, because of ‘the deficiency of men [that is, customers] and millers’, while at Brightwell, Berkshire, it was recorded a year later that only quarter bushels of multure grains were taken ‘because of the deficiency of suitors through pestilence and the disability of the mill’.¹⁸ Despite these adversities, the number of mills quickly stabilized, so that there was little change in numbers over the next three decades. Much was due to quick action by lords and others to minimize the damage or to seek other revenue possibilities. As discussed in more detail below, many grain watermills were converted to fulling-mills, especially on ecclesiastical estates, and some¹⁸ CCA DCc Loose ; HRO M B/, m. .
Mill Numbers and Revenues
times a shift in power source was undertaken (or allowed) when it was felt appropriate, as in the case of Alverstoke, Hampshire, where the Forton mill on the manor there, probably a tide mill given the manor’s location in the parish of Gosport, was quickly replaced by a horse-mill in –, which the bishop allowed for milling the malt of tenants.¹⁹ From Figure . the stabilization in the number of mills in the sample is quite marked from about to , a phenomenon paralleled by the buoyancy in agriculture and much of the rest of the economy during the period.²⁰ But this period of stability only lasted at best about thirty years. Also, by , virtually all demesne mills were leased out, so a different dynamic for the continued existence of these mills was by now firmly and, and for the most part, irreversibly established, similar to that for the leasing out of demesnes themselves. But increasingly after it became difficult to find tenants, so that some mills would eventually sit idle and slowly fall into ruin.Thus, as one example out of many, the Durham Cathedral Priory windmill at Ferryhill, Durham, was first recorded as being ‘out of tenancy’ (extra tenuram) in an account of –, after having been rented out for s. per annum for a number of years preceding. The ‘out of tenancy’ message continued for several years, until the mill was recorded as being destroyed (vastum) in the – account.²¹ Alternatively, a catastrophe would overtake the mill, perhaps being washed out by floods in the case of watermills or being blown down or burned down in the case of windmills. Here the decision would be made simply not to rebuild the mill—for example, the windmill at Old Bolingbroke, Lincolnshire, burned down about and was never replaced, a happenstance commemorated in the manor’s accounts for well over a century.²² As a result of episodes like these, the number of mills in the sample gradually shrank by another per cent from the late s to the early s. The nadir was reached after the very inclement weather of –, where, in the sample, lucrative watermill enterprises at Congleton, Cheshire, Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire, and Knottingley, Yorkshire, were all destroyed by floods. In contrast to previous episodes like this, such as during –, rebuilding was delayed for a considerable length of time, until at least – for Knottingley, – for Congleton, and – for Hampton Lucy.²³ It is difficult to be precise about what caused this pronounced downturn in milling, and indeed in the economy in general, after . If it were simply population decline, one would have expected a much more sustained drop in ¹⁹ HRO M B/. ²⁰ See e.g. Bolton, Medieval English Economy, –. ²¹ DCD Bursar’s Accounts –A, –, –, –, –, –, –, –. ²² As in –, –, –, –, and –: PRO DL /, /, /, /, /. ²³ PRO DL /, /; Dyer, Lords and Peasants, .
Mill Numbers and Revenues
mill numbers throughout the second half of the fourteenth century. Monetary deflation has been the other factor much cited as a cause, the argument being that, as sources of bullion, and especially silver, faltered towards the end of the century, leading to the so-called ‘great bullion famine’ starting in the s, economic difficulties soon followed.²⁴ Certainly, there is a sense of a bubble bursting in milling after , both in mill numbers and, as we shall see, even more spectacularly in revenues. Similarly, the unusually long delay in rebuilding indisputably profitable operations after the floods of –, as well as increasing levels of arrears among tenants towards the middle of the century (see Section .), are both symptomatic of money shortages. If, however, monetary deficiency seems to explain much of the collapse of milling from the s to the middle of the fifteenth century, it works less well as an explanatory mechanism for the period that follows. By a new equilibrium was reached and overall mill numbers generally fell no lower. But the recovery in mill numbers (and apparently revenues: see below) was so stubbornly protracted throughout the later fifteenth century, even with some improvement in the money in circulation,²⁵ that monetary explanations alone seem insufficient. While other elements of trade and economic development clearly recovered towards the end of the fifteenth century, particularly in exports of cloth and metals,²⁶ milling activity remained sluggish, very much following Richard Britnell’s description of the uninspired performance of internal trade and overall economic development in England well into the early sixteenth century.²⁷ It is likely that low grain prices and perhaps persistent high levels of mortality (keeping population and hence demand for grain milling in particular at low levels) continued to suppress opportunities for milling right to the end of the century.²⁸ Only in the second and third decades of the sixteenth century was there clearly significant growth in the milling industry, particularly in the building of tenant industrial mills. As we shall discuss in Chapter in particular, it is hard to know how enduring this surge in the tenant sector would turn out to be, but it clearly had a positive impact on overall mill numbers to about the middle of the s. The dip in mill numbers in Figure . at the very ²⁴ As argued most forcefully by Day, Medieval Market Economy, ch. ; Spufford, Money, ch. ; Hatcher, ‘Great Slump’, –; Nightingale, ‘Monetary Contraction’. For more cautious assessments, see Britnell, Commercialisation, –; Bolton, Medieval English Economy, –. ²⁵ Particularly in the amount of silver in circulation: Allen, ‘Volume’, ; Mayhew, ‘Population, Money Supply’, –; Britnell, Commercialisation, . ²⁶ Britnell, Closing of the Middle Ages?, –. ²⁷ Closing of the Middle Ages?, –. ²⁸ For low grain prices, especially from to , see AHEW iii. , , –; for a recent view of the continuing high levels of mortality in the later th century, see Barbara Harvey, Living and Dying, ch. , esp. pp. –, –.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
end of the period was largely caused by the tearing down of four mills at Bitterne and Twyford in Hampshire in – at the order of a Commission for Sewers. This episode, still not well understood, may have been to clear the Itchen for river transport up to Winchester.²⁹ As a final point, looking at the experience as a whole over the period to , it should be noted that total mill numbers in the sample only dropped to an index of , reached between the years – and –; for grain mills alone it was at about the same periods of time.This drop of around a quarter of the mills evident in was much less than the likely decline of population, which, at say about , was probably only around per cent of what it had been in .³⁰ Seen in this light, and particularly given that many of the sites that failed were likely to have been marginal in any case,³¹ the physical infrastructure of milling stood up remarkably well throughout the trials of the later Middle Ages.
... Regional Variation But the overall picture hides some quite marked regional variation. Figure . shows the total (corrected) number of mills over the period broken down into the various regions.³² The figure for East Anglia was stopped at because the number of mills in that regional sample dropped to less than 10 after this point. Despite this qualification, it is clear from Figure . that there was considerable variation in mill number movements from region to region. The South-West stands out as the one area where milling investment remained fairly robust throughout the period and indeed the number of mills in the region at the end of the period () was, according to the sample, per cent more than that in . As discussed below, much of this rise was due to a surge in the building of industrial mills in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, but it is also consistent with the steady economic growth claimed for the region during the later Middle Ages.³³ On the other hand, four regions—East Anglia (up to at least), the Home Counties, the South, and the West Midlands— ²⁹ Langdon, ‘Inland Water Transport—View from the Mills’, . ³⁰ Hatcher, Plague, Population, esp. (figs. and ); Dyer, Making a Living, . ³¹ e.g. Holt, Mills, ; Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, . ³² The counties making up each of the seven regions are as follows: () East Anglia: Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk; () Home Counties: Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Oxfordshire, Surrey; () South: Hampshire, Kent, Sussex, Wiltshire, () South-West: Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset; () East Midlands: Huntingdonshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland; () West Midlands: Cheshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire; () North: Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire. ³³ e.g. AHEW iii. –; Kowaleski, Local Markets, –.
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had significant reduction in the number of their mills, all being down by as much a fifth or more by the end of the period, generally fitting the overall trend. Of the two regions that fell in between these two poles, the North probably benefited from its pattern of having large, centrally placed grain mills, which were better suited to survive the post-plague era (although revenues were certainly affected, as we shall see below). The region’s mills were also seemingly buttressed more strongly by suit of mill than for most other parts of the coun-
Mill Numbers and Revenues
try,³⁴ and also benefited modestly from the construction of industrial mills near the end of our period (see Table .). The performance of the East Midlands is the most difficult to explain. In an area of windmills and where industrial mills became non-existent (in the sample at least), it should have been prone to a sharp decline in mill numbers. Yet mill numbers for the East Midlands were buoyant throughout the period—oddly enough, particularly during the socalled bullion famine period—so that mill numbers for the region in were, according to the sample, per cent above what they were in . It is possible that the sample size here ( manors) is too small to be reliable, and certainly there were never more than mills at any one time tracking through the computer program for the region. On the other hand, the revenue performance of these East Midlands mills was often very respectable (see particularly Steeping, Lincolnshire, in Table . below). If the computer results for the region are not illusory, part of the region’s success may be that it adopted exactly the opposite strategy from the South-West. That is, it specialized in agriculture, helped by easy access to the ports of Hull, Boston, and King’s Lynn via the inland water systems of the Trent, Witham, and Fenland waterways,³⁵ and as a result grain mills in particular could still flourish. This is a supposition, however, that must await further research. Given that there were significant differences in experience among the various regions, does weighting the experience of each region by, say, population lead to a different national picture than that indicated in Figure .? To test this, the indices for each region were weighted according to the proportion of population for each region found in the poll tax returns.³⁶ The comparison, using only the corrected figures (shown as the dashed line in Figure .) was done for every years from (plus a measurement for ), as shown in Table .. The figures do indicate that the current sample is in fact weighted too much towards those regions with unfavourable experiences during the later Middle Ages (especially the South and the West Midlands), particularly towards the end of our period, when the recovery in the early sixteenth century as shown in Figure . would seem to have been underestimated. Indeed, had a more representative sample been drawn equally from all regions according to their levels of population, the decline in mills overall would only have dropped to an index ³⁴ Langdon, ‘Lordship’, –, –. ³⁵ The gradual shift of eastern England to an agricultural specialism, aided by ready access to inland water transportation, is an argument I have made in ‘Inland Water Transport’, esp. –. See also Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, –, –, , , for the opportunities afforded to farming in the East Midlands through easy access to overseas markets. ³⁶ Because of the small number of mills in the sample for East Anglia after , the figures for it and the East Midlands were combined in the weighting calculation. For this and other methods of weighting, see Langdon, Horses, Oxen, –, –.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
T .. Total mills: regionally corrected versus uncorrected indexes Year
Regionally corrected
Uncorrected
Year
Regionally corrected
Uncorrected
Note: Index = at . Sources: As indicated in App. .
around and, at in , would have recovered to something reasonably close to the number of mills in . However, for some regions, such as the West Midlands, where the mix of ecclesiastical, lay, and Crown estates in the sample was quite good throughout the period, some crisis in milling seemed real enough for much of the later Middle Ages.³⁷
... Types of Mill: By Power Source As I have indicated above, the sample is probably most reliable in showing the trends in the various types of mill (that is, how they were powered and what they were used for). The general trends of various types of mill within the sample over the period can be seen in Table ., where the percentages of various types of mill within the sample are, for the most part, broken into ten-year intervals. Concerning the energy sources exploited by the industry over the period, one of the most obvious features is the sharply diminished role played by wind power (Figure .). Although the computer sample may under-represent windmills,³⁸ there was clearly a prodigious decline in their number from the advent of the ³⁷ See also Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, . ³⁸ In contrast to the per cent or so of windmills in the computer sample up to the advent of the plague, the proportion of windmills in an inquisitions post mortem sample taken for the reign of Edward II was . per cent (as calculated from Langdon,‘Lordship’, (table ) ).The difference, however, may be due to the exclusively lay
Mill Numbers and Revenues T .. Percentages of types of mill in the computer sample over time Yearsa
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Percentageb of various types
Percentage grain versus industrial
Percentageb powered by
CM
WD
HM
FM
OI
GM
IM
Water
Wind
Horse
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Note: CM = water corn-mills; WD = windmills; HM = horse-mills; FM = fulling-mills; OI = other industrial mills (i.e. other than those for fulling); GM = grain mills (i.e. CM + WD + HM); IM = industrial mills (that is, FM + OI). a
The intervals run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second. The percentages for each decade sometimes add up to more or less than owing to the effects of rounding off to the nearest single decimal place. b
Sources: As indicated in App. .
plague onwards.The sample indicates that the number of windmills in was only about per cent of that in . The decline in windmills was especially precipitous in those regions, such as the West Midlands, where they competed with water power for custom, very much underscoring Holt’s point that for composition of the inquisition sample. Lay lords were often behind ecclesiastical lords in establishing their milling sites (e.g. Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, –), and may have had to be satisfied with establishing windmills rather than watermills in the period leading up to .
Mill Numbers and Revenues 200 Index Corrected Index
Mill Number Index (1300 = 100)
180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20
1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540
0
Year
F. .. Movement of windmill numbers
much of England wind power only existed as a supplement to water power and was the first to go once the shortfall in demand began to make itself felt.³⁹ This was most obviously observed on those manors where lords originally supplied both a watermill and a windmill, perhaps to cover each other in times of water or wind shortage. In these cases, it was normally the windmill that was let go when retrenchment occurred.⁴⁰ In areas such as the East Midlands and Holderness, however, where there was often little in the way of competition from water power, windmills held their own in much better fashion.⁴¹ The same applied to cases where topographical considerations clearly worked in their favour, as in the appropriately named community of Gringley on the Hill, Nottinghamshire, which had a windmill throughout the period of the study. But, in general, particularly between about and , the decline in wind-
³⁹ Holt, Mills, –, . See also Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, , where windmills in the counties of Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire had, by the late th century, apparently shrunk to about per cent of their number in the early th century. ⁴⁰ As, for example, at Whitley, Cheshire, where the windmill on the manor went down in –, leaving only a demesne watermill (as indicated in the ‘allowances’ sections of the account for that and succeeding years: PRO DL /, , etc.). ⁴¹ In Holderness, for example, none of the nine windmills existing in the sample from the early th century became inoperative (or at least were still operating when last seen in the cases where the documentation stopped before ).
Mill Numbers and Revenues 200 Index Corrected Index
Mill Number Index (1300 = 100)
180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20
1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540
0
Year
F. .. Movement of watermill numbers
mills was very marked, and in global terms more or less permanent until at least .⁴² Windmill numbers would clearly recover afterwards, perhaps during the population boom of the sixteenth century or afterwards during the Industrial Revolution, when wind power was employed to free water power for other uses,⁴³ but that period was seemingly still some time away even by . In contrast, water-powered mills demonstrated a much less drastic decline, as shown in Figure .. Here all mills powered by water are shown, including those for fulling and other industrial purposes. The nadir for these mills in the sample was reached at an index of during the period –, after which they recovered to an index of in , or very nearly the numbers existing in . Much of this improved performance, especially relative to windmills, was because of the buoyancy of industrial milling, as we shall see shortly. ⁴² Manors in the sample for which the loss of windmills can be pinpointed during the period to were Ivinghoe (Buckinghamshire); Nether Heworth, Monk Hesleden, and Ferryhill (Durham); Birdbrook (Essex); Bishop’s Cleeve and Henbury with Stoke Bishop (Gloucestershire); Burghclere and Hambledon (Hampshire); Adisham and Monkton (Kent); Old Bolingbroke (Lincolnshire); Halliford and Hampstead (Middlesex); Bircham, Hindolveston, and Hindringham (Norfolk); Raunds (Northamptonshire); Wallsend with Willington (Northumberland); Launton (Oxfordshire); Walton and Glastonbury (Somerset); Kippax, Cridling Stubbs, Elmsall, Ackworth, and Rothwell (Yorkshire). Only a few of these windmills reappeared (before at least), as at Monk Hesledon, where a new windmill was built in –. ⁴³ Pelham, ‘Corn Milling’, –.
Mill Numbers and Revenues 200 Index Corrected Index
Mill Number Index (1300 = 100)
180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20
1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540
0
Year
F. .. Movement of water grain mill numbers
When only water-powered grain mills are considered (Figure .), the performance was less impressive, sinking to an index of in and only rising back to an index of by the year . Still, it seems clear that water remained the power source of choice for mills, despite something of a decline in their overall numbers. Finally, the last power source represented in the sample was that by horses. As can be seen from Table ., horse-mills were always a tiny proportion in the sample, but relatively it is clear that their numbers did increase over the period. Only in the period – in Table . did their proportion decrease, but this is a statistical illusion since it only occurred because manors where they existed began to drop out of the sample. It was in many ways a very dubious exercise to run horse-mill numbers through the computer, since they never rose above single digits in the sample; nevertheless, it does indicate periods of their relative increase, as shown in Figure .. As can be seen, the period from to about the mid-s was one that saw the addition of horse-mills on a number of manors, sometimes as a last-ditch effort to preserve some sort of milling facility. Thus, on the bishopric of Winchester manor of Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire, a windmill in operation from the start of the fourteenth century was damaged, apparently beyond repair, by strong winds in –.⁴⁴ As a replacement a watermill was built in – for a rather extravagant £ s. ½d.⁴⁵ The ⁴⁴ As reported in the – account: HRO M B/, m. .
⁴⁵ HRO M B/, m. v.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
250
Mill Number Index (1300 = 100)
225 200 175 150 125 100 75 50 25 1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540
0
Year
F. .. Movement of horse-mill numbers
mill, however, only functioned at best for ten years, and in – was recorded as rendering nothing for lack of repairs and a sufficient water supply.⁴⁶ The bishop and/or his officials then went to the final option of installing a horsemill on the manor in – at the much more reasonable cost of s. d. (see Appendix ).⁴⁷ Although this mill would eventually become derelict itself sometime between and , it still operated for about ninety years and so must be counted as a reasonable success. Horse-mills were also very useful for lords in urban situations, particularly where they did not have access to or supplemented water power. Thus, the duchy of Lancaster established horse-mills in both Leicester and Northampton,⁴⁸ while an inquisition post mortem of the lands of Aymer de Valence in Towcester, Northamptonshire, taken in August , revealed a horse-mill valued at a healthy s. per annum.⁴⁹ Horse-mills were also used—temporarily, it appears—to supplement grain milling in Colchester during the late fourteenth century.⁵⁰ The last power source for milling, human power, we can only speculate at in terms of getting some sense of whether it was more or less used in the later Middle Ages. The fact that the overall mill numbers, whether powered by ⁴⁶ HRO M B/. ⁴⁷ HRO M B/. ⁴⁸ The horse-mill in Leicester supplemented the duchy’s two watermills and one windmill in the town (VCH Leicestershire, iv. ) from at least –, when it was farmed for s. d. per year (PRO DL /), while at Northampton the ‘horse-mill of “Lilleborn” ’ was farmed for s. per year in – and seemingly later for s. per year, according to the – account (PRO DL /, m. v; /). ⁴⁹ PRO C//, m. . ⁵⁰ Britnell, Growth and Decline, .
Mill Numbers and Revenues
water, wind, or horse, declined far less than did the population after suggests that many who had milled the grain by hand before the plague patronized other power sources for the task afterwards. In a world now starved of labour rather than food, this seems only a natural progression. On the other hand, the continued presence of hand-mills, as evidenced from probate and debt inventories, customs accounts, illuminated manuscripts, and archaeological excavations, indicates that they remained a feature of many households.⁵¹
... Types of Mill: By the Nature of Work Performed Change in the way mills were employed in the later Middle Ages was as important an issue as their global numbers. The most basic distinction here was whether they were being used for agricultural purposes, especially for grinding grain, or whether they were being used for other activities somewhat removed from agriculture, such as cloth-making, leather-making, or the fashioning of metals. For the purposes of this study I have consequently grouped mills for fulling cloth, forging iron, or cleansing and smelting ores, etc., together as ‘industrial mills’, while those for grinding grain or malt (whether by water, wind, or horse power) are characterized as ‘grain mills’. Table . shows the relative proportion of each type of mill over time in the sample. Of the two, industrial mills were clearly gaining more prominence over the period. This was solely in the realm of watermills, since nowhere in the materials for this study were windmills (or horse-mills) found doing anything other than grinding grain.⁵² Figure . illustrates the movement of grain mills (including windmills and horse-mills) versus industrial mills. These two basic types of mill show a considerable, although not unexpected, divergence after the onset of the plague. Grain mill numbers as a whole slipped to around per cent of what they had been in , while industrial mills rose considerably from to , attaining an index of by the latter date. As Figure . shows, the rise in industrial mill numbers effectively took place in two stages. The first occurred in the half-century following the plague, after which industrial mills stabilized at a numerical position about per cent greater than they had been at , finally rising sharply again in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. ⁵¹ See Sects. . and .. below. ⁵² Although wind power for drainage was evident in the Netherlands from possibly the mid-th century onwards, such use of windmills in England cannot be confirmed until the late th or early th centuries, while windmills for industrial purposes such as sawing or papermaking were similarly delayed until the late th century at best: AHEW ii. –; Darby, Draining, –; Hills, Power from Wind, chs. and .
Mill Numbers and Revenues 250
Grain Industrial
Mill Number Index (1300 = 100)
225 200 175 150 125 100 75 50 25
1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540
0
Year
F. .. Movement of grain and industrial mill numbers
The first rise was clearly done at the expense of grain mills, but the second rise of industrial mills seems to have involved an addition of new mills. Breaking down the industrial mills into the two components of fulling-mills (Figure .) and industrial mills other than fulling-mills (Figure .), some clarification of these trends is possible. Fulling mills clearly followed (and, to a large extent, set) the pattern of industrial mills as a whole. Other types of industrial mill only participated in the second rise, although, as in the case of horsemills, the figure is based on small numbers (mostly single-digit except at the very end of the period). These two figures show clearly that fulling-mills, often as not converted from grain mills, made up the first rise, but that the second was clearly composed of increases in the number of both fulling-mill and other types of industrial mill. Most of the rise in industrial mills other than for fulling occurred in Cornwall with the sudden efflorescence of blowing mills (that is, water-powered bellows: see Plate .) and ore-cleansing or crushing mills (often called ‘skoff-’ or ‘crazing-mills’) for the tin industry.⁵³ This is evident in Table ., which shows the regional breakdown of grain versus industrial mills in the sample for each ten-year interval from to .The columns for the SouthWest show the percentage of industrial mills ballooning from a figure of . per cent in the decade –, roughly in line with the percentages of industrial ⁵³ Some excavation of these ore-crushing mills, dating from the late th century, has already been undertaken: Gerrard, ‘Cornish Stamping Mill’.
1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540
Mill Number Index (1300 = 100)
1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540
Mill Number Index (1300 = 100)
Mill Numbers and Revenues
250
225
200
175
150
125
100
75
50
25
0
Year
F. .. Movement of fulling-mill numbers
250
225
200
175
150
125
100
75
50
25
0
Year
F. .. Movement of industrial mill numbers less fulling-mills
T .. Percentage grain versus industrial mills by region Yearsa
– – – – – – – – – – – – – –
East Anglia
Home Counties
South
%G
%I
%G
%I
%G
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
South-West
East Midlands
West Midlands
North
All of England
%I
%G
%I
%G
%I
%G
%I
%G
%I
%G
%I
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
T .. Continued Yearsa
– – – – – – – – – –
East Anglia
Home Counties
South
%G
%I
%G
%I
%G
. . . (.) (.) (.) (.) (.) (.) (.)
. . . (.) (.) (.) (.) (.) (.) (.)
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
South-West
East Midlands
West Midlands
North
%I
%G
%I
%G
%I
%G
%I
%G
%I
%G
%I
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Note: % G = percentage of grain mills; % I = percentage of industrial mills. Figures in parentheses are based upon samples of fewer than mills. a
The intervals run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
All of England
Mill Numbers and Revenues
mills for the other regions at the same time, to . per cent for the decade –. Most of this growth happened from the s onwards and, particularly from onwards, when it was fed by the growth of mills in the ‘OI (other industrial mills than those for fulling)’ column in Table ., all of which was funnelled into the South-West. Although I have already cautioned abundantly about reading too much into the results from the sample, in this case I do think the figures given here reflect a distinct pattern for the region not only of economic growth but also of the marked transition of water power to industrial purposes, as has been commented upon by others.⁵⁴ Concerning the growth of industrial mills indicated by Table . for other regions, especially the South and Home Counties, we have to tread much more carefully.That for the South was based upon a few manors where the number of fulling-mills increased considerably. One such was the Glastonbury Abbey manor of Longbridge Deverill in Wiltshire, where the number of fulling-mills on the manor seemingly jumped from in to in , at least three of these being tenants’ mills built during the period –. Again, this follows to some extent what has been previously written by others about the progression of cloth-making in Wiltshire.⁵⁵ In this regard, we might consider this as an extension of what was happening in the South-West, and that the growth of industrial mills in the South was largely a result of my decision to place Wiltshire in that category rather than, say, in the South-West. Similarly, the apparent growth in the Home Counties is probably due more to occasional manors taking on fulling-mills, as at Witney, Oxfordshire,⁵⁶ than to the region as a whole industrializing in great measure, particularly as the number of mills for the region in the sample began to shrink towards the end of our period, giving undue weight to such individual increases as at Witney. Nevertheless, despite these caveats, there was clearly a major shift in the use of water power for industrial purposes in the later Middle Ages. The phases in which this shift occurred—as shown in Figures . and .—clearly fit the current view of the economy. As John Hare has written in his excellent survey of the late medieval Wiltshire cloth industry, there was a decided growth in the industry (and hence fulling-mills) in the late fourteenth century, followed by a period of retrenchment for much of the fifteenth century.⁵⁷ This flattening out ⁵⁴ AHEW iii. –; Finberg, Tavistock Abbey, –; Kowalski, Local Markets, , . ⁵⁵ See esp. Hare, ‘Growth and Recession’. ⁵⁶ Where the three fulling-mills in gradually shrank to none in –, possibly because of the floods of that year, although the Witney accounts of the period only refer to the poverty of the tenants (HRO M B/, , , m. ). A new fulling-mill was built in – (B/, ms. v–) and then eventually another one around (as suggested in the – account: B/). ⁵⁷ Hare, ‘Growth and Recession’.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
in the fifteenth century is clearly evident in Figure . in particular, but the recovery from the mid-fifteenth-century slump, which Hare memorably called ‘a piecemeal and ragged affair’,⁵⁸ certainly gained some momentum in the very late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. There was also a notable dichotomy between different parts of the country. For the eastern counties in the sample, for instance, fulling-mills seem gradually to have died away,⁵⁹ although the cloth industry clearly continued to flourish in Suffolk in particular.⁶⁰ In many other areas, however, such as the South-West, the landscape suddenly became dotted with new mills for fulling and other industrial purposes, and overall it contributed to a very significant increase in mills for industrial purposes over the later Middle Ages. Indeed, if the data represented in Table . and Figures . to . have value, in absolute terms it would suggest (and I am being very tentative here) that the number of industrial mills in England might have risen from around to probably at least , and possibly , or more by .⁶¹ This very much puts Eleanora Carus-Wilson’s famous ‘industrial revolution’ of the thirteenth century into perspective.⁶² Although Carus-Wilson was certainly right in drawing attention to the prophetic use of water power for nonagricultural use earlier in the medieval period, the above figures suggest that its scale was rather smaller compared to that which came two or three centuries later. Certainly, by there was an abundance of technical knowledge about how to turn water power to industrial uses, but what needed to occur was, following Marx, a release of that power from pre-existing social, economic, and proprietorial restraints. Much of this clearly happened after the Black Death, as I shall discuss further in Chapter . On the other hand, I do not want to make any claim that the real medieval ‘industrial revolution’ occurred in the later ⁵⁸ Hare, . ⁵⁹ For example, on the Abbey of Westminster’s manor of Birdbrook, Essex: see Table . below. ⁶⁰ Hare. ‘Growth and Recession’, . ⁶¹ Assuming the per cent industrial mill figure from Table . for the period –, then the number of industrial mills assuming , mills in all in (see above) would be . ¥ , = . For , using the index of calculated by the computer for all mills in relative to an index of at and applying the figure of . per cent industrial mills for the country as a whole for – from Table ., then the number of industrial mills in , assuming , mills at , would be , ¥ . ¥ . = .. This represents at least a threefold increase in industrial mills from to . If these figures were regionally corrected, as in Table ., the increase in industrial mills from to would likely be even more (particularly since the figures from the South-West would be given greater emphasis). On the other hand, this is more than the twofold or so increase suggested in Figs. .–., where the numbers are deployed in a somewhat different way. If the per cent increase in industrial mills indicated by Figs. . and . were applied to the projected industrial mills at , this would mean ¥ . = industrial mills in . Whichever way the numbers are manipulated, however, a significant increase in industrial mills seems very evident over the period. ⁶² Carus-Wilson, ‘Industrial Revolution’.
Mill Numbers and Revenues 250
Grain Mills Industrial Mills
Mill Number Index (1300 = 100)
225 200 175 150 125 100 75 50 25
1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540
0
Year
F. .. Movement of ecclesiastical grain and industrial mill numbers
Middle Ages, because, as discussed in Chapter , restraints on the use of water power for industry would likely return in a different guise in the sixteenth century.
... Ecclesiastical versus Lay Estates What can we say about the main actors in the transferral of water power to industrial purposes and the social environment in which it was mainly taking place? Here the sample can provide more clues. Figures . and . show the performance of grain and industrial mills on ecclesiastical and lay estates. Both types of estate showed some decline in grain mills throughout the period, ecclesiastical estates rather more than lay ones, but the real difference occurred over the development of industrial mills. Ecclesiastical estates clearly did more of the investing in industrial mills in the period after the Black Death and were vigorous in converting grain mills to fulling-mills in particular,⁶³ which also explains the steeper decline of grain mills on these estates. Virtually none of this ⁶³ As one particularly prompt example, Canterbury Cathedral Priory converted one of its two grain mills at Orpington, Kent, to a fulling-mill in – (CCA DCc Orpington ). The greater vigour of ecclesiastical lords compared to lay lords in promoting industrial mills is also noted by Adam Lucas for the period up to the early th century: ‘Industrial Milling’. I am grateful to Adam Lucas for permission to cite from this article before publication.
Mill Numbers and Revenues 250
Grain Mills Industrial Mills
Mill Number Index (1300 = 100)
225 200 175 150 125 100 75 50 25
1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1360 1370 1380 1390 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1460 1470 1480 1490 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540
0
Year
F. .. Movement of lay grain and industrial mill numbers
seems to have occurred on the lay estates in the sample, where renewed investment in industrial mills was at best erratic for the latter part of the fourteenth century and most of the fifteenth. A large part of the difference between lay and ecclesiastical performance may concern where the distribution of these manors occurred in the sample, but it is notable, for instance, that virtually none of the increase in industrial mills in the later fourteenth century and for most of the fifteenth occurred on the duchy of Cornwall, with its liberal scattering of manors in Devon and Cornwall, but did so on the ecclesiastical estate of Tavistock Abbey (not in the sample) in Devon, where a number of corn-mills (and at least one tanning mill) were converted to fulling-mills around the beginning of the fifteenth century.⁶⁴ Indeed, most of the building of industrial mills on the lay estates in the sample took place towards the very end of our period. As I shall discuss in Chapter , this building was very much led by tenants, a feature also seen on some ecclesiastical estates at the time (so that the number of industrial mills continued to increase on these estates, albeit at a much slower rate than on lay estates).
... Rural versus Urban Differences also occurred with rural versus urban mills. Although the ‘urban’ manors only comprised one in eight of the manors in the sample, they ⁶⁴ Finberg, Tavistock Abbey, –.
Mill Numbers and Revenues T .. Mills on rural and urban manors Yearsa
Percentage of total mills
Rural mills
Urban mills
Rural
Urban
%G
%I
%G
%I
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
– . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – . – .
Note: % G = percentage of grain mills; % I = percentage of industrial mills. a The intervals run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
nonetheless accounted for a very significant proportion of the total mills, as shown in Table ., ranging from between and per cent from to and then rising to nearly per cent by (although this is perhaps inflated near the end of the period, owing to rather greater numbers of rural manors relative to urban ones dropping out of the sample). Figures . and . show in a more visual way the performance of mill numbers for both sectors over the entire period.The number of rural mills (Figure .) seems to have held up well until the onset of the plague, where numbers dipped to about per cent below
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Mill Numbers and Revenues
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what they had been in . After that, rural mills followed the profile for mills as a whole (Figure .), but dipping to a lower nadir of in the mid-s, a level more or less maintained to the early s. After this, there was a modest rise to an index of by , fuelled mostly by the construction of tenant industrial mills (about which more shortly). Mills on urban manors (Figure .) showed a more intriguing profile over the period. Here, the early fourteenth century seems clearly to have been a problem. Even the corrected figures show a reduction of greater than per cent in mills on urban manors from to the eve of the plague. Much of this was due to the flooding out of mills in –, discussed above, from which urban mills never recovered fully (indeed, the index dropped briefly to during this period and only rose to or —depending upon whether the uncorrected or corrected figure is used—by ). But after the plague, although numbers on such manors continued to fall, the total reduction was much less than on rural manors, reaching a nadir of in –, significantly again after the flooding of –. After that, there was a steady increase in numbers of urban mills until , when there were seemingly slightly more mills (an index of ) in the urban sector than there had been in . Figures . and . break down the rural and urban figures into their grain and industrial mill components, so that some of the mechanisms behind the
Mill Numbers and Revenues 400 Grain Mills Industrial Mills
Mill Number Index (1300 = 100)
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above trends can be observed more closely. In the case of rural mills (Figure .), the buoyancy observed before the onset of the plague can be attributed to some growth of industrial mills in the countryside, a phenomenon typified by the construction of the Westerham fulling-mill mentioned above. In contrast, industrial mills on urban manors clearly declined in the sample over the same period (Figure .). Do we read this as a movement of the industrial use of water power from urban to rural locations? It might be tempting to posit this as a response to population pressure in urban situations, where the need for more milling capacity for grain pushed industrial mills out into the countryside, but the concurrent decline of grain mills on urban manors over the same period clearly contradicts this explanation. What Figures . and . together might suggest is some population movement from bigger communities to smaller ones in the period leading up to the plague, but, in fact, the divergence shown in the two figures is not statistically significant.⁶⁵ After the Black Death, however, industrial mills increased in number in both rural and urban situations, although rather more in the former. Much of this clearly resulted from the conversion of corn-mills to industrial mills, which seems to have happened much ⁶⁵ Chi-square testing comparing the numbers of mills on rural and urban manors in the first decade of the th century with those in the period just before the advent of the plague (–), to see if the movement of mills from one sector to the other over the interval was statistically significant, resulted in a chi-square value of only ., showing virtually no significance at all.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
more in the countryside. The result was that rural industrial mills by the end of the fourteenth century were seemingly double the number evident in .The result was certainly obvious in such counties as Somerset and Wiltshire, where the rural cloth industry flourished in the late fourteenth century.⁶⁶ After , however, there was a definite crossover, with rural industrial mills, particularly those for fulling, declining sharply in the sample, while urban industrial mills at least held their own and even increased somewhat. A large part of this was connected with the prolonged fifteenth-century depression in cloth-making and other economic activities, which had a marked impact upon many communities across the country.⁶⁷ Recovery in the building of rural industrial mills might have begun as early as the s, but was rather gradual until the notable spurt in tenant mill building, discussed above, particularly in the second and third decades of the sixteenth century. It was also paralleled by a steadier, but still quite marked, increase in industrial mills in urban communities. The end result is that upward movement of industrial mills was evident in both sectors, but that movement of industrial mill numbers in the countryside was much more volatile. This makes it difficult to posit definitively the longterm movement of industry into the countryside and the mechanical response to that through the building of more industrial mills. As we shall see in Chapter , the establishment of industrial mills was often potentially very ephemeral. What seems clear is that the water power mechanization of industries was moving forward on both the rural and the urban fronts, but the former was the much more marginal. Rural industrial mills could suddenly ‘sprout’, when conditions favoured them, as in the dramatic downturn in population in the middle of the fourteenth century, or with the surge of metal industries in the early sixteenth century, but as shown in the early fifteenth century they might just as dramatically shrivel away. Industrial mills in urban situations, on the other hand, showed greater hardiness. In many ways rural fulling and other industrial mills functioned in a similar fashion to windmills for grain-milling, essentially as a supplement to the more logical location of industry in towns. In such a way, rural industrial mill numbers consequently rose and fell in much the same dramatic way as windmills, although, of course, their response, especially to demographic forces, was almost exactly the opposite to that of windmills. Following upon this point, we should, in the end, see industrial growth in rural and urban situations as being complementary rather than in opposition to each other. As Hare has shown for late medieval Wiltshire, rural industry (and its subsequent mechanization) grew out of or alongside urban industry; it did ⁶⁶ Hare, ‘Growth and Recession’, –.
⁶⁷ Ibid. ; Hatcher, ‘Great Slump’.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
not replace it.⁶⁸ One basic assumption underpinning Eleanora Carus-Wilson’s argument was that water supply was limited in towns, hence sharply limiting the ability to mechanize urban cloth industries.⁶⁹ However, even if the concern over water supply was often expressed at the time,⁷⁰ urban communities still had the water capacity to accommodate new industrial mills right to the end of our period, even to the point—if Figure . is any guide—of supporting over per cent more industrial mills in than they had in . Part of the ability of urban communities to be able to support increased industrial mill activity was due to a supply of water being freed up by the reduction in grain mill numbers over the course of our period. The rise in industrial mills effectively balanced the loss of grain mills, so that, according to the sample, essentially the same number of urban mills existed in as had been evident at (see Figure .). As a result, there might well be a suspicion that, when the population once again began to rise sharply in the late sixteenth century, the conditions for some movement of industrial mills from town to country might well arise again. Nevertheless, the proportional movement of industrial mills between the two sectors seems to have been relatively unimportant compared to their combined movement over time (see Table .), and it seems likely that, as the population did grow again, the proportion of industrial mills in both town and country would likely decline. This raises doubts about the permanence of the trend towards industrial mills in the later Middle Ages. Certainly, the cumulative effect of the rise of industrial mill numbers in both town and countryside during the period after the advent of the plague in particular was certainly sizeable enough (being, in , well over twice that in : see Figure .) that it was unlikely to have been clawed back entirely by rising demographic forces in the sixteenth century. The key importance of the later Middle Ages in relation to milling, then, may not have been so much because of any relative shift of industry from urban to rural locales as that the idea of using water power for more applications than grinding grain had become much more cemented into the minds of entrepreneurs, workers, and customers in than it had been in (or even ).⁷¹
⁶⁸ Hare, ‘Growth and Recession’, –. ⁶⁹ Carus-Wilson, ‘Industrial Revolution’, esp. –. ⁷⁰ See Sect. .. below. ⁷¹ For the similar rise of industrial mills in other parts of Europe and the permanence of the trend, see Reynolds, Hundred Men, –; van Uytven, ‘Fulling Mill’; Munro, ‘Industrial Energy’. It is notable in all of these how far ahead the Continent was in the use of water power for industrial processes than England. For more on this, see Langdon, ‘Was England a Technological Backwater?’
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F. .. Movement of tenant mill numbers
... Tenant Mills As a final point about mill numbers, some mention has been made already about the performance of the tenant sector in promoting industrial mills. As I shall discuss in Chapter , there was a marked change in the make-up of tenant mills over time in the sample, with grain mills dominating at the beginning of our period (), but industrial mills by the end (). As mentioned above, tenant mills are undoubtedly under-represented in the computer analysis, normally comprising to per cent of the total number of mills in the sample (see Table .). Nonetheless, some sense of their movement over the period can be discerned, as indicated in Figure ., which will be important in future discussions about the sector. As shown in Figure ., there was a steady decline in the number of tenant mills up to the eve of the plague, perhaps following upon the century-old or more inclination of lords to bring tenant mills back into the demesne.⁷² The end result was that the number of tenant mills in the sample on the eve of the plague was about per cent lower than it had been in . The plague brought upon a sharp drop of about per cent more, as many tenant mills were precipitously thrown ‘into the lord’s hands’ (as the documents usually put it). After this, the number of tenant mills seems to have stabilized, and indeed they seemingly rode out the so-called ‘bullion famine’ of the late ⁷² Holt, Mills, –; id., ‘Whose Were the Profits?’, –, –. As an example, see App. for a tenant mill at Birdbrook, Essex, reverting to demesne in the early s.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in much better fashion than most mills in the sample (cf. Figures . and .). Indeed, tenant mills rose slightly from about until the floods of – seem to have affected them as other mills and set in train a slow decline until the mid-s. After that, though, there occurred a steep climb in the number of tenant mills, centred mostly around fulling- and tin-processing mills in south-western England from Wiltshire through to Cornwall, but also evident in a number of cases elsewhere.⁷³ As I shall discuss in more detail in Chapter , it is perhaps easiest to see this as a gradual relaxation of seigneurial control over investment, which allowed a more energetic infusion of capital at the tenant level, particularly for industrial mills. On the other hand, given that these tenant initiatives tended to be limited to very specific geographical locations, it is also testimony to the power of that particular regional activity—whether cloth-, iron-, or tin-making—to attract and justify investment for what were still one-process service operations.⁷⁴
.. ‒ Guy Bois, in his book on late medieval Normandy, made some interesting remarks about the fallacy of looking only at mill numbers when assessing the state of the milling industry at any point in the medieval period. For him, when looking at the milling situation in war-torn Normandy, falling mill numbers had to be viewed in conjunction with falling revenues for these same mills to get an accurate view of the fortunes of the industry.⁷⁵ Although, as I shall argue, the fluctuations in milling fortunes that Bois projected for the Normandy situation are far too extreme for the English case, his point about the desirability of including revenue analysis with mill number counts is well taken. It was in fact initially intended to integrate revenue figures much more directly into the computerized mill number analysis. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that the complications involved in revenue analysis made this impractical. For one thing, as against the number of mills on a manor, which could remain stable for years if not decades or centuries, the revenues or profits taken from a mill from year to year could vary considerably, substantially increasing the required data collection (see the Birdbrook, Essex, example in ⁷³ As at Leeds and Marsden, Yorkshire, where at least two tenant fulling-mills and a tenant water corn-mill were established by–: PRO DL /. ⁷⁴ As Miller and Hatcher note, ‘the mechanization of fulling is likely to have confirmed, rather than initiated major changes in, the locations of the industry in rural England’: Medieval England:Towns, ; see also Miller, ‘Fortunes’, esp. , . ⁷⁵ Bois, Crisis of Feudalism, –.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
Appendix ). A second, more serious problem involved the issue of comparability between different types of mill management. Assessing revenues from mills run directly as opposed to those leased out on fixed terms presents complications, and even more so when considering the revenues from tenant mills. Some standardization of the analysis might be possible by always looking at the situation from the landowners’ (i.e. the lord’s) point of view, that is, considering only incoming revenues from the amounts of grain received (if the mill was run directly) or from the rents collected each year. But even here complications could arise. For example, when lords leased out their demesne mills, the contract between lessor and lessee could take on a number of different forms regarding maintenance responsibility (see Chapter ), ranging all the way from a position where the lord paid all maintenance costs to one where the lessee paid all these expenses. Determining exactly what revenues or profits beyond costs lords received from the various positions in this range could be problematic (see below). Even when mills were operated directly with reasonably precise statements in manorial accounts as to the grain received as multure and the monies paid out for various expenses (mainly repairs), the exact level of revenues clear of expenses is extremely difficult to assess. Part of this was because the income side of the ledger was often hopelessly entwined with the other operations on the manor. For example, most often the resulting grain received as multure was simply lumped in with the other grains received from the manor’s arable and the total often doled out to the various servants on the manor.The monetary value of the grain was not calculated in any way, unless some of it was actually sold on the market (usually a small part of it). Although costs of maintaining the mill were usually recorded fairly meticulously, the lack of a clear financial statement on the income side must have meant that manorial officials were often uncertain whether a mill in this situation was actually making or losing money.⁷⁶ Things became much clearer when the mill was leased out for an annual rent (which may explain why leasing mills was such a popular option with lords), but there were often ambiguities, especially on the costs side. This was particularly the case when the lord was responsible for, say, supplying timber to the lessee for repairs, which, because it usually supplied from the lord’s woodland, was seldom entered as an actual cost in the accounts. In short, the ‘true’ financial performance of mills was obscured, which may account for the often slow response of lords or their officials to failing mill enterprises. ⁷⁶ As in the case of the Westminster Abbey windmill at Turweston, Buckinghamshire, where the abbey, possibly without realizing it, put up with a losing situation for several years: Langdon,‘Birth and Demise’, –.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
All of this is magnified when we try to get a sense of the global revenue performance of mills across an entire estate, which can be very difficult if the information about the estate’s mills are scattered among many different documents (such as individual manorial accounts) or if the policy about exploiting mills (direct management versus leasing, for instance) varied from manor to manor rather than being centrally determined. Sometimes, though, conditions make an estate, or at least a multi-mill, perspective somewhat easier. On particularly large manors, many mills would often be grouped together, as on the bishopric of Winchester’s composite manor at Taunton in Somerset, where the revenues, issues, and expenses of ten or more mills were routinely listed as a group in the manor’s accounts.⁷⁷ A few estates also applied a very centrally organized policy regarding the way they accounted for and exploited their mills, which helps to provide more meaningful comparisons over time. One of these was the estate of the bursar of Durham Cathedral Priory.The bursar’s mills (usually falling in the range of – mills over the period) were leased from at least and continued to be so until the dissolution of the monastery in , and for much of the period the mill rents (and often expenses) were conveniently grouped together in the various accounts and rentals for the bursar’s estate.⁷⁸ Putting aside expenses for the moment, Table . shows the incoming rents for the bursar’s mills at selected points over the period –, with an accompanying index set at for the high point of £ in –. The rental income from the bursar’s mills show a dramatic decline over the later Middle Ages from the heights reached in the early fourteenth century. T .. Rental incomes from the bursar’s mills of Durham Cathedral Priory Year(s)
Rental income (£ s. d.)
Index
– – –
.. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Source: Lomas, ‘Durham Cathedral Priory’, . I am grateful to Dr Lomas for permission to draw upon these findings.
⁷⁷ e.g. Pipe Roll . . . –, –, , –.
⁷⁸ See e.g. Durham Cathedral Priory Rentals, , .
Mill Numbers and Revenues
Much of this was undoubtedly due to the problems of the Scottish wars, which began to affect milling in the North to a great degree, but the further collapse of revenues to the middle of the fifteenth century is striking, reaching an index of in . There was clearly some recovery in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, but it still only climbed to about a third of the revenues evident in the early fourteenth century. Altogether this pattern of revenues clearly supports Bois’s contention that mill revenues collapsed dramatically in the later Middle Ages, especially where conditions were unsettled. But to some extent the figures presented in Table . are illusory. They do not include expenses, for example, which declined for the bursar, reflecting the countrywide pattern of lessees gradually taking over maintenance costs (Section ..). Secondly, they at best only represent the landowner’s cut. This clearly shrank in the later Middle Ages, even making allowances for reduced expenses. The lessee’s share of revenues was probably much more stable; certainly most of the priory mills remained in place throughout the period, indicating that lessees still considered them viable enterprises. On the other hand, shrinking revenues (or at least the perception of them) may help to explain the declining interest in milling among lords and the eventual willingness to relax their hold over such investment. It also indicates, however, that landlords were patient in times of adversity and tended to give mills every opportunity to recover financially, certainly if they were still functioning mechanically. In southern England the records are generally not so amenable to a convenient assessment of revenue production, since the types of management and number of mills seemed to fluctuate more dramatically. A good example of this is provided by the Westminster Abbey manor of Birdbrook, Essex, which had a long and complex milling history, as outlined in Appendix . Table . summarizes the incoming revenue performance (again not counting expenses) for the mills on the manor from – to –. The table confirms the considerable decline in milling revenues that characterized the later Middle Ages, but it also shows notable periods of recovery. In the Birdbrook case, the later fourteenth century was clearly a period of rebounding; it was in – that the abbey rebuilt the fulling-mill, which had been derelict for a number of years. This set in a period of heightened revenues that lasted for fifteen years. Only when the manor’s windmill was blown down in – did a period of declining revenues set in, which eventually stabilized at per cent of what the manor’s mills had rendered in –. Judging the extent to which Birdbrook was typical is difficult, however. Table . compares the amounts received as rents for the mills on seventeen manors or composite manors (in the case of Taunton) in both the early fourteenth century and the early sixteenth century. The table represents a
Mill Numbers and Revenues T .. Revenues from the Birdbrook, Essex, mills, – to – Year(s)
No. and type of mills
Revenue index (– = s. d. = )
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
WA, WD, FM WA, WD, FM WA, WD WA, WD WA, WD WA, WD, FM WA, WD, FM WA, FM WA, FM WA WA WA WA WA WA WA
a b
Note: WA = watermill; WD = windmill; FM = fulling-mill. a b
Because of lack of water. Although lessee in arrears.
Sources: See App. .
considerable range of experience from manor to manor. The most outstanding success was the watermill at Steeping, Lincolnshire, just where the southern edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds meets the Fenlands, which was clearly a flourishing enterprise throughout the later Middle Ages. In other places there was relative stability in milling revenues, as for the windmills at Easington and Lelley and Dyke in the flatlands of Holderness, Yorkshire, where suitable sources of water power were unavailable (the region lacking sufficient gradients for fresh-water mills, while tide mills were too expensive) and made wind power a natural and economically viable choice. Most manors, however, showed a marked decline in milling revenues over the period. The collection of ten or more mills represented by Taunton and its surrounding communities in Somerset normally brought in £ or more before the plague, a figure that sank to just over £ in –.⁷⁹ Others fared ⁷⁹ HRO M B/ (–, when the Taunton mills were leased for £ s. d.); B/.
Mill Numbers and Revenues T .. Milling revenues: early sixteenth century compared to early fourteenth century Manor
Indexa
Almondbury, Yorkshire Bonsall, Derbyshire Cheriton, Hampshire Desford, Leicestershire Easington, Yorkshire Embleton, Northumberland Halton, Cheshire Lelley and Dyke, Yorkshire Oakham, Rutland Owston, Yorkshire Rothwell, Yorkshire Shipley, Northumberland Steeping, Lincolnshire Taunton (with members), Somerset Westerham, Kent Whitley, Cheshire Widnes, Lancashire
a Index of early th-century rent revenues (early th-century rent revenues = ).
Sources: As indicated in App. .
even worse, an obviously depressed case occurring on the duchy of Lancaster manor of Almondbury, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where the farm of the milling complex there (comprising a water corn-mill and a fulling-mill) dropped from a high of £ s. in – to s. d. by –.⁸⁰ But the worst of all in this series of seventeen was the windmill at Owston, Yorkshire, which brought in as much as s. per year in –, before slumping to the –s. range later in the early fourteenth century. By the early sixteenth century, however, it had shrunk to d. per year, effectively not much more than a ground rent.⁸¹ As might be expected, fulling-mills and other industrial mills generally fared better. At Leeds, Yorkshire (not included in Table . because of the lack of a suitable comparative point in the early fourteenth century), the farm of the fulling-mills rose gradually from s. d. in – to s. in –.⁸² When the experience of all these manors, plus that for Birdbrook, is ⁸⁰ PRO SC /; DL /. ⁸¹ PRO DL /, m. ; SC /; DL /, fo. ; DL /, . ⁸² PRO DL /, m. ; /.
Mill Numbers and Revenues
considered, the incoming revenues of all of them together in the early sixteenth century were only per cent of what they had been in the early fourteenth century.The figures here, though, were dominated by the huge composite manor of Taunton, which accounted for a half or more of the revenues in Table .. When it is excluded, the drop for the remaining seventeen manors (including Birdbrook) was only to per cent of what they had been before the plague.The above figures are means. When the median of the indices from Table . plus Birdbrook is calculated, it yields a figure of ..⁸³ This probably is a reasonable approximation of how far rental incomes for mills declined on most manors in the late Middle Ages. It is not far off the experience of the bursar’s mills on Durham Cathedral Priory. On the other hand, this median reduction to per cent or so of what revenues had been in the early fourteenth century is not as bleak for landowners as it first appears. As I have mentioned above and will investigate more thoroughly in Chapter , most lords had divested their maintenance responsibilities by the early sixteenth century. This was recognized by the clerks making up the Westerham accounts of the time, as sampled for – and –.⁸⁴ The nominal rent for the two watermills entered into the ‘Farm’ section was £ per year, but tucked away in the Respectuatio (‘respite’ or ‘grace’) section at the bottom of each account was a reference to s. being allowed to the miller for undertaking all repairs, resulting in an actual revenue clear of maintenance costs of £ per year (the figure used in Table .). If the £ per year were used instead of £ for the early sixteenth-century figure for Westerham, it would raise the manor’s index to (instead of , as in Table .). It is perhaps from this slightly rosier perspective that lords and their officials based their decisions about continuing to support mills. As a result, Guy Bois’s view about milling in the later Middle Ages is probably excessively gloomy, where, depending on how one reads his rather imprecise estimates, total mill rents in war-torn Normandy after might have plunged to a tenth or less of what they had been in the early fourteenth century.⁸⁵ In any case, this is clearly not the best model for England’s experience in the Middle Ages. Even in the North, where conditions, at times at least, were similar to the unsettled political situation of early fifteenth-century Normandy, mills remained relatively stable in numbers, while revenues, although certainly ⁸³ That is, the ninth value is (for Widnes or Taunton) and the tenth value (from Birdbrook). The median is the average of the two: i.e. ( + )/ = .. ⁸⁴ WAM , . ⁸⁵ Bois indicates that only a third of Normandy mills survived the devastation which set in after and that for these mills revenues were down to a third or a quarter by – (Crisis of Feudalism, ). In the worst-case scenario—i.e. only one-third of the mills surviving and each providing one-quarter of their early th-century revenues—then total revenues would only be ⅓ ¥ ¼ = 1/12 of what they had been before the advent of the plague. Mill profits in the region, however, rebounded in the early th century (ibid. ).
Mill Numbers and Revenues
reduced, were not wildly out of line with those in other parts of the country (cf. Tables . and .).
.. : In summary, the progression of mill numbers and revenues from to in many ways followed patterns not unexpected given the shock of the plague in the middle of the fourteenth, but did reveal some definite surprises and certainly confirmed some growing suspicions. One of the latter is that the early fourteenth century was generally a stagnant period for mill investment and growth—quite definitely a period of equilibrium. Certainly some new mills, particularly windmills and fulling-mills, were built but as frequently mills— often the same ones just built—fell out of operation during the early part of the fourteenth century. Indeed, given such things as the Scottish incursions in the North, milling revenues in particular could be fragile during this period (Table .), although for many places they held up reasonably well right up to the advent of the plague (e.g. see the Birdbrook experience in Appendix ). Not unexpectedly, the arrival of the Black Death created an immediate crisis in the milling industry, with a sharp drop in numbers of mills and their revenues. But, as with population generally, there was a notable stabilization and even some new investment in the latter part of the fourteenth century. Milling revenues in some cases even returned to levels more characteristic of the early fourteenth century (see particularly Table .). But mill numbers and, for the most part, revenues could not hold up for long, and a long slump from the end of the fourteenth effectively to the beginning of the sixteenth century set in, for both mill numbers and revenues. It seems that bullion shortage may have played an important role in this to about the middle of the fifteenth century, as did weather shocks, most notably the floods of –. But, as the century progressed, other factors such as political instability (especially during Henry VI’s reign), extended periods of high mortality, and low grain prices eclipsed bullion shortage and further delayed any marked recovery for milling. What is surprising here is not so much the decline in mill numbers and revenues but that milling could weather the storm as well as it did. As will be discussed further in Chapter , at times at least, part of this was due to what might be called a notable subsidization of milling by landlords, by temporarily taking on more in the way of maintenance costs and being patient in the matter of arrears in mill rents. As revenues gradually stabilized and investment was slowly revived towards the end of the fifteenth century, largely by people other than landlords, it was here that some of the biggest stories about milling in the
Mill Numbers and Revenues
later Middle Ages began to become more obvious. One of these, of course, was the very marked increase in industrial mills from the advent of the plague onwards. Part of this was a result of population decline, where the mechanization of processes for which there had previously been ample human resources was a natural response. As we shall see in the next chapter, it was also dependent upon an expanding corpus of technical knowledge and upon an increasing willingness of both lords and tenants to invest in such mills (see Chapter ), a process which, as I have argued, overshadows the more wellknown ‘industrial revolution’ of the thirteenth century posited by Eleanora Carus-Wilson. But perhaps the biggest story of all, and one that is not immediately obvious, was the resilience of demesne milling in the face of severe demand shock and other problems of the later Middle Ages. As we shall see in Chapter , it clearly survived as a major sector in the industry, usually complete with soca et secta— that is, the right to have prior claim to the manor’s tenantry, a notable legal and proprietorial right which, even in , had several centuries of life left in it. Arguably mills in the demesne sector could have drifted back into tenancies as they did in many cases in the twelfth century. There are a few cases of this happening in the fifteenth century,⁸⁶ but the vast majority of mills in demesne retained their status as such. Even when these mills for all practical purposes passed irrecoverably into the hands of lessees, both lords and lessees together seem to have been very concerned that these mills should remain identified as part of the landlord’s demesne. As a result, they retained their position in the ‘Farm’ section of the accounts, reserved for the leasing of demesne assets, very distinct from the ‘Assised Rents’, ‘Decayed Rents’, or ‘New Rents’ sections, where tenant holdings, including those with mills, were recorded. This preserved not only a distinction in categories, but also, critically, the priority given to demesne mills. As discussed in Chapter , this was probably of key importance for the period after , because these mills were still very much in control of such things as the claim upon the manor’s tenantry (suit of mill) and, perhaps most crucially, over water supply. In contrast, the position of tenants’ mills was more vulnerable, but the energy exhibited by those investing in them, particularly in promoting the use of water power for industrial purposes, is also abundantly obvious. The future of milling after —clearly meriting further research—would largely be played out in the tensions between these two sectors. ⁸⁶ In the computer sample, mills at Overbury and Sedgeberrow, Worcestershire, slipped from demesne to tenant status in the th and th century, while a watermill at Elmley Castle in the same county went from demesne to tenant status in the later th century, but was back in the demesne by –: see App. for an indication of sources.
The Technology of the Late Medieval English Milling Industry
v T long chapter provides an overview of the technological basis for the milling industry over the period to . It is given in some detail because the milling industry is unique in having a truly massive amount of information existing about mill construction and repair. In those frequent cases where the mills were operated ‘directly’ for the lord’s benefit or those where the mill was leased but the lord still retained some responsibility for the mill’s upkeep, details about mill repairs and occasionally the entire construction or reconstruction of mills were entered into the sections of accounts usually titled ‘Cost of Mill(s)’ (Custus Molendini or Custus Molendinorum). Generally these sections recorded any labour or materials that required a cash outlay dispensed by the reeve, bailiff, or sergeant. In some particularly useful cases the scribe writing down the account felt constrained to add some bit of explanation concerning a part being repaired, especially as he was writing in a language (Latin) other than his mother tongue.¹ These result in a wealth of very detailed and illuminating material. Deciding how to deal with this potentially massive amount of material was not easy, and some method of selection was clearly necessary. In the end it was decided to follow up on the analysis for the previous chapter, and, as the accounts for the mill numbers analysis in Chapter were examined, details from the mill costs sections were also extracted. Even in this case the information was so voluminous that it was decided to concentrate on those references that were the most revealing in terms of describing the way mills were put together. The material collected was still extensive, involving information taken from thou¹ Yves Coutant makes the same point about Flemish-speaking scribes having to write French for their accounts, so that when recording the details about mills they often had ‘a descriptive phrase in French together with the technical word in Flemish’: Coutant, Windmill Technology, .
The Technology of English Milling
sands of mill repair sections, but now sufficiently manageable. With a leavening of information from archaeological and iconographic sources, it is capable of telling us much about the technology of mills, especially those powered by water and wind, from all across England. But in what sort of context can we put all this material and what sort of contribution to general theories of technological development can a study like this make? Theories about technological development abound, particularly for the modern era.² For pre-industrial periods, however, the theoretical framework is only just being developed, partly because of the long-standing assumption that such early societies were technologically underdeveloped.³ Much emphasis has recently been put upon the incremental nature of technological change in early societies,⁴ only intermittently punctuated by developments that could truly be said to be revolutionary, such as the development of gunpowder or printing. While this study certainly endorses incremental change as characterizing much of early technical evolution, such a narrow focus on the pace of technological change scarcely does the subject justice. There are certainly larger questions to be addressed, and there are three interlinked issues in particular that I wish to examine here. The first is how technological ideas are formed in the first place and how they make their way into general practice. This has been the subject of much debate in the realm of cognition: that is, whether ideas are spontaneously formed and then the most suitable ‘selected’ according to that particular human’s natural and cultural environment, or whether humans determine the direction of their ideas by perceiving ‘problems’ and working towards their solution.⁵ These alternatives equate to the poles represented by the two ‘meta-theories’, Darwinism (or neo-Darwinism) and Lamarckism, into which, as one author put it in recent years, all other theories—Marxist, Freudian, postmodernist, and so on—can be subsumed.⁶ Although it would seem nonsensical (and certainly against scientific, if not historical, traditions) to believe that humans did not have some agency in pinpointing problems and seeking their solutions, in recent years the Darwinian or evolutionary positions have appeared with increasing force in the literature of technological development.⁷ Here, it is argued, a continuous and largely spontaneous creation of technological ideas occurs; those that are ² For a very useful overview of the development of these theories from David Hume and Adam Smith onwards, see Parayil, ‘Models’, –. ³ See e.g. Langdon, Horses, Oxen, , for a comment on this tendency. ⁴ This trend goes back at least to A. P. Usher and S. C. Gilfillan (see Parayil, ‘Models’, –); for a recent expression of this, see Persson, Pre-industrial Economic Growth, esp. ch. . ⁵ Much of this new interest stems from Richard Dawkins’s imaginatively ground-breaking book The Selfish Gene, esp. ch. (‘Memes: The New Replicators’). ⁶ Cullen, Contagious Ideas, –. ⁷ For a summary of this literature, see Mokyr, ‘Evolution’, –.
The Technology of English Milling
‘adopted’ are selected because they mesh with the economic, social, and psychological matrix of the particular culture involved. In this view, technological innovation, as with biological evolution, is remarkably open-ended—any number of solutions might be possible.⁸ As Joel Mokyr states: Technological change follows a similar dynamic [to biological evolution]. At any given time, we observe a best-practice (most up to date) technique, as well as an averagepractice technique reflecting older practices still extant. For a one-shot innovation, the competitive process, will under certain circumstances, eventually eliminate the obsolete technologies, and produce uniformity in production methods. But if novel techniques are continuously ‘born’, no single best-practice technique will ever dominate the industry.⁹
Connected to this is Paul David’s path-dependency argument: that is, a technology’s future development is very much constrained by its past. To quote one of his examples: In the dynamic and essentially historical process envisaged, the squeaking axle will get greased, and the successful repetitious application of grease to cart-axles may even be generalized to the immersion of propeller- and drive-shaft bearings in lubricant baths. But all this will follow with greater certainty if one has decided on using the cart, and not a sled in the first instance. Historical choices among techniques thus rule the future.¹⁰
The similarity to biological evolution is again obvious. In short, the development of a species of human activity—technological, political, social, cultural, etc.—is channelled within certain restricted parameters by the evolutionary course on which it is headed. For our purposes, it thus makes it difficult to envisage radical shifts from one technological system to another, a view perhaps with particular relevance to a medieval setting, with its supposed predisposition to tradition and custom. The second issue concerns whether there was anything like a Kuhnian paradigm at work in the technical development of medieval milling or any other sort of economic activity at the time—that is, a set of ideas that shaped standard technological responses similar to the way that scientific fields develop set types of ideas that are only disturbed when fundamental crises or ‘anomalies’ (as Kuhn called them) become too overwhelming for the old set of ideas to accommodate. Thomas Kuhn, in his classic essay on scientific revolutions, was careful to separate scientific from technological issues,¹¹ but the paradigm idea has been usefully extended to cover technological areas as well, particularly in Edward Constant’s work on turbo-jet engines. As Constant puts it for today’s world, ‘technological knowledge is expressed in well-winnowed traditions of prac⁸ For a very elegant comment on this point, see Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, –. ⁹ Mokyr, Lever of Riches, . ¹⁰ David, Technical Choice, . ¹¹ Structure of Scientific Revolutions, .
The Technology of English Milling
tice that are the possessions of well-defined communities of technological practitioners’.¹² Can such an idea be extended to earlier periods? Certainly there were a number of controlling ideas about medieval English milling that were very symptomatic of a Kuhnian paradigm. A central one was that medieval milling was very much a timber-centred technology.¹³ Virtually all other materials used were about making timber work better, ranging from metal collars on the end of axles (to prevent wear and splitting), brass bearings set in wooden beams to seat revolving iron spindles (to prevent friction and fire), to stone walls to raise wooden windmill bases above ground (to prevent rotting). Only in a few cases were other materials employed to the obvious exclusion of timber, such as millstones, iron spindles and rynds, canvas sails for windmills, and occasionally stone (instead of wooden boards) for shoring up water-channels, particularly at the sensitive entrance of the water channel (or gurges) to the mill. But otherwise the mill itself, most of the channels, and the dam (if there was one) were largely made of timber. The most critical feature of this timber-based activity, however, was that it gave control of the building of mills almost solely to carpenters. Carpenters dominated the building of mills in terms of manpower (see Tables . and .), but most critically it was also carpenters who predominantly directed the construction work, either as stipulated ‘millwrights’, ‘engineers’, or simply as ‘master carpenters’. Also, just as Kuhn emphasized the importance of textbooks in establishing dominant sets of ideas in the sciences,¹⁴ so too did the accumulation of orally transmitted knowledge for the craft of carpentry do the same for the vast majority of medieval building. This was in relation not only to mills but to virtually all domestic building, which established set ways of doing things. As we shall see later in this chapter, gradually the use of metal and other materials in the construction of mills (and other domestic building) would increase. This would act similarly to the anomalies that eventually bring down scientific paradigms. Thus, other craftspeople slowly became more involved and hence the timber-based paradigm which so dominated medieval milling would break down, although this did not happen until well after the medieval period. Until then, in the medieval milling industry, ‘the well-defined community of technological practitioners’, as Constant put it, were primarily carpenters, and, as such, they clearly fulfil some at least of the paradigmatic model. ¹² Constant, ‘Social Locus’, . ¹³ Several authors have commented in passing upon this domination of wood or timber in milling up to the middle of the th century: Reynolds, Hundred Men, , –; Holt, ‘Milling Technology in the Middle Ages’, . ¹⁴ Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, –.
The Technology of English Milling
The third issue is whether this concept of a paradigm, if such can be said to exist for the medieval milling industry, can be extended into a larger view of the industry as a technological entity or system. Large technological systems today are known for the way that entrepreneurs, investors, workers, managers, material suppliers, and perhaps even customers are locked into a common mentality or in mutual interactions which to a large extent focus the direction of the system and orient its problem-solving, as Thomas Hughes has described for the electric light and power industry.¹⁵ Hughes, for example, makes a distinction between radical versus conservative invention. Those inventions initiating a new technological system are radical, while those that maintain the stability and viability of the existing technology are conservative.¹⁶ In the case of these latter, conservative inventions, Hughes has developed the concept of ‘reverse salients’, following on military and other analogies where salients are prominent and often undesirable distortions or bulges in battle lines, weather fronts, and so on. In this case, reverse salients are parts of a technological system that fall out of step with the rest of the system and threaten the competitiveness of the system as a whole. Hughes contends that elimination of these ‘reverse salients’ comprised (and still comprise) an ongoing process maintaining large technological systems; only when these salients become insuperably numerous or problematic does the system begin to change into something fundamentally different.¹⁷ Even in more modern times, as Kuhn has shown so strikingly for the sciences, the resistance to overthrowing the old system was formidable, or, as Hughes has observed for the development of the modern electrical and other industries, there was often a ‘rigid commitment to conservative inventions and relative disinterest in radical ones’.¹⁸ Can similar ideas be applied to the milling industry during our period? By medieval standards (and even arguably our own) milling comprised a large technological system. Its reach was national and even international in scope (especially in the importation of such things as foreign millstones). As I shall describe in Chapter and , it had an impressive array of personnel committed to act as entrepreneurs, workers, and, most importantly, customers. This position of strength in infrastructure can also be observed in the industry’s technical footing. In a previous chapter I have already characterized milling as being a mature technology by , and practice was eminently well established in most of the technical aspects of the industry. Certainly, we can ask of the evidence, if it is sufficient enough, whether similar features comparable to Hughes’s ‘reverse ¹⁵ Hughes, ‘Evolution’. ¹⁶ Ibid. –, –. ¹⁷ As Hughes puts it: ‘When a reverse salient cannot be corrected within the context of an existing system, the problem becomes a radical one, the solution which may bring a new and competing system’ (ibid. ). ¹⁸ Ibid.
The Technology of English Milling
F. .. Horizontal watermill
salients’ occurred in the milling industry and whether they blocked more radical solutions to the industry’s technical problems. For the rest of the chapter I will concentrate on detailing what can be discovered about the technological state of the medieval English milling industry, keeping in mind the issues just discussed.
.. ... Horizontal versus Vertical Watermills Watermills in Europe have a history stretching back at least to Roman times, the most recent assessment pushing the date of origin for both horizontal and vertical watermills (see Figures . and .) back to the third century .¹⁹ As to ¹⁹ Lewis, Millstone and Hammer, –, –, . More traditional or cautious datings place the introduction of the watermill to the first century : e.g. Reynolds, Hundred Men, –; N. A. F. Smith, ‘Origins’, esp. –, –.
The Technology of English Milling
F. .. Vertical watermill
the connection between horizontal mills and vertical mills, the original view, dating back to Bennett and Elton, was that watermills originally started out as rather simple horizontal mills which later evolved into the more complex vertical type.²⁰ There have, however, been a number of more recent challenges to this hypothesis. Notably, N. A. F. Smith has argued that it was likely that the vertical watermill was first, having evolved from the water-lifting devices operating in a vertical plane, such as the Middle Eastern animal-driven saquiyah, and that the horizontal mill was a later and essentially independent (and more regional) adaptation.²¹ Smith, for example, believes that all Roman watermills were vertical,²² and archaeological evidence seems to bear this out.²³ Although there are clearly dissenting views to Smith,²⁴ his interpretation does fit occasional findings indicating that, where sequences of vertical versus horizontal mills can be established within the former area of the Roman empire and perhaps outside it, it is the vertical mill that came first.²⁵ ²⁰ Richard Bennett and John Elton, History, ii, chs. and ; see also, Smith, ‘Origins’, . ²¹ N. A. F. Smith, ‘Origins’, esp. . For a more sceptical view of the relationship of the saquiyah (or sa¯qiya) to the vertical watermill, see Oleson, Greek and Roman . . . Water-Lifting Devices, . ²² Smith, ‘Origins’, . ²³ e.g. Watts, Archaeology, –; Sellin, ‘Large Roman Water Mill’; Spain, ‘Second-Century RomanoBritish Watermill’, –; Rynne, ‘Introduction’, . ²⁴ Most recently Lewis, whose claim of a rd-century Greek origin for the horizontal watermill clearly contradicts Smith’s view: Millstone and Hammer, –, . ²⁵ As in the case of the mills at Old Windsor, Berkshire, where a large mill with three vertical waterwheels (late th century) preceded a horizontal mill of the th or th centuries: Wikander, ‘Archaeological Evidence’, –; Watts, Archaeology, ; see also Rynne, ‘Introduction’, esp. , for a reconsideration of the Irish evidence for vertical watermills, which suggests that horizontal and vertical mills were both found in early medieval Ireland well before and that the latter may have preceded the former.
The Technology of English Milling
In the case of England, horizontal mills seem to have been common in Anglo-Saxon England, since at least five cases of them are now known from the archaeological evidence.²⁶ There has also been speculation (only) that they existed in some number among the , and more watermills recorded in Domesday Book.²⁷ Regardless of how many horizontal mills there were in , however, there were seemingly none only a century or so afterwards. Archaeological and iconographic evidence for the period after virtually only indicates vertical-wheeled watermills.²⁸ The documentary evidence also seems equally unambiguous. Particularly telling are references to ‘external wheels’ (the outer waterwheels) and ‘interior wheels’ (the inner cogwheels) in mill costs, a formulation only possible with vertical waterwheels: see Figure . above.²⁹ The oft-repeated references to ‘cogwheels’ and lantern-pinions in the accounts, indicating that the line of force had to be altered through degrees, not required at all for horizontal grain mills, similarly reveal vertical mills, as do the repairs to rotae generally (almost always present in the mill costs sections for watermills), a term unlikely to be used for the paddles of horizontal mills. If horizontal mills existed at all, it seems likely that it was perhaps in peripheral situations, such as in the North and far West or in areas considered ‘marginal’— forest and heathland, for example, where the amount of grain grown would not justify the outlay for the more expensive vertical mill. But it was in just these areas that large, vertical mills were most likely to be established, as witnessed by the concentration of highly valued (and hence much more likely to be vertical) mills in the North of England, for example.³⁰ Given that in many other parts of medieval Europe, vertical and horizontal watermills coexisted, satisfying differing topographical and social environments,³¹ this overwhelming evidence for vertical mills in England from at least the middle of the thirteenth century, without any definite signs for horizontal ²⁶ At Tamworth (Staffordshire); Old Windsor (Berkshire); Barking (Essex); Corbridge (Northumberland); and Ebbsfleet (Kent): Rahtz and Meeson, Anglo-Saxon Watermill; Wikander, ‘Archaeological Evidence’, –; Rahtz, ‘Mills’; ‘Ebbsfleet Saxon Mill’. ²⁷ For claims of horizontal mills at Domesday, see Bennett and Elton, History, ii. ; Hodgen, ‘Domesday Water Mills’, –; for more cautious views on this, see Holt, Mills, –; Smith ‘Origins’, –. ²⁸ e.g. Holt, Mills, , –; Bedwin, ‘Excavation’, pp. xiii, ff. Rahtz and Meeson when discussing paddles (Anglo-Saxon Watermill, –) mention one found for a mill at Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, possibly as late as the reign of Edward III when a new vertical mill (‘Egypt mill’) was seemingly made, but this seems a tenuous case (see Crossley, ‘Archaeology’, ). ²⁹ For example, s. d. of wood was bought for the ‘exterior wheel’ (rota exteriore) and ‘interior wheel’ (rota interiore) for the watermill at Sedgebrook, Lincolnshire, in – (PRO DL /, m. ). Many more instances could be cited; see also Holt, Mills, . ³⁰ Langdon, ‘Lordship’, esp. . ³¹ As in Ireland, Tuscany, and Andalusian Spain: Rynne, ‘Introduction’; id., ‘Horizontal Mills’; Muendel, ‘ “French” Mill’; Córdoba de la Llave, ‘Some Reflections’.
The Technology of English Milling
mills, does raise the question why one type became so dominant over the other. On the face of it, it would appear that there was a major technical disruption from vertical to horizontal mills sometime in the Anglo-Saxon period,³² and then another disruption from horizontal back to vertical mills during the twelfth century (if not earlier). In a manner very contrary to Paul David’s theories above, why would there be a sharp diversion in the path of watermill technology, not once but twice? Richard Holt has argued cogently that the presence or not of horizontal mills in any particular area of Europe was due to the character of lordship found there: If we accept that the medieval horizontal mill was a product not of an unexplained process of technical regression, and particularly not of cultural or ethnic differences, but instead was associated with the very different ways in which European lords exploited their estates, then its disappearance in the highly feudalized parts in the West—in northern France, of course, but also in England and Germany—becomes less mysterious. There the striving of lords for monopoly powers favoured the more powerful vertical mill; conversely, where the nature of lordship was rather different—in Italy, Spain, southern France, Ireland, Scandinavia, and highland societies everywhere—horizontal mills predominated until modern times.³³
It is a persuasive theory, especially as manorial structures in England intensified, a process that had roots long before the Norman Conquest.³⁴ Thus, milling was increasingly related to other aspects of the manorial economy, such as the establishment of fishponds, moats, and related water control systems (such as for monastic precincts, castles, and manor houses), and it could be that horizontal mills were squeezed out of the niche they previously occupied by larger vertical-wheeled concerns or perhaps in some cases by horse-mills and handmills.This was coupled with the difficulties that small-scale milling had in penetrating the industry in an entrepreneurial sense (to be discussed more fully in Chapter ), where increasingly the legal system favoured well-established and usually larger mills (Chapter ). Taken altogether, it is perhaps not surprising that horizontal mills as a technological species would eventually become extinct in England, even in smaller, upland communities to which such mills were seemingly well suited,³⁵ a phenomenon which, à la Holt, might have much to do with the nature of lordship. ³² Probably as early as the th or th century, judging from the dating of the Tamworth mill and the oldest of the Irish horizontal mills: Baillie, ‘Dendrochronology’, –. ³³ Holt, Mills, . ³⁴ Aston, ‘Origins of the Manor’. ³⁵ See e.g. the distribution of vertical versus horizontal mills in medieval Tuscany, where vertical mills seem to be mostly on the larger rivers, horizontal mills more on subsidiary water-courses: Muendel, ‘ “French” Mill’, (fig. ). The same is indicated for medieval Andalusia in Córdoba de la Llave, ‘Some Reflections’, .
The Technology of English Milling
But the issue might well involve other crucial elements. Not least was the probable growth of a technical (paradigmatic) mentality favouring vertical mills. As we have discussed above, carpenters as a body would play a critical role here. Colin Rynne, for example, has pointed out that the construction of horizontal versus vertical mills in early medieval Ireland involved two quite different building traditions. Horizontal mills required a jet of water to be directed against the paddles. In the early medieval Irish case this was normally accomplished by using a hollowed-out tree-trunk or a ‘penstock’ fabricated by a carpenter (see Figure .), through which a sufficiently concentrated flow was generated.³⁶ The open troughs normally used to supply water for vertical waterwheels (whether undershot, overshot, or breast) were quite different, as was, of course, the internal structuring of the mill. In England it is quite conceivable that the building tradition for horizontal mills died out once carpenters made the mental leap to accepting that vertical mills were the more suitable option for English conditions. Even if the growth of seigneurial power did create the social and economic environment in which such a design decision could be made, it is exceedingly unlikely that lords, or their estate managers, suddenly divined this. It had to be mediated through the minds of the people who actually built the mills. This would particularly be the case when a transition was being made towards a more expensive version of mill (as the vertical mill undoubtedly was vis-à-vis its horizontal counterpart), in which presumably lords would have relied on the advice of the experts: that is, mostly the carpenters.
... Water Control Systems No matter what type, watermills were exceedingly popular on manors all across England, as Map . has shown.The evidence demonstrates that they were preferred wherever water resources were sufficient to maintain them. Only in areas where water flows were patently inadequate or difficult to harness (as around the Fens) were their numbers scarce. Yet, as I shall discuss in Chapter (Section .), watermills were very expensive, much of the cost being directed into often extensive water-control systems, which strongly influenced manorial topography.³⁷ There were potentially five variants in the way that watermills could access water power, listed in order of evolution or complexity of design: floating or suspension mills; leat mills; weir-and-leat mills; millpond mills; and tide mills. ³⁶ Rynne, ‘Introduction’, –. ³⁷ See e.g. the extensively excavated sequence of iron-working mills and their network of water channels at Bordesley Abbey: Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, esp. –.
The Technology of English Milling
Floating or suspension mills can be dispensed with quickly. These were either free-floating mills on barges or mills suspended beneath the arches of a bridge. They were certainly the simplest arrangement for accessing water power, and there were many well-known cases of them in medieval Europe.³⁸ However, it seems that they were not tried in England until the early sixteenth century,³⁹ and certainly there were no clear signs of them in this study. Presumably the wear and tear on such precariously positioned mills, especially in tidal situations, made them suspect investments. The other types of water-control systems were all evident at one time or another in England during the Middle Ages. Of the four that remain, the simple leat system can be considered an earlier form of the more involved weirand-leat system. Here advantage was taken of the natural lie of the land to dig a leat, or channel, from a higher point of the river to a lower point where the mill was. For the watermill at Old Windsor this was accomplished by digging a cut across a loop in the Thames perhaps as early as the late seventh century, creating enough of a gradient to power a mill or mills.⁴⁰ Similarly a leat of about half a mile in length was built for the watermills of Abingdon Abbey, allegedly in the tenth century,⁴¹ while in the north leats totalling over a mile in length were seemingly evident for the Bishop of Durham’s watermill at Norton (now in Teesside) during the medieval period.⁴² Such simple leat systems often required control of a considerable length of the river or stream bank, which landowners might find difficult to achieve. Gradually the popular alternative was to throw up a weir across the river to back up the water and create a head for powering the mill a short distance downstream, creating a weir-and-leat system. This was a movement characterizing the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in particular, when the technology for building weirs expanded markedly.⁴³ The system effectively shortened the channel, or leat (cursus aquae in the records), required to provide a sufficient head of water to power either undershot and overshot wheels. Excess water could simply flow over the top of the weir, and the only problems arose when water was so excessive that it might cause erosion along the weir top or even at its foundations, or when dry weather made it difficult to sustain water levels ³⁸ Bennett and Elton, History, ii. –; Reynolds, Hundred Men, , –. ³⁹ Two attempts to establish floating mills at London were made in the s and in the s. Generally they had a very chequered history in England compared to their popularity on the Continent: Sisitka, ‘Floating Mills’. ⁴⁰ Wikander, ‘Archaeological Evidence’, –. ⁴¹ Bond, ‘Reconstruction’, –. ⁴² J. Bennett et al., ‘Medieval and Later Water Mill’, . ⁴³ Langdon, ‘Inland Water Transport—View from the Mills’; Reynolds, Hundred Men, ; Faull and Moorhouse, West Yorkshire, .
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above the intake to the leat. As we shall see below, weir design over the period would show increasing sophistication, especially in terms of increasing numbers of floodgates in the weir itself to regulate water flow (and hence water levels behind the weir) more precisely and to reduce wear and tear on the weir. In some cases ‘flashes’ were provided to allow water transport to pass over the weir.⁴⁴ An ancillary method of creating a sufficient head of water for milling but more suitable for lesser streams was to create a millpond (stagnum), the pond acting as a store of hydraulic energy, which was allowed to fill up when the mill was not being used (as at night).⁴⁵ This might be done by throwing a dam across the stream and allowing the water to build up behind it (such a system is seemingly shown in the famous watermill scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.); see Plate .),⁴⁶ or, perhaps more commonly to dig out a depression, throwing the earth up into banks to create a large pool or pond, situating a sluice-gate or other control mechanism at one end to supply water for the mill-race.⁴⁷ Such systems not only provided a sufficient head of water for the mill but also encouraged ancillary economic activities, as in the case of fisheries (also shown in the Luttrell Psalter). On the negative side, any untoward wet weather could place these mills at risk and they were probably more prey to flooding and related water damage than in the weir-and-leat type. As a result, some millponds at least were also equipped with bypass channels, which allowed for the release of excess water (see Section .. below). It is difficult to quantify exactly the number of weir-and-leat versus millpond systems, but the latter clearly dominated, as evidenced by the much more frequent references to millponds in mill repair accounts compared to weir-andleat water-control systems. Weir-and-leat water-control systems tended to be found on bigger milling concerns, such as at Taunton, Somerset.⁴⁸ In contrast, millpond systems could be decidedly tiny, as in the case of the fulling-mill at Westerham, Kent, where the millpond was originally built into the ‘parson’s garden’ in for a meagre d.⁴⁹ Some arrangements in effect combined both types, as again at Westerham, Kent, where a leat (cursus aquae) perches (about ⁴⁴ Flashes were usually removable pieces of board in the centre of the weir, which would allow a flow or ‘flash’ of water, which boats could ‘shoot’ if going downstream or be winched over if coming upstream.They were particularly common on the Thames as a compromise between local milling interests and river transporters: see esp. Peberdy, ‘Navigation’; also Lewis et al., ‘Flashlocks’. ⁴⁵ For this point in a Spanish context, see Córdoba de la Llave, ‘Some Reflections’, . ⁴⁶ The same is seen archaeologically at Bourne Pool in Aldridge, Staffordshire, where a dam created a pond for a th-century iron-mill: Gould, ‘Excavation’. ⁴⁷ Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, esp. –. ⁴⁸ For example, the continual references to repairs of the ‘Frenchweir’ (see below). ⁴⁹ WAM .
P .. Luttrell Psalter watermill, early fourteenth century
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yards) in length connected the manorial corn-mill to the manor’s malt-mill, both which seemingly had their own millponds.⁵⁰ Finally, we come to tide mills. In contrast to the other watermills so far discussed, which were powered by fresh water making its way down to the sea, tide mills depended upon the flow and ebb of saltwater tides. They consisted of an often complex system of ponds and channels, which collected the water from flood tides and then allowed milling to occur as the tide ebbed and water was allowed to flow from the ponds through the mill and out to sea again.⁵¹ When the system was working well, it ensured a steady and reliable head of water for the mill, even if the operating time of these mills was limited to – hours a day.⁵² Its advantage, too, was that it was not as susceptible to water shortage as inland mills. On the other hand, such mills, being right on the seaside, were much more prone to damage from storms or abnormally high tides.⁵³ Of late, there has been a sharp debate between Walter Minchinton and Richard Holt about the role that tide mills played in medieval English milling.⁵⁴ Minchinton argued that tide mills were found in medieval England wherever access to tidal water was possible; hence tide mills were very numerous, being found all along the coasts of England during the Middle Ages. Holt, on the other hand, claimed that tide mills were only found in those areas where fresh-water power was clearly inadequate. These areas admittedly could be quite extensive, especially in flat coastal lands generally, such as Holderness, the Fens, and the Thames estuary. Holt, however, went on to say that the introduction of the windmill undercut the position of tide mills even in these areas, such that tide mills—often extremely expensive to build (see Chapter )—were, at best, pushed to a very marginal position in the total picture of milling resources in medieval England.⁵⁵ Perhaps not surprisingly, the view of tide mills from this study falls between these two positions. First, it should be said that, as with the introduction of the windmill, tide mills were undoubtedly part of a much wider European tradition operating at the time, particularly around the North Sea, where tide mills were found, not only along the English coastline, but all along the Continental shore from Denmark down to southern France.⁵⁶ Of the mills in the computer ⁵⁰ From the –, –, and – accounts for the manor: WAM , , . ⁵¹ See e.g. Minchinton, ‘Tide mills’, , –; Reynolds, Hundred Men, –. ⁵² Reynolds, Hundred Men, –. ⁵³ As in the case of the tide mills at Walton, Suffolk, which were eventually so damaged in the late th century that they were replaced by a windmill: Holt, Mills, –; Bailey, ‘Per impetum maris’, . ⁵⁴ Minchinton,‘Tide mills’, –; id.,‘Early Tide Mills’; Holt, Mills, esp. –; Minchinton, Review; Holt, ‘Milling Technology’. ⁵⁵ Stated most clearly in Holt, ‘Medieval England’s Water-Related Technologies’, –. ⁵⁶ Van der Veur and van Wijk, ‘De getijmolens’; see esp. –. I am grateful to Dr Petra van Dam for directing me to this article.
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sample for Chapter , four were identified with reasonable certainty as being tide mills, these being at Havant, Hampshire; Lydden (in Thanet), Kent; Southwark, Surrey; and Bosham, Sussex. Although this seems a small number, since up to watermills were running through the sample, especially before the plague, it at least shows that people were willing to invest in tide mills and that some at least could function profitably, particularly in the case of the ‘Sea Mills’ at Bosham and Fareham, which both had long and generally successful careers. Other tide mills, however, such as at Lydden, which expired after only twenty years’ operation, were clearly financial disasters.⁵⁷ Despite this mixed experience, the suspicion is that many of the mills described simply as ‘watermills’ in the extant documentation for medieval England might have been tide mills, particularly those found very near the coast. Martha Carlin and Derek Keene have both remarked that there were many tide mills in the Thames estuary in the Middle Ages.⁵⁸ This is supported by the inquisitions post mortem sample of watermills shown in Map ., where there were several watermills (and significantly also windmills) along both the southern and northern shores of the estuary. Some of these mills were quite likely powered by tides. On the other hand, it is notable in Map . that ‘watermills’ are strikingly absent in other areas seemingly ideal for tide mills, such as the eastern side of the Norfolk Broads, the Lincolnshire Fens, and Holderness, all of which were quite densely populated with windmills (Map .).⁵⁹ The conclusion from all this is that, following Holt, tide mills were probably replaced in many areas by windmills, as in an example he gives for Walton in Suffolk,⁶⁰ but that, following Minchinton, they managed to survive, perhaps even thrive, in more populated parts of the country, most particularly the lower Thames basin and estuary and certain sections of the south coast.⁶¹ Certainly, in order to support their often quite ferocious costs, tide mills clearly needed such factors as a high population density to provide the demand to ensure large profits and the presence of wealthy institutions (e.g. the Borough of London, the Bishopric of Winchester, Canterbury Cathedral Priory), which could support their cost on a long-term basis. ⁵⁷ The Lydden tide mill was built at a cost of £ s. in – and wrecked by high tides in –: Mate, ‘Property Investment’, –; Holt, Mills, –. For similarly disastrous results with tide mills by the Abbey of Meaux in Holderness, see Lewis, ‘Mills of Meaux’. ⁵⁸ Martha Carlin, Medieval Southwark, –; Keene, ‘Issues of Water’, . ⁵⁹ The Cambridgeshire Fens, devoid of both watermills and windmills in Maps . and ., were dominated by ecclesiastical estates such as the bishopric of Ely and Ramsey Abbey and so were not covered in the inquisitions post mortem. Where other documentation for these estates is available, windmills clearly dominated: e.g. Holt, Mills, –. ⁶⁰ Ibid. –. ⁶¹ A pattern evident in many respects in the distribution of tide mills in later periods: Minchinton, ‘Tide Mills’, map on p. .
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... The Construction and Repair of Weirs Water-Channels, and Millponds The construction and repair of weirs and millponds and the water-channels leading from them were a major cost for milling operations. Weirs or dams spanning streams or rivers were often called ‘headweirs’.They were generally set at a slant to the flow of the river in order to direct water towards the mill (see Figure .) or were V-shaped (with the point of the V facing into the current) if there were mills on both banks,⁶² as possibly in the case of the ‘Frenchweir’ at Taunton discussed below. Initially at least such weirs were fairly simple affairs, consisting of two parallel rows of wooden piles rammed into the river or stream bottom.The inner side of both these rows was lined with wattle screens and the space between—the core of the dam—was packed with stone, sand, earth, branches, and sometimes mortar. A fine twelfth-century example of such a weir has been excavated at Castle Donington, Leicestershire,⁶³ and the documents making up the sample for Chapter provide similar examples. A typical case occurred at Downton, Wiltshire, in –, where a new weir (wara) was built for s. d., replacing an older weir on the same spot (probably across the Avon). The weir here was constructed from alder wood and seemingly caulked with mortar, since sand and lime was bought ‘for mending and filling defects of the new weir’.⁶⁴ Repairs to other weirs show stone, sand, earth, or clay, and
F. .. Castle Donington, Leicestershire, twelfth-century dam layout. After Clay and Salisbury, ‘Norman Mill Dam’, . ⁶² See e.g. Córdoba de la Llave, ‘Some Reflections’, . ⁶³ Clay and Salisbury, ‘Norman Mill Dam’. See also Faull and Moorhouse’s very useful discussion of medieval dams and weirs: West Yorkshire, –. ⁶⁴ HRO M B/, m. v.
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branches all being used to block breaches in the weir.⁶⁵ Similarly, turves were used to repair the mill-dam at Fornham, Suffolk, in –, while willow shoots were collected and planted in the banks of the mill weir at Marchington, Staffordshire, in –.⁶⁶ Here the willows were used to stabilize what was likely a predominantly earth dam. The most expensive part of dams and their associated water-channels leading off to the mills was in trying to shore up—with stone or wood—those areas where erosion from rapid water-flow was most severe. In the accounts sensitive areas like these seem often to have been represented by the structure designated in mill repair costs as a gurges. The term gurges, which in its most literal translation means ‘throat’,⁶⁷ has been a problematic one for the study of medieval mills, since it has been variously translated as ‘weir’, ‘fishtrap’, ‘drain’, ‘gorce’, and ‘sluice’.⁶⁸ The same variety of meaning seems also to occur in the records employed in this study, where, for example, the term can seem to indicate a weir, as in a reference to pali (stakes) cut pro le headwere . . . et aliis gurgitibus,⁶⁹ or a water-channel, as in the case of the following: In faciendo . . . j gurgite vocato le watertrowe.⁷⁰ In some cases the gurges may have combined the attributes of both a dam and a water-channel and might have been a secondary dam of the type noted by Clay and Salisbury in their excavation of the Castle Donington weir (see Figure .).⁷¹ It was in effect a section of the dam, set at a right angle to the headweir, fitted with sluice-gates and followed by a channel (the ‘throat’), which led directly to the mill or possibly into a connecting waterchannel (cursus aquae) when the mill was some distance away.⁷² Sometimes, though, the gurges seemingly referred to the system of watergates on the main dam or headweir itself; an excellent example is provided by the new gurges ‘of the Frenchweir’ built for the watermill(s) at Taunton in –.⁷³ In a long description of costs which totalled £ s. ½d., a very hefty ⁶⁵ As two examples among many, stone, sand, and branches were used to repair a weir at Leeds, Yorkshire, in – (PRO DL /), while s. was paid to labourers for ‘stopping up and ramming the weir next to the rectory with clay (cum luto)’ at Chartham, Kent, in –: CCA DCc Chartham . ⁶⁶ Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch, E/./.; PRO DL /. ⁶⁷ Latham (ed.), Revised Medieval Latin Word-List, (s.v. gorgia). ⁶⁸ Latham and Howlett (eds.), Dictionary, iv. –; Latham (ed.), Revised Medieval Latin Word-List, . ⁶⁹ PRO SC / (Bradninch, Devon, –). ⁷⁰ HRO M B/, m. (Taunton, Somerset, –). ⁷¹ Clay and Salisbury, ‘Norman Mill Dam’, esp. –. ⁷² As, for example, at Rothwell, Yorkshire, in –, when s. were spent ‘in putting right defects of the gurges next to Woodlesford [on the River Aire near Rothwell] for the water-course to Fleet Mill’: PRO DL /, m. . ⁷³ HRO M B/, m. , now recently printed as Pipe Roll . . . –, see esp. –.The section was given the title Custus Gurgitis de Frensshewere. Page (the editor) seems to consider the gurges as meaning the entire weir itself, but this interpretation is probably too broad.
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outlay, a fairly clear construction sequence was recorded. Three masons initially laid out a horizontal ‘forebed’ (forbed) of stone feet in length (seemingly along part of the face of the weir) and feet wide (presumably from the front of the weir to the back),⁷⁴ as well as six peres (that is, posts or stanchions) for six water-gates (exclusae) and two ‘anterior walls on each side of the gurges’. Stone for the construction was obtained from local or regional quarries, probably from Ham Hill, west of Yeovil.⁷⁵ Once the stone was at Taunton, it was shaped into blocks by at least twelve masons, ten of whom laid down the stone foundation ‘for the posterior part of the gurges and one wall at the end of [it]’. Lime from brought from ‘Pikerigge’ (Pickeridge Hill, just east of Corfe, Somerset) for the same work, presumably for use as mortar.The masons and other workmen were seemingly kept dry by the temporary construction of a forwere and by workmen who mopped up any unwelcome water with pails and shovels. A small army of men was raised for this and other jobs, of which were employed in one day to uproot ‘the ancient gurges’ and drag out the old piles for use in the new structure. Other labour was used for making mortar and carrying stones, while two sawyers cut planks for the water-gates and to make a bridge so that people could cross over the structure. Owners of mills based on pond systems could similarly face considerable expense in establishing water control arrangements. At Hollingbourne, Kent, in – wages of s. were given to a mason to line the bay (baya) of the millpond leading to the corn-mill with ashlar stone (cum lapidis vocatis Esshler).⁷⁶ In addition, an unspecified number of men were hired to pack the stone round with earth. In order that this work could be done, six ‘great hurdles’ (that is, large wooden barriers) were made ‘to be placed in defence of the water’. Finally, a carpenter was paid d. to make a concave trough and put it in place, presumably leading to the mill-wheel. Altogether the layout for the water feed to the Hollingbourne mill suggests something like that shown in Figure .. Such an arrangement must have been common, since references to such troughs are encountered elsewhere.⁷⁷ ⁷⁴ Or so it looks; the scribe confusingly described the forebed as containing in latitudine viij pedes et in latitudine [longitudine meant?] xlvj pedes & vj peres pro vj exclusis & duos muros anteriores ex utraque parte gurgitis. The six peres and two anterior walls would also seem to suggest seven water-gates rather than six. ⁷⁵ The account mentions that much of the stone was carried from ‘Hamuldon’ (Stoke sub Hamdon or Norton sub Hamdon?) to ‘Ashel’ (probably Ashill) and possibly Curry Mallet and then by other sets of vehicles to Taunton. For the popularity of Ham Hill stone for building generally, see Gerrard, ‘Ham Hill Stone’. I am grateful to Dr Grenville Astill for directing me to this article. ⁷⁶ CCA DCc Hollingbourne . Although my reading of baya here is that it was a narrowing of the millpond as it approached the mill, as shown in Fig. ., it may possibly have been a dam or weir at the head of the pond: for instance, Latham has one of the various interpretations of baia as being a ‘milldam’ (Revised Medieval WordList, ). ⁷⁷ As at East Farleigh, Kent, in – (CCA DCc East Farleigh ), and at Godmersham, Kent, in – (CCA DCc Godmersham ); in both cases millponds were also indicated.
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F. .. Hypothetical drawing of Hollingbourne (Kent) pond and bay system, –
Finally, repairs to the millpond were an ongoing feature, as (in three cases out of many) for the millpond to the fulling-mill at Bocking, Essex, in –, where s. was spent on ‘ramming’ clay (argilla) into a break that was apparently flooding the meadow of one John Durward,⁷⁸ or at Twyford, Hampshire, in –, where millpond ruptures were filled with turves,⁷⁹ or at Bradninch, Devon, in –, where piles and some brushwood (busca) were used to repair the millpond there.⁸⁰ When such piles were laid down, it was commonplace for a foundation beam to be put down, upon which to place (and secure through mortising or by peg and dowel) the piles or stakes, as at Southwark in –, where ‘a piece of timber called “lantow” ’ was placed in the ‘bottom of the water’ for fixing the piles.⁸¹ Given the wide range of methods and materials for constructing weirs and millponds and their difficulties, can we see this area as one of Thomas Hughes’s ‘reverse salients’? Certainly the technology for weirs showed a good deal of fluctuation and change over our period. This was particularly the case in the matter of floodgates discussed in more detail below, which gradually increased in ⁷⁸ CCA DCc Bocking . ⁷⁹ HRO M B/, m. . ⁸⁰ PRO SC /. ⁸¹ In j pecia meremii vocato lantow positio in fundamento aque pro pilis firmandis: (HRO M B/, m. ). The piles, in all seemingly, were apparently sealed with dung, perhaps acting as a wood preservative, when set into the ‘lantow’. Foundation beams, with abundant signs of mortices or peg and dowel connections for vertical posts, are frequently found on archaeological sites for mills: Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, passim; Clay and Salisbury, ‘Norman Mill Dam’, esp. –. The term ‘lantow’ may be a corruption of ‘land-tie’ (OED viii. ).
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number in weirs, as more precise control of water flows was needed. Perhaps more critically the increased use of stone in the various aspects of water control indicates how the use of wood for these purposes was breaking down, leading slowly to the position where other crafts were penetrating mill-building and perhaps threatening the hegemony of carpenters. Indeed, the surprise is not that this was happening, but that it was happening so slowly, perhaps pointing to the reluctance of carpenters to go to solutions that required other materials, especially those associated with other crafts. Thus, they were happy enough to use earth, clay, and willow shoots to shore up weirs rather than go to more permanent materials, while those circumstances where stone was used may have been seen as a necessary evil for the preservation of a predominantly timberbased system (as I shall also discuss below in relation to the foundations of post windmills).
... Waterwheels, Wheel Pits, and Tail Races By the time the water reached the mill itself, where it hit the wheel was critical to the power output. In medieval times water was generally led either to the top of the wheel (overshot) or to the bottom (undershot).⁸² For medieval illuminations of both types, see Plates . and .. Overshot wheels were certainly more efficient than undershot wheels from the point of view of making maximum use of the potential energy of the water (i.e. that force given to the water by its gravity) that could be transmitted to the wheel axle. They were particularly necessary for small-scale milling operations, where water resources were limited, as seemingly shown in the Luttrell Psalter illustration (Plate .). Undershot wheels were used when the fall of water was not sufficient to operate overshot wheels, as at the site of the excavated iron-mill at Bordesley Abbey, where land gradients were relatively modest,⁸³ or perhaps when water supply was relatively generous. Unfortunately the documentary evidence seldom gives a direct reference as to which type of wheel was in operation,⁸⁴ and so this usually has to be inferred indirectly. As we shall see when examining waterwheel construction in more detail below, references to buckets inserted into mill-wheels, for instance, strongly indicate overshot wheels, while references to ladles and perhaps ‘feath⁸² Reynolds, Hundred Men, –, –. Breast-shot and pitch-back wheels seemingly came later (ibid. –), and there was no obvious indication of them in the material examined for this study, although a breastshot wheel has been conjectured for the mill at Castle Donington, Leicestershire (Watts, Archaeology, ; Holt, Mills, ). ⁸³ Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, . ⁸⁴ For a rare instance of this, see Philip Parys’s ‘overshettmyll’ below.
P .. Mill with undershot waterwheel, first half of thirteenth century
P .. Mill with overshot waterwheel, c.‒
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erboards’ indicate undershot wheels. A more certain clue is provided by the nature of the wooden structures underneath the wheel itself.The excavated mill at Bordesley, operating from a pond system, seemingly had an undershot wheel, particularly as indicated by the construction of a wooden trough, or wheel pit, underneath the waterwheel, enclosing the wheel as tightly as possible, so that water was forced against the paddles of the wheel instead of seeping around them.⁸⁵ In contrast, where the wheel was overshot, the wheel pits tended to be wider, as in the excavation of a mill site at Warbleton, Sussex, where the wheel pit was over a yard across while the wheel itself, which clearly had buckets indicative of an overshot mill, was only about a foot wide.⁸⁶ Documentary references to ‘fall-troughs’, ‘sole-troughs’, or ‘ground-troughs’ under the waterwheel might also refer to water falling from the buckets of an overshot wheel.⁸⁷ It is difficult to know how many mills with overshot wheels existed compared to those with undershot, or whether their relative numbers changed over the Middle Ages. Reynolds believes from an analysis of iconographic evidence that overshot wheels gradually became more common over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, particularly as weir-and-leat systems (or hydropower dams, as he calls them) appeared more frequently.⁸⁸ He may well be right about the increase in overshot wheels (although the illustrations in his book show both the overshot and undershot versions continuing well after medieval period), but the English evidence also indicates that the heyday for the construction of weirand-leat systems was the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,⁸⁹ so there is an apparent lack of synchronization in the two trends. Nor could undershot wheels be replaced by overshot ones (or vice versa) after the event. As Grenville Astill has pointed out, water-control systems, once in place, allowed for little effective change afterwards, including a shift from undershot to overshot wheels.⁹⁰ Reynolds is also implicitly making a connection between large-scale, capitalintensive milling and overshot wheels. But, as I have indicated above, overshot mills may have been as common, if not more so, on millponds as they were on more expensive weir-and-leat systems.⁹¹ Thus, in – Philip Parys paid s. ⁸⁵ Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, esp. –, –, . ⁸⁶ Bedwin, ‘Excavation’, –. ⁸⁷ As for the ‘Hillom’ watermill at Barwick, Yorkshire, in –, where reference was made to a faltroght subtus exteriorem rotam: PRO DL /. For the possible connection of ‘falltrough’, a term associated with the Yorkshire area in particular, with overshot or even breastshot wheels, see Faull and Moorhouse, West Yorkshire, . Elsewhere other terms were used, as with the ‘soletrough’ at Orpington, Kent, in –, or the ‘groundtroughs’ recorded for Twyford, Wolvesey, and Overton, Hampshire, in –, and Overton in –: CCA DCc Orpington ; HRO M B/, ms. , v; B/, m. v. ⁸⁸ Reynolds, Hundred Men, –. ⁸⁹ Langdon, ‘Inland Water Transport—View from the Mills’; Faull and Moorhouse, West Yorkshire, . ⁹⁰ Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, –. ⁹¹ John Fitzherbert, writing in , indicates the same: Boke of Surveying, fo. .
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in ‘new rents’ for licence ‘to build a corn-mill called an “overshettmyll” ’ at High Clere, Hampshire.⁹² As a tenant mill, this was unlikely to have been a very large-scale enterprise, and, in fact, the growth in overshot wheels, if any occurred at all in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was more likely to come about because of the increase in small-scale tenant milling (especially for industrial purposes) noted in Chapter and Chapter . Overall, carpenters and others involved in the construction of mills seem to have considered overshot and undershot wheels as equally viable alternatives, the choice of which was determined by the environment in which the mill was placed. It is interesting, though, that options which might have allowed more ‘fine tuning’ in this issue—that is, breast-shot and pitchback wheels—do not seem to have been in existence at this time.⁹³ As for the actual mill building itself, one of the major concerns was to keep its site stable and secure.The undermining of mill buildings from the rush of water flowing past them was a very real concern, and much care and expense had to be taken to prevent erosion. Thus, there are frequent mentions of the ‘water-walls’ of the mills, usually made of wood. Thus, at Downton, Wiltshire, in – the carpenter Peter Busshell was paid £ s. d. in fulfilment of an agreement to make anew both the corn-mill and ‘the water-walls containing feet from the head of the mill in the millpond [back to the mill itself ] and feet in length from the rear of the said mill [along] with the bed⁹⁴ and the “pound-panel” ’.⁹⁵ Similarly, at Helston-in-Kerrier, Cornwall, in –, thirty boards were bought for the water-walls of the two mills there, while at Fornham, Suffolk, in –, six poplar boards were bought for mending ‘the wall called le waterwough of the said mill’.⁹⁶ Sometimes stone was used, as in the case of Kippax, Yorkshire, in –, where two masons repaired ‘the old walls broken underneath the . . . mill’.⁹⁷ The construction of tail races (or ‘waste-sluices’ as they were sometimes called⁹⁸) to take away the water from the wheels and bypass channels for when the mill not running were also an essential element for mills, and in the long run it was these elements of a mill’s water control system that may well have determined its operational life. The wash of water through a mill site inevitably dis⁹² HRO M B/. ⁹³ See n. above. ⁹⁴ Presumably horizontal beams used as baseplates for the wall, as in the case of the Bordesley Abbey excavation: Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, , –. ⁹⁵ Pond-panel?; possibly a sluice-gate just before the mill that regulated the amount of water to the wheel (see below): HRO M B/. ⁹⁶ PRO SC /; Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch, E/./.. ⁹⁷ PRO DL /. ⁹⁸ As at Old Alresford, Hampshire, in –, where two carpenters worked for days to create a new wastur: Pipe Roll . . . –, .
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lodged large amounts of soil from upper reaches, which were deposited downstream, thus gradually reducing the overall gradient. In the case of the Bordesley Abbey iron-mill it was this depositing that probably caused the mill to shut down in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century.⁹⁹ The documentary evidence from other mills also shows the concern to keep such channels clear and in good repair.¹⁰⁰ Extra relief channels to divert water in times of wet weather were also important, as in the case of the s. d. paid to various workers at Knottingley, Yorkshire, in – for creating a new channel (gurgitus) in the bank of the Aire to take away flood-water.¹⁰¹ The purpose of water-control systems generally was to deliver a steady and sufficiently powerful stream of water to keep waterwheels revolving at a constant speed. This was seemingly accomplished by a sluice-gate at the mill itself, with which the miller regulated the flow of water to the waterwheel, as described by Fitzherbert,¹⁰² and as possibly referred to by the ‘pound-’ or ‘pondpanel’ mentioned at Downton above. Certainly, the iron-mill at Bordesley had a sluice-gate just before the water encountered the wheel,¹⁰³ while a reference to ‘the shuttle at the head of the mill’ (le Shuttell ad caput molendini) in Old Alresford, Hampshire, in – probably refers to the same thing.¹⁰⁴ As to the waterwheels themselves, the documents are disappointingly meagre about their construction. Usually a single amount for building an entire waterwheel is simply given, as, for example, at Buckby, Northamptonshire, in –, when a carpenter was paid s. d. for making a waterwheel ‘in gross’ for one of the manor’s mills, which was later bound with iron and had some lead applied (although exactly how is not indicated).¹⁰⁵ Sometimes a bit more detail is given, as for the sixteen ‘oluene’ bought for a new waterwheel at the tide mill of Bosham, Sussex.¹⁰⁶ This might indicate an overshot wheel, since one authority gives ‘olves’ or ‘olben’ as English terms indicating parts of mill-wheel buckets.¹⁰⁷ But as this involved a tide mill, which were never overshot,¹⁰⁸ it seems ⁹⁹ Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, esp. pp. xiii, –, –. ¹⁰⁰ As in the case of Loose, Kent, in – and –, when s. and s. d. respectively was spent for periodically cleaning out and enlarging the water-course ‘behind’ the manor’s corn-mill: CCA DCc Loose , . ¹⁰¹ PRO DL /. For similar relief channels around the Bordesley Abbey watermill complex, see Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, –. ¹⁰² Boke of Surveying, fo. v. ¹⁰³ Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, , . ¹⁰⁴ HRO M B/. For ‘shettle’ as sluice-gate, see Fisher, Medieval Farming Glossary, . ¹⁰⁵ PRO DL /. ¹⁰⁶ Idem [the chamberlain] computat in j noua rota aquatica facta apud Semulle [Sea Mill; a tide mill] ad tascham in grosso, vij s. In xvi oluene [sic] emptis ad idem [i.e. the waterwheel], xvi d.; WSRO Acc. II/A/. ¹⁰⁷ Fisher, Farming Glossary, . It is possible that these might be an Anglicized form of the Latin olla (a pot or jar). ¹⁰⁸ See e.g. the tide mill drawn by Taccola c., which is undershot: Reynolds, Hundred Men, .
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more likely that ‘oluene’ might be similar to the Scottish ‘awes’, referring to floatboards on undershot waterwheels.¹⁰⁹ Otherwise, allusions to the type of wheel are limited to occasional mentions of ‘ladles’,‘featherboards’,‘rimboards’, ‘shovelboards’, and ‘shroudboards’ as pieces to be replaced on the wheels. For example, a carpenter was hired to make repairs on a waterwheel at Godmersham, Kent, in –, along with new ‘shovels’ (bucket boards?) and ‘rimboards’.¹¹⁰ Rimboards, presumably curved pieces of wood, or cheek-pieces, fastened round the circumference of both sides of the wheel for enclosing the slats of wood used to form the buckets, would seem especially to indicate an overshot wheel.¹¹¹ So too do the ‘shovelboards’ and ‘shroudboards’ (the latter seemingly the same as rimboards) bought for the waterwheel of South Mill in Hollingbourne, Kent, in –.¹¹² Perhaps more tenuously connected to overshot wheels are occasional references to ‘shrouding’ waterwheels.¹¹³ The excavation of part of a fourteenth-century overshot waterwheel at Warbleton, Sussex, shows that the floatboards making the buckets were inclined at an angle to the circumference of the wheel, so that water would be kept in the bucket for a longer time as it descended through the rotation of the wheel (see Figure .), a feature exhibited in the slant of the bucket boards shown in the outer circumference of the waterwheel in the Luttrell Psalter watermill illustration (see Plate .). The more sophisticated elbow buckets (see Figure .) may also have been known in the medieval period, but were seemingly little used at the time.¹¹⁴ Overshot wheels often had distinctive three-sided wheel pits enclosing the bottom of the wheel, as at the excavated iron-mill at Chingley, Sussex, dating from the fifteenth century.¹¹⁵ As for undershot wheels, these are indicated in the case of Harpenden and Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, in , where the waterwheel of Thropmill was ‘dressed’ along with spokes and ladles sawn for it.¹¹⁶ More problematic in the documents are the occasional references to ‘featherboards’, that is, boards thinner at one end than the other, which occur in the mill cost sections of the accounts.¹¹⁷ Although this is very speculative, it may be, too, that these are the floatboards or ‘ladles’ of undershot wheels. Depending on the strength of the river, the relationship between the length of ¹⁰⁹ OED i. . I am grateful to Martin Watts for this suggestion. ¹¹⁰ . . . cum nouis schouelis & rembordis: CCA DCc Godmersham . ¹¹¹ As for the medieval overshot wheel excavated at Warbleton, Sussex: Bedwin, ‘Excavation’, , . ¹¹² CCA DCc Hollingbourne . ¹¹³ As at Birdbrook, Essex, in –, when a carpenter was paid for ‘shrouding the waterwheel of the fulling mill’ (shrudantam rotam aquaticam molendini fullonici): WAM . ¹¹⁴ Reynolds, Hundred Men, , . ¹¹⁵ Crossley, ‘Archaeology’, . ¹¹⁶ In j rota aquatica de Thropmull’ vestienda cum Rais [&] Ladelis ad idem sarrandis, ij s. vj d.: WAM . ¹¹⁷ As in the case of Islip, Oxfordshire, in –, where boards were bought to build a new ‘exterior’ wheel and ‘two boards bought for the exterior wheel which are called featherboard’ (In ij bordis emptis ad rotam exteriorem q[uod?] vocatur fytherbord [sic; the construction is faulty]): WAM .
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F. .. ‘Compass arm’ overshot waterwheel After Bedwin, ‘Excavation’,
F. .. Elbow buckets and ‘clasp arm’ waterwheel
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ladles of undershot wheels and the dimensions of the wheel pit could be critical. Fitzherbert indicated that wheel pits should be so constructed that at least five ladles would always be engaging the water as the wheel went round, and that the length of the ladles could be up to an ell long (that is, about a yard to a yard and a quarter) for ‘great rivers’.¹¹⁸ How the waterwheels were attached to the mill axles presents its difficulties as well. Judging from iconographic sources across Europe collected by Reynolds, the wheels of our period seem mostly to have been built with four to six spokes embedded directly into the mill axle, the so-called compass arm method,¹¹⁹ as is implied by the Harpenden and Wheathampstead case above, and supported by the particularly fine survival of two spokes (out of four) from the excavated waterwheel at Warbleton.¹²⁰ A four-spoke waterwheel is shown in an early thirteenth-century bestiary (Plate .), but other illustrations show more (Plates . and .). Compass arm construction was effective in ensuring a tight fit to the axle but also allowed water to seep into the heart of the mill axle through the join with the spokes, thus giving a stronger likelihood of wood rot. An alternative was the clasp arm method, where two pairs of cross members running from one side of the wheel to the other at right angles to each other effectively enclosed the axle in a small square, the axle at that point having a squared or octagonal shape (see Figure .). Although giving rise to rather more play between wheel and axle, this form of connection seems to have become more common in the post-medieval period, although the compass arm method remained afterwards as well.¹²¹ In the case of grain-mills, the inner cogwheel of the mill was also attached by the compass arm method (as shown particularly well in Plate .).
... Internal Mill Workings The axle carried the force generated by the water into the mill itself. The total assembly of the axle, mill-wheel, and cogwheel (e.g. see Plate .) needed strong support, which was provided at two main points. Ideally, one of these was on the opposite side of the race to the mill-house, as shown, for example, in the Luttrell Psalter watermill (Plate .). The anchor points—of which there were apparently only two, each one seemingly called the ‘head’ of the axle (caput
¹¹⁸ ¹¹⁹ ¹²⁰ . ¹²¹
Fitzherbert, Boke of Surveying, fo. . See Pls. ., ., and .; also Reynolds, Hundred Men, –. Although the point where these spokes joined into the axle was not preserved: Bedwin, ‘Excavation’, , e.g. Reynolds, Hundred Men, , (clasp arm); , , (post-medieval compass arm).
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axis)—are sometimes specifically indicated.¹²² They are also particularly well recorded by virtue of the iron or brass fittings required to seat and secure the axle onto these fixed positions. For example, a good set of costs for the watermill at Kelveden, Essex, in – records expenses for pounds of iron ‘for one gudgeon (gochonus) and one circle of iron called a hoop for the axle of the said mill’.¹²³ A little further on in the account there is a reference to two iron plates placed beneath the two gudgeons (on either end) of the mill axle.¹²⁴ Gudgeons were iron pins mortised into either end of the wooden axle, and seemingly existing in several forms.¹²⁵ A particularly fine medieval representation of one is shown in Plate ., where the right end of the axle is shown attached to the broader end of the gudgeon (shown in black against the lighter wooden axle), while the pinlike outer end of the gudgeon rests upon what looks to be a fork-shaped iron piece fitted onto an upright post. The hoops referred to in the documents might either have been open-ended, croquet-like hoops fitting over the end of the gudgeon to keep in it place,¹²⁶ or iron hoops placed around the wooden end of the axle in order to keep the mortised end of the gudgeon firmly embedded.¹²⁷ Or possibly gudgeons were dispensed with altogether and the iron hoop around the ends of the axles simply revolved on iron plates, again kept in place by an open-ended hoop bolted to the supporting beam. Sometimes brass, rather than iron, was preferred as the running surface upon which the axle or other rotating piece rested, as in the case of one ‘pillow brass’ (for the axle) and two ‘foot brasses’ (for the spindle: see Section ..), weighing pounds altogether, bought for the watermill at Bishops Sutton, Hampshire, in – at a total cost of s. d.¹²⁸ Fitzherbert also mentions stone ‘bolsters’ as being acceptable for the running surface for axles,¹²⁹ as they were for windmill axles (see below). Clearly, in this case, the range of possibilities in the dispositions and materials used for securing axles was very wide. Once the water power had been imparted to the mill axle, for grain mills it had to be transmitted through degrees to power the millstones (see Figure ¹²² For the watermill at Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, in – there is a reference to carpentry work for ij ligna [beams or posts] subtus capit’ [probably capites, but it might possibly be the singular capitem] axis: PRO SC /. ¹²³ . . . pro j gochonu & pro j circulo ferreo vocato hop pro axe dicti molendini: WAM . ¹²⁴ In ij plates ferreiis emptis ad ponendum sub ij gochones axis molendini. ¹²⁵ Judging from later experience: see Reynolds, Hundred Men, –. ¹²⁶ As shown in a late th-century print by Agostini Ramelli: Reynolds, Hundred Men, . ¹²⁷ As seemingly shown in a mid-th-century drawing by Georgius Agricola: Reynolds, Hundred Men, (fig. .). David Crossley also mentions the placing of iron hoops round the end of axles to prevent them from splitting as the gudgeons were driven in (‘Archaeology’, ), while Fitzherbert counselled millers to take good care of the gudgeon and iron hoop around the end of the axle so ‘that they be nat lose for than wyll the shafte endes brenne of [burn off ]’: Boke of Surveying, fo. v. ¹²⁸ HRO M B/, m. v. ¹²⁹ Boke of Surveying, fo. v.
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.). The gearing necessary to make this possible is clearly and consistently indicated in the medieval evidence. It seems to have followed a pattern set by Roman times at least, the general principles of which are described in a passage by the first-century writer Vitruvius: Mill wheels are turned on the same principle [as norias], except that at one end of the axle a toothed drum is fixed. This is placed vertically on its edge and turns with the wheel. Adjoining this larger wheel there is a second toothed wheel placed horizontally by which it is gripped. Thus the teeth of the drum which is on the axle, by driving the teeth of the horizontal drum, cause the grindstones to revolve.¹³⁰
This basic design is displayed in several medieval manuscripts (e.g. Plates . and .). The vertical, toothed cogwheel remained virtually unaltered from Roman times, and from the accounts it was generally made up of a number of wooden felloes, that is, curved piece of wood that were dovetailed together in much the way that cartwheels were made, and attached to the mill axle by four or more spokes (see Plates . and .).¹³¹ Cogwheels were clearly very sturdy and substantial pieces of equipment, often costing nearly as much to build as the external waterwheel, as in an account for Tanshelf, in Pontefract, Yorkshire, in –, when Master John Wright, with diverse other carpenters, made an ‘exterior’ and ‘interior’ wheel [the waterwheel and cogwheel respectively] for the corn-mill at Castleford, ‘namely s. for the exterior wheel and s. d. for the interior wheel’.¹³² The gear the cogwheel engaged, however, had changed somewhat from Roman times (or at least from Vitruvius’ description) and was by this time a sort of pegged cage, now more often called a ‘lantern-pinion’ (see Figure .), but in the Middle Ages usually called a ‘trundle’, as at Kingsbourne, Hertfordshire, in –, when a carpenter made a ‘trundle . . . above the cogwheel’.¹³³ The trundle was attached to a spindle, which ran up through holes in the centre of the bottom millstone to the ‘rynd’, a piece of iron usually with four curved arms to fit into pre-cut grooves in the bottom of the upper millstone (see Plate .).¹³⁴ The advantage of the trundle was that it allowed much more vertical play between the cogwheel and itself, which was particularly useful in allowing some wear in the iron spindle before it had to be replaced or ¹³⁰ Vitruvius, On Architecture, ii. –. ¹³¹ For example, at Kelveden, Essex, in –, there is a reference to four pieces of timber being bought for s. d. for four ‘curves’ (felloes) for the cogwheel (iiij lingnis pro iiij courbes ad rotam molendini vocat’ Cogwel), along with s. d. of wages for a carpenter to fabricate it: WAM . ¹³² PRO DL /. ¹³³ j tredel pro molendino super le cogwyl: WAM . ¹³⁴ A carpenter was paid d. for installing a spindle (fusillum) ‘and putting the same into the trundle (trundell )’ at Laughton, Yorkshire, in –: PRO DL /.
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repaired.¹³⁵ The bottom end of the spindle rested upon a brass bearing set in a wooden beam. A good description of this exists for Southwark in –, where one (or two?) ‘pillow brasses’ (polis eneis) were placed in the ‘beam’ (trabe) of the mill to support the spindle.¹³⁶ This beam, elsewhere called a ‘bridge-tree’, was levered up in some fashion, so that the spindle resting on it raised the upper millstone.¹³⁷ How exactly the raising of the beam was achieved in the medieval context is uncertain, but it may have been as simple as hammering a wedge under one end of it.¹³⁸ Another feature amply testified to in the documentation is the robustness of the pieces of equipment involved. Trundles were bulky items bound in by several pounds of iron bands, while the spindle and rynd similarly weighed many pounds of iron each.¹³⁹ As indicated in the Bishops Sutton case above, brass bearings, too, weighed a substantial amount; they of course were essential to the safety of the mill, because if the revolving spindle wore through to the wood underneath, fire could soon result from the friction. The gear ratio between the cogwheel and the trundle had to be sufficient to allow the top millstone to get up to a speed probably of at least revolutions per minute (rpm).¹⁴⁰ Direct information on medieval gear ratios is very scarce, but a set of inventories for the watermills on the manor of Wolvesey, Winchester, in – gives a vital clue. For Segrim’s Mill it was recorded that there were in storage ‘sets’ of cogs, of which each set had cogs, as well as ½ ‘gangs’ of rungs (for the trundle or lantern-pinion), of which each gang contained rungs. This suggests that there were cogs or pegs around the circumference of the cogwheel that interlocked with rungs on the lanternpinion, which would give a gear ratio of . : . This is a somewhat lower ratio than suggested by John Fitzherbert in , where a : ratio was recom¹³⁵ The life of spindles was often extended by simply welding another piece of iron onto the end of it: for example, at Bradninch, Devon, in –, where d. were spent ‘elongating and mending’ the fusillum with iron: PRO SC /. ¹³⁶ In j [sic] polis eneis emptis pro fusillo porti & eisdem ponendis in trabe molendini: HRO M B/, m. . See also the Bishops Sutton case above. ¹³⁷ A ‘bridge-tree’ (briggetr’) was placed in the watermill at Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, for d. in –: PRO SC /. The generally small scale of expenditures involving bridge-trees suggests that they were not complicated or perhaps even substantial devices. ¹³⁸ An illustration of a watermill by Ramelli in shows a lever bolted to the top of the bridge-tree. The lever passes over a fulcrum and its other end has weights attached to it in order to apply an upward force to the bridge-tree. A wedge also seems to be shoved under the end of the ‘bridge’ (Reynolds, Hundred Men, ). ¹³⁹ An inventory for the corn-mill at Durngate in Winchester in – recorded ‘two pair of trundles with four iron circlets weighing lbs’. Even heavier was the spindle (fusillus) and rynd (ynke; a common term for the rynd) for the mill, together weighing lbs of iron: HRO M B/, m. v. Also, at Harpenden and Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, in – an iron spindle weighing lbs was bought for s., while a rynd was made of lbs of iron (labour cost, d.): WAM . ¹⁴⁰ See e.g. the discussion on millstone speeds in Smith, ‘Origins of Water Power’, , –. Millstone speeds in later times reached rpm or more: ibid. : Hills, Power from Wind, .
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mended for major rivers, : when the water flow was ‘meane’, and : for overshot wheels.¹⁴¹ But, judging from medieval illustrations, the Segrim’s ratio appears reasonable. The twelfth-century German Hortus Deliciarum and a thirteenth-century Spanish reliquary show cogs (on the cogwheel) numbering in the thirties,¹⁴² while the number of rungs on the trundles shown from such illustrations (although difficult to see) would seem to be in the range of – (e.g. Plates . and .). In the Segrim’s Mill case, in order to attain rpm for the top millstone, the outer waterwheel would have to turn at just under rpm, a quite plausible rate of rotation. Clearly, from the numerous sets of cogs and rungs available in the Wolvesey case, they wore out relatively frequently.¹⁴³ As we shall see in Chapter (Section ..), it was this high rate of wear that led some lords to prefer their mill lessees to take over the maintenance for these routine repairs. It is notable, too, that round numbers seem to have been avoided in the gear ratios to prevent the same cogs from continually engaging the same rungs,¹⁴⁴ while lubrication of the contact points was probably an ongoing process, particularly when new cogs and rungs were being broken in.¹⁴⁵ The cogwheel, trundle, spindle, etc. were generally found on the bottom floor of the mill. The upper floor supported the millstones, sometimes on wooden bolsters, the entire frame supporting the stones seemingly called the ‘hurst’.¹⁴⁶ The stones themselves were enclosed in a circular or square box called a ‘loucher’ which helped, among other things, to keep the level of dust down in the mill (a particularly fine representation of the round variety is shown in Plate .).¹⁴⁷ Above the millstones was a hopper (again in Plate .), occasionally alluded to in the documents,¹⁴⁸ into which the miller placed the grain to be ground. It fed into the eye of the top millstone, and fell though gaps in the rynd onto the bottom millstone, where the hole for the spindle was presumably much smaller ¹⁴¹ Boke of Surveying, fo. v. I am grateful to Martin Watts for directing me to this passage. ¹⁴² Reynolds, Hundred Men, –.The number of rungs in the lantern-pinion is less certain from these illustrations. The lantern-pinion in the Hortus Deliciarum seems to have six rungs, but later illustrations suggest rather more. Ibid. , , . ¹⁴³ Although here they may also have been meant to serve the other three mills surveyed in the inventories, since cogs and rungs were not mentioned for these mills: HRO M B/, m. v. ¹⁴⁴ Although John Fitzherbert was adamant that the gear ratio should be a round number, so ‘that euery cogge kepe his owne ronge’: Boke of Surveying, fo. v. ¹⁴⁵ As in the d. spent for lbs of pork grease (vncta porcini) bought for ‘lubricating the cogs and trendles’ for the new windmill at East Knoyle, Wiltshire, in –: HRO M B/. ¹⁴⁶ As at Hollingbourne, Kent, in –, where a carpenter was paid d. ‘for making bolsters under the stones’ (pro bolstris factis sub petris): CCA DCc Hollingbourne . For the ‘hurst’, see the Knottingley case below. ¹⁴⁷ For example, s. d. were paid to ‘diverse men’ for making ‘one loucher around the stones’ (unum loucher circa molares) at the Castleford watermill in Tanshelf, Yorkshire, in –: PRO DL /. Some Continental examples of square louchers are shown in Reynolds, Hundred Men, (fig. .), (fig. .). ¹⁴⁸ For example, a carpenter was paid s. d. to make a new hopper and a pair of ‘calstres’ (bolsters for the millstones?) for the watermill at Feering, Essex, in – (WAM ).
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(probably around inches).¹⁴⁹ By virtue of the centrifugal force from the action of the moving top stone against the stationary bottom one, the grain was gradually forced to the periphery of the stones, being crushed in the process. Flour spilled out from the stones into the loucher and perhaps fell down a spout into a bag or chest.¹⁵⁰ Similar chests were provided for the grains taken as the charge (i.e. multure) for grinding, as in the case of the chest with lock and key bought for s. d. for the water corn-mill at Loose, Kent, in –.¹⁵¹ Specific mechanisms for lifting millstones for cleaning also seem to have been available in some mills at least, as for the watermill of Knottingley, Yorkshire, in –, where carpenters were hired to place ‘hebeltrees’ upon the hurst ‘for putting aside the millstones during the time which the millers “scourged” [i.e. cleaned] the said stones’.¹⁵² In this brief discussion of the inner workings of a watermill, many problems remain unresolved. For example, how was the spindle connected to the rynd? How did millers stop the spindle from wandering around the face of the supporting brass bearing, especially when the bearing was new? How exactly did millers adjust the gap between stones? Was the size of rynds, bearings, and millstone holes standardized to facilitate routine replacement of parts, or did each part have to be fitted by a smith or carpenter? Despite these uncertainties, the information given here does indicate that medieval practitioners faced technological problems associated with water corn-mills with considerable creativity and discernment. Some elements, such as gearing by means of a cogwheel and lantern-pinion, they seem to have left well enough alone, and generally there seems to have been respect for well-established lines of practice, as perhaps best shown in the loyalty to undershot or overshot wheels, but as yet nothing in between like breast or pitch-back wheels. In other areas there was an ongoing willingness to experiment, such as in water-control systems, which, in each case, had to be designed from scratch according to local conditions. As a result, many variations seem to have been tried, which likely contributed greatly to the ¹⁴⁹ This was the thickness of a spindle bought for the new windmill at East Knoyle, Wiltshire, in –: HRO M B/. ¹⁵⁰ There is no certain case of this from the watermills examined for this study, but for the windmill at Elmsall, Yorkshire, in –, a carpenter made ‘a spout through which the flour descends from the millstones into a chest’: see Sect. .. below. ¹⁵¹ In j cista cum serura & claue empta ad idem molendinum, ij s. iij d.: CCA DCc Loose . Three locks (for three chests), three measuring rods (probably for determining the amount of grain in the chests), and three ‘great’ toll dishes were also bought for the three watermills at Westerham, Kent, in –: WAM . In urban situations, where the payment may sometimes have been in cash rather than kind, a money chest would be needed, as in the case of the Durngate water corn-mill in Winchester in –, where d. were paid pro j pixide [i.e. a casket or money-box] pro argento molendini colligendo: HRO M B/, m. . ¹⁵² Et in ij carpentariis . . . superponentis hebeltrees super le hirst pro molaribus reponendis tempore quo molendinarii dictas molares verberabant: PRO DL /.
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willingness to site watermills on major rivers and in the construction of tide mills, certainly up to the advent of the plague. It is this ingenuity which many have argued created benefits from milling far beyond the grinding of grain.¹⁵³ However, I have already indicated in Chapter that the extension of water power for fulling and other ‘industrial’ purposes in England was probably more modest than many have claimed and indeed may not have reached significant proportions until the very end of the medieval period. Was this slow progress reflected in the technological development of industrial mills?
... Fulling and Other Industrial Mills In the case of fulling and most other types of mill apart from those for grinding grain, the inner workings of the mill, in one sense, were generally simpler. Most of them in the medieval period worked from cams or wooden projections set into the mill axle, which ‘tripped’ any number of devices, such as vertical stamps, horizontal hammers, bellows, or saws. Although industrial mills were certainly in use for several centuries before then,¹⁵⁴ the first pictorial representation of one was Villard de Honnecourt’s famous thirteenth-century drawing of a sawmill,¹⁵⁵ but generally illustrations of industrial mills do not appear with any frequency until the fifteenth century or afterwards.¹⁵⁶ The problem of converting rotary motion in the vertical plane (that is, the mill axle) to rotating action in the horizontal, as in the case of grain mills, was not necessary for most ‘industrial’ mills. Nevertheless, it is a mistake to think of fulling- and other mills as simply being more rudimentary versions of grain mills, since they presented their own problems and were, as well, often subject to high capital costs. The problem with elucidating the technical details of these industrial mills is that mill costs sections detailing repairs to such mills are much less frequent than those for grain mills. This is largely because lords tended to lease them much more frequently than grain mills, with the result that maintenance costs, because they were normally assumed by the lessee, did not make it into the record. These difficulties pose a problem for studying industrials mills in medieval England, as they do elsewhere. Even in the one activity for which there is ¹⁵³ Most vigorously championed by Gimpel, Medieval Machine. ¹⁵⁴ Lewis, Millstone and Hammer, esp. –, argues that water power for industrial purposes (such as fulling, crushing ore, or sawing stone) probably existed from the first century . ¹⁵⁵ For example, as shown in Gimpel, Medieval Machine, . ¹⁵⁶ The earliest representations of ‘industrial mills’ after Honnecourt’s sawmill are probably the vertical stamps and horizontal hammers shown in the th-century ‘Anonymous of the Hussite Wars’. None of these are shown as being powered by water, but the principles are basically the same as for water-powered industrial mills: Hall, Technological Illustrations, fos. v, v, . From the later th century the representations of industrial mills become much more frequent and accurate in their detail: e.g. Reynolds, Hundred Men, –.
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some technical evidence—fulling—repair details about fulling-mills tend to be scarce and often difficult to interpret. We can presume that the water supply systems and waterwheel set-ups were similar to those for grain mills, and, indeed, fulling-mills were often found next to corn-mills, feeding off the same water-control system. Consistent with their smaller revenue potential compared to grain mills,¹⁵⁷ fulling-mills seem to have had to make do with lower initial capital inputs, as suggested by the tiny pond for the Westerham fullingmill mentioned above.¹⁵⁸ Often their internal workings were similarly modest, as indicated by a reference to two betels (i.e. ‘beetles’, wooden mallets) bought when converting a corn-mill to a fulling-mill at Orpington, Kent, in –, indicating the simple trip-hammer form of a fulling-mill.¹⁵⁹ This seems to have been a conversion on the cheap, since the total cost, including minor repairs to the mill weir, was only s. d. More generally in these accounts for the first half of the fourteenth century or so, the overall fulling apparatus seem to have been referred to as ‘trunks’, as at Loose, Kent, in –, where it is recorded that s. was received for the farm of three ‘trunks’ in a fulling-mill on the manor and ‘no more because one trunk stood empty for a half-year because of lack of water’.¹⁶⁰ The word ‘trunk’ here is an allusion to a ‘fuller’s block’,¹⁶¹ referring to the block or perhaps hollowed out trunk on or in which foot fullers trod on their cloths. In this case ‘trunks’ might also be seen as various sections of the axle, each with its own cam for operating a single ‘beetle’ or trip-hammer. Over the next half-century or so, however, this simple and straightforward terminology for the internal machinery of fulling-mills seems to become more complex or at least more detailed. For example, in the duchy of Lancaster’s Honour of Pontefract in Yorkshire in –, John Hardy, carpenter, was paid s. to fell wood and make a waterwheel ‘with one new axle, feet, shanks, and le perrour [?; the fulling basin?¹⁶²] with the making of a bottom and hinges [?: gornarum; seemingly the genitive plural of a word like gorna—possibly garnetta meant: see below] of the walk-stocks’, as well as do other repairs as needed for the fulling-mill ‘on the western side of the bridge’ at Leeds. In the same set of accounts ‘Master John’, carpenter, was paid s. to make anew ‘one walk-stock ¹⁵⁷ See Langdon, ‘Lordship’, –. ¹⁵⁸ See Sect. .. above. ¹⁵⁹ CCA DCc Orpington .These ‘beetles’ are normally classified as ‘recumbent hammers’ in the literature, because the shaft of the ‘hammer’ normally lay in the horizontal position: e.g. Reynolds, Hundred Men, ; Blaine, ‘Enigmatic Water-Mill’, . ¹⁶⁰ . . . et non plus quia j truncus stetit vacuus per dimidium annum pro defectu aque: CCA DCc Loose . ¹⁶¹ An interpretation of truncus given in Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-List, , and Fisher, Medieval Farming Glossary, . ¹⁶² The translation of perrour is problematic and might have originally meant the fuller’s stone or block (e.g. from the ancient French, perron, meaning ‘great stone’: Godefroy, Dictionnaire, vi. ), but in this case seems to have been a sort of tub.
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for the fulling-mill of Knottingley with shanks, feet and le perrour pertaining to the same’.¹⁶³ Similarly, in another part of the country a carpenter was hired for the fulling-mill called ‘Jonesmill’ at the bishop of Winchester’s manor at Old Alresford, Hampshire, in –, a carpenter was hired to ‘line’ (install?) two fulling-stocks and to make from new four hinges, two pairs of feet, and two pairs of shanks.¹⁶⁴ It is difficult to know exactly what many of these pieces were and how they were put together. None of the excerpts given above absolutely rule out the trip-hammer variant of the fulling-mill, since the ‘walk-stocks’ or ‘fulling-stocks’ might equate to the axle or ‘trunk’ with its sets of cams, the ‘shanks’ to the handles of the trip-hammers, and the ‘feet’ to their heads. The reference to ‘hinges’ would then refer to the fulcrum-points over which the shanks or handles of the trip-hammers passed and to which they were attached by some form of metal hinge. Thus, the head of each hammer would be raised as a rotating cam on the axle brought downward pressure to bear on its handleend and then would drop down again onto the cloths once the cam slipped off. But it is possible, as well, that the more complicated terminology of the later documents is signalling the introduction of a more complex version of the hammer mechanisms, in particular putting the shanks (or handles) in the vertical positions, as shown in an early seventeenth-century version of a fulling-mill by Vittorio Zonca (Plate .).¹⁶⁵ Here the axle-cams acted upon projections upon the soles or bottoms of the ‘feet’, pulling them back and then letting them go, in effect imparting a more steplike motion to the hammers. This form of fullingmill mechanism could well have been in existence well before Zonca’s representation of it. The fourteenth- and fifteenth-century references to ‘fulling-stocks’ and ‘walk-stocks’ above might then be the wooden support upon which the footlike hammers swung and might have included the vat in some cases (although other accounts indicate these vats separate to the fulling-stocks).The term ‘dagshoe’ also occurs in many fulling-mill cost sections, especially for Essex as early as the fourteenth century, again perhaps suggesting the steplike motion of the feet.¹⁶⁶ To a large extent this depends upon what a term like gorna ¹⁶³ The Latin for these is as follows: cum j nouo axe, pedes [sic; the scribe lapses into the accusative here], tibias, & le perrour cum factura vnius bothome & gornarum de walkstok’ (Leeds); vnum walkstokum pro molendino fulleratico de Knottingley cum tibiis, pedibus & le perr’ [presumably perrour] eidem pertinentibus (Knottingley): PRO DL /. ¹⁶⁴ In stipendiis ij carpentariorum ad . . . furrandos de nouo ij fullyngstokkes & de nouo faciendos iiij gymelles & ij paria pedium & ij paria de shankes: HRO M B/, m. ; see also Pipe Roll . . . –, . ¹⁶⁵ See also an early th-century Exeter carving for the same sort of fulling-stock arrangement, as shown in Watts, Water and Wind Power, . ¹⁶⁶ For instance, as one example among a number, a ‘dagshoe’ is recorded for Feering, Essex, in – (In .j. dagsho molendini fullonici emendando cum ferro ad idem empto, vj d.: WAM ). The etymology of ‘dagshoe’ is uncertain, but might refer to the ‘dags’ or ‘clags’—that is, encrusted pieces of wool—on a sheep’s behind (OED iii. ; iv. ) and hence transferred metaphorically to the mixture of cloth, fulling-earth, urine, water, etc., upon which these fulling-mill ‘shoes’ trod.
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P .. Fulling-mill,
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in the Leeds case above means. I have translated it tentatively as ‘hinges’ (after garnetta,¹⁶⁷ that is, a ‘garnet’, or T-shaped hinge¹⁶⁸), which might support the fulling-stocks being frames for hammers of the type shown in Plate .. If, however, gorna might be translated as ‘cam’ (or some other form of projection on the mill axle) then the trip-hammer version seems more likely. Certainly ‘fullingstocks’ (and other variants like ‘walk-stocks’ or even ‘trunks’) seem often to have had a more general, encompassing meaning than simply being an axle or a wooden frame. Thus, in a – Old Alresford account, ‘two fulling-stocks with all apparatus’ were made for the fulling-mill called New Mill for s. d.¹⁶⁹ Fulling-stock units could also seemingly be purchased in pre-manufactured form, in the fifteenth century at least, as for j fullyng stok bought for the fullingmill of the Cambridgeshire manor of Great Shelford in – for s. at the nearby town of ‘Walden’ (Saffron Walden), Essex, suggesting a certain standardization in the technology.¹⁷⁰ Finally, it is interesting to note the anthropomorphic influence in the setting up of fulling-mill units, with ‘feet’ and ‘shanks’ always being set up in pairs, imitating ranks of foot fullers. This was especially the case in the version shown in Plate . (if it were in fact being adopted), where the fulling-stock mechanism functioned as the hips of the ‘walker’ and the hammers his stepping gait.¹⁷¹ Altogether, there seems to have been a certain progression in the technology for fulling-mills, if only in the availability of ready-made items for such mills. Whether this encompassed a new type of hammer, as shown in Plate ., can only be confirmed by future research, but it would seem a distinct possibility that they were being introduced in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. This would be consistent with the boost that mechanized fulling was receiving in the first half-century or so after the advent of the plague. We can also see other functions being carried on alongside fulling-mills over the course of the fourteenth century. For example, some of these mills had drying and stretching frames (called tentores) associated with them, as again at Loose, Kent, in –, when a joint corn- and fulling-mill was built along with a ‘new tentor’. This new tentor cost s. in carpentry expenses alone plus another ½d. for ‘great nails’. A trench around the facility was dug for another s. d. and possibly a wall (valour) for d. more. Three thousand hooks (for stretching the cloth) were also bought for s. d., as well as a ‘cord’ (set?) of eighteen teasels (for raising the nap of the cloth). Finally s. was spent on constructing a road from ¹⁶⁷ ¹⁶⁸ ¹⁷⁰ ¹⁷¹ .
See Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-List, . OED vi. . ¹⁶⁹ HRO M B/, m. . PRO SC /. For biological imitation in the development of technology, see Kaiser, ‘What Drives Innovation?’, ,
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the ‘new’ fulling-mill to the tentor.¹⁷² The total cost was s. ½d. for what was clearly an important complement to the fulling-mill complex at Loose, which had a successful history (with one or two fulling-mills) from this point onwards to at least . The mechanisms for other industrial mills are far less easy to elucidate. Detailed repair costs that exist for grain mills and occasionally fulling-mills do not exist for any other type of industrial mill, since none of these were ever supervised directly for the lord’s profits, or, if they were, they were subsumed into some larger activity, like iron-making or leather-working. Forging mills presumably worked by the drop-hammer method (similar to the ‘beetle’ hammer layout for fulling-mills), while tanning mills—for crushing oak bark to produce tannin for curing leather—may have been the same.¹⁷³ The ‘blowing mills’ that surfaced in Cornwall in the late fifteenth to early sixteenth century presumably worked by cams pulling down bellows for smelting tin (see Plate .), while tin ore crushing mills appearing in the county at the same time presumably operated heavy vertical wooden beams, each of which was lifted up when the cam on the axle engaged a similar cam on the beam, so that the beam would then crash down onto the ore when the cams disengaged.¹⁷⁴ In a similarly simple fashion, tool-grinding mills occasionally established by manorial tenants may have worked by way of trundle-wheels laid on their side (see Plate .). One thing that seems clear is the generally small-scale nature of industrial mill enterprises generally, often run by tenants. Thus, a blowing mill (molendinum sufflatio) at Climsland, Cornwall, was established on a piece of land feet long by feet wide in –,¹⁷⁵ while a tenant fulling-mill at Leeds in – was built on a plot of exactly the same size.¹⁷⁶
... Mill-Houses Concerning mill-houses themselves, whatever went on inside them, they were often distinctive buildings in the neighbourhood, although rarely outstandingly so. The Luttrell Psalter shows what might be a mill building made of stone ¹⁷² CCA DCc Loose . ¹⁷³ Although no tanning mills showed up in the sample for Ch. , examples of them are recorded for Cumberland, Hampshire, and Devon, the earliest—in Cumberland—being known from the late th century: see Holt, Mills, –; Account-Book of Beaulieu Abbey, . Another innovative use of water power, the gig mill (for running belts of teasels over cloth), only found limited use in th-century England (Munro, ‘Industrial Energy’, –; AHEW iii. ). Similarly, paper mills (for breaking up rags into a fibre slush for making the paper) are not known in England until the s (H. S. Bennett, Pastons, –). ¹⁷⁴ For an illustration of a th-century version of a stamping mill, see Reynolds, Hundred Men, (fig. .); see also Gerrard, ‘Cornish Stamping Mill’. ¹⁷⁵ PRO SC Hen VIII/. ¹⁷⁶ As recorded in –: PRO DL /.
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P .. Bellows (or ‘blowing’) mill, c.
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P .. Tool-grinding mill,
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blocks (see Plate .). There are at least three cases from the material examined in the mill sample for Chapter to stone walls being built or repaired for millhouses. Thus, for the North Mill at Hollingbourne, Kent, in –, a wall of rubble masonry of ½ perches in length (¼ feet at, say, ½ feet per perch) was built to a height of feet ‘next to the said mill’.¹⁷⁷ Since North Mill already existed, this may have been an enclosing wall around the mill precinct. A millhouse more certainly made of stone was recorded in – for Helston-inKerrier, Cornwall, where stone in any case was a commonly available material,¹⁷⁸ while the tide mill at Bosham, Sussex, similarly had a stone mill-house.¹⁷⁹ But these were probably exceptions. Elsewhere, it is likely that the great majority of mill-houses were of wattle-and-daub construction, although sometimes built upon stone foundations.¹⁸⁰ Even major watermill concerns, as for the fivemill complex at Higham Ferrers and Dichford, Northamptonshire, continued to use wattle-and-daub construction throughout; the lessee for the mills in the early fifteenth century was responsible for the upkeep of the mill-houses themselves, including ‘daubing’ the walls.¹⁸¹ The one common exception to this, as I have mentioned, occurred for the walls on the water side of the mill. Here the constant spray of water may well have led to concern regarding the erosion of earthen walls, as was seemingly the case for the watermill at West Farleigh, Kent, in –, where fifty ‘shotboards’ were bought for ‘the wall of the mill against the water’.¹⁸² In similarly modest style, the most usual type of roofing for medieval English mills seems to have been thatch rather than shingle, slate, or tile, although a slow trend towards tiling was perhaps evident over time.¹⁸³ Despite the fact that many, if not most, watermills may have been thatched, ¹⁷⁷ In fundamento novi muri faciendo & mundando iuxta dictum molendinum cum ij hominibus per xiiij dies, iiijs. viijd. Item in grossis lapidibus fodiendis ad dictum murum ad tascham, iiijs. In dicto muro de petra & calxte [lime for making mortar] nouo levando ad altitudinem novem pedum, videlicet vj perticae dimidia, lxjs. ixd. [at] ixs. vjd. per perticam: CCA DCc Hollingbourne . ¹⁷⁸ At Helston-in-Kerrier in – two masons were hired, for s. d., to build a ‘mill-wall’ of ½ perches (. feet, again at . feet per perch) to a height of feet. d. was also spent on collecting stones for the work, and, since no mortar was seemingly involved, it suggests dry-wall construction: PRO SC /. ¹⁷⁹ For example, there is a reference in the – Bosham account to ‘mending the stone of the wall in the eastern corner of the [mill]house’: WSRO Acc. /II/A/. ¹⁸⁰ As at Taunton in –, where two carpenters were hired to fell and trim wood for posts and groundsills for the Fishery Mill in the town at the same time as two masons were making a wall (or walls) ‘under the said groundsills’ (subtus dictis grundsulis): HRO M B/, m. . ¹⁸¹ As specified, for example, in the – and – accounts: PRO DL /, m. ; /, m. . ¹⁸² In L de shotbord emptis ad parietem molendini contra aquam, ij s. vj d.: CCA DCc West Farleigh . ‘Shotboards’ were probably stripboards, long and narrow in shape. ¹⁸³ In an admittedly small sample of manors for which roofing details of watermills were taken from the materials making up Ch. , fourteen had thatched roofs for their watermills (at one time or another at least), while six had tiled roofs and one a slate and moss roof (Witney, Oxfordshire, in –: HRO M B/, m. v).The general trend seems to have a slow drift from thatched to tiled roofs; as at Westerham, Kent, where the
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wattle-and-daub structures, they were by no means flimsy and vulnerable. The timber framing of mill-houses had to be strong to withstand steady vibration, and generally a sense of strength and particularly security pervaded mills, in the case not only of the mill-chests with locks indicated above, but also of strong locks for hefty mill doors.¹⁸⁴ As we have seen in the Hollingbourne case above, some mill-houses may have had substantial walls round them. The fact that watermills were often used as temporary prisons reinforces the sense of substantial and well-secured buildings.¹⁸⁵ Certainly watermills were a prominent feature of medieval landscapes. The establishment of the water-control system for a watermill, in effect, locked such a mill tightly into the environmental framework of the manor and in fact had a significant ecological and economic impact upon the areas around them that went well beyond the revenues brought in by such mills. As Astill has pointed out, lords such as the Cistercian monks at Bordesley could impose a strikingly permanent imprint upon the landscape,¹⁸⁶ and some at least of the economic patterns for the region were similarly altered. Lords, in particular, used their power to establish water-control systems, either overriding or buying out local opposition.¹⁸⁷ In an age when planning permission was unknown, interests from outside the community, particularly from those who wished to use waterways for inland trade, were generally ignored.¹⁸⁸ One is perhaps tempted to explain this in terms of the selfish interests of a narrow elite being able to impose their preferences at the expense of the rest of society, but one should not underestimate the customer support that lords often had for their milling projects.¹⁸⁹ It is perhaps more profitable to look at this from the perspective of the local economy, where the interests of the lord and the community which the mill corn-mills there had thatched roofs in –, but tiled ones in –, –, and –: WAM , , , . The same progression from thatched to tiled roofing over the th to th centuries, with perhaps an intermediate period of wood shingling, is indicated from the excavations of the iron-mill at Bordesley Abbey: Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, . ¹⁸⁴ As at Harpenden and Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, in –, where seemingly a very substantial door was installed for the watermill with a pair of hooks and a pair of hinges weighing pounds of iron. Two locks with keys were also bought (presumably for the same door): WAM . ¹⁸⁵ See Sect. ... ¹⁸⁶ Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, esp. . ¹⁸⁷ As evident from early times: for example, sometime between and the Templars had to pay Sewale de Oseville marks of silver for use of a stream to feed their mill-race at Alchester, near Merton, Oxfordshire, plus they agreed to replace whatever meadow Sewale lost because of the mill with an equal amount of meadow of their own: English Lawsuits, ii. . For an unauthorized building of a weir, see the case of Denise de la Rivere in Sect. ... ¹⁸⁸ As in the case of the mills at Over Colwick, Nottinghamshire, and at Hemingford Grey, in Huntingdonshire, which blocked water transport on the upper Trent and upper Great Ouse respectively for several centuries: Langdon, ‘Inland Water Transport’, –. ¹⁸⁹ Langdon, ‘Lordship’.
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served were roughly in agreement, versus the wider national one, where as much as it sympathized with the complaints of merchants and transporters, the government was reluctant to go beyond the occasional bellicose pronouncement.¹⁹⁰ Once established, it was difficult, without great expense, to alter significantly the layout of the water supply systems for mills and, as Astill has argued, a certain fossilization often set in concerning mill layouts that discouraged much technological innovation on individual sites.¹⁹¹ To some extent this reflected a conservative seigneurial class, who, once convinced of a pattern of investment, tended to stick to it through thick and thin.The watermill, as much as any seigneurial investment, reflected this innate traditionalism, a traditionalism bolstered by the fact that mills, both water and wind, may well have been seen as symbols of feudal authority and self-identification as much as economic investments.¹⁹² In many ways watermills (and windmills to a certain extent) were as indicative of conspicuous consumption as any castle or church, particularly in the thirteenth and very early fourteenth century.¹⁹³ Mills thus completed an investment triad for feudal lords—the parish church to God, the castle or manor house to rival political figures, and the mill to social dependants. As the Middle Ages wore on, this elitist and to some extent romanticized view of the mill faded away, as they became viewed by lords more strictly in financial terms or—eventually—virtually ignored altogether, but in the heyday of mill investment at the beginning of our period the attitude to mills seemingly had strong non-economic elements that significantly enhanced the chance of seigneurial investment.
.. ... Post-Mills Windmills also benefited from this enthusiastic investment spree up to the early fourteenth century, perhaps even more so because they had several advantages over watermills. They could be built on small pieces of land and had relatively little impact upon neighbouring property.¹⁹⁴ Indeed their imprint upon
¹⁹⁰ See Evan Jones, ‘River Navigation’, , –. ¹⁹¹ Astill, Medieval Industrial Complex, –. ¹⁹² Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, esp. –. ¹⁹³ For example, the spending on mills on the bishop of Winchester’s estates comprised around per cent of the estate’s total building expenses over the period –: Langdon et al., ‘Boom and Bust’, . ¹⁹⁴ The measurement of surviving post-mills, such as that at Bourn, Cambridgeshire, built in the th century, suggests that their horizontal floor area could be feet by feet or less: Terence Paul Smith, ‘English Medieval Windmill’, .
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F. .. Post-mill
the landscape today is limited to small mounds, often with crosslike depressions in the middle (caused by earth collapsing into the space left behind by the rotting away of the buried wooden members that had previously supported the windmill). These, although distinctive,¹⁹⁵ have—in terms of area—left only a tiny fraction of the landscape marks that watermills have. Much of the sudden proliferation of windmills from the late twelfth century onwards can thus be attributed to this relative lack of conflict with prior property and resource rights, as will be discussed in more detail in Chapter . In some ways this might well have encouraged a greater technological flexibility, perhaps in the type of windmill that might have been employed. Although several varieties of windmill were known across Europe and Asia during the medieval period, ranging from the horizontal Persian mill (where the vanes rotated in the horizontal plane) to such vertical mills as the ‘paltrok’ and possibly even tower mills,¹⁹⁶ it was the so-called ‘post-mill’ that came to dominate in western Europe, including, of course, England (see Figure .; also the portrayal of some in the early fourteenth-century Smithfield Decretals: Plates ., ., and .). It was an adventurous design, where the mill-house, stones, and sails, possibly weighing up to tons or more,¹⁹⁷ was finely balanced ¹⁹⁵ They often show up clearly in aerial photographs: Beresford and St Joseph, Medieval England, –. ¹⁹⁶ For the description and possible evolution of these types of mill, see Lewis, ‘Greeks’. ¹⁹⁷ Martin Watts has estimated that the superstructure (including millstones) and sails of small medieval post-mills might have weighed as much as ½– tons. More modern post-mills seem to have been in the range of – tons. Personal communication.
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F. .. Tower mill
upon a huge oak post running up through its midst, so that the entire mill could be swivelled round relatively easily to face the wind. There is considerable debate about what constituted the inspiration for the post-mill. Yves Coutant feels strongly that the post-mill design may have derived from sailing experience, particularly from the Vikings.¹⁹⁸ But, in many ways post windmills also clearly owed a debt to previously existing watermills. As shown in Figure . (and compared with Figure .), the internal workings of the windmill were essentially that of the watermill turned upside down to accommodate a power source coming from above (the wind) rather than below (the water).¹⁹⁹ The main problem facing windmills was the variability in the strength and direction of the wind. Windmills thus had to be mobile and durable enough to capture wind power safely and effectively. It was in the post-mill that medieval people found at least one effective solution. Some researchers have tried to make a fetish of the post-mill as a revolutionary monument to the ingenuity of medieval people, and attempts have been made to site the ‘invention’ in particular areas around the lower North Sea and perhaps even in the Rhineland in Germany.²⁰⁰ Others have preferred to see the ¹⁹⁸ ‘L’Étude’, ; id., Windmill Technology, –. ¹⁹⁹ Dyer, ‘Medieval Farming and Technology’, ; Holt, Mills, . ²⁰⁰ Bautier, ‘Les Plus Anciennes Mentions’; Philippe, ‘Les Premiers Moulins à vent’; Bauters, ‘Oldest References’; Kealey, Harvesting the Air; Coutant, Windmill Technology, .
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F. .. The internal workings of a post windmill
development of the post-mill as part of an evolutionary pattern spreading from East to West, arising originally from horizontal windmills in the Middle East, being transmuted to a vertical form, perhaps under the influence of a long tradition of experimenting with wind power (allegedly stemming from the Greeks), which gradually worked through various forms—for example, the immovable unidirectional mill and the paltrok (a rotational mill positioned on a much stubbier pivot than a post-mill)—to the post-mills seen in western Europe.²⁰¹ How important, then, was the post-mill in the sequence of wind-powered machines? First of all, it is easy enough to recognize the post-mill as a very ²⁰¹ See Lewis, ‘Greeks’, for a useful, if at times speculative, attempt to work out the sequence.
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important design modification that achieved a tremendous popularity in western Europe. It was also probably a distinctive enough design to merit the claim of ‘invention’ (rather than, say, ‘modification’). Even if one accepts Lewis’s tentative suggestion that the post-mill evolved from the Eastern paltrok,²⁰² the positioning of the pivot in the post-mill at such a high position and the working-out of complications to which that would give rise (particularly concerning the stress it would create on the central post; see below) represented a major step forward, as the post-mill was considerably easier to turn than the paltrok.²⁰³ No matter what its origins, the post-mill’s longevity as a basic design proved its effectiveness. As discussed below, the tower mill, although certainly a major technological adjustment, only played a minor part in milling throughout much of north-west Europe during the Middle Ages. Certainly in England archaeological and iconographic evidence suggests strongly that the post-mill was the predominant form of windmill throughout the medieval period.²⁰⁴ The documentary evidence does the same. Windmill building and repair accounts, with their references to ‘posts’, ‘standards’, ‘ramming around the post’, etc., routinely identify them as post-mills.²⁰⁵
... Tower Mills In contrast, the tower mill (Figure .; also Plate .), often seen as the natural successor to the post-mill, had virtually no success in displacing the post-mill in England during the medieval period.²⁰⁶ Yet, there are some tantalizing glimpses that attempts were made to establish them in England as an alternative to post-mills. The earliest case involves a ‘windmill of stone’ (molendinum ventriticum de petra) built at Dover Castle in –.²⁰⁷ The survival of most of ²⁰² Ibid. ‒. ²⁰³ Ibid. . ²⁰⁴ For archaeological remains or indications of the cross-trees of medieval English post-mills, see Hall, ‘Thirteenth Century Windmill’; Westell, ‘Sandon Mount’; Zeepvat, ‘Post Mills’; Earnshaw, ‘Medieval Post Mill . . . at Bridlington’; Posnasky, ‘Lamport Post Mill’; Rahtz and Rahtz, ‘T-’; W. T. Jones, ‘Mucking Windmill’. Iconographic representations of post-mills can be found in manuscript, stained glass, and many other guises: e.g., Salmon, ‘Windmill in English Medieval Art’; Adelaide Bennett, ‘Windmill Psalter’, esp. –; Terence Paul Smith, ‘Windmill Graffiti’. ²⁰⁵ See the discussion of various technical points below. See also App. ; Nichols, ‘Milton Hall’, esp. –, –; Keil, ‘Building a Post Windmill’. ²⁰⁶ By the end of the Middle Ages the tower mill was becoming established in parts of Germany and the southern Netherlands and especially the eastern Mediterranean, where it may already have had a long history: Buckland, ‘Origins’, –; Lewis, ‘Greeks’, esp. –, –. ²⁰⁷ Salmon, ‘Note’. The mill was built at a cost of £ s. d.
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P .. Tower mill from a Norman book of hours, c.‒
the building account for this mill clearly identifies it as a tower mill, with a stone cylindrical tower, possibly to feet high, topped by a rotating cap from which the windmill sails projected.²⁰⁸ At least two other ‘windmills of stone’ (a common identifier for tower mills) are known for medieval England. The first occurred in a inquisition post mortem for the lands of John de Sudleye at Burton Dassett in Warwickshire, where it was recorded that a windmill called ‘le Stonmilne’ had long been in ruins by that time.²⁰⁹ A similar, more fully documented case has been found in this study for the duchy of Lancaster manor of Tanshelf, in Pontefract, Yorkshire, where a ‘windmill of stone’ was built in the late s to replace another windmill on the manor which had become derelict through lack of tenants and repairs some ten years before.²¹⁰ Again, details are not known about its exact construction (especially on the critical question of ²⁰⁸ The account is particularly good at detailing the construction of the turntable and rollers upon which the cap revolved: PRO E//. ²⁰⁹ Buckland, ‘Origins’, –. Buckland feels that the remains of a rubble masonry tower on a hill close by Burton Dassett may mark the location of this windmill. ²¹⁰ The ‘farm of the stone windmill’ (firma molendini ventritici petrini) is first recorded in the – account (PRO DL /). The construction of the mill was seemingly completed the previous year (for which unfortunately no account survives), since in – it is recorded that no rent had been received from the (new) windmill (the adjective ‘stone’ was not used here) ‘because the same mill has not yet been fully repaired by Robert Peyntor, “taker” of the same [mill]’: PRO DL /.
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whether or not it had a revolving cap), but it may well be the ancestor of the derelict stone tower mill recorded for Pontefract in –, which apparently did have a revolving cap.²¹¹ A final case that might involve something like a tower mill was the construction of the windmill at Turweston, Buckinghamshire, in , very nearly contemporary with the ‘stone windmill’ of Dover. In a previous publication I argued that the Turweston mill was a post-mill with a stone wall built around its base.²¹² But subsequent discussion with Martin Watts and an error discovered in the original reading of the building account has led me to question this interpretation. Rather it seems that the Turweston mill was built in a new tradition altogether and that, although the mill at Turweston was never called a ‘stone windmill’ in the manor’s documentation, it had some of the characteristics of one. It may have been a tower mill or possibly a hybrid mill with a wooden postmill-like body placed on a relatively low stone wall (probably less than feet high) rather than on a central post.²¹³ Brass and wooden wheels (or runners), which are recorded in the building account, were likely placed on the bottom of the mill body and ran in a brass gutter seemingly fashioned into (likely) the inside edge of the top of the stone wall.²¹⁴ In such a way the mill, rolling on its wheels, could be rotated into the wind, although problems with turning it are suggested by the later construction of a stone path upon which a wheel attached to the tailtree would run.²¹⁵ In considering post-mills versus tower mills, Anders Jespersen has made an astute remark about a ‘quarry trail’ of tower mills and a ‘timber trail’ of post- and other similar mills which slowly radiated out from the Mediterranean.²¹⁶ Although this has yet to be substantiated, it is attractive in explaining the sudden appearance of these so-called ‘stone windmills’. Whether or not the Turweston mill was a proto-tower mill or simply a building eccentricity that never amounted to much is still very uncertain; at the very least it was one where stone played a much bigger role in its construction than normal. Altogether, a
²¹¹ Buckland, ‘Origins’, . The entry for the rent of the Tanshelf windmill was transferred to the Pontefract account by the s, where it was still being referred to as the ‘stone windmill of Tanshelf ’, as in the – account: PRO DL /. Martin Watts also advances the possibility of tower mill remains at Fowey, Cornwall, and Tidenham, Gloucestershire, as being medieval in origin, although conclusive evidence is lacking: Archaeology, –. ²¹² Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’. ²¹³ For a re-evaluation of the Turweston mill, see Watts and Langdon, ‘Early Tower Windmill?’ ²¹⁴ All this is suggested by the line ‘In brass wheels, “brass”, pieces of brass attached (?; perstratis) to the wooden wheels, and brass strip bought, s. ¼d.’ (Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, ). This large expense for brass indicates a considerable amount was used. ²¹⁵ Ibid. . ²¹⁶ As quoted in Lewis, ‘Greeks’, .
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different building tradition seems to have been intruding into a mostly timberbased technology, not only for windmills but for much other building as well, particularly around the beginning of the fourteenth century.²¹⁷ As increasing numbers of these medieval ‘windmills of stone’ in north-west Europe have come to light in recent years,²¹⁸ it seems more and more likely that an alternative building tradition for windmills was forming from the middle of the thirteenth century onwards. It was a tradition also strongly reflected in the iconography of the period, since representations of tower windmills became increasingly common over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (see Plate .).²¹⁹ The timing for the introduction of these new ‘windmills of stone’ was very much against them, however, since the building of windmills had already reached saturation point by the beginning of the fourteenth century, as we have seen in Chapter . The niches that were left for them were in most cases hardly able to support luxury versions of windmills—hence the dismal performance of the Turweston mill, which was derelict within forty years of construction.²²⁰ Even more difficult was for these mills to establish themselves in an environment that put so much store in building with timber. Even in the Turweston case a carpenter seemingly supervised the building of the windmill and might have only incorporated the wall on the dictate of the monks of Westminster.²²¹ As Stephen Buckland put it: ‘I suggest that the tower mill in England . . . before the Industrial Revolution was a structure occasionally built by wealthy manorial lords, but rarely otherwise.’²²² Certainly, post-mills clearly remained the dominant form of English windmill right through to the end of our period and for several centuries afterwards.²²³ ²¹⁷ For the increasing use of stone for the foundations of village houses from the early th century, see Dyer, Standards of Living, –. ²¹⁸ A ‘stone windmill’ allegedly existed in Normandy as early as : Lewis, ‘Greeks’, . Coutant, Windmill Technology, , provides a more circumspect view on this mill. See also Coutant, ‘L’Étude’, –, and Windmill Technology, , –, for at least four Flemish tower mills known from the th and th centuries. ²¹⁹ The first pictorial representation of a tower mill in England is from the stained-glass window in the church of Stoke-by-Clare in Suffolk, dated to the period – by John Salmon (‘Windmill in English Medieval Art’, –). For a good European-wide survey of tower mill representations of the th and th centuries, see Coutant, Windmill Technology, –. ²²⁰ Langdon,‘Birth and Demise’, esp. –. Note also the dereliction of the Burton Dassett tower mill above. ²²¹ The monks of Westminster clearly wanted the Turweston windmill to be something special, and its construction was seemingly supervised quite closely by ‘Brother’ William de Chalke, the abbey’s warden for the manor: Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, , , –. ²²² Buckland, ‘Origins’, . ²²³ To quote Buckland again: ‘In England the tower mill is very uncommon before the latter th century, and we must look elsewhere for its origins and widespread early use’ (‘Origins’, ). See also Rex Wailes’s classic survey of windmills and windmill technology, which showed several post-mills still operating in the first half of the th century: Windmills in England; see also Buckland, ‘Origins’, –.
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... Post-Mill Foundations One of the reasons why post-mills remained so popular was an evolution in their own design—in Hughesian terms, artisans were able to deal effectively with the ‘reverse salients’ of post-mills. The key one here was how to moor the central post of the mill. Having so much weight balanced on one point meant a certain degree of instability, to the extent that the mill in a high wind could tear out its central post and simply fall over, as reflected by the number of windmills described as blown down in the records.²²⁴ Most of the early changes to postmill design seem to have been to try to prevent such catastrophes, and archaeological evidence in particular shows that builders of post-mills changed their methods of securing the mills to the ground with some frequency, for which a plausible sequence is shown in Figure .. During the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries some windmills at least seem to have relied only upon a single post supported by stones or by support posts leaning against it—numbers and in Figure ..²²⁵ Such systems were soon realized to be inadequate and a more secure method was developed of a wooden cross laid out on the ground to which the central post and support trees were attached. Normally, this frame was buried under a pile of earth thus creating the distinctive windmill mound, as shown in number of Figure .,²²⁶ but increasingly over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the tendency was to place the cross-tree foundations on the ground without the earth covering (number ). Sometimes this may have been as simple as to place the windmill cross-trees on stone blocks,²²⁷ but more often they were placed on well-secured stone foundations, as in the case of the Lamport, Northamptonshire, windmill, probably built some time between the late thirteenth and early fifteenth centuries, where a set of stone walls in the shape of a cross and sunk partly into the ²²⁴ As at Cridling, Yorkshire, where the windmill was recorded in – as rendering nothing for that year and five years previously ‘because the said mill was totally thrown down through a wind-storm (per tempestatem venti)’: PRO DL /. ²²⁵ A possible windmill site at Rillington, Yorkshire, may have consisted solely of a central post supported by stones (Huddleston, Rillington, ), while a central post supported by posts leaning against it, which were in turn secured in their own postholes, was seemingly the method to secure the first of the windmill remains excavated at Strixton in Northamptonshire, which had a mid-th-century provenance: Hall, ‘Thirteenth Century Windmill’, –. ²²⁶ As at Sandon Mount, Hertfordshire (Westell, ‘Sandon Mount’) and Great Linford, Buckinghamshire (Zeepvat, ‘Post Mills’), both seemingly built during the th century, and for the second mill built at Strixton, which appears to have been late th or early th century (Hall, ‘Thirteenth Century Windmill’). The windmill at Bridlington, Yorkshire, which is thought to have been first built in the late th century, also had its crosstree base under the soil (Earnshaw, ‘Medieval Post Mill . . . at Bridlington’). The Mucking, Essex, mill, seemingly mid-th century in origin, was likely the same ( Jones, ‘Mucking Windmill’). ²²⁷ As possibly at Honey Hill, Dogsthorpe, in Peterborough: Pearce, ‘Medieval Windmill’, .
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F. .. Evolution of post windmill supports: () single, unsupported post; () central post with supports; () buried trestle with cross-trees; () trench type with notched cross-trees; () raised type on brick or stone piers with cross-trees passing. After Terence Paul Smith, ‘Medieval English Windmill’, , with elaboration by Martin Watts
ground supported the wooden cross-trees and the mill itself.²²⁸ Eventually, the most commonly used method in post-medieval post-mills was to place brick or stone piers under each of the four corners of the cross-trees (number ). There are no signs that the post-mills were bolted to these piers, but seemingly rested freely on them, depending upon the mill’s weight, which was probably increasing over the later Middle Ages, to keep it in place.²²⁹ It is important to note here, too, that this concern over foundations was hardly a function of windmills alone, but characteristic of domestic building as a whole in the later Middle Ages, where increasingly foundations were created of stone instead of ²²⁸ Posnasky, ‘Lamport Post Mill’.
²²⁹ Coutant, Windmill Technology, ch. , esp. p. .
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depending upon the earlier practice of using wooden sill-beams or simply posts stuck into holes, which were all prone to rotting.²³⁰
... The Inner Workings and Housing of Post-Mills Altogether, it appears that medieval craftsmen in England were making steady progress concerning the foundations of post-mills, just as similar sequences of improvements were taking place on the Continent.²³¹ The activity shown in this regard demonstrates the strong response that could take place when medieval practitioners were faced with a serious technological problem (in this case, preventing mills from being blown over). But they were clearly not in love with change for change’s sake. When a particular technology was working well, they were perfectly content to leave it alone. This is perhaps shown most clearly in terms of the inner workings of windmills. Once gearing adjustments had been made to accommodate the different nature of the power source, it seems to have developed into a very enduring system (see Figure .). But the new configuration was not as straightforwardly uncomplicated as it looks. As discussed below, securing the axle (or ‘windshaft’, as it was called in later times²³²), since it was in effect suspended high above the ground, was harder to achieve than in the case of watermills. Similarly, the spindle running down to the millstones had to be secured in some fashion. The obvious solution was to send it right through the two stones to a support beam below, but clearly the length of this new windmill spindle caused problems, both from the stresses in a longer piece of iron and perhaps from the difficulty of securing the rynd to the middle of such a spindle rather than at the end as in the case for watermills. As a result, two spindles were fashioned, one running to the rynd set into the bottom or middle of the top millstone, the other running from the rynd down to the support beam (called, as for watermills, a ‘bridge-tree’). As in the case of watermills, the gap between the stones would be adjusted by wedging up the bridge-tree in some fashion. The dual spindle arrangement, however, meant that some design adjustment had to be made to allow the spindles to be attached to the rynd from above and below, a version of which is shown in Figure ..²³³ In short, a more or less consistently applied design for the internal workings ²³⁰ Dyer, Standards of Living, –. ²³¹ In Flanders, for example, the same progression from buried substructures to substructures raised on piers was taking place approximately during the same time period: Coutant, ‘L’Étude’, –; Coutant, Windmill Technology, ch. . ²³² Wailes, Windmills in England, ; Brown, Windmills of England, , –. ²³³ For the variety of rynds to make this possible, see n. below.
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of post-mills was soon in effect right across England. This extended perhaps to the entire construction of the windmill house itself. An unusually clear description of the way the house and internal workings were put together comes from the construction costs of a new windmill at Burstwick in the Holderness region of eastern Yorkshire in –, a translation of which is given in Appendix . The post-mill here was a very modest structure, perhaps typical of most of those built at the time.²³⁴ Although the exact arrangements of the mill’s underpinnings are not given, it appears from the reference to ‘fattening up the foundation’ of the mill that it was probably of the cross-tree variation buried under a mound of earth. The prominence of the ‘great post’, often called a ‘standard’ elsewhere,²³⁵ is clearly indicated. Made of oak, it was the most massive piece of timber in the mill, probably about feet in diameter.²³⁶ In the Burstwick case an iron plate was secured to the top of it, which would allow it to fit into a circular hole—presumably also lined with iron,²³⁷ although this is not mentioned in the account—in the main horizontal beam across the mill. This beam, later called the crown-tree,²³⁸ and elsewhere referred to as the ‘mill-beam’ or ‘crossbeam’,²³⁹ could thus swivel around on the top of the post, supporting the rest of the mill-house. The bottom of the mill-house also needed to be enclosed around the post to prevent undue motion about the post. The normal method of doing this was to have two horizontal beams, called ‘sheers’ or ‘sheer-trees’, running across the centre of the bottom of the mill-house on either side of the post, with (presumably) two semi-circular indentations in these beams where they enclosed the central post.²⁴⁰ The Burstwick account is particularly good at identifying this arrangement with its reference to the making of two (probably semi-circular) iron collars ‘between the great post and sheer-trees (schertres)’; these collars would fit into the indentations and provide the bottom running surface between the mill-house and the central post as the former revolved around the latter. It also substantially reduced the play between mill-house and ²³⁴ Its construction costs were only £ d., significantly lower than the £ s. d. spent on the Walton, Somerset, windmill in and certainly much less than the de luxe version of a windmill erected at Turweston, Buckinghamshire, for £ s. ½d. in : PRO SC /; Keil, ‘Building a Post Windmill’, ; Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, . ²³⁵ As, for example, at Launton, Oxfordshire, in –: WAM . ²³⁶ As in the th-century Bridlington mill: Earnshaw, ‘Medieval Post Mill . . . at Bridlington’, ; Coutant, Windmill Technology, , suggests that posts in Flemish windmills of the time were about the same size. ²³⁷ Judging from the Flemish experience: Coutant, Windmill Technology, . ²³⁸ e.g. Brown, Windmills of England, ; Wailes, Windmills in England, . ²³⁹ That is, ‘melebem’, as at Leysdown, Kent, in – (CCA DCc Leysdown ); or ‘chrosbem’, as at Adisham, Kent, in – (CCA DCc Adisham ). ²⁴⁰ For useful descriptions of this and other elements of building the mill-house, see Brown, Windmills of England, –, or Wailes, Windmills in England, –. Watts, Water and Wind Power, , shows an excellent photograph of the frame of a post-mill from Normanton, Derbyshire.
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post. The frame of the mill-house itself was built round the crown-tree and sheer-trees with various horizontal and vertical timbers and the whole clothed with weatherboards (‘thakboards’ or ‘shotboards’, as they were normally called).²⁴¹ Although later post-mills tended to have curved roofs, those in the medieval period were straight-pitched (see Plates . and .), which are often described simply as being covered by ‘boards’ (as in the Burstwick case). Given that in the Burstwick case the unit cost for the roof boards was less than a third of those for the walls, these ‘boards’ were probably more akin to wooden shingles. In some cases, imported planks or slats from the Baltic, called ‘estrich boards’, would be used, for both walls and roof, perhaps because these gave better waterproofing qualities.²⁴² As for those parts of the mill that eventually powered the millstones, the Burstwick account is best at describing the sails and mill axle. The sails were apparently made from two long timbers or sailyards that crossed over each other (probably being mortised at the join with the end of the axle), making four sails in all.²⁴³ These sailyards could be quite long, as in the case of the oak virga, or sailyard, of feet bought for the windmill at Bircham, Norfolk, in –,²⁴⁴ which would create individual sail lengths of somewhat greater than feet in the Bircham case, which is comparable to the sail lengths found for other windmills of the time,²⁴⁵ and presumably the sail lengths of the Burstwick mill was about the same. In the Burstwick case a framework of alder withies was attached across the sailyard to create the area of the ‘sail’, and numerous other accounts mention the same in regard to the buying or making of ‘splints’ or ‘bars’ for the sailyards.²⁴⁶ This was seemingly the usual practice in both England and the Continent at this time,²⁴⁷ with the sailyard running down the middle of ²⁴¹ ‘Thakboards’ for clothing the walls of windmills are often recorded for the north (e.g. Barwick,Yorkshire, –: PRO DL /), while ‘shotboards’ seem to have had a more southerly provenance (e.g. Monkton, Kent, –: CCA DCc Monkton ). The Burstwick accounts mentions this in regard to the purchase of ‘ boards for the walls of the same [mill]’ (see App. ). ²⁴² As at Bircham, Norfolk, where estrich boards were used to clothe the walls (–) and roof (–) of the windmill there: PRO SC /, . ²⁴³ The purchase of pairs of sailyards is reasonably common in the accounts, as in the case of the windmill at Owston, Yorkshire, where in – a carpenter felled two small oaks (querculi) and fashioned them into two new ‘sail wands’ (salwandes; also called sayleyerdes in the account), which he attached to the mill axle (PRO DL /). Holt also refers to the purchase of an oak sailyard of feet in length for the windmill at Halvergate, Norfolk, in : Mills, –. ²⁴⁴ PRO SC /. ²⁴⁵ Each of the four Turweston sails were estimated to be around feet in length, comparable to the feet for the sail lengths of the early th-century Bourn Mill in Cambridgeshire, the oldest surviving post-mill in England: Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, n. . ²⁴⁶ Martham, Norfolk, – (‘splints’ for the mill ‘sails’: NRO DCN //); Oakham, Rutland, – ( ‘bars’ for the sailyards: WAM ). ²⁴⁷ Buckland, ‘Technical Notes’, passim (for th- and th-century representations); Holt, Mills, pp. ii, , (for medieval English examples); Coutant, ‘L’Étude’, , – (for Flemish cases).
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this framework. In most cases the ends of the withies were connected by sidebars, running parallel on either side of the sailyard, which were seemingly called portae in the accounts.²⁴⁸ Canvas, simply called ‘cloth’ (tela) in the Burstwick account, but more normally designated elsewhere as ‘canvas’ (that is, cannabus—for cannabis—or canevacium), was usually laid down in a single layer over the windward side of the sails.²⁴⁹ They were probably tied down with string.²⁵⁰ These sail lengths of somewhere between and feet give a sort of minimum height for medieval windmills, since the mills had to be tall enough to allow the sweep of the sail to clear the ground; consequently, it would seem reasonable that most windmills were probably at least feet in height.²⁵¹ This is equivalent to about a two- or three-storey building in our own time, a fact confirmed by the occasional reference to these windmills having as many as three floors.²⁵² Inside the mill a prime concern was to secure the mill axle. In medieval windmills the sails had to be placed in the vertical plane in order to accommodate the prevailing lantern-pinion gearing (see Figure .).²⁵³ This tended to create a significant force tipping the entire mill-house in the direction of the sails as they hung out over the ground. Although this might be counterbalanced somewhat by the wind pushing against the sails when the mill was operating, nonetheless the axle had to be firmly secured to avoid it lifting up under the weight of the sails at one of its ends while allowing it to rotate freely. It is not entirely clear in the Burstwick account how they did this, but the references to iron collars and ‘cods’ (probably metal bolsters or ‘pillows’: see Appendix ) certainly show concern to seat the axle effectively into the upper framework of the mill. Although they are not mentioned, the axle may also have rested in part on stone bolsters, which are recorded for other windmills.²⁵⁴ The cogwheel and lantern-pinion gearing is not mentioned specifically in the Burstwick case, where it seems to have been subsumed in the s. paid for general carpentry work for the mill in the first statement of the account (see Appendix ). It would be of the form shown in Figure ., and the gearing ratio ²⁴⁸ For example, Master John Wright made four portas and two saylwandes for the windmill at Ackworth, Yorkshire, in –: PRO DL /. ²⁴⁹ As well shown in some post-medieval illustrations: e.g. Buckland, ‘Technical Notes’, –. ²⁵⁰ As in the case of the kipstreng’ bought for the windmill at Eaton, Norfolk, in – (NRO DCN //). ²⁵¹ See e.g. the calculations in Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, n. . ²⁵² As in the case of the windmill at Lawling, Essex: see App. . ²⁵³ Only later was gearing designed so that the sails could be angled back against the mill building to lessen the stress: e.g. Wailes, Windmills in England, –. Judging from the illustrations in Coutant, Windmill Technology, this does not seem to have occurred much before the early th century: e.g. pp. , , , . ²⁵⁴ As for the Warmfield, Yorkshire, windmill in –, where d. was paid for putting a stone bolster underneath the axle (vna petra ponenda subtus axem vocata Buldre): PRO DL /.
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was likely to be similar to that for watermills. For example, at Ladbrooke, Warwickshire, in – forty-four ‘cockees’ (presumably cogs) were bought and placed in the rota (that is, cogwheel) of the manor’s windmill. Immediately following this entry in the account was a reference to seven rungs being bought for d.²⁵⁵ Assuming these were the rungs for the lantern-pinion, it suggests a gear ratio of .:, comparable to that for watermills mentioned above. As with other windmills, the Burstwick mill had two spindles, made of iron, as shown in Figure .. The ‘large’ (magnus) spindle was probably the upper (and longer) spindle, which was secured at its top end by a timber called a ‘sprattle beam’.²⁵⁶ From there it descended through the centre of the lantern-pinion (or ‘trundle’ as it again was often called), to which it was attached. The bottom end of this larger spindle descended through the hole in the top millstone and engaged the rynd. As shown in Figure ., it was possibly forked at this lower end to ensure a firm connection with the rynd, although no explicit indication of this has so far been found in the medieval evidence. The smaller or lesser spindle seems to have engaged the rynd from below, while its lower end rested on a support beam, again normally called a ‘bridge-tree’.²⁵⁷ Both spindles were obviously sturdy pieces of iron. The large spindle for the windmill built at East Knoyle, Wiltshire, in – was feet long and inches ‘in width’ (in latitudine, here meaning diameter), while the lesser spindle was feet long (its diameter was not given).²⁵⁸ The bridge-tree was probably hinged at one end to a wall, so that the other end could be adjusted up or down according to the gap required between the millstones. Again, the mechanism for adjusting the gap is unfortunately unclear in the Burstwick and other medieval windmill accounts. It might simply have been a wedge set under the bridge-tree which could be hammered in or loosened as necessary (as suggested for watermills above). As in the case of watermills, a hopper was used for feeding the grain into the hole in the top millstone.²⁵⁹ The grain fell though the gaps in the rynd²⁶⁰ and was propelled by centrifugal force outwards between the grooves and furrows of the stones. Again, the resulting bran and flour fell into a box fitted around the stones, as in watermills often called a ‘loucher’,²⁶¹ and eventually down a spout ²⁵⁵ PRO SC /. ²⁵⁶ See Fig. .; also Coutant, Windmill Technology, . ²⁵⁷ As at Ackworth, Yorkshire, in –, where a ‘brigtre’ for the windmill was made for ½d.: PRO DL /. In some other cases, it is simply referred to as ‘the beam in which runs the spindle of the mill’, as for the windmill at Turweston, where the beam (trabs) was constructed for d.: Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, . ²⁵⁸ HRO M B/. ²⁵⁹ At Adisham, Kent, in – this was described as j box in oculo petre: CCA DCc Adisham . ²⁶⁰ It seems likely that most rynds had four arms to fit into grooves in the upper millstone (see Pl. .) with a collar in the middle to accommodate the spindle: for some good examples, see Watts, Archaeology, . ²⁶¹ As for the windmill at Ackworth, Yorkshire, in – and – (PRO DL /, ).
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into some sort of container. This was graphically indicated for the windmill at Elmsall, Yorkshire, in –, where a carpenter made from new ‘a spout through which the flour descends from the millstones into a chest’.²⁶² In addition, the miller also had a basket (in the case of Burstwick) or chest²⁶³ to keep the portion of the grain that he claimed as the milling fee (multure). Whether medieval English windmills had sack hoists for lifting bags of grain up to the millstones and bags of flour back down again is uncertain, although some illustrations suggest the possibility.²⁶⁴ One of the great uncertainties in the medieval English case is how millers managed to stop windmills. Unlike watermills, where the miller might simply close various sluice-gates to shut off the power supply to the mill-wheel, it was much more difficult to do this for a windmill. Turning the mill sails away from the direction of the wind would undoubtedly slow down the speed of the sails, but it also had the unfortunate effect of tending to rip off the canvas (or worse) once the wind began to get behind the sails.²⁶⁵ In case of severe winds, too, the canvas had to be taken off the sails as soon as possible, and so some method of slowing down, if not stopping, the mill sails was clearly useful so that this could be done. Yves Coutant and Paul Groen have shown how braking systems were introduced to Flemish windmills.²⁶⁶ The original system—that is, from the late fourteenth century²⁶⁷—was of a curved band of wood that partly encircled half or more of the circumference of the cogwheel (or brake-wheel, as it came to be called). One end of the band was attached to a fixed beam near the bottom of the cogwheel, while the other was attached to a heavy horizontal beam hinged to the wall and—when the mill was in operation—held up by a catch. Once it was lifted free of its catch, the beam was allowed to drop and its weight pulled the band around the cogwheel causing it to stop.²⁶⁸ A more ‘positive’ system was introduced to Flemish windmills by at least the early fifteenth ²⁶² . . . vnum spowte per quod farrina descendit a molaribus in arcam multurae (cost d.): PRO DL /. The scribe has confusingly added multurae after arcam, suggesting flour was being taken as multure.This is likely a mistake, since multure was usually taken as grain, for which a separate chest was employed. ²⁶³ The chest (archa), for which a lock was bought for the windmill at Eaton, Norfolk, in –, was probably for multure: NRO DCN //. ²⁶⁴ Perhaps most obviously in the case of the Walsokne Brass windmill, which, although of Flemish provenance, shows what Buckland calls a ‘long manual hoist spindle’, sticking out from just under the front roof peak: ‘Walsokne Brass’, , . ²⁶⁵ e.g. Brown, Windmills of England, . ²⁶⁶ Coutant, ‘L’Étude’, –; Coutant and Groen, ‘Early History’. ²⁶⁷ The earliest references to terms indicating brakes on Flemish windmills date from the late th century onwards (Coutant and Groen, ‘Early History’, (table ) ). Coutant also cites an early th-century reference to brakes in a Zealand windmill, but has not found anything as early as this for Flemish windmills: ‘L’Étude’, . ²⁶⁸ For a diagram of this, see Coutant and Groen, ‘Early History’, . For a good description of this type of brake in post-medieval English windmills, see Brown, Windmills of England, .
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century, where a number of wooden blocks, acting as brake-shoes, were linked in a series around the cogwheel and triggered, it appears, by a sort of pulley system, involving rings, hooks, and straps, that tightened the blocks around the wheel.²⁶⁹ The English medieval evidence, however, is remarkably silent on the matter of windmill brakes. The most likely reference to brakes in the material examined in this study comes from an inventory of the Lawling, Essex, windmill in (see Appendix ). Here the reference to the ‘Fang good and newe’ suggests a brake, both from the possible connection to the Dutch vang meaning brake and the Old English fang, meaning ‘to seize’.²⁷⁰ Otherwise, possible references to brakes are highly circumstantial and must be treated with caution.²⁷¹ This might be partly due to the fact that the great majority of material describing mill repairs falls in the period from the late thirteenth to early fifteenth century, that is, before the major changes in brake technology discerned in the Flemish case. On the other hand, it seems equally possible that English millers at the time made do without brakes, since it was by no means impossible to do, and indeed the small French post-mills called chandeliers, operating into modern times, were known to have functioned without them.²⁷² Some of this may have had to do with the lightness of prevailing winds compared to Flanders or the Netherlands,²⁷³ or it may just have been one of those innovations that was slow to make its way across the Channel. Finally, although windmill builders and operators were seemingly tardy in adopting such features as brakes, there are plenty of signs that they could be innovative in other areas. One was in manoeuvring the mill to face the winds. Presumably from the onset of windmill construction, tailtrees (or tailpoles) were added as a lever for pulling or pushing windmills around until the sails were facing the wind.This needed a considerable amount of human (or perhaps horse) power, and enhancements for making this task easier were soon evident. This could be as simple as having ropes attached to the tailtree,²⁷⁴ but by at least the beginning of the fourteenth century the idea of attaching a wheel to the end of the tailtree, so as to move the windmill more easily by rolling the wheeled ²⁶⁹ Coutant, ‘L’Étude’, ; Coutant and Groen, ‘Early History’, –. See also Hills, Power from Wind, –, for a description of the same for later English windmills, but this time engaged by a pivoted lever. ²⁷⁰ OED v. . ²⁷¹ For example, Keil’s speculation of five poplar boards being used for a brake in the construction of the Walton, Somerset, windmill in is faulty, as the account clearly states that these were used for building a tollchest (for keeping the multure grains): ‘Building a Post Mill’, . ²⁷² Hills, Power from Wind, . ²⁷³ For example, see Hills, Power from Wind, , when comparing winds on the Fens with those in Holland. ²⁷⁴ As, for example, the hemp ropes that were bought ‘to turn the mill’ at Turweston: Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, .
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tailtree along a stone path, caught hold.²⁷⁵ With such ideas as these, by the end of the medieval period the windmill was clearly a well-recognized feature of the medieval English landscape with a well-defined technology. The abovementioned windmill at Lawling is a good example. Built of three floors, it embodied a well-appointed windmill, characterizing a mature technology that would survive for several centuries more.
.. - - Despite the wealth of information we have for examining the technological basis of watermills and windmills, we have relatively little for horse-mills and hand-mills. In both cases this is a misfortune, since horse-mills and hand-mills together made a very significant contribution in providing milling facilities in a wide range of operations. As discussed in Chapter , horse-mills may in fact have increased in number over our period, although their percentages in the sample for Chapter were always small. That they were capable of filling a gap in milling is undeniable, especially in towns or cities, where other sources of energy for milling were probably very stretched. They seem to have been especially used for grinding malt, as at Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire, where a horsemill, powered by one horse only, brought in bushels of malt as multure in a period of six months and twenty days over –.²⁷⁶ Similarly, many of the Southwark breweries had horse-mills in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.²⁷⁷ Many horse-mills were also associated with ovens.²⁷⁸ Since it was similar in gearing to medieval watermills and windmills, it seems likely that these horse-mills were of the type shown in Figure ., where a horizontal cogwheel was powered by the horse (or perhaps horses), which in turn engaged a lantern-pinion attached to the mill-spindle. Given the simplicity of this design, it is perhaps ironic that the best examples of the transmission of technical knowledge in milling occur with horse-mills.Thus, sometime between and the abbot of Glastonbury wrote to Elizabeth de Burgh asking consent to send his carpenter to take the specifications of her horse-mill, which had apparently very much impressed some of his monks.²⁷⁹ Another reference showing ²⁷⁵ Evident in the first version of the Turweston windmill built in : Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, . The th-century windmill excavated at Great Linford, Bedfordshire, might have had a path for such a wheel: Zeepvat, ‘Post Mills’, . ²⁷⁶ Pipe Roll . . . –, . ²⁷⁷ Carlin, Medieval Southwark, . ²⁷⁸ As in the case of the duchy of Lancaster’s horse-mill in Leicester, which was leased by the queen in – on land next to her oven there: PRO DL /. ²⁷⁹ Suggett, ‘Use of French’, .
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again a degree of experiment—but not so successful—involved a horse-mill ‘of new structure and so far unheard of ’ invented by a lay brother, John the Carpenter, of Dunstable Abbey, Bedfordshire, in . It was supposed to be powered by a single horse, but when time came to use it, it was found that four strong horses could scarcely move it, so that the monks elected to go back to their old horse-mill.²⁸⁰ These thirteenth-century examples suggest that, like windmills, horse-mills were the object of much attention at the time and that, notwithstanding the low percentages in our sample, they were probably increasing in number, as indeed the experience in the period – in particular points out (see Section. .. above). Unfortunately, technical details are sparse for horse-mills, which were generally leased out. Nevertheless, a very rare building account for the construction of the above-mentioned horse-mill at Ivinghoe, Oxfordshire, was recorded in the bishopric of Winchester’s pipe roll for –, a translation of which is contained in Appendix . It is very difficult to discern the exact structure of this mill, particularly its internal mechanics, but a few key inferences can be drawn. The first is that a reasonably substantial wattle-and-daub building was created for the horse-mill, using timber stripped from a ruined watermill on the manor. It was likely of at least two floors, the bottom containing the circuit (rotunditas?) around which the horse walked and perhaps the cogwheel and trundle (Figure .). The upper floor would house the millstones. The second point to note is the broad similarity of the internal workings of horse-mills—cogwheel, trundle, spindles, rynd, brass bearings, etc.—with those for watermills and windmills. Whatever adjustments were made for milling by horses fit within a well-defined technical framework for milling as a whole. In a similar vein, large numbers of hand-mills remained in use and provided a valuable function in providing milling facilities and occupations for many in medieval England. Just as spades and hoes have tended unfairly to take a back seat to ploughs and harrows in the perception of historians when considering agricultural production, so too have hand-mills in particular tended to live in the shadow of the larger mills powered by water, wind, or even horses.²⁸¹ Nevertheless, I have estimated elsewhere that per cent of the grains milled in England during the early fourteenth century was being ground in the so-called domestic sector, probably mostly by hand-mills. Much of this grinding also seems to have been done for profit, that is, not primarily for the household.²⁸² ²⁸⁰ Annales Monastici, iii. . I am grateful to Paul Harvey for pointing me to this and the previous reference. ²⁸¹ Only those people who view mills in the context of class struggle have bothered much with handmills: e.g. Dockès, Medieval Slavery, esp. –. ²⁸² Langdon, ‘Lordship’, –.
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F. .. The gearing for a horse-mill
In any case, the recording of hand-mills and querns in medieval inventories, the references to shiploads of imported hand millstones, and the frequent discovery of such stones on archaeological sites clearly testify to their prevalence.²⁸³ A particularly fine illustration of a hand-mill is shown in the Smithfield Decretals of the early fourteenth century (see Plate .). Here the top stone was operated by a long pole, apparently hinged to the ceiling, and placed in a hole set off to ²⁸³ Extents for debt frequently record hand-mills or querns among the debtor’s household effects. As one example among many, John Crook of Thame, Oxfordshire, in had among his goods ‘a hand-mill called a quern’ (unum molendinum manualem vocatum querne), worth d.: PRO C/, no. , m. . For the importation of hand millstones, see Gras, Early English Customs System, , , , . For quern-stones found on archaeological sites, as at Winchester, see Biddle, Object and Economy, ii. –. See also Sect. .. below.
P .. Hand-mill shown in the Smithfield Decretals, c.
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one side in the stone, so that a continuous circular motion could be maintained easily by the operator. A small beam running under the stone clearly acted as the equivalent to the bridge-tree in watermills and windmills in lifting up the top stone so as to adjust the gap between the stones. A basket lay underneath to catch the flour. The rynd, here a single piece of (presumably) iron across the eye of the top stone, is also clearly indicated, demonstrating that some of the more general principles applying to milling as a whole were also evident in hand-mills.²⁸⁴
.. : Altogether, there is a strong sense of ingenuity and intelligence at work on the technical side of the late medieval milling industry. Even in a period not associated with the great innovations in milling, such as the introduction of the windmill, or the initial extension of water power to other uses than just milling grain, there was clearly considerable resilience in identifying technical problems and solving them. This was all accomplished without any formal understanding or inquiry into the scientific principles behind the nature of wind, water, or muscle forces. The questioning spirit of the Renaissance, as indicated by the mechanical musings of da Vinci and others, seems to have affected England lightly until well into the sixteenth century.²⁸⁵ And when someone like Francis Bacon did turn his interest to wind power in the early seventeenth century, it was still at a relatively rudimentary level.²⁸⁶ The scientific ‘intrusion’ into technical matters would clearly have impact in later times, but its effect for prosaic building (including mills) in the Middle Ages was non-existent.The ‘engineers’ or ‘ingenious people’ of medieval Europe were trained in the crafts.²⁸⁷ This meant that innovations were for the most part incremental, created through trial and error or the reaction to specific, often tiny, problems. Only rarely—as in the case of the post windmill perhaps—was there a radical reconceptualization of the way that power—whether by water, wind or muscle—could be captured. ²⁸⁴ Incidentally, although the figure shows a man operating the mill, this is in fact a powerful piece of evidence showing that hand-mills were normally operated by women. The sequence of illustrations that follow show the man kneading the bread into flour, taking the bread to a communal oven to be baked, and then returning home with the loaves, to be beaten by his wife upon his arrival—in other words, the common medieval theme of gender role reversal (BL Royal E. , fos. –). ²⁸⁵ For example, the slow penetration of agricultural treatises from Italy to England: Ambrosoli, Wild and the Sown, –, –. ²⁸⁶ For Bacon’s musings about how air propelled windmill sails, see Hills, Power from Wind, –. ²⁸⁷ Gilles, Renaissance Engineers; Clegg, ‘Craftsmen’; Cardwell, ‘History of Technology’, .
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Nor were even the best of ideas easily absorbed into the corpus of technical ideas about milling. Not only did innovations have to prove themselves in an economic and technical sense, but, in order to become widespread practice, they had to negotiate a critical number of cognitive steps. Number one, some monitoring of solutions was required, presumably by artisans who created them or, perhaps more likely, by those who paid to have them done. Diligence in observing the result of a technical change was particularly important, especially as it might have taken a considerable length of time before any definite verdict could be given (particularly in cases such as the foundations of windmills). It is true that the novelty value of a particular innovation might have encouraged duplication without waiting for experience to attest to its worthiness, but eventually merit had to be proven. In any case, as a second stage, successful or promising experiments or reformulations of old technologies then presumably spread either by the inventing artisan passing his idea to other artisans or, more likely, his apprentices, or by happy customers passing on their experience to other prospective employers. A classic example of the latter was the case of the abbot of Glastonbury’s written inquiry about Elizabeth de Burgh’s horse-mill mentioned above, although it is important to note here that the ultimate conduit for the technical information was the carpenter whom the abbot was sending to view the mill. Thirdly, the idea had to be sufficiently attractive for other craftsmen, like the abbot’s carpenter, to bother copying it and, if it was significantly more expensive to implement, to convince employers to back it financially.This necessity of negotiating at least three cognitive stages or gates²⁸⁸ meant that many very promising ideas possibly never came to fruition or, at best, were restricted to being local variants. Those that did achieve a wider acceptance were those that perhaps had the unusual experience of finding all the cognitive gates at the ‘open’ position. Described this way the process seems very Darwinian, but also very ‘pathdependent’, following the theories of Paul David discussed above, where options for future development were very much constricted by choices made in the past. However, it would not do to underestimate the ingenuity of medieval craftspeople. Certainly, in something like the creation of windmill foundations or water-control systems, a great number of technological ideas and formulations were tried. In the case of post windmills, setting them on stone walls or piers was something that seems to have been ‘selected’ over time, among a ²⁸⁸ Several other ‘gates’ might have been involved. Did the idea have to pass through any literature filter, for instance, such as the agricultural treatises of th- and th-century England, which may have done much to create a conservative frame of mind in medieval English society (Mate, ‘Medieval Agrarian Practices’; Langdon, ‘Was England a Technological Backwater?’, –; Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, –)?
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number of technical options, as best fitting the economic environment (that is, an optimum was achieved in balancing the extra cost of setting post-mills on piers or walls against the stability and hence longer life and lower maintenance costs for the mill in succeeding years—not to mention the safety issue), while at the same time managing to suit the prevailing technical mentality. But did craftspeople and others involved in the construction and maintenance of mills display more direction and mental autonomy than models based on Darwin or David would presuppose? For example, George Basalla, in his Darwinian model of technology, argues that the continual creation of artefacts—caused by the irrepressible fertility of the human mind—is the critical factor behind technological change.²⁸⁹ In Basalla’s view, society will continually select from this parade of artefacts according to economic, social, and cultural criteria, and in many cases the creation of the artefact will spur the need for it.²⁹⁰ But does this steady stream of artefacts actually happen? In this study, in fact, so-called artefactual production seems to have been extremely variable. There was certainly variety in the types of windmill foundation and water-control system, but almost none in such things as cog-and-lantern gear systems. What variety there was in the latter concerned differences in dimensions or quantity—the size of the cogwheel and trundle, the number of cogs and trendstaves—but not in the basic design of the system. Furthermore, such changes were almost certainly connected to the speed desired at the upper millstone, not any dissatisfaction with the basic mechanism. There are certainly many timehonoured designs evident in the medieval milling industry—bridge-trees, axle and bearing design, spindles and rynds, for example—about which there seems to have been considerable satisfaction and which consequently changed little over the centuries. In short, what may be more important here is what artisans did not do rather than what they did. Not doing something about a particular technical detail takes an act of will arguably as strong as that needed to embark upon improvements. In other words, the technical side of the milling industry showed a considerable discrimination in terms of what was dealt with (that is, considered imperfect) and what was not (that is, considered perfect or very nearly so), the two poles of windmill foundations and cog-and-lantern gearing being examples here. Similarly, if the anthropomorphic aspect of fulling-mills can be believed, medieval artisans must have been working towards a perfection which replicated as closely as possible the actions of human foot fulling in machine form. In other words, craftsmen (and particularly carpenters) were ²⁸⁹ As Basalla puts it in uncompromising fashion: ‘The artifact—not scientific knowledge, nor the technical community, nor social and economic factors—is central to technology and technological change’: Evolution of Technology, ; see also –, –. ²⁹⁰ Basalla cites the motor car in this regard: ibid. .
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consciously—and collectively—shaping the internal structures of paradigms, and in this sense a Lamarckian view of evolving towards particular goals within the parameters of the paradigm may be at least as valid as a Darwinian one of throwing up various options that are gradually selected to form it. This brings us to the question of whether paradigms themselves are created or selected. Kuhn himself felt that paradigms were selected in Darwinian style.²⁹¹ Certainly, one fairly obvious thing about the medieval English milling industry was that it was operating under some kind of strongly and coherently defined set of technical principles, which can, I think, be called a paradigm as defined by Kuhn and others. It was clearly dominated by carpenters. The chief designers and supervisors seem always to have been carpenters (see, for example, Table .) and carpentry work dominated in both the construction and maintenance of mills (Tables . and .). Although sometimes a carpenter might share the building responsibilities with a smith or a mill might be built without any clear supervisory structure,²⁹² no other craft achieved anything near the same sort of dominance in the building or maintenance of mills. As far as can be seen, carpenters were almost always considered the chief experts in milling knowledge, as the case of the abbot of Glastonbury sending his carpenter to view Elizabeth de Burgh’s horse-mill testifies. This does not mean that carpenters might not diverge from their chosen material and experiment with (or perhaps be commanded to use) others, as Master Richard seemingly did in building a ‘wall’ of stone for the Turweston mill, or the stone mill-houses for the watermills at Hollingbourne, Bosham, and Helston-in-Kerrier, or the increased use of stone in weirs or water-channels,²⁹³ but clearly their technical philosophy set the tone and direction for the industry. Nor is the presence of such dominating concepts particularly surprising. As we have seen, there are certainly other medieval English examples of an imposed stasis or at least a very focused channelling of technique and practice, such as the treatises on agriculture by Walter of Henley and others,²⁹⁴ which functioned very much as Kuhn’s scientific textbooks did for the establishment of what he called ‘normal’ or paradigm-ruled science in the modern period.²⁹⁵ Even though medieval carpentry—it appears—lacked much in the way of written forms of instruction (like modern textbooks), nonetheless it could generate a technical hegemony of impressive strength and longevity.The creation of this particular carpentry paradigm was certainly Darwinian in the sense that other outcomes were possible. For example, why could not a technology like the ²⁹¹ Structure of Scientific Revolutions, –. ²⁹² See Sect. .. below. ²⁹³ As at Taunton and Farnham in –: Pipe Roll . . . –, –, –. ²⁹⁴ See n. above. ²⁹⁵ Structure of Scientific Revolutions, –.
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mostly stone-built Roman milling complex at Barbegal in France, with its stone water-channels and mill-houses, dated as early as the second century ,²⁹⁶ have continued into the medieval period?²⁹⁷ The disruptions of the postRoman period undoubtedly played a considerable role, and economists might say, for example, that timber was simply the less costly alternative for more straitened times. But I do not think this is necessarily the only reason. The tradition of stone for milling and other hydraulic purposes survived strongly in monastic precincts, for instance,²⁹⁸ so that alternative traditions (like that later for tower mills) did exist. But, for whatever reason, mill-building, including the mill-house itself, drifted towards the great bulk of timber-framed, wattle-anddaub vernacular building, despite the problems of water erosion to which mills were prone. Perhaps this drift is easier to explain in the English context where, when watermills in particular were established during the Anglo-Saxon era, it was a period in which even palaces were timber-framed, which may have overridden the ecclesiastical preference for stone.²⁹⁹ Even in the Barbegal case carpenters were involved in much of the internal gearing and in the building of the waterwheels,³⁰⁰ and so perhaps it was not so much a revolution that occurred in mill construction as a gradual extension of timber for the building of channels and mill-houses, with the resulting increasing domination of carpenters in shaping the way mills were built. By the twelfth century this dominance was so well established that building in wood was pre-eminent in virtually all milling facets, from the mill-house and its internal works to the construction of weirs and water-channels. Other materials were introduced but only, it seems, as absolutely necessary. Other traditions of building, particularly of stone, were limited to the elitist fringe of monastic building or to occasional curiosities, such as, possibly, the windmill at Turweston and the ‘stone windmills’ at Dover, Burton Dassett, and Tanshelf (although, given the gradual discovery of these oddities, there is a danger of writing them off too easily). As the Middle Ages progressed, threats to the dominance of carpenters actually diminished, as monasteries in particular became moribund. It is true that carpenters had always to bow to those who employed them, and some influence from patrons is evident in the various contracts between carpenters and millwrights and their ²⁹⁶ Sellin, ‘Large Roman Water Mill’; Hodge, ‘Roman Factory’; Leveau, ‘Barbegal Water Mill’. ²⁹⁷ Roberta Magnusson comments on the survival of Roman water systems into the medieval period: ‘By the late ninth and tenth centuries the thread of technological continuity had become seriously frayed, but it does not seem to have completely snapped.’ She goes on to say, however, that the new complex water systems starting in the th century, despite possible Roman origins, ‘were, for all practical purposes, innovations’: Water Technology, . ²⁹⁸ Coppack, Abbeys and Priories, ch. , esp. pp. –; Aston, Monasteries, ch. ; see also Richard Holt’s comments on the medieval stone-built watermill at Abbotsbury, Dorset: Mills, , –. ²⁹⁹ Rahtz, ‘Building and Rural Settlement’. ³⁰⁰ Hodge, ‘Roman Factory’, –.
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employers,³⁰¹ but it seems clear that the technical discretion clearly lay in the hands of the carpenter. From this position of strength, they largely dictated the direction of milling technology, removed any critical ‘reverse salients’ (such as the foundations of post-mills and the construction of weirs and sensitive waterchannels), and effectively kept rival craft interests at bay. It should also be said that they were in large part able to do this because much of the expertise in constructing mills was part of the greater tradition in domestic building as a whole. Following on from what has just been said, it does seem obvious that medieval milling comprised a large technological system. I have just discussed the creation of a dominant, paradigmatic mentality ruling the technical side of the industry, and, as we shall see in succeeding chapters, the range of ‘actors’ involved in the activity was very extensive and highly influential in shaping the social and mental environment in which the activity functioned. As I shall discuss in the next chapter, the question of supply, from millstones through to wood and metal products, was also a very extensive and wide-reaching one, as was, critically, the issue of standardization for many of these materials. Perhaps most tellingly the system showed all the signs of wishing to maintain its technological conformity, just as established technologies do today. The desire to eliminate ‘reverse salients’ seems to have been strong in the medieval milling industry, particularly in the area of post-mill supports and in water-control systems. Finally, the technological system as represented by medieval milling had a momentum of sorts. As Thomas Hughes has noted with more modern technological systems: Technological systems, even after prolonged growth and consolidation, do not become autonomous; they acquire momentum.They have a mass of technical and organizational components; they possess directions or goals; they display a rate of growth suggesting velocity. A high level of momentum often causes observers to assume that a technological system has become autonomous. Mature systems have a quality that is analogous, therefore, to inertia of motion.³⁰²
Although the issues of growth and goals in this passage do not find exact parallels in the medieval situation, particularly in view of the savage demand shock brought on by the plague, nonetheless the medieval milling industry did show considerable impetus. Far from being destroyed by the plague, it maintained its infrastructure of personnel and materials and underwent significant technical adjustment through the building of such things as many more industrial mills. ³⁰¹ Contracts for all sorts of building were made in the Middle Ages. For a particularly fine sample of these, see Salzman, Building in England, App. (pp. –). The ones for mills are on pp. –, , –, –, and . See also Table . below. ³⁰² Hughes, ‘Evolution’, .
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As we shall see in Chapter , it was able to attract new classes of entrepreneurs even when direct seigneurial interest began to fail and, again in Chapter , a body of law gradually built up around milling that very much reinforced its particular direction. Once established, the system seems to have had its own very distinctive and powerful course. As befitting an early society, the creation, consolidation, and eventual weakening of this technological system is something that took place over a much longer period than it would today, but nonetheless it seems to fulfil the kind of model that has characterized the creation of large technological systems in more recent centuries.
The Operation of Milling
v T purpose of this chapter is to look at mills as they actually functioned during the later Middle Ages.This gives rise to a number of questions that have only been examined peripherally by historians to date.¹ How much grain per day were individual mills capable of processing? How effectively did they process this grain in terms of the quantity and quality of products yielded? How much grain was the entire industry capable of processing? What ancillary services and specialities might mills have offered? What supply networks did they have to establish? All of these are just as important to the understanding of the functioning of mills as the technological issues discussed in the previous chapter. We can also investigate how closely estimates of grain processed matched up with population levels during the period. In terms of organizing the chapter, I shall consider, first, the actual operation of mills in terms of capacity and efficiency and the range of services they offered and, secondly, the role of suppliers, particularly for timber and millstones.
.. ... The Capacity of Mills I shall start this discussion by looking at a couple of statements made by medieval contemporaries concerning the likely throughput of mills. The first occurred in a court case of – concerning damage to a watermill at Luffincott, Devon, which the plaintiff claimed ‘used to grind by the wheel eight quarters [that is, bushels at the usual bushels per quarter] of all kinds of ¹ Only a few studies have examined this aspect of milling in much detail, the best being Moritz, Grain-Mills, esp. pt. , and Kaplan, Provisioning Paris, esp. ch. .
The Operation of Milling
grain by day and night’.² In a similar comment in the same county, but over a century later, the watermills in the town of Tavistock in were also said to be able to grind quarters of grain within a twenty-four hour period.³ How seriously should we take these statements? Given that the Luffincott case in particular may have been influenced by legal hyperbole, it may be difficult to take either of these statements at their word, although the fact that they gave identical figures does suggest that they were part of a regional (if not national) perception about the capacity of mills. But we do have some documents to provide a check.The most direct are provided by purveyance accounts, which record the collection of food and other necessaries for war. Wheat in particular was often milled and placed into barrels as flour before being sent by ship to wherever the king requested it. For the most part this milling was done in a great hurry, often it appears on a twenty-four-hour per day basis, and as a result it gives some indication of maximum throughput rates for mills. Of the purveyance campaigns before ,⁴ six revealed substantial milling details, involving eleven different sets of mills, as contained in Table .. The mill throughputs varied considerably. Part of this may be due to uncertainties in the calculations, because it was not stated in all cases how many mills were involved or their type. The highest rate occurred at Dorchester, rounding off to quarters per day per ‘mill’, while the lowest was for the six watermills and four windmills around Kingston upon Hull, where about 1/3 quarters per day per mill were ground, a very leisurely pace compared to all the other milling sites. The figures which were most obviously from a rush job came from the milling of quarters of wheat split between the mills at Hanham, just east of Bristol, and at Trivel Mills⁵ within Bristol itself in , which yielded rates from nearly quarters to nearly quarters per day. Here pounds of candles were bought for milling during the night at both sites.⁶ Since this seemingly took place in August,⁷ when night-time hours were relatively short, it suggests something close to twenty-four-hour operation. The similarity of these figures with those for the two mills near Southampton and to a lesser extent with the Worcestershire mills at Hawford and Powick suggest that something like – quarters per day was reasonable for a mill with a single set of millstones running flat out at twenty-four hours a day, and that the lower figures for the watermills ² Year Books, Edward III, Part I, . ³ Finberg, Tavistock Abbey, . ⁴ Very few accounts survive for purveyance campaigns after the plague: see Langdon, ‘Inland Water Transport’, . ⁵ Seemingly watermills belonging to St Augustine Abbey: A. H. Smith, Place-Names of Gloucestershire, iii. . Only one set of stones appears to have been operating, judging from the figures in Table .. ⁶ PRO E /. ⁷ Storage in Bristol for quarters of grain was purchased for July– August; it is likely that the milling took place towards the end or immediately after this period.
The Operation of Milling
T .. Mill throughput figures from purveyance accounts Location of mill(s)
Year(s)
No. and type of mills
No. of. qrs. milled
No. of days’ millinga
No. of qrs. per day per mill
Meaux, Yorkshire Unnamed mills near Southampton Unnamed mills near Kingston upon Hull Hanham (nr. Bristol) Trivel mills (in Bristol) Dorchester, Dorset Martock, Somerset Taunton, Somerset Hawford, Worcestershire Powick, Worcestershire
– –
WA?b Prob. Mc
. .
. .
WA WD WAd WAd M Me Me M
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
M
.
.
Note: WA = watermill; WD = windmill; M = mill (type unspecified, but probably all watermills here); qrs. = quarters (= bushels each). a
Indicated from the number of days’ wages paid to the men supervising the milling process. Probably Ashdyke Mills on the Hull: Lewis, ‘Mills of Meaux’, –. Lewis thinks there were two sets of stones operating at Ashdyke, although, from the number of sluices, three might have been possible (p. ). c Two men were hired as supervisors indicating two different milling sites. d Described only as ‘mills’, but boats took grain to them, so presumably they were watermills. e One person supervising, so presumably only one mill site was involved. b
Sources (in order as in table): PRO E / (–); E/, m. (–); E/, m. (); E / (); E / (); E / ().
and windmills around Kingston upon Hull might be appropriate for a more normal working day. Accordingly, the higher rates associated with Meaux, Dorchester, Martock, and Taunton might in some cases at least have been socalled ‘multiple mills’ with more than one set of millstones under a single roof. If so, it might bring the rates per set of millstones for each of these mills more or less in line with the others,⁸ although this must remain speculative. In any case, it would appear that the figure of quarters per day per mill given by the Devon cases above was not wildly out of line. Finally, it is interesting to note ⁸ If the Dorchester, Martock, and Taunton ‘mills’ had two sets of stones each it would reduce the rates for these cases to ., ., and . quarters per day per set of millstones respectively. Also, as the notes for Table . indicate, there may have been three rather than two sets of millstones at Meaux; if so, it would lower the rate there to . quarters per day per set of stones.
The Operation of Milling
from the watermills and windmills around Kingston upon Hull and the data from Table . that the output from watermills and windmills was roughly equivalent. This suggests that the limiting factor for mill productivity was the amount that physically could be put through the millstones and not the nature of the power source. It is important to note, too, that these ten cases were almost certainly for single sets of stones, especially in the case of the windmills, since accommodating multiple sets of millstones from a single wind-powered shaft was only developed in the post-medieval period.⁹ A more indirect measure of mill throughput, especially at more normal operating levels than for the purveyance accounts, can be provided from the amount of grain that mills received as multure. These figures are routinely provided in manorial accounts when the mill was run directly for the lord by a hired miller (or millers), and in most cases record the grains received as multure during an entire year from the end of one harvest (usually Michaelmas: September) to the end of the next.¹⁰ One of the advantages of the accounts is that they usually indicate quite clearly how many sets of millstones were involved, and so in this aspect at least supply a more secure common base for analysis. Table . shows these calculations for four milling establishments over extended periods from three to sixteen years. Such extended examination over time of particular mills is useful for getting a sense of the range of operation from year to year, particularly in the Feering case, where a very long stretch (sixteen years) of nearly consecutive accounts was available. The complicating factor is that there is no indication for any of these cases of the rate of multure charged to the customer. (Nor, incidentally, do we know much grain was milled for free—for, say, the lord—or if any multure grains were pilfered by the miller.) Concerning the fraction of the grain taken as multure, 1/16 has often been considered by historians as the most common rate across the country.¹¹ But in fact multure rates were extremely variable, and, as in Chapter and Appendix below, broadly applicable rates tended to range from 1/13, a very common rate in the far North of England, to perhaps as low as 1/32 in the South. Since all the manors in Table . are in the southern part of the country, lower fractions than 1/16 probably applied. Indeed, as discussed in Chapter (Section ..), the Statute of Bakers recommended rates of 1/20 or 1/24, according to the strength of the water-course, and
⁹ Only from about onwards did it become commonplace for post- and tower mills to have more than one set of stones: Hills, Power from Wind, , , –, . ¹⁰ Sometimes mills were leased out for grain rents, particularly in East Anglia and Kent, the payment of which can be confused with multure grains, since they both appeared in the grain sections on the dorse of accounts. The best clue for the direct running of a mill in these cases are wages paid to a miller or millers. ¹¹ e.g. H. S. Bennett, Life on the English Manor, ; Farmer, ‘Millstones’, .
T .. Mill throughputs over time on four selected manors Manor
Years covereda
No. and type of millsb
Range of qrs. of multure received per year per millc
Range of qrs. of grain processed per year per milld
Range of qrs. of grain processed per day per mille
@ 1/16
@ 1/20
@ 1/24
@ 1/16
@ 1/24
Bristol, Gloucestershire
– ()
WA
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
Feering, Essex
– ()
WA
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
Oakham, Rutland
– ()
WD
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
Turweston, Buckinghamshire
– ()
WD
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
.–. (.)
Note: WA = watermill; WD = windmill; qrs. = quarters (= bushels each). a
Figures in parentheses indicate the number of full account-years. The number of ‘mills’ is effectively equivalent to the number of millstone sets. For instance, the multiple watermills at Feering and Bristol were in both cases on one site. Thus, in the Feering case, two separate sets of millstones were driven by two separate water-wheels and were considered in the documents as ‘two water-mills’. c The figures in parentheses indicate the mean number of quarters per year. d Assuming this multure rate. The figures in parentheses indicate the mean number of quarters per year. e Assuming working days per year for both multure rates given below. Figures in parentheses indicate the mean number of quarters per day. b
Sources: Accounts . . . of Bristol Castle, – (Bristol); WAM – (Feering); WAM – (Oakham); WAM – (Turweston).
The Operation of Milling
these seem plausible rates for the more competitively oriented South of the country. For the purposes of the table, it was decided to estimate yearly throughputs assuming three different multure rates—1/16, 1/20, and 1/24—in order to provide a range of possible experiences. In addition, daily outputs for the 1/16 and 1/24 multure rate levels were calculated assuming working days per year for the mill. Given that mills were often down for Sundays, major feast days, or for repairs, this would seem a reasonable estimate of the average number of days per year (at normal daytime operation) which a watermill, windmill, or even horse-mill would work. The four cases in Table . operated within a fairly well-defined range, the multure received for any particular year almost always being within per cent of the mean. Fairly thriving enterprises like the watermills at Feering and Bristol or the windmill at Oakham had an upper range per set of millstones in excess of or even quarters per year, depending upon the multure rate that might have applied, while more modest performers, such as the watermills at Bristol (surprising since they were in the middle of the city, but see also below) or the windmill at Turweston, which became a notable under-achiever as time went on,¹² might have been as low as quarters per year (per set of millstones) or less. At an assumed working days per year, daily throughputs had the potential of ranging from less that quarter per day up to about ½ quarters per day. This is more or less in line with the performance of the ten mills around Kingston upon Hull in Table ., where a normal day’s operation seems to have been in effect. Table . also provides a selection of eighteen manors for which the multure taken in a single year was abstracted. In general, they seem to confirm the rates shown in Table ., with estimated daily throughput rates ranging mostly between and ½ quarters per day. But there was considerable variability. The lowest was recorded for the windmill at Ashford, Middlesex, a failing venture which became derelict in .¹³ Others, such as the watermill at Monks Eleigh or the windmill at Beddingham, seemed to be faring little better. On the other hand, the windmills at Gringley on the Hill and at Launton seemingly operated at very high levels, possibly processing in excess of quarters per day for a -working-day year. We might consider quarters per day as just about a maximum for normal daytime operation. One thing that stands out from all these figures is how well millstone sets powered by wind stood up against those powered by water. In Table . the top four performers, per set of millstones, were all windmills (Gringley, Launton, Weston, and Swaton). Where water-powered milling establishments had the ¹² Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’.
¹³ WAM .
T .. Single-year mill throughputs on selected manors Manor
Appledore, Kent Ashford, Middlesex Beddingham, Sussex Great Chart, Kent Gringley on the Hill, Nottinghamshire Kingsbury, Somerset Launton, Oxfordshire Lostwithiel, Cornwall Melbourne, Derbyshire Monks Eleigh, Suffolk South Thoresby, Lincolnshire
Year
No. and type of mills
Qrs. of multure received per mill per year
Qrs. of grain processed per mill per yeara
Qrs. of grain processed per mill per dayb
@ 1/16
@ 1/20
@ 1/24
@ 1/16
@ 1/24
– – – – –
WD WD WD WA WD
.c . . .c .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
– – – – – –
WA WD WA WA WA WD
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
Studley, Warwickshire Swaton, Lincolnshire Todenham, Gloucestershire Trematon, Cornwall Waithe, Lincolnshire West Farleigh, Kent Weston, Huntingdonshire
– – – – – – –
WA WD WA WA WA WA WD
. . . . . .c .d
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
Note: WA = watermill; WM = windmill; M = ‘mill’ (type unspecified); qrs. = quarters (= bushels each). a b c d
Assuming this multure rate. Assuming working days per year for both multure rates given below. Given in ‘seams’, which are here assumed to be the same as quarters (i.e. usually containing bushels apiece). Given in ‘rings’, which are here assumed to be the same as quarters.
Sources: CCA DCc Appledore (Appledore); WAM (Ashford); ESRO Glynde MSS A (Beddingham); CCA DCc Great Chart (Great Chart); PRO SC / (Gringley on the Hill); PRO DL /, m. (Kingsbury); WAM (Launton); PRO SC / (Lostwithiel); PRO DL /, ms. –v (Melbourne); CCA DCc Illeigh (Monks Eleigh); PRO DL /, m. (South Thoresby); PRO SC / (Studley); PRO DL /, m. (Swaton); WAM (Todenham); PRO SC / (Trematon); PRO DL /, m. (Waithe); CCA DCc West Farleigh (West Farleigh); PRO SC / (Weston).
The Operation of Milling
advantage over windmills, of course, was in being able to power more than one waterwheel without having to erect an entirely new milling operation. As a result, although a water-powered facility like that at Bristol processed significantly less grain per set of stones than, say, a wind-powered facility like that at Oakham, cumulatively it did twice as much as Oakham, since its four sets of stones together generated an average of quarters multure per year (at ½ quarters each) compared to the quarters on average for Oakham. Put another way, watermills were more able to achieve economies of scale than windmills. This phenomenon is most obvious in the two Cornwall cases in Table ., where the production from the individual sets of millstones at Trematon and Lostwithiel were seemingly below average, although as overall establishments, with all sets of stones taken into account, they ranked with the best of the windmills. These conclusions should be taken with caution, however. Many other factors may have been involved, not least the type of millstone being used. As we shall see, lower-valued indigenous millstones were more often used in Cornwall, for instance, stones which may well have had to be powered more lightly for reasons of wear or fragility. How effective would the throughput rates indicated above be in meeting the grain-processing and overall nutritional needs of the country? Averaging the throughputs (that is, of all grains including malt) per set of millstones for the various mills in Table . and . gives figures of quarters assuming a multure rate of 1/16, quarters assuming a rate of 1/20 and quarters assuming a rate of 1/24. Let us start with the assumption that the average multure rate for the country as a whole was 1/16. If we assume that quarters was the average amount of grain processed by one set of millstones per year, then knowing the total number of sets of millstones in England about would give us some idea of the total throughput for the country. We have some sense of this number from the number of mills known to have existed in England at the time. At the moment this estimate is somewhere between , and , mills, with a growing suspicion, as indicated in Chapter , that it should probably be closer to ,. Of these mills, however, about per cent were used for other purposes than grinding grain—that is, for industrial processes such as fulling—in the first decade of the fourteenth century (see Tables . and .). Eliminating these reduces the range of the number of mills for grinding grain down to , to ,. By multiplying these ,–, mills by , we get an estimated total throughput range of ,,–,, quarters per year. This, however, does not exhaust all the facilities for grinding grain, since handmilling in particular probably contributed significantly to the grinding facilities available to the country. Elsewhere I have estimated that the ‘domestic’ (that is, mostly hand-milling) sector contributed at least per cent to the grinding and
The Operation of Milling
that this was probably an underestimate.¹⁴ If we assume that this sector, in fact, did a third of all grain milling, a generous estimate but by no means impossible, then the total grain ground per year would rise by per cent, giving a range of ,,–,, quarters ground per year. By the same process, assuming an average multure rate of 1/20 across the country as a whole would yield a range of ,,–,, quarters (that is, at quarters per set of millstones), while an assumed multure rate of 1/24 would produce a range of ,,–,, quarters (that is, at quarters per set of millstones). Which of these ranges is the most probable? This depends upon which of the above multure rates—1/16, 1/20, or 1/24—is considered the most representative across the country as a whole. As we shall see in Chapter , 1/16 is probably too large, being restricted to a group of counties across the northern Midlands.The rate of 1/24 is almost certainly more representative of the experience in the South of the country, but it does not factor in the higher rates in the North, reaching 1 13 / or thereabouts in the most northerly counties in the country. On balance, it would appear that 1/20 was the fraction that would accommodate both the southern and northern experiences, and it is this rate I shall use for the following computations. If this is so, then the country’s mills were probably grinding something in the range of ,,–,, quarters as calculated for the 1/20 multure rate above. What level of population would this amount of grinding have supported about ? Christopher Dyer has estimated that the average grain consumption per person was probably at least ½ quarters ( bushels) per year.¹⁵ Not all of this was necessarily ground, since much grain (especially oats, legumes, and possibly unmalted barley¹⁶) might have been boiled whole (that is, unground) to be consumed as pottage (a sort of grain soup or stew) or porridge. It is very difficult to be precise about what proportion of grain was consumed without grinding. Dyer has indicated from aristocratic household accounts that the amounts spent on potential pottage grains were generally per cent or less of total expenditure on food, including meat, but if only expenditures on grain are considered, this could rise to over per cent.¹⁷ For peasant households, we might expect this to be higher, and maintenance agreements (for supporting ‘retired’ peasants after they had bequeathed their holdings to their children or other successors) suggest that grains with the strong potential for being used in pottage might comprise up to a half or more of the amounts of grain (by volume) specified in the agreements.¹⁸ But it seems unlikely that the majority ¹⁴ ¹⁶ ¹⁷ ¹⁸
Langdon, ‘Lordship’, –. ¹⁵ Dyer, ‘English Diet’, esp. ; id., Standards of Living, –. Dyer, Standards of Living, –. As in the case of the Berkeley household account for –: Dyer, Standards of Living, (table ). Dyer, ‘English Diet’, ; id., Standards of Living, .
The Operation of Milling
or even a significant minority of grains would have been left unground. Pottage grains scarcely figured in the food provided for harvest workers, for instance,¹⁹ and so-called pottage grains, such as barley, oats, and legumes, were often ground (see Table .). Partly for ease of calculation, it has been assumed that a third of the grains produced in England about was consumed as pottage, likely a very generous estimate, but that the remaining two-thirds were ground in mills. If this is so, then each member of population required quarter of grain ground on average. If this is the case, then the throughput figures above suggest that the grain milling industry about was potentially providing enough ground grain to satisfy a population nearing million. But the upper range of the throughput figures is based upon very optimistic assumptions about the number of mills, and it seems likely that the actual amount ground may been somewhat less than this. Indeed, if we took the middle of the range between ,, and ,,—that is, ,,—as being more likely, then the amount of grain being milled across England about was just about sufficient for the needs of ½ million people. Given the assumptions that have to be made, such calculations as these can hardly be considered as precise. Assuming a lower overall multure rate—say 1/24—would certainly allow more optimistic figures in terms of the number of people whose needs for flour and ground malt were being satisfied at the start of the fourteenth century. On the other hand, it could be argued that the quarter per person average of grain being ground is decidedly modest. Stretching it up to ½ quarters of ground grain required per person—not a totally implausible figure, especially if the amount eaten as pottage was markedly less than indicated above—would have a dramatic effect, pulling the ,, figure above down to ,,. Given that we also gave a generous proportion for the amount ground by hand-mills, we probably should be very cautious about reinforcing some of the more optimistic figures for population level in early fourteenth-century England, ranging up to million.²⁰ More recent assessments, such as that by Campbell, Galloway, Keene, and Murphy, putting the English population about perhaps as low as million,²¹ are by no means ruled out by the milling figures presented here, especially if we accept the , mill figure around as being the more likely. One thing that is very clear, however, is that there was a very notable excess of grain milling capacity around . Many of the mills in Tables . and . were clearly operating far below maximum capacity. This might not be so surprising in the case of out-of-the-way places such as Turweston in Buckinghamshire, but that Ashford in Middlesex was also a very light ¹⁹ Dyer, Standards of Living, (fig. ). ²¹ Campbell et al., Medieval Capital, –.
²⁰ e.g. AHEW ii. –.
The Operation of Milling
performer—in an area of very high population density (for the times)—is perhaps symptomatic of the over-supply of milling services at the beginning of the fourteenth century. If we assume that quarters ( bushels) per day per set of millstones or over indicate busy (and presumably profitable) enterprises, then only eleven (or one-half ) of the manors in Tables . or . were in that lucky category, even assuming a multure rate of 1/24. These indicators of underperformance are supported by complaints of hard times by milling proprietors in the early fourteenth century, often brought on by the competition from neighbouring enterprises.²² Whether this was because of over-investment in milling facilities,²³ or to a marked decline of grain production and also possibly population from as early as the s,²⁴ is a matter for further debate.
... What Mills Were Grinding In terms of the clientele they served and the nature of the grains they processed, corn-mills, whether powered by water, wind, horse, or by hand, can perhaps be divided into two groups. The first were small-scale, mostly rural mills that catered to local clientele, bringing in, it appears, small amounts of grain for processing, mostly for subsistence needs, and for which, as we shall see, a fairly uniform product was delivered.The second group comprised more specialist mills, or sometimes more specialized sets of millstones within a single milling operation, and were especially notable in urban situations. In eighteenth-century France, as Steven Kaplan has noted, these two groups represented ‘coarse’ milling (that is, accepting all grains and producing a one-pass product of mixed bran and flour, as most rural mills did) versus ‘economic’ milling (specializing in certain grains or producing certain grades of flour, as many urban mills did).²⁵ Kaplan sees ‘economic’ milling as increasing notably from the mid-eighteenth century in France, but nonetheless having a long prehistory where specialization in grinding, leading particularly to different bread products, was evident as early as the sixteenth century.²⁶ As we shall see shortly, one can easily extend this back to the beginning of the fourteenth century or even earlier, since manorial and other accounts clearly show some mills at least specializing in certain types of grain or trying to deliver a cleaner (i.e. more free of bran) product. The wealth of information about multure returns from those mills that were operated directly for lords promises considerable elucidation about these issues. Unfortunately, multure returns are most often not very forthcoming about the types of grain the mill received. For example, all the multure returns for the ²² e.g. Langdon, ‘Lordship’, . ²³ I have argued this in Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, esp. . ²⁴ e.g. Dyer, Standards of Living, –. ²⁵ Provisioning Paris, –. ²⁶ Ibid. –.
The Operation of Milling
Feering watermills in Table . simply refer to the quarters of grain they received as ‘mixed’ or as ‘issues’ for the mill. Even when multure returns are more detailed, as at Turweston, Buckinghamshire, the ‘mixed’ version of the grain tends to dominate.²⁷ As I speculated in relation to the Turweston case, most of the grain taken for multure was probably thrown together into one bag, the casual attitude to these mixed grains probably being conditioned by the fact that they were only destined for the manorial servants as liveries (that is, wages in food). Only those grains or grains products (wheat, malt) that could be sold for a good price were consciously kept apart. In some cases, however, the grains taken as multure were specified much more rigorously, and a selection of these cases is given in Table .. Perhaps the most surprising thing to come out of Table . is the great range of multure products coming from mills, depending upon region and the scale of operation. There are many curiosities in the table. Perhaps the oddest occurred at South Thoresby and Waithe, Lincolnshire, in –, where the mill issues (totalling quarters and bushels for both manors) were entered under the peas and beans sections. It may be that the scribe entered the mill issues here for convenience and that mixed grains were meant, but the grinding of legumes was known for other manors (although usually in small quantities; see under Dee Mills in Table .). At Henbury-in-Salt-Marsh, Gloucestershire, for instance, in , bushels of pulse were fed to a boar, of which bushels were milled.²⁸ Similarly, quarters and bushels of Northamptonshire beans were milled for Edward II’s abortive campaign to France in –, perhaps to be baked into horse-bread.²⁹ For pigs, such ground legumes were probably mixed with water and given to them in the form of swill. Thus, in the case of the Lincolnshire manors above, the grinding of peas and beans may have been part of a regional specialization in swine husbandry. The manors of Peterborough Abbey, not far from South Thoresby in particular, specialized in swine production for the consumption needs of the abbey, as did other monastic houses in the area.³⁰ The most basic specialization, however, was between the milling of bread and drink grains. In Table . drink grains (that is, barley and various malt products) were very prominent. The mills of twelve of the twenty-two communities listed in the table had barley and/or malt products totalling over per cent of ²⁷ At Turweston per cent of the grain received as multure was described as a ‘mill mixture’ (mixtura de molendino): Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, . ²⁸ Hereford and Worcester Record Office, ref. : BA . I am grateful to Christopher Dyer for giving me access to his notes for this reference. ²⁹ PRO E/, m. v. For the growing popularity of horse-bread in the th century, see Campbell et al., Medieval Capital, ; Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, . ³⁰ Biddick, Other Economy, –; Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, –, –.
T .. Multure returns from various mills (grain and grain product figures in percentages) Oatsb
Pilcornc
Maltd
st grade malte
— — — — . —
— — — — — .
— — — — — —
— — — — .k .
— — — — — —
—
—
.g
—
.
— —
. —
— —
— .
— —
— — — —
— — — .
. . . —
— — — —
— .g — .
—
.
—
—
—
–
.
—
.
—
– –
— —
— —
. —
— —
Manor
Year
Wheat
Maslina
Rye
Barley
Appledore, Kent Beddingham, Sussex Chartham, Kent Cliffe, Kent Dee Mills, Chester Denham, Buckinghamshire Donington, Lincolnshire Downton, Wiltshire Feckenham, Worcestershire Hollingbourne, Kent Kingsbury, Somerset Lullingham, Sussex Melbourne, Derbyshire Middleton, Oxfordshire Monk’s Eleigh, Suffolk Pyrford, Surrey South Thoresby, Lincolnshire
– – – – – –
. . . . . .
— — — — . .
— — — — — —
. . . . — —
–
.
—
.
– –
. —
— .
– – – –
. . . .
–
Peas and beans
nd grade maltf
Barley malt
Oats malt
Others
— — — — — —
— — — — — —
— — — — . —
— — — — .l —
—
—
—
—
.h
— .
. —
. —
— —
— —
— —
— — — —
— . — .
— — — —
— — — —
— — — —
— — — —
— — — —
—
—
.
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
— .
. —
— —
. —
— —
— —
— —
— —
— —
T .. Continued Manor
Year
Wheat
Maslina
Rye
Taunton with members,i Somerset Thornham, Norfolk Town Mill, Whitchurch, Shropshire Trematon, Cornwall Waithe, Lincolnshire
–
.
.
—
—
– – –
. . —
— . —
— — —
– –
. —
. —
— —
a b c d e f
st grade malte
nd grade maltf
Barley malt
—
.
.
—
—
—
— — —
— — —
— . —
— . —
— — .
— — .
— — .j
. —
— —
. —
. —
— —
— —
— —
Oatsb
Pilcornc
—
—
.
. — —
— — —
— . —
— —
— .
— —
Barley
Peas and beans
Wheat and rye mixture (mixtilio, etc.); not to be confused with mixtura, meaning mixed grains in general. Received as oatmeal. Naked oats. Unspecified as to grade or type (i.e. barley or oats). Braseum capitale. Braseum cursale.
g h i
j k l
Maltd
Oats malt
Others
Given as farina in the Oats section; presumably oatmeal. ‘Dust’ (pulvis). i.e.Taunton, Obridge, Langford, Pitminster,Trull, Kingston St Mary, and Nailsbourne. Wheat malt. ‘Femalt’ (barley malt?) plus malt dust. Flour and dust.
Sources: CCA DCc Appledore (Appledore); ESRO Glynde MSS A (Beddingham); CCA DCc Chartham (Chartham); CCA DCc Cliffe (Cliffe); PRO DL / (Dee Mills, Chester); WAM (Denham); PRO DL /, m. (Donington); HRO M B/, m. v (Downton); PRO SC / (Feckenham); CCA DCc Hollingbourne (Hollingbourne); PRO DL /, m. (Kingsbury); PRO SC / (Lullingham); PRO DL /, m. v (Melbourne); PRO DL /, m. (Middleton); CCA DCc Illeigh (Monks Eleigh); WAM (Pyrford); PRO DL /, m. v (South Thoresby); HRO M B/, m. (Taunton with members); NRO DCN // (Thornham); Shropshire Records and Research Centre/, Box , no. ; Box , no. (Town Mill, Whitchurch, – and –); PRO SC / (Trematon); PRO DL /, m. v (Waithe).
The Operation of Milling
the total multure received, and virtually all manors had a sizeable proportion of their multure returns in drink grains of some sort. Also prominent, though, were mills seemingly devoted to bread grains (wheat, maslin, and rye). The multure returns from at least four communities in Table . revealed more than per cent of bread grains, and the number of such places may well have been greater if some of the barley found on other manors was destined for bread as well. This inclusion of both drink and bread grains for many mills might suggest that they were servicing a predominantly subsistence economy, but there is often a strong sense of specialization. This is particularly accentuated in those cases where the mills were leased and the rents paid in particular types of grain, reflecting reflect strong regional tendencies. Thus barley dominated as grain rents for mills in Kent and Norfolk, wheat, rye, or maslin for the mills in Essex and south Suffolk, and oats for a watermill in Westmorland.³¹ Sizeable multure returns or rents in kind for, say, barley and malt in a particular region, for example, Kent or Norfolk, may thus reflect a flourishing brewing industry, for consumption in London, for instance, rather than a predisposition for home consumption, although the ambiguity of barley as a bread or drink grain complicates this issue.³² As for individual mills, specialization was often followed. In Table . this is particularly obvious in the case of the Town Mill of Whitchurch, Shropshire, which progressed from a general service mill in the early fifteenth century to one specializing in malt, particularly the oats variety, a couple of decades later. This tendency to split grain mills into those catering for corn (bladum) and those for malt (braseum) is particularly obvious in urban situations, where separating grain mills into those for corn and those for malt became increasingly prevalent in the later Middle Ages.³³ Horse-mills also strongly catered for malt-grinding, again often in urban situations.³⁴ As Holt has observed, grinding bread grains and malt through the same set of millstones ‘was not entirely ³¹ See the proliferation of grain rents of barley among the accounts, particularly of the late th and early th centuries, for numerous Kentish manors of Canterbury Cathedral (CCA DCc, various accounts) and for manors of Norwich Cathedral Priory (NRO DCN, various accounts). For Essex and south Suffolk grain rents in wheat, maslin, or rye, see the accounts for manors in these counties at the Canterbury Cathedral archives and Westminster Abbey. For the Westmorland case, see Langdon, ‘Lordship’, n. . ³² It does appear, though, that most barley was grown for brewing: Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, –. ³³ One of the three watermills for the town of Tickhill in Yorkshire began to be called the ‘malt-mill’ from at least – onwards: PRO DL /, /, etc. Similarly, one of the bishop of Winchester’s mills, Segrim’s Mill, had seemingly begun to specialize in wheat-grinding by the th century, which it continued to do until the th century: Keene, Survey, . ³⁴ As at Alverstoke, in Gosport, Hampshire, in –, and Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire, in –: HRO M B/, m. ; Pipe Roll . . . –, . For horse-mills grinding malt for urban breweries, see the Southwark case in Sect. .. below.
The Operation of Milling
satisfactory, as the distinctively flavoured and sticky malt tainted subsequent grindings of meal’.³⁵ Perhaps naturally, then, separating the two processes was increasingly sought, especially after the plague, when more discriminating palates and a relative abundance of water power in particular seems to have encouraged more complex strategies for milling. Thus, it seems clear that grain mills could operate both as general facilities or as more specialized operations serving a particular aspect of the provisioning industry, such as brewing. It would seem that smaller concerns did the first, operating much like small general stores today, while the bigger mills, particularly in urban situations, tended to specialize more.
... The Efficiency of Grain-Milling How effectively mills ground up grain and malt was obviously an important issue, since the loss of nutrients through milling could clearly be a major concern. It is very difficult, however, to determine from the manorial accounts how effectively the flour was removed from the husk. Fortunately, purveyance evidence comes to the rescue again, because, in those cases where wheat in particular was milled, often the bolting of the resulting flour was also recorded and the proportions of flour and bran indicated. A detailed search through the individual sheriff ’s accounts (PRO E, boxes –) and in the ensuing enrolled accounts (E/–) revealed eleven of these cases before the advent of the plague, as contained in Table .. In the eleven cases, ,. quarters of wheat were ground, from which ,. quarters of flour and bran (the latter sometimes divided into fine and coarse fractions³⁶) resulted. As can be seen, the grinding process yielded products of a lower density, because, as Moritz put it, ‘even the tightest packing possible is less tight than that by which nature packs the endosperm in the grain’.³⁷ On average, from the figures in Table ., quarters of wheat resulted in quarters of flour and bran.This rate of expansion in the volume of product is, in fact, suspiciously low, since Moritz indicates that in modern milling the rate of expansion would be nearly double (that is, milling , quarters should result in something between , and , quarters of flour and bran³⁸). It may be ³⁵ Mills, . ³⁶ The fine bran (traicus; after the English ‘trace’?) was usually worth more than the coarse variety (furfura), as in the case of the – Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire campaign where the traicus was sold for s. per quarter and the furfura for s. per quarter (PRO E/, m. ).The fact that two bran fractions were yielded suggests that, in this case, the mill product went through two successive screenings, with first a coarse mesh then a finer one. ³⁷ Moritz, Grain-Mills, . ³⁸ As calculated by figures supplied in Moritz, Grain-Mills, .
T .. Milling efficiency for wheat from purveyance accounts Counties purveyed
Year
No. of qrs.a of wheat milled
Milling products Coarse branb
Flour
Cornwall Essex and Hertfordshire Gloucestershire Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Oxfordshire and Berkshire Somerset and Dorset Warwickshire and Leicestershire Worcestershire Yorkshire
– – – – – –
Total milled products
Qrs.
%d
Qrs.
%d
. . . . . . . ,. . . .
. . . . . . . ,. . . .f
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
,.
,.
.
.
.
Fine branc Qrs. . . — — . . — — — — . .
%d . . — — . . — — — — . .
Qrs. . . . . . . . ,. . . . ,.
%e . . . . . . . . . . . .
Qrs. = quarters ( quarter = bushels). Furfura. c Traycus or traicus. In one case given as trayc voc’ chisel (Nottingham and Derbyshire, ). d These are the percentages of the individual mill products over the total milled products: for example, in the Cornwall case the percentage of flour from the total of flour and bran together (. + . + . = . qrs.) comes to (./.) ¥ = .. e The total quarters of flour and bran after grinding divided by the quarters of wheat before grinding times . Thus, for Cornwall again, the percentage equals (./.) ¥ = .. f In the enrolled account (PRO E/, m. ) this is given as . quarters—possibly a scribal error. The lower figure given in the sheriff of Yorkshire’s account (PRO E /) when actually conducting the purveyance has been preferred here. If the enrolled account figure was accepted it would result in a total milling product figure of . quarters or .% greater than the number of unmilled quarters of wheat. a
b
Sources: PRO E/, m. v (Cornwall); E/, m. (Essex and Hertfordshire); E / (Gloucestershire, –); E / (Gloucestershire, –); E/, m. v (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, ); E/, m. (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, –); E/, ms. –v (Oxfordshire and Berkshire); E / (Somerset and Dorset); E/, m. (Warwickshire and Leicestershire); E / (Worcestershire); E / (Yorkshire).
The Operation of Milling
that some was lost as multure paid to the millers, or that some of the highdensity endosperm remained stuck to the bran in the less efficient medieval milling process, but neither of these would likely explain a discrepancy of this order.³⁹ One possibility is that milling provided a prime opportunity for ‘skimming’ for those involved in purveyance. In this regard, the degree of variation in the volume expansion of bran and flour products from the . per cent for the – Somerset and Dorset campaign to the deeply suspicious per cent (or non-increase) for that for Worcestershire in – certainly suggests variable degrees of honesty on the part of officials conducting purveyance, from the sheriff downwards, perhaps not surprising considering the controversy that surrounded the practice.⁴⁰ Indeed, for the Yorkshire campaign there is a notable discrepancy between the ½ quarters of flour recorded in the sheriff ’s account of the purveyance campaign and the ½ quarters recorded in the later enrolled account (see notes in Table .). Although this could have been a scribal error in the enrolled account (since in neither account do we see the sheriff ’s figure crossed out and the larger figure inserted over, as was usual with such corrections), it might also indicate an attempt to pilfer over per cent of the resulting flour. If the enrolled account flour figure were used instead of that from the sheriff ’s account, it would raise the volume expansion from . to . per cent, significantly above any other volume increase in the table but still far below Moritz’s modern figures above. How do these figures concerning the quantities of flour and bran being yielded from purveyance grinding translate into comments about the quality of the product? Much here depends upon the efficiency of the screening of the ground wheat. The data in Table . suggest that in only five cases was the product given two screenings, resulting in an additional fraction of fine bran. Significantly the percentage of flour resulting from at least four of these cases was generally low compared with the six other cases in the table, where the ground product was seemingly only given one screening pass. If all the cases in Table . are taken together, the resulting flour was nearly per cent of the total product. But these are percentages by volume. From figures supplied by Moritz, bran has a density of less than half that of flour.⁴¹ If we assume a : ratio in the densities of flour and bran, the proportion by weight of the resulting flour would rise to . per cent of the wheat ground, while with a density ratio of : , by no means unlikely from Moritz’s figures, the percentage rises even further to . per cent. An extraction rate of above per cent by weight for flour indicates that there was still considerable bran left in it.⁴² Nevertheless, these high extraction rates suggest that a relatively high ³⁹ Multure rates charged for purveyance campaigns, for example, were generally very low, seemingly ranging from 1/26 to 1/34 (see Sect. .. below). ⁴⁰ See esp. Maddicott, ‘English Peasantry’. ⁴¹ Moritz, Grain-Mills, . ⁴² Ibid. .
The Operation of Milling
amount of bread would result from this sort of grinding. From detailed figures supplied again by Moritz,⁴³ extraction rates of – per cent would result in bread yields of or so pounds per pounds of wheat (the increase in weight being caused by water absorption of the flour during kneading). In summary, in the case of purveyance, it appears that a certain amount of product quality was sacrificed for quantity, and it was unlikely to have been much different for the majority of the population. This meant consuming a rather higher proportion of bran perhaps than we are used to today, particularly in white bread. But, as we know, this was by no means an unhealthy alternative, something that was also not lost on earlier societies, where the health benefits for the digestive tract of eating wholegrain bread was understood by some at least.⁴⁴
... Other Services Provided by Millers Much of the question of the impact of milling upon the quality and quantity of food available to medieval society revolves around the question of what exactly millers did for their customers and how much they extracted for doing it. The question of multure rates will be considered in Chapter , on consumers, and in this regard rather too much emphasis has perhaps been placed upon the milling process itself, since it was only one of many processes involved in converting grain to an edible product. For example, with the notable exception of the purveyance accounts just considered, we know virtually nothing about the screening process for flour. Did millers do this as a matter of course for their customers? It seems unlikely. References to screens in mills do not occur in mill accounts and inventories,⁴⁵ and, as we have seen, purveyors for the king’s campaigns had to arrange for their own sifting of the flour. On the other hand, sieves and riddles were fairly common items on peasant farms,⁴⁶ and we must presume that many peasants took their grain to the mill, got it milled in a lump, and did the separating of flour from bran, if done at all, at home.⁴⁷ This undoubtedly
⁴³ Ibid. . ⁴⁴ Moritz, for example, cites a character in Petronius’ Feast of Trimalchio, who preferred wholemeal bread because it improved both his strength and his digestion: ibid. . ⁴⁵ I once thought a reference to four spores for a windmill at Wolvey, Warwickshire, in – indicated millscreens (see Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-List, (s.v. spera) ), which influenced an earlier statement I had made concerning the prevalence of mill-screens at mills (Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Wind-Mills’, ). A rereading of the manuscript (PRO SC /) now leads me to think that the reference was in fact to ‘four spars [for the sails] of the windmill’, which were repaired for s. d. Otherwise, in the thousands of mill repair sections which I have read I have not seen (or at least did not record) a reference to mill-screens. ⁴⁶ See e.g. Field, ‘Worcestershire Peasant Buildings’, , –; also Langdon, ‘Agricultural Equipment’, . ⁴⁷ Home bolting (or sieving) by bakers and other customers of mills was also the norm in France up to the mid-th century at least: Kaplan: Bakers of Paris, –.
The Operation of Milling
gave more flexibility to customers, who could then elect to have all the milled product reserved for human consumption or to separate it into flour and bran, perhaps using the latter for animal feed. Although the screening of mill products was not normally within their purview, millers were often associated with other aspects of food production. Perhaps the most obvious concerned ovens, where mills and ovens held in combination were sometimes found in urban situations in particular,⁴⁸ and the occasional baker found as a mill lessee indicates the same (see Section ..). Even if held separately, the links between mills and ovens as part of the provisioning chain in a community seem obvious.⁴⁹ The same to some degree may have held true of malt-mills and brewing, but here it seems that brewers often preferred to grind their malt on their own premises, as in the case of a number of horse-mills owned by Southwark brewers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.⁵⁰ Similarly, John Bishop, a tenant of Bishopstoke, Hampshire, had a mill (mola; probably a hand-mill) for grinding his own malt which he was allowed to use for a fine (amount unspecified) before the plague, but which he surrendered into the steward’s hands in –.⁵¹ On a somewhat larger scale, brewers might have both horse-mills and malt-kilns (the latter for drying sprouted barley, oats, and other grains for malting), as in the extent for debt of Peter Hounslowe, ‘Berebrewer’ of London, who had a malt-kiln and several other vessels, including one for hops, as well as a ‘wooden’ horse-mill.⁵² Some of the miller’s activities may have been geared towards currying customer favour, particularly in home pick-up and return delivery of customers’ grain and flour. A good example of this for a little later than our period occurred in a suit-of-mill case, where the proprietor of ‘Man Milne’ in Burton Lazars, Leicestershire, claimed that the miller of ‘Thorpe’ (possibly Thorpe Satchville⁵³) ‘hath for ij ore iij yeres parst [sic; ‘past’ meant] used and accostomed to fetch and carry to and from the said myllne the Corne and meale of the inhabitants of Thorpe Arnold and the village before named [presumably
⁴⁸ Mills and ovens held in combination are found at Leicester in – (PRO DL /, m. v) and at Leeds in –, –, and – (PRO DL /, m. ; /; /). John Fysheler in Belper, Derbyshire, was given licence to build an oven in Belper in –, as well as being co-lessee of the two watermills there: PRO DL /, m. . ⁴⁹ Thus, for example, when the watermill at Alderminster, Warwickshire, failed in the th century so did two ovens in the same village (as reported in the – account, for instance: PRO /). ⁵⁰ Martha Carlin, Medieval Southwark, . ⁵¹ HRO M B/, m. v. ⁵² PRO C//, m. . ⁵³ It is unlikely, given the nature of the case, that this is Thorpe Arnold, since the proprietor of Man Mill seems to have been claiming suit of mill for both Burton Lazars and Thorpe Arnold against the intrusion of the miller of ‘Thorpe’.The best bet seems to be Thorpe Satchville, about or miles south of Burton and the other Thorpe.
The Operation of Milling
Burton Lazars] with his lode horse’.⁵⁴ The same sort of attitude to enhancing revenues can be observed in more sketchy fashion for earlier times. Horses are occasionally recorded as being attached to watermills and windmills and presumably were employed for delivery.⁵⁵ More obviously used for delivery were mill-boats attached to some mills, as in the case of s. d. in expenses for bringing quarters of grain by boat from London across the river to the bishop of Winchester’s horse-mill at Southwark and back again in –;⁵⁶ Richard Holt also cites a good case of a miller at Hemingford, Huntingdonshire, in being chastised for not sending the mill-boat in pursuit of customers.⁵⁷ As the Southwark case indicates, access to urban centres often made such outreach well worth the effort. Millers also had to make sure that customers had easy access to the mill itself, and so paths, roads, and bridges had to be established and maintained.These requirements often became legal obligations on the part of the mill owner,⁵⁸ or were specified as elements in the rents charged to millers, as in the case of the d. rent paid by Richard Millward for a messuage and certain buildings next to Rooksmill (a watermill) at Witney, Oxfordshire, in –, along with ‘a certain horse road under the mill for carrying corn’.⁵⁹
... Mills for Other Purposes For mills other than grinding, it is difficult to be precise about the nature of the business or the details of how it was normally carried out. In the case of fullingmills, for example, were they predominantly focused on the cloth industry or could they perhaps, at times at least, have served more generally as laundries? That the connection with the cloth industry predominated is suggested by the fact that, unlike corn-mills, which were found everywhere, fulling-mills often tended to cluster in areas where the cloth industry was known to have been well established.⁶⁰ We know little about the day-to-day running of medieval fullingmills.There are no indications of the charge for individuals cloths or how many cloths could be put through a mill in a given unit of time. We do know from the notable presence of drying racks (tentores) associated with mills that the cloths once cleaned in the fulling process were laid out to dry, hooks being used to stretch the cloths back to their previous length.⁶¹ Sometimes the tentores ⁵⁴ PRO E/ELIZ/EAST. ⁵⁵ e.g. Holt, Mills, –; Langdon, Horses, Oxen, n. ⁵⁶ Pipe Roll . . . –, . ⁵⁷ Mills, . ⁵⁸ Public Works in Medieval Law, vol. ii, p. xlvii. ⁵⁹ HRO M B/, ms. –v. Both Rooksmill and Woodfordmill on the manor were leased to Richard Geffrey in –. Millward may have been hired by Geffrey to run Rooksmill or, perhaps more likely, was a sub-lessee. ⁶⁰ As in northern Essex: Poos, Rural Society, esp. (fig. .). ⁶¹ As at Congleton, Cheshire, in –, where s. d. was paid in rent for a cottage next to the fulling-mill called ‘Walkemilnehouse’ along with drying racks (una cum tentoris): PRO DL /.
The Operation of Milling
themselves generated an income,⁶² which suggests that the process was occasionally a two-step one where weavers or merchants brought their cloths to the fulling-mill, paid a fee for the fulling, and then paid another fee to someone else to stretch out and dry the cloth. It is possible, too, that foot fullers sometimes brought their cloths to independent drying racks for the final part of the process. In any case, we know fulling-mills themselves used ample amounts of fuller’s earth (that is, soil with a high concentration of hydrous aluminium silicate, which had a marked ability to absorb and disperse grease), as in the case of the mill at Loose, Kent, for which seams ( bushels) of fuller’s earth (‘ffullingerth’) was bought in –.⁶³ For ‘industrial mills’ other than for fulling, we unfortunately know even less. For some, such as for sharpening knives, the process seems simple enough, and the fact that such mills could even be considered as viable operations shows the need for sharpening tools in a predominantly agricultural society. Other mills, like tanning (or bark-grinding) mills, tended to be part of bigger overall processes,⁶⁴ and as a result were not directly involved with customers themselves, except in unusual circumstances.⁶⁵ The tin industry, however, seems to have encouraged the establishment of small bellows and stamping mills, apparent in the increase of these types of mill, particularly in the tenant sector, as shown in Chapter and as will be discussed in more detail in Chapter . These mills existed as service operations, to which tin miners brought their ore for crushing and smelting. Many of these mills survived as accoutrements to the Cornish and Devon tin industry for several centuries.⁶⁶ In short, the nature of industrial milling tended to remain small-scale, and would seemingly become more so as the Middle Ages wore on, matching an increasing fragmentation of capital investment.⁶⁷
.. The milling industry required vast amounts of raw material, ranging from timber, stone, various metal products, canvas, specialized grease and tallow for lubrication, and, perhaps most importantly, millstones. As we have seen, some ⁶² As in the case of a new tentor constructed at Loose, Kent, in –, leased for s. per year separately from the fulling-mill, which was itself farmed at s. per year in the same account: CCA DCc Loose . ⁶³ CCA DCc Loose . For more on the process of fulling and its purpose in cleaning and felting the cloth, see Bridbury, Medieval English Clothmaking, . ⁶⁴ Such as the tanning mill at Beaulieu Abbey, which was incorporated in the leather works there: AccountBook of Beaulieu Abbey, . ⁶⁵ Such as in Devon, where bark-grinding mills were probably viable as service mills because of the notable concentration of the leather industry there: Kowalski, Local Markets, . ⁶⁶ Gerrard, ‘Cornish Stamping Mill’. ⁶⁷ See Ch. .
The Operation of Milling
of these were prefabricated, as in the case of fulling-stocks (see Section ..) and, of course, millstones themselves. Some, such as again millstones but also specialized wood for waterproofing, often had to be obtained from outside the country. As I shall discuss in Chapter , the network and labour requirements for these products often meant that they counted as mini-industries in their own right.The purpose of this section is to survey the materials required for the milling industry, starting with timber, and to give some sense of how the supply of materials for milling was structured and organized.
... Timber Timber was the most basic material needed for the building of mills, which can be separated into two categories: first, timber generated from within the estate (and thus often considered as costless in the accounting) and, secondly, timber purchased elsewhere. Usually the former was preferred, and indeed may well have dominated in terms of the amounts of timber used for milling.The importance of intra-estate timber resources for mill construction and repair is amply indicated in maintenance sections of mill lease agreements (see Chapter ), where many landlords routinely allowed lessees to take whatever timber was needed from seigneurial resources. Similarly, when details of watermill or windmill constructions are recorded in accounts, the small amounts often spent on timber suggest that estate reserves supplied the bulk of it.⁶⁸ But the amount of timber purchased on the market was often considerable for particular mills, as for example in the cases of the windmills built at Burstwick, Yorkshire, in – and Walton, Somerset, in , where cash expenditures on timber comprised nearly per cent of the total monetary outlay.⁶⁹ Labour for cutting and working with timber, whether obtained from the estate or outside, was also extensive.⁷⁰ Concerning the types of wood or timber used, where it was reasonably convenient to get, oak was preferred for most aspects of the building of both watermills and windmills, because of its durability and strength, as it was for most buildings of the time.⁷¹ This was especially the case for water-control systems. ⁶⁸ As, for example, with the construction of a watermill and fulling-mill complex at Marlborough, Wiltshire, in –, where royal forest reserves played a major role in keeping down the costs for purchased timber (which were much less than per cent of the total expenses for building the mills): Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, –. ⁶⁹ See App. , where summing the amount spent directly on timber for the Burstwick mill comes to s. d. or . per cent of the total outlay of £ d. Similarly, for the Walton mill, wood expenditure comprised . per cent of the total cash outlay: Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, (table ). ⁷⁰ See Tables . and . below; also Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, , –, , (tables –). ⁷¹ AHEW iii. –.
The Operation of Milling
For example, the excavated watermill and mill-race remains for the Batsford mill at Warbleton, Sussex, were built entirely of oak.⁷² Similarly, the mill-dam at Castle Donington, Leicestershire, for the most part was made of oak, although posts of hazel, birch, willow, buckthorn, holly, and elder were also used.⁷³ The same sort of pattern occurs in the documents, where oak clearly dominated among the woods used.⁷⁴ Much of this was employed for watercontrol systems, although occasionally other woods might be substituted, as for the twenty-five cartloads of alder used for making a new weir at Downton, Wiltshire, in –.⁷⁵ Elm also shows up in a few occasions in the accounts, as in the case of the elm-wood seemingly bought to make ‘arms’ for the watermills at Helston-in-Kerrier, Cornwall, in –.⁷⁶ The use of timber for windmills seems to have been more compartmentalized. Oak was used for the heavier parts of the windmills, particularly the central post and the main timbers for the windmill sails (virgae).⁷⁷ Occasionally here too exceptions might be made, however, as in the case of the virga patched together from two pieces of elm for the windmill at Bircham, Norfolk, in –.⁷⁸ Other types of wood than oak, however, were usually reserved for more specialized areas, such as the ‘splints’ or laths of ash (fraxinus), which were attached to the virgae and made up the lighter framework upon which the millsail canvas was supported.⁷⁹ A very specialized wood for both windmills and watermills was that from crabapple trees. This seems to have been much the preferred wood for the wooden pegs of cogwheels and also occasionally for wooden spindles (which were occasionally used in windmills).⁸⁰ The great majority of timber bought for watermills and windmills appears to have been ⁷² Bedwin, ‘Excavation’, –. ⁷³ Clay and Salisbury, ‘Norman Mill Dam’, –, –. ⁷⁴ Thus, at Newington, Oxfordshire, in –, oaks were bought for building the watermill anew: In xxx quercis emptis pro j molendino de nouo faciendo, C s. (CCA DCc Newington ). Similarly, oaks were felled for the construction of a new gurges at Islip, Oxfordshire, in – (WAM ), while six oaks were felled for various repairs for the corn-mill at Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, in – (PRO SC /). ⁷⁵ HRO M B/, m. v. See also the willow shoots used to stabilize the seemingly earthen weir at Marchington, Staffordshire, in – (Sect. ..). ⁷⁶ In vlmo empto pro brachis molendinorum faciendis, xij d.: PRO SC /.These probably refer to the spokes for the mills’ waterwheels and/or cogwheels. ⁷⁷ For example: In j quercu empta apud Boystardeswode & ibidem prosternenda pro j standardo [the central post] ad molendinum, xiiij s. (Launton, Oxfordshire, –: WAM ); In j virga de quercu empta ad molendinum de longitudine xlv pedibus, vj s. (Bircham, Norfolk, –: PRO SC /). ⁷⁸ PRO SC /. ⁷⁹ As one example among many, along with the oak standard bought for the Launton windmill above in – (see n. above), the purchase of one ash ( fraccinus) was recorded for the ‘laths’ and ‘bars’ of the sails. Alderwood may have been used for the same purpose in the North, as at for the newly constructed windmill at Burstwick, Yorkshire, in –: In ij virgis emptis ad brachia molendini, iij s. In parvis lignis de alneta pro eisdem vestiendis, xvj d. (PRO SC /, m. v; see also App. ). ⁸⁰ Thus, ‘crabtrees’ were used for cogs for a watermill at Knottingley, Yorkshire, in – (PRO DL /, m. v), and for the windmills at Ackworth and Tanshelf, Yorkshire, in – (PRO DL
The Operation of Milling
obtained locally, but occasionally wood from overseas sources appears, in particular the ‘estrich boards’ (i.e. ‘Eastland’ or Baltic wood) which were often bought to cloth the sides or roofs of windmills, apparently because of their waterproof characteristics.⁸¹
... Other Materials The supply of other materials, such as stone, iron, steel, brass, canvas, and various lubricants (as well as millstones discussed below), was also essential. As discussed in Chapter , stone was sometimes preferred to wood for sensitive areas around the mouth of water-channels or for the construction of the mill-house itself.⁸² Much of this was probably dressed stone from local or regional quarries, such as the stone, seemingly from Ham Hill, used for constructing the gurges for the Taunton mill complex in –,⁸³ but much, too, was loose stone dug up from around the mill site, as in the case of the construction of the wall around the mill-house at Hollingbourne, Kent, in –.⁸⁴ This mix of materials obtained locally and from further away is also occasionally evident in the supply of metals for milling. As we have seen (from Chapter ), iron was a fairly ubiquitous material used for much of the internal workings for mills. Presumably these purchased supplies of iron came from local sources, but occasionally a much more distant origin is indicated, as in the references to Spanish iron which occasionally occur in the record.⁸⁵ Brass, too, may have fallen into this category, but here its ultimate source is unfortunately never given. Certainly large amounts of it were often needed for bearings, as in the case of the pounds of brass bought for the watermill at Sutton, Hampshire, in –.⁸⁶ Canvas, too, was used in impressive amounts. As calculated in Chapter , it would have required a full-time workforce of at least – people to produce the amount of canvas required by windmills alone. There is no indication of various types or grades of canvas, so it appears that a fairly standardized product was made, for milling at least, and that one of the areas that likely specialized in the making of canvas was East Anglia.⁸⁷ Finally, lubricants were an essential part of the successful workings of mills, and were particularly /). The mill at Tanshelf in – also used ‘crabtree’ wood for a spindle. Although the type was not specified, wood for pegs and a spindle was also bought for Bircham, Norfolk, in – (PRO SC /). See also Holt, Mills, –, for the use of crabapple wood for cogs. ⁸¹ See Sect. ... ⁸² Sects. .. and ... ⁸³ Sect. ... ⁸⁴ Sect. ... ⁸⁵ Six pounds of Spanish iron (ferrum de ispania) were bought for repairing a ‘headiron’ (‘hevedyryn’; probably a bearing under the head of the axle as it entered the mill from the waterwheel) for the watermill at Hindolveston, Norfolk, in –: NRO DCN //. ⁸⁶ See Sect. .. above. For smaller amounts of brass used in mills, see Holt, Mills, –. ⁸⁷ As evidenced by the growing of hemp there: e.g. Campbell, English Seigneurial Agriculture, .
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important for reducing the friction between moving parts, which, in extremis, could cause fire. They were especially important for the breaking-in phases of new mills.The newly constructed windmill at Burstwick in –, for instance, required the purchase of d. of soap and grease ‘because it has been newly built’.⁸⁸ Similarly, the new windmill built at East Knoyle, Wiltshire, required pounds of tallow (sepa; bought for d.) to lubricate the mill ‘on occasion’ (per vices), while, more specifically, pounds of pork grease (unctum porcini) were purchased for d. to lubricate the mill’s cogs and trundle.⁸⁹ Routine operation required continual greasing-down of parts.This might have been accomplished using supplies of tallow or soap produced as part of the agricultural activities of the farm or demesne, although even here cash outlays for extra lubrication sometimes occurred.⁹⁰
... Millstones Important as all these expenses were, the biggest expenditure for mills was generally for millstones.⁹¹ Up to a third or more of construction or everyday maintenance costs went towards millstones,⁹² while, in any one year, the purchase of a millstone or stones might exceed the revenues for the mill.⁹³ Given the large number of mills in England, millstone production or procurement thus constituted a major economic activity. Roughly speaking this was divided between a foreign and the domestic sector. Foreign millstones came from France and Germany, while domestic ones came from a variety of sites where rock outcrops were common, such as Bodmin Moor, Dartmoor, Penselwood, the Forest of Dean, the Pennine chain in general, including the Peak District, and even Wales (considered as part of the domestic market for the purposes of this analysis). Foreign stones were considerably more expensive than domestic ones, and even within the domestic stone market there was considerable price variation. Table . provides a regional breakdown of millstone prices as they were collected during this study, broken down according to region and time period. It represents, altogether, different purchases involving millstones (millstones were often bought in pairs). As these data were collected incidentally as ⁸⁸ See App. . ⁸⁹ HRO M B/; see also, Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, , for the purchase of grease for the new windmill at Turweston, Buckinghamshire, in . ⁹⁰ As at Downton, Wiltshire, in –, where s. ½d. was spent on ‘grease, tallow, and soap’ for the mill: Pipe Roll . . . –, . For a European-wide perspective on the medieval use of lubricants, see Muendel, ‘Friction and Lubrication’. ⁹¹ Canvas comprised a greater proportion of windmill costs than millstones during normal operation, but during construction it was the other way round: Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, , (tables and ). ⁹² Ibid. , –, , (tables –). ⁹³ Ibid.
T .. Average millstone prices by region, – Perioda
East Anglia
Home Counties
South
South-West
East Midlands
– – – – – –
s. d. () s. d. () s. ½d. () s. d. () s. d. () —
s. d. () s. ½d. () s. d. () s. d. () s. d. () s. d. ()
s. d. () s. ½d. () s. 3/4d. () s. d. () s. 3/4d. () —
— s. 3/4d. () s. d. () s. ½d. () s. d. () s. ½d. ()
s. ½d. () s. ¼d. () s. d. () s. 3/4d. () — —
West Midlands — s. d. () s. 3/4d. () s. ¼d. () s. d. () —
North
All of England
s. d. () s. d. () s. d. () s. d. () s. d. () —
s. ¼d. () s. ¼d. () s. ½d. () s. 3/4d. () s. 3/4d. () s. ¼d. ()
Notes: For the most part, the prices in the table do not include transport costs. Figures in parentheses indicate the number of millstones making up the price average. The (pre-) counties making up each regions are as follows: East Anglia: Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk; Home Counties: Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Oxfordshire, Surrey; The South: Kent, Hampshire, Sussex, Wiltshire; South-west: Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset; East Midlands: Huntingdonshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland; West Midlands: Cheshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire; The North: Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire. a
Each period runs from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
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the sample in Chapter was being constructed, there is considerable variation in coverage over region and time. Also, Table . should only be considered as a supplement to the excellent study of millstones and millstone prices carried out by David Farmer, who assembled a sample probably at least twice as large as that in Table ..⁹⁴ On the other hand, the geographical coverage in Table . is much greater than that provided by Farmer, who concentrated on the South of the country, and the coverage in Table . extends another century beyond. The one thing that stands out from both this and Farmer’s study is the sharp regional distinction between the area where foreign millstones dominated the market and those where domestic stones predominated. Table . shows this very clearly when comparing millstone prices in the South and East Anglia (where foreign stones from France or Germany seem to have been predominant) with the East Midlands, West Midlands, and the North (where domestic stones almost solely were used), millstone prices of the former being easily double, and often treble, quadruple, or more, the prices of the latter. The Home Counties and the South-West were boundary areas, receiving a mixture of foreign and domestic stones. Thus, the Home Counties region was split between its southern part, particularly those counties south of the Thames (Berkshire and Surrey), where foreign stones were used, and the northern part of the region—Oxfordshire, northern Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire, where stones from the Peak District eventually dominated.⁹⁵ Similarly, in the SouthWest the eastern part of the zone (especially Somerset) may have occasionally used foreign stones or more expensive domestic ones, while towards the west (and especially Cornwall) very cheap stones of less than s. were often purchased from local quarries such as at Bodmin Moor (see below). The variation in prices from time period to time period in these regions reflects the different make-up of foreign versus domestic stones in each time period and is not necessarily reflective of the general movement of millstone prices. In fact, David Farmer’s figures demonstrate that there was a sharp increase in millstones prices following the advent of the plague—roughly a doubling for both foreign and domestic stones.⁹⁶ Table . supports this in part, especially for East Anglia and the South, but other regions, such as the North (not represented in Farmer’s figures), show a remarkable stability in millstone prices, as domestic prices seem to have dominated throughout. Map . shows a somewhat impressionistic interpretation where the boundary between foreign stones and domestic stones lay in the period leading up to the Black Death. The biggest question lies over the northern part of East Anglia. Farmer felt that this area and much of the eastern seaboard of northern ⁹⁴ Farmer, ‘Millstones’, see esp. (table ).
⁹⁵ e.g. ibid. .
⁹⁶ Ibid. .
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A French Stones B German Stones C Indigenous Stones
C
B
A C
M .. Foreign versus indigenous millstones across England, pre-
England depended on millstones from Germany.⁹⁷ But the figures from Table . for the East Midlands and the North—showing millstone prices much lower than those for the (presumed) German millstones in counties like Norfolk, where millstones usually sold for about s. around —suggest that German millstones did not penetrate much north of the Wash, especially as many of the millstone purchases making up the East Midlands figures were from Lincolnshire.⁹⁸ There was undoubtedly some overlap in the zones covered by foreign and domestic stones, as at Taunton, Somerset, in –, where two ⁹⁷ Ibid. –. Farmer’s view is supported here by the large number of millstones imported from the Rhineland area through such ports as King’s Lynn: Making of King’s Lynn, , –. ⁹⁸ Although occasional use of German stones might have been possible further north, as in the case of the medieval village of Wharram Percy in the Yorkshire Wolds, where apparently German millstones were excavated: Farmer, ‘Millstones’, n.
The Operation of Milling
French millstones, costing £ s., were bought for the ‘corn-mill’, probably mostly for grinding wheat, while a Welsh stone was bought for s. for the town’s malt-mill.⁹⁹ As time went on, there were also some fluctuations in the boundary between the areas that used foreign millstones and those that used domestic ones.This was particularly evident in south central areas of the country, as in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, where a unequivocal shift from foreign to domestic stones can be seen over the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Often this was tied to the move from running mills directly with a hired miller to leasing them out, especially when lords were held responsible for finding millstones as a condition of the lease (see Section ..) and wished to do this as cheaply as possible. A fine example of this is provided by the bishop of Winchester’s manor of Witney, Oxfordshire, where in – a millstone costing £ d. was brought from Wallingford to ‘Wodefordemull’ on the manor, presumably a French stone (given the price) carried up the Thames.¹⁰⁰ By –, however, millstones for the same mill were obtained locally at Islip for the considerably lower price of s. A detailed description of the lease in the same account recorded the bishop’s responsibility for providing millstones and their carriage.¹⁰¹ Nevertheless, many lords, especially in East Anglia and along the southern coast of England to at least Dorset, still continued to buy expensive French stones into the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, long after mills were leased out (judging from the prices, although the evidence for these later periods is admittedly fragmentary). Given the very marked disparity in prices between foreign and domestic stones, this continued loyalty to the more expensive alternative in the face of an increasingly difficult economic environment is very hard to explain. Indeed, one might ask why foreign millstones were ever able to become installed as a feature of English milling. This is especially the case considering that many of the associated costs of the foreign stones seem to have been higher as well, in particular supervisory costs and costs for searching out suitable stones or obtaining permission for their purchase.¹⁰² One reason may be that foreign stones, especially French ones, as discussed below, needed less cleaning. Also, French stones in particular were more long-lasting than the softer German and (presumably) domestic stones.¹⁰³ The wear on the latter could be quite formidable. Richard Holt cites a case from Lopham, Norfolk, in ⁹⁹ Pipe Roll . . . –, . Welsh millstones were also bought for a number of other, more rural, mills on the manor (ibid.). For the use of French stones for grinding wheat, see below. ¹⁰⁰ Pipe Roll . . . –, . ¹⁰¹ Pipe Roll . . . –, –, . ¹⁰² Farmer gives a good example of the sorts of costs involved for the obtaining of two stones at Southampton for the mill at Holywell, Oxfordshire, in –: ‘Millstones’, –. ¹⁰³ Schoonhoven, ‘Grinding with Stones’, –.
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, where ½ inches of millstone were worn away in one year.¹⁰⁴ Although this seems excessive, another case in a court roll for Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, noted that the thickness of an upper millstone had worn down from to inches over a period of two years from to .¹⁰⁵ It is likely, given their locations, that both of these cases involved German stones, but a similar rate of deterioration would seem likely to have been true of indigenous stones. This rapid wear may explain why, as one moves towards the North, the practice was to buy millstones in pairs; in contrast, manors in the South, seemingly purchasing the majority of their millstones from France, tended to buy one stone at a time.¹⁰⁶ But even if those manors that bought French stones for their mills might have done so less often than those with domestic stones in particular, the overall cost per quarter of grain milled for French stones over domestic ones was probably double or more.¹⁰⁷ The other likely attraction of the more expensive French stones area was the efficiency of grinding or quality of the end product. Farmer tried to relate this to the percentage of wheat ground in mills, the rationale being that mills processing high percentages of wheat might well prefer more efficient stones. We have seen in the Taunton case above for – that such a situation might well occur, but Farmer did not find that this was invariably the case; indeed, he concluded, on rather thin data, that these expensive stones may have been more often preferred for grinding malt.¹⁰⁸ In either case, wheat or malt, the expensive stones may have imparted a superior quality of ground product, but whether this was enough to justify the extra expense is questionable. It is equally difficult to see the motivation for more expensive French stones in terms of the amount of flour (or malt) that could be extracted.The milling efficiency rates shown for wheat in Table ., however, do not demonstrate any likely correlation between the milling efficiency and the probable type of stone used. Indeed, the two areas where French stones were most likely, in the purveyance accounts for the sheriffs of Oxfordshire and Berkshire and of Essex and Hertfordshire, gave mixed results. The milling of wheat for the Oxfordshire and Berkshire purveyance campaign recorded a high extraction rate for flour, but that for Essex and Hertfordshire was decidedly on the low side. In any case, suspicions over the accuracy of the purveyance figures make any firm conclusions from these figures highly problematic. None of these potential reasons for the preference for foreign stones on their ¹⁰⁴ Mills, n. This might have involved the combined wear on both the top and bottom stones. ¹⁰⁵ Court Rolls of the Abbey of Ramsey, –. ¹⁰⁶ For example, in Table ., of the transactions in the South involved the purchase of single stones. In contrast, of transactions in the North involved pairs (in one case, two pairs) of millstones. ¹⁰⁷ As calculated by Farmer: ‘Millstones’, –. ¹⁰⁸ Ibid. –.
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own would seem to explain the trend, so a combination of factors seems likely. There may also have been more overriding cultural considerations. If we assume that the quality of flour produced from foreign stones was reasonably consistent and perhaps superior in some degree to that produced by indigenous stones, then a certain consumer expectation may well have formed in the South of England which supported the continued use of these stones. It is also important to note that this consumer expectation probably involved not only the southern parts of England, but also much of Continental Europe around the Channel and the lower North Sea. The coordinating force of these bodies of water in terms of technological transmission seems abundantly clear,¹⁰⁹ and the same could well have been the case for consumer preferences. Reinforcing this would be a gradual establishment of a southern English technological tradition for using foreign stones, in the paradigmatic manner described in Chapter . Perhaps most importantly, this coalition of mental attitudes would tend to be cemented by the marketing strategies of those who controlled the supply of stones. Judging from the number of stones for southern mills obtained through various ports, ranging from King’s Lynn in the east round the southern coast to Worcester on the Severn,¹¹⁰ merchants along the south coast in particular seem to have organized the supply of millstones very efficiently. From their perspective, getting millstones from, say, nearby France in particular was a far more attractive prospect than trying to bring them all the way round from, say, Wales or Yorkshire, especially as larger profit margins from the French stones could be expected. As we can see from Map ., however, an opposite tradition using domestic or indigenous stones had developed for more northern parts of the country, and there are some signs of fairly aggressive marketing by domestic millstone producers and their merchant collaborators.This is perhaps no more so than in the case of Peak millstones, which were carried by merchandising links down through a scattering of South Midlands towns—Todenham, Banbury, Brackley, Stony Stratford, Bedford, Biggleswade—where mill owners could acquire stones with relative ease and convenience.¹¹¹ Sometimes the stones would be brought directly to the consumer by the producers themselves, as in the case of the two millstones that were bought at Launton, Oxfordshire, in – ‘from men coming from the Peak’, although perhaps we might see this as an unusual situation in the immediate aftermath of the plague.¹¹² The boundary between those areas where domestic millstones held sway and those ¹⁰⁹ Especially in regard to post- and tower mill dissemination: see Sects. .. and .. above; also Langdon et al. ‘Introduction’, –. ¹¹⁰ See Farmer, ‘Millstones’, (table ) and , for a full list of the ports where millstones were obtained. ¹¹¹ Ibid. –. ¹¹² WAM ; see also Farmer, ‘Millstones’, .
The Operation of Milling
where foreign stones were normally employed could be fluid. Manorial officials and other personnel involved in securing millstones were clearly accustomed to shopping around, as the various payments to officials and millers to seek out stones indicates.¹¹³ Those manors on the boundaries of the various millstone networks might well have been able to choose between several sources of stones. Farmer noted this for the manor of Witney in Oxfordshire, which seems regularly to have chosen between French, Welsh, or Peak stones,¹¹⁴ although, as indicated above, domestic stones eventually predominated on the manor. In general, though, despite some shifting towards indigenous stones in the central parts of the country, it appears that the zones for foreign versus domestic millstones remained relatively stable for much of the Middle Ages, along the lines shown in Map .. Seemingly, a delicate balance of stone quality, price, consumer taste, and well-established supply lines led to the domination of particular types of millstone in particular areas. It would be useful to know more about the millstone-producing areas themselves. For foreign stones, two main areas, French and German, stand out. French stones seems to have come from deposits of burrstones to the east of Paris, particularly from the quarries around La Ferté-sous-Jouarre on the Marne, which provided reliable water transport through the Marne and Seine to the Channel.¹¹⁵ Burrstones were made of a porous quartzite suffused with tiny holes with extremely hard and sharp edges ideal for breaking through husks of grain.They were often dressed ‘flat’ without furrows and so periodic cleaning of the stones on the part of the miller was kept to a minimum.¹¹⁶ It is not certain how many of these stones were ‘monolithic’ (that is, in one piece) or ‘composite’ (that is, consisting of several different pieces of stone held together by plaster of Paris), but references to stones being patched together and hooped with wood or iron suggest that composite stones may well have been known in the medieval period.¹¹⁷ German stones of blue basaltic lava came from the Eifel region of Germany and mostly from the deposits of an ancient volcano near Mayen (about kilometres west of Koblenz). From here the finished stones were carried to the inland port of Andernach on the Rhine, from which many if not most made their way through Cologne on their way to the North Sea and beyond. It was from the connection to Cologne, whose merchants dominated the trade, that such millstones became known as ‘Cullen’ stones in England.¹¹⁸ ¹¹³ For example, for the watermills at Feering in Essex, the miller and reeve of the manor went to select a stone at London in –, while a servant was sent in the following year (–) to scour the London market for millstones: WAM , . ¹¹⁴ Farmer, ‘Millstones’, . ¹¹⁵ Ward, ‘Millstones’. ¹¹⁶ Ibid. . ¹¹⁷ See below; also Farmer, ‘Millstones’, . ¹¹⁸ Major, ‘Manufacture of Millstones’; Farmer, ‘Millstones’, –.
The Operation of Milling
Both large millstones for watermills and windmills and smaller handmillstones were exported from this source, and all were seemingly monolithic.¹¹⁹ As in the case of the French burrstone, the German lavastone was porous and so never wore to a smooth surface,¹²⁰ although, as mentioned above, it seems to have been ‘softer’ and more prone to wear than its French counterpart. The sources for domestic millstones seems to have been much more smallscale and distributed over many parts of England (and, as we have seen, also Wales). The best of the domestic stones were considered to come from millstone grit deposits in the Peak District in Derbyshire, although granite from Dartmoor and Wales, plus sandstones from the West Midlands and other places were also used.¹²¹ Although references to medieval millstone quarries are scarce, they have nonetheless been identified for Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor, Penselwood, the Forest of Dean, the Peak District, and scattered places throughout the Pennines generally.¹²² Some of these millstone-producing sites were clearly quite large, as in the case of the quarry at ‘Rowcliffe’ (possibly Row Hill in Coton in the Clay¹²³) in the earldom of Lancaster’s honour of Tutbury in Staffordshire, which produced millstones in –.¹²⁴ An operation possibly of similar size was recorded on several occasions in the accounts for Congleton, Cheshire, where a quarry in ‘Congleton Wood’ yielded rental incomes, again for the earldom/duchy of Lancaster, suggestive of a production of millstones or more per year.¹²⁵ Other enterprises were decidedly smallscale, as for the Cornish quarries at Stoke Climsland and Rillaton (in Linkinhorne parish), the latter bordering on Bodmin Moor, which together produced millstones in –.¹²⁶ A little further east millstones were quarried in similar piecemeal fashion from loose granite boulders around Dartmoor during the later Middle Ages,¹²⁷ while five millstone quarries were recorded in the Forest of Dean in –, although only one was operational in that particular year, ¹¹⁹ Major, ‘Manufacture of Millstones’, –. ¹²⁰ Ibid. . ¹²¹ For a brief but useful survey of the millstone types available, see Brown, Windmills of England, . ¹²² Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, ; Farmer, ‘Millstones’, . ¹²³ VCH Staffordshire, ii. . ¹²⁴ Of which were sold for £: PRO DL /, m. v. ¹²⁵ The quarry was farmed out for s. in –, for s. d. sometime before –, s. in –, and s. in –: PRO DL /, m. v; /; /; /. If we assume that the rent might have been based upon the normal landlord’s toll of, say, d. per millstone (see below), it would indicate a production of stones in –, before –, in –, and in –. ¹²⁶ PRO SC /. The Climsland quarry seemingly died out in the th century, but that at Rillaton continued to produce stones, although often at rather sporadic intervals, into the th century. For example, in –, the last account sampled in this study, it produced five ‘cods [i.e. stone bolsters for mill axles] or millstones’: PRO SC Hen VIII/. ¹²⁷ H. S. A. Fox, ‘Millstone Makers’.
The Operation of Milling
producing millstones.¹²⁸ In the North a pair of millstones were brought from ‘the quarry of Idle’ (just north of Bradford) to the Fleet watermill of Rothwell, Yorkshire, in –.¹²⁹ The quarry at Idle may have been one of a number just to the north of Bradford and Leeds. The accounts for the duchy of Lancaster honour of Pontefract make a number of references to millstones purchased at ‘Roudon’ or ‘Rowdon’ for various mills in the honour in –, –, and –.¹³⁰ From the direction and distance indicated by the carrying costs for these stones, this is almost certainly Rawdon, about or miles north-east of Idle. Although the word ‘quarry’ was not used in association with these references to Rawdon, it seems likely there was one there.¹³¹ The proprietor– operators of these quarries seem to have been men of relatively modest means, as in an account reference to the Congleton Wood quarry in –, which had been farmed out to Thomas Bacon,Thomas le Stonehewer, and their associates (socii) at Michaelmas , for a lease of ten years at an annual rent of s.¹³² Despite the Lilliputian nature of much of this millstone production,¹³³ it clearly supplied a great number of stones for the milling industry. Assuming that ,–, watermills and windmills (not to mention horse-mills and hand-mills) about needed to be supplied with stones by the start of the fourteenth century and that probably at least one stone was required for every five years of operation of each mill,¹³⁴ then at the start of our period some , to , stones per year were required from foreign or domestic sources. This demand undoubtedly slackened somewhat after the plague, but considering that the number of grain mills after the Black Death never sank much below per cent or so of the number at (see Figure .), even at the nadir of mill numbers in the mid-fifteenth century, the number of millstones required per year probably still remained in the thousands. Given that the domestic sector of the millstone industry increased somewhat during the later Middle Ages, it seems plausible that, even in the economic depths of the fifteenth century, it might well have supplied something approaching , millstones per year. Such a production rate did not escape the attention of lords, who demanded their cut. This was often in the form of a toll on each millstone produced, ¹²⁸ PRO SC / (lands late of John, duke of Bedford); see also Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, . ¹²⁹ PRO SC /. ¹³⁰ PRO DL /–. ¹³¹ See Farmer, ‘Millstones’, . ¹³² As recorded in the – account (PRO DL /). See also Fox, ‘Millstone Makers’, –. ¹³³ It should be said that millstone producers might well have combined this with other quarrying activities, such as producing stone for building or for walls, as in Cornwall and Devon: Fox, ‘Millstone Makers’, –. ¹³⁴ For example, at least six millstones were purchased for the two sets of millstones operating at the watermill site at Feering, Essex, during the almost complete account run for the manor from – to –, an average of more than one stone per set of millstones every five years: WAM –, –, , –, , , .
The Operation of Milling
probably in the range of –d. per stone.¹³⁵ Tolls were also levied on roads over which millstones were carried, as in the case of s. per year allegedly taken from carriers of millstones going through Sherwood Forest in the early s.¹³⁶ As for the millstones themselves, it appears that there was a certain standardization of size. Millstones were sold according to their diameter, which was expressed in so many ‘hands’. Although such references are relatively rare, enough exist to give some sense of millstone size. Among the millstones supplying the data for Table ., , all from Norfolk, were expressed in terms of width, (for a watermill and a windmill) being at ‘hands’, and at ‘hands’ ( for windmills, for a watermill, and the last—at Hindolveston—might have been for either the watermill or the windmill present on the manor).¹³⁷ If we assume the modern conversion of inches to a hand, then these stones had diameters of – inches, roughly speaking a yard and a half, and Farmer indicates that some stones may have reached a diameter as high as hands.¹³⁸ Millstones of up to inches in diameter were produced in the Eifel district of Germany,¹³⁹ so it seems plausible that these medieval Norfolk stones were in fact German in origin. As the Norfolk cases indicate, there was no distinction between stones for watermills and windmills, and indeed it appears that stones were often interchangeable from one type of mill to another.¹⁴⁰ Horse-mills also seem to have used millstones of a similar size, as in the case of the new millstone bought at Congleton for a rebuilt horse-mill at Halton, Cheshire, in –, which cost s., well above the average for the millstones in the region for this time period (s. 3/4d.). Such stones were of considerable weight, perhaps up to a ton,¹⁴¹ which explains the problems and expenses of carrying them over land, where broken cart axles and the requirement for back-up carts were common occurrences.¹⁴² Finally, there was also a fairly active market for used mill¹³⁵ In the – Forest of Dean example mentioned above, d. was paid for the five millstones quarried, that is, d. per millstone. Harold Fox cites tolls on millstones ranging from d. to d. in Devon and Cornwall during the th and th centuries: ‘Millstone Makers’, . ¹³⁶ Select Pleas of the Forest, . ¹³⁷ NRO DCN // (Eaton, –); // (Monk’s Grange, –, probably for the windmill at Catton); // (Hindolveston, –); // (Hemsby, –); / (Martham and Eaton, –). ¹³⁸ Farmer, ‘Millstones’, . Watts, Archaeology, , cites standard th-century Peak millstone diameters as being ‘ hands for a runner [upper] stone and hands for a bedstone’. ¹³⁹ Major, ‘Manufacture of Millstones’, . Yves Coutant, in discussing th-century Flemish millstones, notes that ‘most millstones were no less than . m. in diameter’: Windmill Technology, . ¹⁴⁰ For example, two used millstones were transferred from the watermill at Knottingley, Yorkshire, for use in the windmill at Owston in the same county in – (PRO DL /). Similarly, at Halton, Cheshire, in –, an old millstone was moved from the windmill and placed in the watermill on the same manor: PRO DL /. ¹⁴¹ Storck and Teague, Flour for Man’s Bread, ; Farmer, ‘Millstones’, . ¹⁴² As at Downton,Wiltshire, in –, where a cart sent to fetch a millstone at the port of Lymington seemingly suffered a broken axle and had to be supplemented with another cart (HRO M B/, ms. v–).
The Operation of Milling
stones. At Tickhill, Yorkshire, used millstones from the various mills in the town were routinely stockpiled for future sale,¹⁴³ while used millstones were often purchased or transferred from one mill to another.¹⁴⁴ As for the surface preparation of the stones, we know relatively little for certain. Occasionally the accounts mention ‘concaving’ the stones,¹⁴⁵ which suggests that perhaps they were not always of a flat surface, but may have been slightly curved for milling efficiency reasons. In later times this was often done to the upper, runner stone, which was hollowed out slightly towards the centre, possibly to a depth of about . inches. The bedstone was left level, so that the gap between the stones narrowed towards their rims. This allowed a more gradual crushing of the grain as it was forced out by centrifugal force towards the edges of the stones and made clogging less likely.¹⁴⁶ Whether some hollowing out of the top stone was done or not, the nature of grinding surfaces needed some thought. As mentioned above, the faces of French or German stones did not necessarily require the addition of furrows, and the seemingly twelfthcentury millstone remains from the Castle Donington excavations, involving stones of only up to a yard or so in diameter, suggest that simple pitting of the grinding surfaces may have been enough, particularly as stones aged.¹⁴⁷ But more definite grooving patterns certainly evolved in succeeding centuries, as suggested, for example, by the frequent references to steel-tipped bills for dressing the stones.¹⁴⁸ Judging from the archaeological remains, millstones used in medieval England probably had straight furrows set in alternating patterns, similar to those shown in Plate .. Straight furrows . inches apart and . inches deep were found on millstone fragments excavated at the site of the medieval windmill at Dogsthorpe, Peterborough, while a fragment of German lavastone, although possibly of post-medieval provenance, was found at the Lamport, Northamptonshire, windmill with furrows . inches apart and . inches deep.¹⁴⁹ Certainly, the straight furrow pattern remained popular in England for long after the medieval period.¹⁵⁰
¹⁴³ As reported in – (PRO DL /). Sales were obviously slow, since some of these used millstones had been around since –. ¹⁴⁴ See following note and n. above. ¹⁴⁵ As for an old millstone bought for Godmersham, Kent, in – (In j vetere molare empto cum cariagio, xjs. iiijd. In eodem concavando, ponderando cum sella & somerando & cubando, xs.: CCA DCc Godmersham ). ¹⁴⁶ Brown, Windmills of England, ; Schoonhoven, ‘Grinding with Stones’, , –. ¹⁴⁷ Clay and Salisbury, ‘Norman Mill Dam’, –. ¹⁴⁸ A likely reference to the furrowing of the grinding surface occurred at Feering, Essex, in –, when three ‘bills’ were lengthened with steel for ‘penetrating’ (penetranda) a new millstone brought from London: WAM . ¹⁴⁹ Pearce, ‘Medieval Windmill’, , ; Posnasky, ‘Lamport Post Mill’, . ¹⁵⁰ Wailes, Windmills in England, ; Hills, Power from Wind, .
The Operation of Milling
P .. Upper medieval millstone from Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire
Millstone repairs were a frequent feature of milling operations, and the sticking of bits of millstones back together with plaster of Paris is quite common in the accounts, as at Monkton, Kent, in –, where two pieces of stone were joined together with plaster and bound with wood or iron to make a new stone.¹⁵¹ Similarly, pieces of stone were sometimes sold, as at Milton Hall, Essex, in ,¹⁵² presumably to be combined with other pieces elsewhere.
.. : Altogether, the reliable supply of materials and some ingenuity in making the best use of them was critical for the milling industry. When the flow of these essential goods was disturbed, it could have a significantly disrupting effect. This was particularly the case with millstones, the lack of which could disable mills for weeks at a time.¹⁵³ In this regard, a reduction in millstone production might have occurred in the immediate aftermath of the plague because of labour shortage in the quarries. For example, in – it was recorded that the ¹⁵¹ CCA DCc Monkton ; see also Farmer, ‘Millstones’, . ¹⁵² Where a piece of a millstone was sold for d.: CCA DCc Middleton . ¹⁵³ As one example among many, in – the two watermills at Overton, Hampshire, lost weeks’ production ‘through the deficiency of two millstones’: HRO M B/, m. .
The Operation of Milling
millstone quarry at Congleton, Cheshire, which normally yielded s. d. per year, produced nothing ‘through the deficiency of workers this year’.¹⁵⁴ Such problems might explain the sudden rise of millstone prices in the middle of the fourteenth century,¹⁵⁵ as well as more frequent down-times for mills.¹⁵⁶ Even at their worst, however, disruptions from lack of supplies such as millstones were seldom chronic and certainly caused much less upheaval than the weather-induced crises for mills, such as in – and –. Generally supply to the milling industry seems to have functioned adequately year in and year out, and certainly the scale of these sub-industries was often impressive, particularly for millstones and canvas. The ‘reach’ of milling in terms of the sub-industries it could spawn and support, even overseas, reinforces the view posited in the last chapter that milling and its related activities had achieved a basic critical mass or momentum that would make it one of the primary economic activities of the Middle Ages (and beyond). In the next two chapters we shall look at the people involved at the various levels of the industry: the lords and others who invested in it; the millers and craftsmen who operated and maintained it; and the customers who patronized it. ¹⁵⁴ PRO DL /. By – the quarry was farmed out for s. per year (DL /). ¹⁵⁵ e.g. Farmer, ‘Millstones’, – (tables and ). ¹⁵⁶ As perhaps best illustrated on the Ramsey Abbey manor of Brancaster, Norfolk, where lost revenues from the windmill due to lack of millstones were recorded for –, –, and –: PRO SC /, , .
Entrepreneurs
v G the large number of mills and the capital needed to construct and maintain them, some entrepreneurial spirit at least was clearly alive in the late medieval milling industry. Even in the darkest period of the mid-fifteenth century, there were people willing to risk their time and money in milling. Yet, defining what constituted an entrepreneur has been difficult to do for any time in history,¹ and the later Middle Ages are no exception. Part of this involves uncertainty over the nature of capital at the time. From at least the thirteenth century onwards, England was effectively a monetized economy, even when bullion was scarce.² As a result, the rents, securities, and capital advancement for milling construction expressed in cash terms in various manorial and other documents probably should be considered as exactly that—that is, payments in coin. But much of the ‘capital’ advanced was also non-monetary, especially, say, when a lessee’s labour or the lord’s wood made up an important part of the resources for a new or reconstructed mill. Nevertheless, the contribution of these sorts of resources is important and should not be disqualified, and indeed historians of the later Industrial Revolution have in their turn considered such non-cash contributions as often being a critical part of the investment for an enterprise.³ Similarly the distinction between fixed capital (that is, the money put into the actual fabric of the mill, particularly during its original construction) and working capital (the money needed to keep the milling enterprise going on a day-to-day basis) often blurs who should actually be called the entrepreneur. Do we see only fixed capital as worthy of notice? Lords, for example, sometimes advanced the initial capital for the construction or reconstruction of the mills, ¹ For instance, the debate over the nature of entrepreneurial activity and of entrepreneurs themselves in the Industrial Revolution: e.g. Crouzet, First Industrialists, esp. –. ² See Spufford, Money, esp. ch. . ³ e.g. Honeyman, Origins of Enterprise, .
Entrepreneurs
often, it appears, at the instigation of the prospective lessee or tenant, but then took no further part in the enterprise beyond receiving the rent, even leaving maintenance costs to the lessee or tenant. Who was the entrepreneur in this case? Do we see the lord as simply acting as a financier? Or is it easier to see them both as entrepreneurs, each contributing important elements to the venture (cash on the part of the lords, labour and milling expertise on the part of the lessee or tenant) in a beneficial partnership that contributed significantly to the development of milling in the later Middle Ages? Do we see similar partnerships among lessees or tenants themselves in the same light? Or should we limit ourselves simply to the person who supplies the vision of the enterprise: that is, the person in whose mind the idea of building a mill first occurred and whose energy and initiative were the principal agents in bringing the idea to fruition? Looked at in this last way, the picture might seem clearer. Certainly, as we shall see in the rest of this chapter, the impetus for creating new mill initiatives clearly slipped from lord to lessee or tenant as the Middle Ages progressed. But even here, in terms of the overall well-being of the industry, the issue is clouded, as often lords seemed to have kept mills going even when the entrepreneurial ‘vision’ weakened considerably. Also, when lessees in particular took over already functioning mills, to what extent did they provide the ‘vision’ of the enterprise? It may be that only when lessees contributed significantly to major reconstructions or expanded the function of mills (for example, by adding a fulling-mill to an already existing corn-mill) could they be called entrepreneurial in any sense. All of these issues have relevance to how we view capital investment and entrepreneurship in the late medieval milling industry or, indeed, for the economy as a whole at the time. It is the purpose of this chapter to investigate the scale and nature of this investment and entrepreneurship, who was doing it and when, the mechanisms (such as length of leases, maintenance agreements, and the degree of cooperative activity) behind the change in investment patterns, and how shifts in the nature of entrepreneurial activity in the milling industry match up against the various theories about capital formation and investment behaviour in the late medieval period, as postulated by Marx, Weber, and others.⁴ In relation to this last, it has recently been argued that Marxist or neo-Marxist theories positing a straightforward transition from feudalism to capitalism provide far too narrow a framework for the discussion of capital penetration in late medieval England.⁵ For one thing, as I shall inves⁴ For a useful summary of the various theories that circulate around capitalism in the later Middle Ages, see Dyer, ‘Were there Any Capitalists?’, esp. –. ⁵ e.g. Britnell, ‘Commerce and Capitalism’; Dyer, ‘Were there Any Capitalists?’
Entrepreneurs
tigate more deeply in the next chapter, the legal framework for milling remained so deeply committed to its medieval roots that is questionable whether any sort of fundamental transformation of the industry could take place. New entrepreneurs were only too willing to take advantage of and, much more importantly, maintain the structural and legal conditions under which the industry functioned. In short, it is not unreasonable to question whether new capital investment, in whatever form, could fundamentally alter the conditions under which milling functioned in our period or, arguably, for a long time afterwards. Yet change in the industry did occur, both in the direction of the activities undertaken, especially for industrial uses, and, more crucially, in the make-up of those who invested in milling and how they did it. I have already measured the results of these changes to some degree in Chapter , in describing the movement of mill numbers and, less precisely, revenues over the period. This chapter attempts to do the same for the degree of investment and the make-up and practice of investors over the period. In fact, the milling industry is a first-class example for studying these issues to the degree of subtlety required, since, as we shall see, it was an activity that attracted an unusually high intensity of investment in the later Middle Ages. It can be argued that this penchant for attracting capital may make it unrepresentative of most capital investment in the later Middle Ages, especially in rural settings, but certainly its mechanisms are much easier to see. Altogether, given the great mass of material for milling, it can provide a clearer and more comprehensive and rigorous assessment of the evolution of investment patterns and entrepreneurship than has hitherto been attempted for late medieval England.⁶ I will begin by investigating those mills associated with lords’ demesnes, where the evidence is most abundant, and then proceed to the other sectors—tenant, borough, and domestic—where information is less forthcoming.
.. : At the start of our period () investment in the milling industry was dominated by lords. The general trend after this, and especially after , was one of lords’ gradual relaxation of their hold over such investment. As for the demesne mills themselves, some of them would in effect escape to other sectors, while ⁶ Up until now most examinations of the shifting of investment patterns in the later Middle Ages, such as in the leasing of demesnes themselves, have been very regional in nature and often limited to individual estates: e.g. du Boulay, ‘Who Were Farming?’; Barbara Harvey, ‘Leasing’; Dyer, Lords and Peasants, ch. ; Hare, ‘Demesne Lessees’.
Entrepreneurs
those mills that remained as demesne assets would increasingly be surrendered to lessees, who would gradually assume effective responsibility for their continued existence. But this gradual decline of lords in the investment picture for mills should be seen against a very impressive level of investment which they made originally. As has already been indicated in Chapter , the total number of watermills and windmills in , for all sectors, was probably somewhere around ,. Looking at all types of mill in very rough terms, since there could be a wide range in expense for certainly the first two of these, watermills cost in the range of at least £, windmills £, horse-mills £, and hand-mills less than £.⁷ Again considering only the first two, watermills seemingly outnumbered windmills by over to .⁸ If we assume this : ratio of watermills over windmills and using the building cost estimates for watermills and windmills just given, then the construction costs of these mills would be £, if a total of , mills is assumed about .This is very much a minimum, since costs for watermills in particular could be much higher, as for example the tide mills at Lydden, Kent, and in the London suburb of Southwark in the early fourteenth century, where construction costs in each case exceeded £,⁹ while it could also be argued that watermills in fact outnumbered windmills by closer to to than to .¹⁰ In such a situation, if we, say, doubled the construction costs on average to £ for watermills and £ for windmills and assumed a : ratio for watermills to windmills, then the total construction costs for the same , mills would be £,. In other words, the total investment value represented by watermills and windmills in England in could have been over £, and was likely at least £,, a good deal of it, if not most, footed by lords. This level of fixed capital for a purely economic activity (as against the fixed capital in political and religious structures like castles or cathedrals) was remarkably high for the time.¹¹ ⁷ For the costs of building watermills and windmills, see Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, esp. , – (tables –). The one horse-mill construction found in this study (for Ivinghoe, Oxfordshire, in –) cost £ s. d.: see App. . This level of investment for horse-mills is also supported by a extent of debt for Peter Hownslowe, beer brewer of London, where a horse-mill, a malt-kiln (probably of brass), and wooden containers were valued at £: PRO C/, no. , m. . Extents for debt also give many valuations for hand-mills or querns, usually around –s. each (see Sect. . and n. below). ⁸ For the number of watermills relative to windmills, at least as indicated by inquisitions post mortem, see Langdon, ‘Lordship’, (table ). ⁹ £ s. for the mill at Lydden in – and £ s. ½d. for the mill at Southwark in –: Mate, ‘Property Investment’, –; HRO M B/, ms. –v. Nor were such costs new to the early th century; in – the bishop of Winchester spent £ s. ½d. on two (probably tidal) mills at Southwark: Pipe Roll . . . –, –. ¹⁰ Especially if tenant mills were included, which seem mostly to have been water-mills: Langdon, ‘Lordship’, –. ¹¹ Cf. Robert Dodgshon’s implied rejection of fixed capital in pre-modern industries: Society, , .
Entrepreneurs
Nor could this sum be considered a form of one-off charge that would not have to be repeated once mills were built, since routine maintenance and major rebuilds of both watermills and windmills were a recurring expense for lords. For example, the watermill (from ) and later also fulling-mill (from at least ) at Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, for which the maintenance costs have been usefully abstracted by Richard Holt, seem to have incurred substantial rebuilding costs of £ or more at least every twenty-five years or so.¹² If one adds yearly maintenance charges, it is likely that the Great Shelford mill was renewing its original construction costs about every ten years. The same seems to have been the same for other mills, such as the double watermill (with two sets of millstones) at Feering, Essex, or the windmill at Henbury-in-SaltMarsh, Gloucestershire, both of which had annual repair costs in the range that would likely total in ten years their original construction costs.¹³ Altogether, the amount of money that lords were prepared to invest in mills had reached very impressive levels by the beginning of the fourteenth century. This is also very evident when one looks at this expenditure from the point of view of the intensity of investment.Table . provides the gross investment rates (that is, maintenance costs as a percentage of gross revenues) for a number of mills from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. The figures in the table have to be viewed with some caution, since maintenance costs and revenues were often affected by the operating status of the mill, that is, whether it was run directly (through the use of a hired miller) or leased. Indeed, even at the height of the so-called ‘direct demesne farming’ period in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries (when, for many estates, demesne lands were also cultivated straightforwardly for the lord’s use by employing a combination of customary labour services and hired labour), lords often preferred to lease out mills rather than run them directly.¹⁴ When mills were leased out, expenses were often shared in some fashion between the lord and the mill lessee. As I shall discuss below, the lessee in fact often shouldered the bulk of maintenance costs in these cases. Occasionally, however, the lord would seemingly assume most if not all of the maintenance costs, in which case a fairly true reflection of the gross investment rate might be obtained even when mills were leased. Even when mills were operated directly, it is often difficult to calculate the gross investment rate, since manorial officials very frequently preferred to distribute the multure as ‘mixed grain’ liveries to the demesne famuli (or servants) rather than sell these grains on the market. As a result, mill incomes have often to be calculated by ¹² Especially when taking into consideration the missing accounts in the series: Holt, Mills, –. ¹³ For sources, see Table .. ¹⁴ Thus, of the mills on the bishop of Worcester’s estate, c., half were leased out and half were operated directly: Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, .
Entrepreneurs T .. Gross investment rates for demesne mills Manor Water-mills Feering, Essex Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire Kelveden, Essex King’s Mills, Bristol Windmills Erbury, Middlesex Henbury-inSalt-Marsh, Gloucestershire Oakham, Rutland Turweston, Buckinghamshire
Period covered
No. of account years
% gross investment
Status
– – – – – –
.–. .–. . . .–. .
L D L L L D
– –
.–. .
L D
– –
.–. .–.
D D
Notes: D = operated directly; L = leased out. All these were mature mills that had been operating for at least three years.The account series were from consecutive surviving accounts, with the exception of Kelveden and Oakham, where the accounts were chosen from the beginning and end of the period indicated (– and – for Kelveden, – and – for Oakham). Sources: Watermills: WAM – (Feering); Holt, Mills, – (Great Shelford); WAM –, , – (Kelvedon); Accounts . . . of Bristol Castle, – (King’s Mills, Bristol); Windmills: WAM – (Erbury); Dyer, Lords and Peasants, (Henbury-in-Salt-Marsh); WAM –, – (Oakham); WAM – (Turweston).
estimating how much the grain given to the servants was actually worth on the market, a situation that also obtained for leased mills when the rent was paid in grain. Those cases in Table . where a range is given for the gross investment rate include these sorts of consideration, the low value indicating where a high price for multure grains given as liveries (or wages in grain) was assumed and the high value indicating where a low grain price was assumed.¹⁵ Regardless of the complications of calculation, the data in Table . indicate a very high intensity of investment for milling. This is most obvious for mills that were operated directly. All these had gross investment rates well above per cent, sometimes approaching per cent or more, with the exception of the King’s Mills at Bristol, which may reflect the greater efficiency of a large milling ¹⁵ The grain prices were taken from the accounts themselves, the high end being wheat prices and the low end being the cheapest grain sold (excluding oats, which were seldom found in significant quantities among multure grains).
Entrepreneurs
establishment in an urban situation. In comparison, gross investment rates for demesnes as a whole rarely topped per cent.¹⁶ Mills that were leased out and where lords were able to deflect some of the maintenance costs onto the lessees might have had similarly low investment rates, as for the windmill at Erbury and the watermills at Kelveden and (before the plague at least) at Great Shelford in Table .. But often leasing did not lead to lower maintenance costs (and hence lower gross investment rates). The mill at Feering, for instance, showed little difference in gross investment rate from the time it was leased to the time it was operated directly. Even more interesting is the case at Great Shelford, where the lord, the bishop of Ely, had to assume a much greater share—possibly all—of the mill expenses after , raising the average gross investment rate to over per cent. The addition of a fulling-mill to the complex in seems to have been an attempt to maintain viable mill profits even in the face of rising maintenance costs.¹⁷ In short, it would appear that the investment in mills was very atypical for the economic behaviour of lords, clearly exceeding the rate of investment in manors as a whole. It was altogether an intensity of investment relative to revenue generation perhaps only duplicated by such things as investment in urban property that many lords were also promoting.¹⁸ If so, why should mills be such a special case? There are a number of possible reasons. One is that mills provided a particularly effective use of land. A watermill or windmill could be situated on a relatively small area—an acre or less—but could still provide a very impressive level of revenues—much more in terms of income per acre than could be generated by growing crops or raising livestock.¹⁹ To men and women raised to think in territorial terms this may have been very appealing. It is also possible that lords did not think of mills in terms of production at all, in that mills did not directly improve agricultural production, but they did allow lords to take a larger share of whatever production was going.This appre¹⁶ Calculations of gross investment rates on demesnes have varied from—on the low side— per cent or less (Hilton,‘Rent and Capital Formation’; Postan,‘Investment’; Mate,‘Profit and Productivity’, esp. ) to as high as per cent or more for a group of royal manors in – (Stacey, ‘Agricultural Investment’, ). The latter calculation (for the royal manors) included the cost of seed and the buying of much new stock. A more typical year-by-year assessment of gross investment rates on the estates of Bolton Priory in the late th and early th centuries ranged from . to . per cent, averaging around per cent: Kershaw, Bolton Priory, . Finally, a very careful analysis of investment rates on the bishop of Winchester’s manor of Rimpton, Somerset, from to , reveals that, even with the optimistic inclusion of seed corn considering revenues for farming only (i.e. excluding rents, and profits of the manorial courts and mills), the gross investment rate only rose to an average of . per cent (. per cent without the cost of seed): Thornton, ‘Manorial Landscapes’. I am grateful to Dr Christopher Thornton for permission to cite these findings. ¹⁷ Holt, Mills, –, –. ¹⁸ Mate, ‘Property Investment’, –. ¹⁹ As Fizherbert said: ‘there is great profyte to the lordes in makyng of these mylnes and the moost rent is reysed upon so lytell grounde’: Boke of Surveying, fo. v. The same point has been made recently about lords’ investment in founding boroughs (Dyer, Making a Living, ).
Entrepreneurs
ciation of taking a bigger slice of the pie rather than increasing the size of it may well have had a more beneficial effect of encouraging mill investment than it had for other aspects of manorial agriculture.This fits in very well with the phenomenon of multure rates (that is, taking a fraction of the grain brought to the mill for grinding) and also of ‘suit of mill’ (that is, the lord’s ability to force his tenants to grind their corn or perhaps even full their cloth at the demesne mill(s) only). It is also reflected in the views of those who feel that the mill was a very artificial creation which fulfilled no useful economic purpose beyond filling the pockets of lords.²⁰ In a similar vein, it is also possible that lords might have considered investment in mills as practising a form of ‘cloaked’ usury,²¹ particularly as lords began overwhelmingly to lease mills, rather than running them directly, from the end of the thirteenth century onwards.²² Consequently, when a new mill was built—or an old ruined one rebuilt—the initial impetus for this probably came from the prospective lessee. It is doubtful that lords would take the chance of investing heavily in a mill without having a reputable lessee on hand, particularly from the mid-fourteenth century onwards where times were not notably favourable to milling. Thus, when a promising lessee was available, the lord would build or rebuild the mills as a sort of loan to the lessee or perhaps simply advance some or all of the capital for the lessee to build the mill himself.²³ The rent would then serve effectively as interest until the lease expired and the lord received back the principal of his ‘loan’ in the form of the mill itself, which could then be leased out again.²⁴ As such, it would provide an opportunity for the productive use of capital, although here lords would clearly be acting more like financiers than milling entrepreneurs. The problem with all of these hypotheses is that they do not explain why lords often continued to support milling even when prospects were bleak. Thus the monks at Westminster persevered with investment in the disastrous Turweston windmill, originally built in , long after any significant financial return could have been expected.²⁵ As I have speculated elsewhere, this may ²⁰ e.g. Dockès, Medieval Slavery, –. ²¹ This is the terminology used by Helmholtz, for which he gives a number of examples (‘Usury’, –). ²² e.g. as in the West Midlands: Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, . ²³ For example, John Carver of Pontefract was given marks (£ s. d.) to build three mills ‘in one house’ at Knottingley, Yorkshire, on an initial lease of two years starting in at a rent of marks (£ s. d.) per year. If John built the mills—which apparently he did, since he was still leasing them in –—he was to be given a further -year lease, starting in , at a rent of marks (£ s. d.) per year: PRO DL /. ²⁴ Hence the common phrase from leases that lessees should return the mill to the lord ‘in as good shape as he/she received it’. ²⁵ The Statute of Mortmain in might also have encouraged the monks at Westminster and other ecclesiastical landlords to shift investment from land to buildings, but Mavis Mate in particular is sceptical of the impact, especially long-term, that the statute might have had: ‘Property Investment’, esp. –, , –.
Entrepreneurs
have been partly due to the desire to establish seigneurial authority, since Turweston manor had only been acquired by Westminster Abbey in . Other motives, such as the sense that manors should be properly equipped, may also have been involved in such cases.²⁶ Altogether, it is important not to underestimate the sense of social responsibility among lords concerning the building of such structures as mills, however self-interested it may have been in the final analysis. Even as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century, lords could respond to tenant pleas for investment in milling, as in the case of Milton Hall, in Prittlewell, Essex, in , where the tenants of the manor complained to the monks of Canterbury Cathedral Priory that the ruined state of the corn-mill meant they were forced to go long distances to get their grain ground.²⁷ Since the demesne mill was operating again in –,²⁸ it seems their plea was successful. Even more puzzling in this regard were the actions of lords regarding mills towards the middle of the fifteenth century. Here was a period when, by all rights, lords should have abandoned investment in milling very quickly indeed. That they did not is indicated partly by the fact that mill numbers overall did not decline as dramatically as population. But this is only one aspect of the story. As I have already discussed in Chapter , revenues per mills also declined as well, and all of this was compounded by the economic problems that began to beset the middle of the fifteenth century. Despite the worsening financial situation, lords continued to support mills in a number of ways.They began, for instance, to take on more of the maintenance costs of mills, as we have seen in the Great Shelford case above and will discuss in more detail below. Similarly, some of the loans for building mills mentioned above in relation to cloaked usury may be seen in less opportunistic terms, perhaps as advances to ensure that communities retained their mills. Finally, there was an unusual, not to say inexplicable, generosity concerning non-payment of rent. Arrears of rent became chronic for many mills, especially towards the middle of the fifteenth century. Thus, on the Abbey of Ramsey manor of Houghton in Huntingdonshire, Robert Smyth, who leased the watermills at Houghton and Hemingford for £ per year, had run up arrears of £ s. d. plus quarter of wheat by –, on a lease that started no earlier than .²⁹ In a similar case of some twenty years later, John Wright, ‘farmer’ of the watermills at the Westminster Abbey manor of Birdbrook in Essex, who began his lease seemingly in – at £ s. per year, had run up arrears of £ s. by –, at which point he fled the ²⁶ Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, –, –. ²⁷ Norah Carlin, ‘Christ Church, Canterbury’, –. ²⁸ CCA DCc MA . ²⁹ PRO SC /. John Fuller formerly held the mills on a five-year lease, which expired at Michaelmas : PRO SC / (– account).
Entrepreneurs
manor.³⁰ Even well-established mill lessee families, such as the Shercrofts (discussed below), could run up large arrears.³¹ Part of this may be seen as a consequence of the much discussed shortage of specie in the mid-fifteenth century,³² but it does not entirely explain why lords put up with a losing situation for so long, especially in situations where they were responsible for repairs and so were very unlikely to make significant profits. Christopher Dyer has argued that, in regard to demesne leasing, arrears may have been used by tenants as a ploy to reduce rents.³³ Such a thing might also help explain the general trend to the reduction of rents for mills discussed below, but often lessee distress seems to have been real enough, as indicated by those who abruptly abandoned the lease, often at the dead of night.³⁴ In the long run, though, it is hardly surprising that lords would gradual begin to lose their resolve for keeping up their mills. In this climate, mills either became derelict (as charted in Chapter ) or responsibility for their continued survival began to pass to other people. In order to chronicle the timing and manner of this transition, it is sensible to turn to those who began to step into the shoes of lords as the chief investors in the milling industry. These people have here been divided into three categories: () ‘lessees’: those who leased demesne mills for a fixed period of time; () ‘tenants’: those who either took over demesne mills on hereditary tenure—transferring them to the tenant sector— or were given permission by lords to build mills on their own tenements; () the borough and domestic sectors: that is, mills controlled by borough corporations and hand-mills found in private households, both of which may also have taken over milling previously handled by demesne mills. They have been treated here in order of the quantity of information available for each group.
.. : It is, in fact, for the demesne mills that lords leased out that we have the most information about the people who came to invest in the milling industry of the later Middle Ages. The limited-term nature of mill leases meant that their renewal came up more frequently than in the case of tenant mills. Furthermore, ³⁰ WAM . ³¹ Richard Shercroft, who held the watermills at Rothwell, Yorkshire, from at least to at a rent of £ s. d. per year and who was also responsible for their maintenance, was recorded in the – account as still owing £ s. d. for one and a half years spanning September to March . These debts seem eventually to have brought an end to Shercroft’s holding of the mills. Starting in , Richard Whitewood ‘and others’ held the mills on a nine-year lease at the lower rent of £ s. d. and under the condition that the king bore maintenance costs rather than the lessee: PRO DL /–. ³² See Sect. ... ³³ Dyer, Lords and Peasants, –. ³⁴ See n. below.
Entrepreneurs
initially at least, lords were concerned to keep close tabs on these demesne assets and to maintain their options over them should conditions return to a situation where direct operation might again have been preferable. As such, the leases appear very frequently over a whole range of manorial documentation.The initial agreement was generally recorded in an indenture or as a manorial court roll entry. Here the lease would be entered, complete with all the details that lord and lessee deemed important for ensuring—on one side—that the mill could be reclaimed in good condition and without delay at the end of the lease, while— on the other—ensuring the degree of security that the lessee needed to make a reasonable profit over the term of the lease. But the lease would only be recorded once in such a fashion, and, given the incomplete survival of indentures or manorial court roll series, the chances of a specific lease turning up in surviving documents is often slim. But the existence and often full terms of the lease would also be listed in other documents. These could include lease books, rentals, and surveys, but a particularly useful source is the account rolls, which have already played an important role in this study. The accounts were an important supplement to the initial recording of the lease, since they provided a way of tracking the lease through its existence and recorded any complications that might arise, such as reductions in rent when the mill was idle for repairs. The chief advantage of accounts is that they record the lease for every year that it was in existence and not just the original entry. Their chief drawback is that the lease entry in the account was usually only an abbreviated version of that contained in the court roll or indenture, often indicating no more than that the mill was ‘at farm’ (that is, leased) at such and such an annual rent. However, in many cases more information was given, most commonly the names of the lessee or lessees, but also often the term of the lease in years and the year that the lease began, as well as the maintenance conditions under which the lease was held. The trend over time was for more and more details to be recorded in the account, perhaps because lords and manorial officials wanted a more available copy of the lease, particularly as lease terms began to lengthen and the original might have been difficult to find among the manor’s records. Indeed, lease entries in accounts seem often to have been straight copies of the originals.³⁵ As a result, one can count on turning up a considerable amount of information about mill leases from the accounts alone, even with a methodology that relies on a significant degree of sampling, as this study does. ³⁵ This was particularly the case with the duchy of Lancaster accounts, where in any particular year a long description of the lease would be given, often accompanied by a reference to the specific court roll where the original could be found.
Entrepreneurs
The approach was simply to record the details of leases as they were encountered in the process of gathering information for the mill count in Chapter . Altogether details—beyond simply stating that the mill was being leased out and its rent—were found for separate leases for the period to .³⁶ Although this is certainly a respectable sample, it is far from being random.The recording of the leases tended to be far better for some parts of the country than others, the numbers of leases per region being as follows: East Anglia, ; Home Counties, ; South, ; South-West, ; East Midlands, ; West Midlands, ; North, . The geographically skewed nature of the mill lease sample reflects the experience from landlord to landlord in the sample. Lay lords, and particularly royal estates, which provided much of the data for West Midlands and northern manors, tended to be better at recording lease details than ecclesiastical lords. This was particularly the case towards the end of our period, when monastic estates, which are most prevalent in the account samples of East Anglia and the Home Counties, began to lose the administrative vigour that they had had earlier in the Middle Ages. The spread over time is somewhat better. Once past , before which detailed information about mill leases from the accounts is scarce, the spread of the leases over the period – is relatively even.³⁷ Using the sample, we can illustrate the cut-and-thrust between lords and lessees over the specific terms of leases. As I have discussed in Chapter , lessees clearly won the battle over revenues as the rents for mill leases steadily fell for much of the later Middle Ages. Only in the early sixteenth century did lords seem to be in a better position. But lords might have gained in other areas, especially over the allocation of maintenance costs.
... Length of Leases Altogether of the leases gave details about the length of term under which the lessee held the mill, either for life (or lives) or for a set number of years. These leases were mostly found in the West Midlands or the North, which comprised two-thirds of the leases indicating the length of term: that is, and leases respectively. The remaining leases were scattered among the remaining five regions—East Anglia, the Home Counties, the South, South³⁶ Although our study nominally ends in , a number of leases were obtained from accounts in the – period, particularly on manors where there was no account for – and one later in the s had to be taken as the endpoint for the manorial milling sequence. ³⁷ The percentage of leases in each time period is as follows: –, . per cent ( leases); –, . per cent (); –, . per cent (); –, . per cent (); –, . per cent (); –, . per cent (); –, . per cent (); –, . per cent ().
Entrepreneurs
West, and East Midlands—labelled ‘The rest’ in Table .. Despite the geographical unevenness in the sample, the trend over time is clear. The length of leases given in years doubled or trebled in all areas during the interval from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries (see especially the medians in Table ., where the median lease in all regions was less than ten years in the third quarter of the fourteenth century, but had reached twenty-one years by the second quarter of the sixteenth).³⁸ Leases for lives had some presence throughout the sample, comprising (or . per cent) of the leases in Table ., but they became less popular over the period and were never very frequent in some regions, such as the North. One reason for this is that they were very unpredictable in terms of their lengths, potentially a cause of concern for both parties, and were gradually replaced in many cases by leases of set terms of years that were guaranteed not only for the life of the lessee but also for ‘his/her heirs and assigns’ should he or she die before the lease expired.Thus, John Burgogne, who leased the watermill at Barton, Staffordshire, for life in –, seemingly renegotiated the lease of the mill, along with certain demesne lands, for a set term of twenty years in . Since John’s son Richard was one of those named as surety for the lease, it suggests he was to take over should his father die. The same mill was later given to Henry Edward ‘and his assigns’ for ten years in .³⁹ Leases for life in some cases were clearly reserved as special favours for particular individuals, as in some early fifteenth-century references to the watermill at Budbrooke, Warwickshire, which was leased to Alice Wodelowe, ‘former nurse of the lord’, for life.⁴⁰ It may be this sentiment that kept such life leases in occasional use right to the end of our period. Also, the lengthening of the leases was not a continuous process. Table . shows leases in set terms of years slowly increasing in length up to the middle of the fifteenth century. Then there was a sudden jump during –, perhaps reflecting the crisis of the middle of the century, when many lessees took up leases on very long terms indeed. This, however, was followed by a temporary shortening of lease lengths in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, where the uncertainty of the final phase of the Wars of the Roses and the opening years of the Tudor regime may have made both parties to mill leases more cautious in committing themselves to long terms. In any case, the pattern of longer leases ³⁸ A more geographically limited study for the counties of Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire in the West Midlands (but using a broader range of documents than just accounts) shows the same trend, although leases here seem always to have been longer and did not undergo the dip in the last quarter of the th century discussed below: Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, (table ). ³⁹ PRO DL /, /, /. ⁴⁰ WaRO CR //, , (accounts for , –, and –). The ‘lord’ in question was probably Thomas Beauchamp, who held the manor until the forfeiture of his lands by Richard II in .
T .. Length of mill leases over time Time perioda
– – – – – – – –
North
The restb
West Midlands
All of England
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
— — — — —
. . . . . . . .
. . .
— —
. . . . . . . .
. .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
Notes: () no. of leases in lives; () no. of leases in set number of years; () mean length of lease for leases in () in years; () median length of lease for leases in () in years. Medians with decimal points indicate cases where there was no distinct middle value and the median had to be created by averaging two different values around the middle, a common occurrence with even-numbered samples. For example, in a sample of eight leases, if the fourth lease length in ascending order was of years and the fifth of years, the median in this case would be . years. a b
The time periods run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second. i.e. East Anglia, the Home Counties, the South, South-West, and East Midlands.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
Entrepreneurs
resumed in the early sixteenth century. Indeed, by this time there are signs that some of the leases, although nominally for a set number of years, were in fact becoming considered as permanent holdings of the lessee and his family.⁴¹ This in effect was repeating what had happened in the twelfth century, when many demesne mills slipped into hereditary tenure by just such a gradual process.⁴² Some leases simply carried on beyond the specified expiry date. As one example among many, the windmill at Owston, Yorkshire, leased to Christopher St Paul (‘Saintpole’) for sixty years in , was still recorded as being in St Paul’s hands (or more likely those of his descendants) on the same sixty-year lease in –, some seven years after it should have expired.⁴³ In addition, there are occasional hints of entry fines associated with these so-called temporary mill leases, a feature theoretically only found with hereditary tenures, suggesting a growing legal ambiguity concerning these longer leases.⁴⁴ Finally, lengths of leases also showed some variation according to the type of mill, as shown in Table .. Leaving aside the few cases of horse-mills, which were always let for long periods of time, it appears that fulling-mills were the first to be let on increasingly lengthy terms, an indication, perhaps, that lords were willing to relax their grip on them rather earlier than for water- or wind-powered grain mills. It is notable that watermills and especially windmills were let on relatively short terms for the second half of the fourteenth century and much of the fifteenth. Only after did longer leases for these grain mills become common, such that by the early sixteenth century, length of leases for all types of mill were more or less the same. It is difficult to be precise about the thinking that went on between lords (or their various officials) and lessees over the lengthening of leases. Lessees, of course, would value the security of longer leases, but these could also become serious liabilities if set at unrealistically high rent levels, as reflected in frequent references to lessees ‘fleeing’ the lease, especially in the troubled economic times of the mid-fifteenth century.⁴⁵ On the other hand, as much as they would often ⁴¹ As paralleled in the leasing of demesnes: e.g. du Boulay, ‘Who Were Farming?’, –. ⁴² Holt, Mills, –. ⁴³ PRO DL /; see also / (– account) for the start of the lease in . Similar extensions beyond the end of the lease are recorded for the watermills at Lostwithiel, Cornwall, and South-Teign, Devon, in – (PRO SC Hen VIII/) and for two watermills at Embleton, Northumberland in, – (PRO DL /). Some earlier examples foreshadowed those that would come later, as for the lease of the watermill at Bosham, Sussex, which in – was in the ‘eleventh’ year of a -year lease starting in (WSRO Acc. II/A/). ⁴⁴ Such as the entry fine of d. paid by Thomas Wichon and his wife, Agnes, in – for the life lease of the windmill at East Knoyle, Wiltshire: HRO M B/. For entry fines seen occasionally for leasing demesnes, see Harvey, ‘Leasing’, . ⁴⁵ A good example of this comes from Matlock, Derbyshire, where in – the lessee of the watermill, Roger Tagg, ‘fled the country by night, leaving neither goods nor chattels behind’: as recorded
T .. Length of leases by type of mill Time perioda
Water-mills ()
– – – – – – – –
—
Fulling-millsb
Windmills
Mill complexesc
Horse-mills
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
. . . . . . . .
— — — — — — —
. . . . . . .
. . . .
— — — — —
. . . . . . . . .
— — — — — —
— — — — —
— — — — —
— — — — —
— — — — — — —
. . . . . . . .
. . .
Notes: () no. of leases in lives; () no. of leases in set number of years; () mean length of lease for leases in () in years; () median length of lease for leases in () in years. For the calculation of medians, see Table .. a b c
The time periods run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second. Includes a few other types of industrial mill. Various combinations of water-mills, windmills, fulling-mills, and horse-mills.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
Entrepreneurs
like an assured rent for an extended number of years,⁴⁶ lords might eventually have the frustration of seeing valuable assets being tied up on long leases or hereditary tenure for much lesser rents than they could command on the open market, a reprise of the situation that existed for mills in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.⁴⁷ The relatively short lease lengths in the immediate aftermath of the plague, as shown in Table ., suggest that lords initially did want to keep mills on shorter leases in the hopes that the demand for them might eventually increase, but clearly this attitude gradually changed. Indeed, we should probably see the adjustment of lease lengths over time as a process of accommodation between both lord and lessee, and that it was often not too difficult to persuade lords to lengthen leases. This was particularly the case when lords were paying for most of the repairs of the mills themselves. There was a much greater inclination to lease the mills out on longer leases when the lessee took over the repairs, and, as I shall discuss in the next section, the willingness of lessees to take on a greater share of the maintenance costs was a powerful factor in both the lengthening of leases and the reduction of rents. The mechanisms for increasing lease lengths varied from estate to estate. Occasionally two-tiered leases would be employed, with a short preliminary lease preceding a longer lease to follow, the former sometimes acting as a period of grace for some preliminary action to be carried out by the tenant before the lord committed to a longer lease.⁴⁸ Some estates simply increased the lease by a multiple of the customary term, as in the case of the manors of the duchy of Cornwall, where seven-year leases, which were a popular feature on the estate in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, were in many cases gradually converted into fourteen- or twentyone-year leases.⁴⁹ Multiples of six and ten years were also popular in the leases.⁵⁰
in – (PRO DL /). See also the case of John Wright of Birdbrook (Sect. . above; also App. ). ⁴⁶ As indicated by the th-century Paston family, who were seemingly willing to accept lower rents for the leasing of their lands in order to persuade lessees to take longer terms: Richmond, ‘Landlord and Tenant’, . ⁴⁷ Holt, Mills, –. ⁴⁸ For example, see the case of John Carver of Pontefract (n. above). ⁴⁹ Thus, for example, see the seven-year leases of the Cornish watermills of Tewington, in St Austell parish (beginning in ), Lostwithiel (in the – account), and Helstone-in-Trigg, near Camelford (consecutive seven-year leases beginning in and ); -year leases at Helstone-in-Trigg (beginning in ) and Liskeard (beginning in ); and -year leases at Penknight, in Lanlivery (beginning ), Lostwithiel (beginning ), and Tywarnhayle, in Perranzabuloe (beginning ): PRO SC /; /; /; /, , ; /; Hen VII/; Hen VIII/. This followed the pattern for the leasing of land in general on the duchy: Hatcher, Rural Economy, , . ⁵⁰ Multiples of were most common, followed by multiples of and then .
Entrepreneurs
... Maintenance Costs Agreements Regardless of how lords and lessees determined the length of mill leases, the moment of truth probably occurred when lords and their officials began to make the calculation as to whether the upkeep of mills was worth the rent. As a result, the apportioning of maintenance costs was a critical element in the negotiation of leases. Basically, proceeding from those cases where the lord paid for maintenance costs to those where the lessee did, there were six major variants concerning maintenance: . The lord paid all maintenance costs. . The lord paid all costs except ‘going gear’. ‘Going gear’ (often given in such forms as ‘goyng gere’, ‘goyondwerk’, or ‘runnyng gere’ in the documents) was the term given to the moving parts of the mill, often given more specifically in the documents as the spindle, cogs, and rungs.There were the pieces of the mill most prone to giving way on a regular basis.They usually involved relatively minor expenses, but when the lessee took on the costs of these repairs (or did them him- or herself ) it spared the lord’s officials from dealing with such fiddly details. . Shared costs. These were agreements that tended to split costs in a more equal fashion. In the case of two mills, this sometimes took the form of the lord taking on the costs of one mill and the lessee the costs of the other.⁵¹ More usually, it was a detailed agreement that the lord would be responsible for certain parts of the mill and the lessee others.⁵² Many of these arrangements have a distinctly ad hoc feel about them, and were in many cases probably negotiated from lease to lease rather than being formulaic in nature. . The lessee assumed all costs except millstones. This was a more onerous charge for the lord than first appears, because millstones could be very expensive (see Section ..) and moreover in almost all cases had to be paid in cash. Also, lords in this circumstance also tended to supply timber as in () below,⁵³ and so this category of maintenance agreement was in fact closer to (). ⁵¹ For example, at Duffield, Derbyshire, on a -year lease starting in for the two water-mills on the manor, the lord was responsible for Duffield Mill and the lessee responsible for Hazelwood Mill, save for cogs and rungs (which the lord paid): PRO DL /. ⁵² For example, for the -year lease of the watermill and fulling-mill at Islip, Oxfordshire, starting , the tenant was to do all repairs except that the lord repaired the walls and roofs of the mills: WAM (– account). ⁵³ As for the mill at Corfe, Somerset, in –, where the farm of the mill was given to Thomas Dighere for £ per year ‘at the lord’s will, to maintain the said mill in all particulars, although the lord will provide him with large timbers and millstones’. The same sort of arrangement existed for mills leased at Witney, Oxfordshire, and Overton, Hampshire: Pipe Roll . . . –, , , .
Entrepreneurs
. The lessee paid all maintenance costs, except for timber (often described as ‘great timber’ (grossum maeremium), although ramelli (that is, branches) were also sometimes included). This was a much more desirable situation for the lord than () to (), because it usually did not require outlays of cash, but could be ‘expended’ out of the resources of the estate. Sometimes other resources, such as earth or clay, were also included as items that the lessee could use, and occasionally the lord might also contribute cutting and carrying costs for the wood. This type of general agreement, with some variations as indicated above, in fact became very popular. By the early sixteenth century, with () below, it greatly outnumbered all other types of maintenance agreement (see Table .). . The lessee paid all maintenance costs.⁵⁴ All six of these categories were found in the maintenance agreements. In terms of analysing them it is perhaps easiest to place them into groups of two each. Categories and were the most favourable to the lessee, with the lord paying most of the costs. Categories and were of the shared variety, reflecting the tug-of-war between lord and lessee in assigning costs, or perhaps making arrangements that suited the resources of both parties. Categories and were favourable to lords, leaving most of the maintenance costs to lessees. Altogether, leases recorded in the accounts gave information regarding the maintenance accord between lord and lessee. This sample was heavily weighted towards the West Midlands and the North, from where (or . per cent) of the leases came. Despite this, the results as shown in Table . are quite revealing. First of all, it seems that throughout our period maintenance conditions in general favoured the lord. In the immediate aftermath of the plague, two-thirds of the mills had maintenance agreements in categories or , the rest being of the shared variety ( or ). Over the next hundred years, however, the momentum gradually began to slip towards the lessee, such that maintenance agreements that favoured lords declined to just over half of the total number. Indeed, lords were often so desperate to lease out mills during the s and s that they often took on virtually all the maintenance costs themselves,⁵⁵ such that by the second quarter of the fifteenth century a third of the leased mills were being mostly maintained by lords. After that there was a very sharp ⁵⁴ Although sometimes these agreements might have a ‘disaster’ clause built into them, as for the Boroughmill and Andrewsmill at Alresford, Hampshire, leased to Ralph and John Begyn in –, who were to do all the repairs to the mills unless the weirs to the mills were broken ‘through a great flood of water’ (per magnum cretinum aquae), in which case the lord (the bishop of Winchester) would repair the mills at his own cost: HRO M B/. ⁵⁵ For example, see the lease of Richard Whitewood and others for the watermills at Rothwell, Yorkshire, in : n. above.
Entrepreneurs T .. Repair agreements in mill leases Time perioda
()
()
()
()
– – – – – – – –
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
.
.
.
Average percentage
Notes: () no. of leases; () percentage of leases with maintenance conditions favourable to the lessee—categories and (see text); () percentage of leases with ‘shared’ maintenance agreements—categories and ; () percentage of leases with maintenance conditions favourable to the lord— categories and . a The time periods run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
recovery of maintenance agreements that favoured lords from the third quarter of the fifteenth century onwards.These eventually amounted to over per cent of all leases by the early sixteenth century, although, as we shall see, this movement was clearly tied to lower rents and longer leases. What is also amply evident is the drying-up of maintenance agreements of the ‘shared’ type over the period. These, we can probably take it, formed part of an experimental phase in trying to apportion maintenance costs, which had effectively ended by the beginning of the sixteenth century. By then, the maintenance sections in leases had become much more formulaic, either just stating that the lessee was to carry all maintenance costs or stating that he or she was to take on all expenses except for wood and other raw materials. It would seem that leases with maintenance agreements of this type were the standard ‘business’ form of mill lease. Those agreements favouring lessees that still survived in the early sixteenth century were possibly of the ‘special favour’ sort as indicated above for life leases.⁵⁶ Certainly in relation to maintenance provisions in mill leases the situation had largely stabilized by , so that both lords and lessees were well accustomed to the basic forms. ⁵⁶ See the Alice Wodelowe case above (Sect. ..).
Entrepreneurs
T .. Mill maintenance agreements versus length of lease Time perioda
Agreements favourable to lessees
Shared maintenance agreements
Agreements favourable to lords
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
– – – –
. . . .
. . . .
—
. . . —
—
. . . .
Notes: () no. of leases in set number of years; () mean length of lease for leases in () in years; () median length of lease for leases in () in years. For the calculation of medians, see Table .. a
The time periods run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
How maintenance agreements related to lease lengths and rents also provides further insights into how critical the issue of maintenance costs was in the new entrepreneurial formulations of milling, particularly in the middle of the fifteenth century. Maintenance agreements were intimately connected with lease lengths and rents as shown in Tables . and .. Considering the length of leases first,Table . is comprised of those leases for which both the length of the lease and the type of maintenance agreement were given, for which there were cases in all. In order to increase the number of leases per time period in the sample, the period of analysis was broken up into fifty-year rather than twentyfive-year intervals. Despite the small sample sizes for the leases with maintenance agreements favouring lessees and for ‘shared’ agreements, the trend seems clear. There was, overall, a marked connection throughout between longer leases and maintenance agreements favouring lords. This distinction is most clear for –, where the average length of lease with maintenance agreements favouring lessees was half that of leases with maintenance agreements favouring lords. After that, the gap tended to close, so that for – the distinction was much less between the two types of lease, reflecting in part the ‘special favour’ situation that was probably involved when lords now took on maintenance costs. A similar sort of pattern emerges when the leases are arranged by the annual rent levels versus type of maintenance agreement, as shown in Table .. Here, for convenience, the leases have been arranged according to three revenue cohorts: lower than £, £ up to lower than £, and £ or more, with the number of leases in each cohort grouped according to type of maintenance
Entrepreneurs T .. Mill maintenance agreements versus annual rent levels Time perioda
– – – –
Agreements favourable to lessees
Shared maintenance agreements
Agreements favourable to lords
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
— —
—
—
—
—
Notes: In addition to the leases with set terms of years from Table ., this table also includes leases for life or lives. () no. of leases with rents lower than £ per year; () no. of leases with rents for £ to lower than £ per year; () no. of leases with rents £ or more. a
The time periods run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
agreement.⁵⁷ As can be seen, mills at low rental levels were predominant in those leases with maintenance agreements favourable to lords relative to those leases that had other types of maintenance agreements. A trio of cases, all from the duchy of Lancaster, shows how this progressed over time. Thus, at Barwick in Elmet, Yorkshire, the watermill at Hillam was leased to John Shercroft in for s. per year under the condition that the king was responsible for all repairs. In –, however, John took over the maintenance costs of the mill, for which the rent was reduced to s. d. per year.⁵⁸ By the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century reductions in rent were still being given to lessees who took on their own repairs but at a less generous discount, as in the case of the windmill at Widnes, Lancashire, which was leased out to Richard Smith and Thomas Appleton for ten years at a rent of s. d. per year, starting in , on the condition that the lessees ‘repair and sustain’ the mill at their own cost;⁵⁹ the mill had formerly been at s. per year, when the lessee was only responsible for maintaining the ‘going gear’.⁶⁰ Finally, by the second quarter of the sixteenth century the economic situation for mills had improved sufficiently that lords might even be able to persuade tenants to take on the repairs without reducing the rent, as in the case of the windmill at South Thoresby, Lincolnshire, where the rent for a lease of twenty years, starting in , remained at s. d. per year, despite the fact that the lease now stated that the lessee had to maintain the mill ⁵⁷ Leases for lives were included in this analysis. ⁵⁸ As described in the account of –: PRO DL /. ⁶⁰ As in –: PRO DL /.
⁵⁹ PRO DL /.
Entrepreneurs
(save for being supplied with the king’s timber, which the lessee had to cut, trim, and carry himself ) where previously the king bore all maintenance costs.⁶¹
... Pledges and Securities In addition to trying to slough off maintenance costs, mostly in return for lower rents and probably longer leases, lords also tried to tighten up the security of payment and responsibility for the lease generally. Occasionally lessees would be asked for a cash security, as in the case of Henry Edward, who in was required to advance £ against the ten-year lease of the watermill of Barton, Staffordshire.⁶² However, the prime way to ensure compliance was to spread responsibility for the lease through pledges. Pledging was, of course, a longstanding feature of manorial law for all sorts of matters (such as surety for good behaviour, loans, etc.) and its extension to things like mill leases was a natural progression, as it was for the leasing of other demesne or manorial assets. We see it clearly in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, where mill lessees seem routinely to have required important people in the community to stand as surety for them. Thus the thirty-year lease of the watermill at Congleton, Cheshire, beginning in , was supported by four pledges among the manor’s tenantry, including the mayor of the borough, William de Moreton.⁶³ The pledges might also make up a mélange of personnel from surrounding communities, as in the case of a twenty-year lease, beginning in , for the (water?)mill at the ‘socage’ of Alsop [en le Dale], Derbyshire, held by Henry Coupar of Alstonfield (just across the county border in Staffordshire) from , and pledged by Walter Blount of Tissington, John Ball and William Janson of Parwich, and Robert Malkynson of Bradbourne, all places in Derbyshire within a few miles of Alsop.⁶⁴ Being able to provide some sort of surety for a mill lease was clearly not a foregone conclusion, as in the case of Thomas Foune, who in was initially granted permission to resume the twelve-year lease of the watermill of Alderwasley, Derbyshire, formerly held by his brother William, on condition that he find ‘sufficient security for the rent and repair of the said mill’.⁶⁵ When he did not come to the court at Duffield ‘with his security’ (cum securitate sua), the steward gave the mill to William Duffield on a ten-year lease, ⁶¹ PRO DL / (account of –). The old rent, when the king was seemingly responsible for repairs, was also s. d. per year (as in –: PRO DL /). ⁶² PRO DL /; see also Sect. .. above. Henry was seemingly helped in the financing of this surety by John Osmond, gentleman, a tenant of the Abbey of Bromley in Staffordshire, and William Campden of Yoxall in the same county, yeoman. The rent for the mill was s. d. per year. For the occasional surety in relation to leasing demesnes, see Hare, ‘Demesne Lessees’, . ⁶³ Seemingly a relative of the lessee, Hugh de Moreton: PRO DL /. ⁶⁴ PRO DL /. ⁶⁵ PRO DL /.
Entrepreneurs
starting in the same year; William presented Richard Fisher and Henry Duffield as his pledges. Finally, acting as a surety for a mill lease (or sub-lease in this case) could lead to inconvenience, as indicated in a case in the Wakefield court rolls, where Adam de Wodesum sued John de Amyas for detaining two of Adam’s cows. De Amyas admitted that he had done so, because Wodesum had stood as surety for a sub-lease of the mills at Thurstanland, in Kirkburton, Yorkshire, and Sandal Magna that de Amyas had demised to Henry Calf for marks (£). Apparently Wodesum stood as surety for marks of the rent, of which de Amyas claimed marks were still in arrears—hence the confiscation of the cows. Wodesum in turn denied the arrears, at which point the entry ended abruptly, presumably because the case was to be resolved later (which, if it happened, did not survive in the record).⁶⁶ The accounts do not supply sufficient evidence about pledges for mills leases to give a sure sense of their progression over time, but it seems likely, as has been remarked about pledging in general from a number of studies,⁶⁷ that pledging for mill leases gradually died away. Early sixteenth-century mill leases, as indicated in rather full renderings of them in the accounts, scarcely mention pledging. Instead, at this time, emphasis on lessee responsibilities was generally restricted to two issues. One was the necessity of prompt payment of the annual rent, and early sixteenth-century leases increasingly had a clause stipulating a grace period of forty days or two months after the annual due date for the rent (usually Michaelmas of each year); if the rent was still not paid after this time, the lease would be considered void and the mill taken back into the lord’s hands.⁶⁸ The second issue was that the mill should be returned to the lord ‘in as good a state as [the lessee or lessees] received it’,⁶⁹ perhaps simply meant as a reminder to lessees that the lease would eventually end. It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of these clauses, since most leases in the early sixteenth century continued to the end of their period (and sometimes beyond), indicating that few were actually voided for rent defaults or other reasons. A few surviving inventories of mills, however, suggest that some care was taken by lords to ensure that mills were handed back in good condition.⁷⁰ In return, tenants were given some benefits of their own. The key one, which ⁶⁶ Wakefield Court Rolls, iii. . Henry Calf was not involved in the proceedings and perhaps had died or fled the manor. ⁶⁷ Dyer, Lords and Peasants, ; Whittle, Development of Agrarian Capitalism, . ⁶⁸ As indicated for the Castleford fulling-mills (in the manor of Tanshelf, Yorkshire) in –, where it is recorded that the king or his heirs had the right to ‘re-enter’ (reintrare) and ‘reassume’ (reassumere) the mills into their own hands should the annual rent be outstanding for more than two months: PRO DL /. ⁶⁹ Again for the leasing of the Castleford fulling-mills in –, as in the note above, it was stipulated that the mills should be returned at the end of the lease in tam bono statu siue meliore sicut ea habuerunt & receperunt. ⁷⁰ See App. ; also du Boulay, ‘Who Were Farming?’, .
Entrepreneurs
became ensconced by at least the middle of the fifteenth century and was often honoured by lords even when not specifically stated in lease contracts, was that lessees were given rent rebates when the mills were down due to extensive repairs or to unforeseen disasters. Thus it was a frequent event to find references in the ‘Allowances’ sections of the accounts to rebates being made to lessees for mills that were waiting for repairs or other obligations by the lord.⁷¹ On the other hand, such an understanding often gave lords an opportunity to bend the lease to their own advantage, as in the case of the bishop of Winchester’s fulling-mill at Taunton, Somerset, in –, where the lessee, William Hooper, had his rent reduced by s. (from the fulling-mill’s normal annual rent of s. d.) ‘because the water course to the said mill was blocked up for ten weeks in a time of dryness this year for the transfer [of the water] to the lord’s corn-mills’.⁷² The priority of the bishop’s corn-mills in the matter of water rights also extended to mills in hereditary tenure, as in the case of a fulling-mill at Langford, Somerset (about a mile north-west of Staplegrove), where the tenant, Thomas Roche, in order to obtain permission to build his mill in –, had to agree that the nearby demesne corn-mill had precedence in times of water shortage.⁷³ Such priorities over water supply seem to have been implicit for demesne mills, especially for corn-milling, a feature that would carry important implications for future centuries.⁷⁴ Finally, also an important issue for later times, lords increasingly indicated in the leases that the manorial monopoly associated with most demesne mills would pass onto the lessee. Thus leases increasingly mentioned that the mill was given to the lessee cum soca et secta, a feature that would help to maintain the predominance of demesne mills against competitors for several centuries.⁷⁵ ⁷¹ Any number of good examples could be given here, but one from – involved s. d. being allowed from the annual rent of £ for Seamill (a tide mill) and Wallington Mill on the bishop of Winchester’s manor of Fareham, Hampshire, because one of the mills, seemingly Seamill, was ‘in the lord’s hands’ for repairs (which cost the bishop a further £ s. ½d.): HRO M B/. Similarly, s. rent was allowed in – for the Leeds, Yorkshire, water corn-mill and oven (let for £ s. d. per year at a term of nine years, starting ), because the lessee did not have wood for repairs as per the lease agreement: PRO DL /. ⁷² . . . quia cursu aque ad dictum molendinum obstupatus fuit per decem septimanas tempore siccitatis hoc anno pro transitu molendinorum bladiforum domini: HRO M B/, m. . ⁷³ HRO M B/. ⁷⁴ For example, cases concerning the priority right of certain mills to various waterways occur with some frequency in the Exchequer Equity Court of the late th century: PRO E/&ELIZ/MICH and E/ELIZ/EAST. ⁷⁵ As one example among many, the mills of Duffield and Hazelwood for the manor of Duffield, Derbyshire, were leased cum tota soca et secta to Francis Cokeyn, esquire, for s. per year on a -year lease beginning in : PRO DL /. For the survival of suit of mill in communities like Bradford, Manchester, Leeds, and Wakefield until the th or even th centuries, see Richard Bennett and John Elton, History, vol. iii, esp. ch. ; Norman, ‘Wakefield Soke Mills’; Thompson, ‘Moral Economy’, –.
Entrepreneurs
... Who Were the Lessees? It is time now to consider the background of the people who leased mills. Unfortunately the account material—and indeed that from court rolls—is often not ideal for this task. In most cases only names were given, and in a time when surnames were becoming fixed it is difficult to discover much about the background and circumstances of the people involved, and in any case a detailed search of the thousand or more names that appeared in the mill lease sample was simply beyond the scope of this study. As a result, we have to make do with the sparse biographical information that the documents sometimes supply. Occasionally, though, this is quite valuable in giving some sense of the motive behind the lease, as in the case of Alice Wodelow, ‘former nurse of the lord’, mentioned above.⁷⁶ Bynames of occupation or status are also reasonably common, as in ‘Richard Sibforde, miller’, ‘John de Evesham, bailiff ’, or ‘Walter Devereux, knight’. More problematic but still useful are the occupational surnames like ‘John Miller’,‘Thomas Mulleward’, or ‘Robert Fuller’, which are also common in the record. It is very difficult to be sure that these surnames actually indicated the occupation of the lessee, although they often have a reality about them, as in the case of ‘John Fuller, miller’, who in – had the lease of both the corn- and the fulling-mill as Islip, Oxfordshire.⁷⁷ Family connections were often indicated, as in the case of ‘Anne, former wife of Honell Norris, knight’, who held the watermill of Taunton, Somerset, in –,⁷⁸ or ‘William Colles, Agnes his wife, and John their son’, who together were recorded in a – account as holding the mill at Lechlade, Gloucestershire, for their lives.⁷⁹ Or a combination of many of these might also occur, as in the case of ‘Robert Frankyssh of Pontefract, walker, Alice his wife, and William Johnson of the same [Pontefract], walker’, who all together held the fulling-mill at Tanshelf, Yorkshire, on a six-year lease, starting in .⁸⁰ Altogether, Table . categorizes the instances out of , total names where the lessees could be identified according to occupation or status or as being women (of which there were ). In order to facilitate some analysis over time, but not to divide the sample too finely, this information was split into an early – time period and a later – one. Not surprisingly, the most common occupation or occupational name given was ‘miller’, being found in over a quarter of the cases where the name of the lessee could be given some identification. The interesting feature of the evidence for millers as lessees is that their names appeared much more frequently ⁷⁶ Sect. ... ⁷⁷ WAM . ⁸⁰ PRO DL /.
⁷⁸ HRO M B/.
⁷⁹ PRO SC Hen VII/.
T .. Occupation, status, and gender names among mill lessees (no.) Time perioda
Millers
Fullers
Clothiers
–
–
a
Bakers
Carpenters, wrights
Smiths
—
The time periods run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
Manorial officials
Clergymen
Male gentry
—
Women
Others
Total
Entrepreneurs
in the earlier period. This would suggest that the incidence of lessee–proprietors was much more prevalent from to than later, where many millers probably became employees of lessees rather than being lessees themselves.The same is suggested even more strongly for fullers, who figured as lessees far more commonly in the first period but were almost totally absent in the second. Comments on the other occupational groups are based on much smaller samples. In contrast to the fullers, the presence of clothiers (tailors, weavers, etc.), although much less frequent, was almost divided equally between the two periods; they would seem to have entered into the industry as a sort of middle-scale capital, who probably hired millers or fullers to do the actual work. Bakers, on the other hand, were found totally in the first period, perhaps combining milling and baking establishments, a feature often found in urban situations.⁸¹ Taking carpenters and wrights together, their presence as lessees is hardly surprising, since they could contribute much-needed technical expertise to the enterprise. Probably the most notable case of this involved Thurstan Euxton, the master carpenter for the duchy of Lancaster’s honour of Pontefract, who took on the leases of the fulling-mill and two water corn-mills of Tanshelf and of the windmill at Warmfield, all in Yorkshire, at long leases of fifty or sixty years, all starting in , and was later recorded in – as being involved in a joint venture with others for the lease of the three watermills at Knottingley, Yorkshire.⁸² In this case Euxton was clearly using his position in the honour to snap up a number of leases, for which he could use his skills or access to resources to keep the mills in good repair. In other cases carpenters or wrights would join in as co-lessees with others, as in the case of William Denys and Master John Wright, who were co-lessees for a twenty-year lease of the two watermills of Rothwell, Yorkshire, starting in . Here it seems likely that Denys served as miller while Wright supplied the maintenance expertise.⁸³ Smiths formed another group of potential lessee–proprietors and it is not surprising that many were found leasing forging mills. The fact that they were evenly dispersed across the two time periods (although in admittedly small samples) suggests that smiths’ mills continued to be a preserve of small-scale capital right to the end of our period. Manorial officials (reeves, bailiffs), on the other hand, comprised an opportunistic group, similar to the case of Thurstan Euxton above, who could take advantage of their position in the estate administration, in effect, to have first refusal of mill leases.⁸⁴ Indeed, it is perhaps sur⁸¹ See Keene, Survey, i. , ii. , for bakers as millers in Winchester; and Campbell et al., A Medieval Capital, , for the connection of bakers and milling in medieval London. See also Sect. ... ⁸² PRO DL /, /. ⁸³ PRO DL /. ⁸⁴ For a pre-plague example, see Holt (Mills, ) for a reference to William Pyntal, formerly reeve, who took over the lease of the new windmill at Walton, Somerset, in .
Entrepreneurs
prising that more of these officials did not take over mill leases, and it is notable that, on the basis of the small sample in Table ., none from this group took up leases in the later period.⁸⁵ About the same number of clergymen or clerics were also found as lessees, again perhaps partly opportunistic, but also possibly given mills as pious bequests (although other religious organizations did not feature in this group, so perhaps more mercenary factors were at play). Concerning status and gender groups, lessees from the male gentry, who were identified as ‘knights’, ‘squires’, and ‘gentlemen’ in the records, were as time-sensitive as millers and fullers but in the opposite direction, with most gentry lessees being found in the later period. This would seem to be a definite case of larger-scale capital penetrating the industry, in effect taking over the position of landlords as the premier investor in milling, especially for grinding grain. Some of these mills could find themselves in gentry hands for several generations, as in the case of Thomas Harington,‘knight’, who took on a sevenyear lease of three watermills in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire, in , and was still leasing the same mills in –. By – the mills were being leased by James Harington, again a knight (Thomas’s son?).⁸⁶ By the end of the fifteenth century, however, the mills had left the hands of the Harington family, and were instead leased to another knightly figure, Edward Stanley, in –, who himself in entered into a joint lease of the mills with Christopher Parker (no gentry title) for twenty years.⁸⁷ Gentry families may have entered into the milling business with some caution, as in the case of Richard Tempest, esquire, who took on a five-year lease of the corn-mill and fulling-mill at Bradford, Yorkshire, in . In this had been converted by Richard, now styled as a knight, into a forty-year lease, a lease that was later renewed by John Tempest, esquire (his son?), into another forty-year lease in .⁸⁸ Even when lessees were not identified directly as being gentry, gentry connections were often indicated through pledges or sureties for leases, as in the case of Henry Edward above, who had John Osmond, ‘gentleman’, as one of his guarantors.⁸⁹ In this regard, the rising number of gentry figures also hints at a sizeable number of well-to-do mill lessees who, while they did not (yet) have gentry titles, were part of that rising ‘yeoman’ class so identified with the later Middle Ages and who may have been acting much like gentry in the matter of mill leasing.⁹⁰ ⁸⁵ The late Professor Adriaan Verhulst, in a personal communication based upon his experience of similar situations on the Continent in the later Middle Ages, suggested that manorial officials in many cases might have been prohibited from taking up such leases because of the obvious conflict of interest. ⁸⁶ PRO DL /, /, /. ⁸⁷ PRO DL /, /. ⁸⁸ PRO DL /, /, /. ⁸⁹ See Sect. .. above. ⁹⁰ For example, see the case of the Shercroft family below (Sect. ..) and also Gilbert Legh, who finally did make it into the gentry ranks (Sect. .). For similar upwardly mobile cases for the leasing of demesnes, see Dyer. ‘Were there Any Capitalists?’, –; du Boulay, ‘Who Were Farming?’, –; Hare, ‘Demesne Lessees’, –.
Entrepreneurs
Finally, as we shall see in the cases of Anne Norris mentioned above and Joan Scargill in the next paragraph,⁹¹ gentry women could also appear as lessees. Overall, though, women did not figure prominently as lessees, comprising slightly less that per cent of all the names in the leases. Their presence was most strongly felt in family connections, often seemingly providing the link between generations, as suggested by the case of the Lechlade mill held by the Colles family mentioned above or the watermill at Whiston, Worcestershire, leased for their lives from by John Hawford, his wife, Helen, and their son John.⁹² Women, too, as widows could form the link between seemingly unrelated male lessees, as in the case of the unnamed relicta (widow) of George Tempes and Roger Morland, who held the lease of the watermill at North Pittington, Durham, in – for a rent of s. d. per year. Roger Morland (possibly her first husband?) had held the same mill in – at the same rent.⁹³ Altogether, it is perhaps not surprising that the presence of women in leases was more prevalent in the later period, when extensive family control of various mill leases began to become more common. But women were not always simply pawns of their families or husbands in the matter of mills, but could be more or less independent agents, as Margery Kempe attempted to be in the well-known and somewhat farcical case of her failed horse-mill venture in the early fifteenth century.⁹⁴ Some, however, managed to hold mill leases for long periods of time, as in the case of Agnes Manusell, who held the lease of the windmill at Cridling, Yorkshire, from at least – to –.⁹⁵ Or they could renew leases formerly held by their husbands, as in the case of Joan Roundell, ‘widow’, who was given a twenty-year lease, starting in , of the three watermills at Tanshelf, Yorkshire, a substantial milling concern which rented for £ per year; this appears to have been a renegotiation of a fourteen-year lease of the mills previously held by John Roundell, presumably Joan’s husband, which had started in .⁹⁶ Similarly, Joan Scargill, presumably the widow of Robert Scargill, esquire, who held the lease of the watermill at Saxton, Yorkshire, in – for £ per year, seemingly renewed the lease of the same mill in her own name for twenty-one years in at the slightly higher rent of £ s. per year, which now included some parcels of land associated with the mill.⁹⁷ ⁹¹ Both Norris and Scargill were entered under the ‘Women’ rather than the ‘Gentry’ column. ⁹² As recorded in the – account for the manor: WRO ref. : BA . I am indebted to Christopher Dyer for supplying me with notes for this reference. ⁹³ DCD Bursar’s Account –, –. A Christopher Morland also held the mill in – (DCD Bursar’s Account –). ⁹⁴ Book of Margery Kempe, –. ⁹⁵ PRO DL /, . ⁹⁶ PRO DL /, . ⁹⁷ Recorded under the accounts for nearby Barwick (in Elmet): PRO DL , . A William Scargill, ‘knight’ (Robert’s father?), had held the mill in – (PRO DL /).
Entrepreneurs
The group classified as ‘Others’ in Table . comprised occupations that were recorded less that five times in the mill leases, such as Cooper ( times), Carter ( times), Fisher ( times), and Merchant ( times).⁹⁸ Some of these occupations had an obvious connection with mills, such as the case of Thomas Fisher, who leased the two watermills at Bitterne, Hampshire, for £ per year in , along with a fishery which he leased for s. per year.⁹⁹ Another similarly suggestive name was that of Henry Lyllywhyte, who held the lease of one of the four fulling-mills at Alresford, Hampshire, in –.¹⁰⁰ Other lessees in this group presumably came in more from the entrepreneurial side, such as those named Merchant above, although their relatively modest presence here is surprising given their reputation as individuals who freely manipulated capital for commercial ends during the medieval and early modern period;¹⁰¹ perhaps milling was of too fixed a nature to appeal to them. Nonetheless, a particularly interesting case with probable merchant connections occurred in with the ninetynine-year lease of the fulling-mill at Congleton, Cheshire, by James Spencer, who was styled as a ‘citizen and alderman of London’, implying a geographical broadening of the market range for mill leases by the early sixteenth century.¹⁰² Altogether, the large size of this ‘other’ group indicates the widespread appeal of mill leases that could attract people from a broad range of backgrounds and occupations. The fact that many people were regular customers of mills might have encouraged some of them to try their hand at the business.
... Mill Lessee Families Altogether the mill lease sample shows a wide range of lessees, some of them residing far away from the mill site. Also, sustained family interest in mill leases seems clear in many cases. Early examples of this may have involved ⁹⁸ Other names found in this group that were considered as possibly indicating occupation or status, beyond those given in the text, were Marler, Justice, Bishop, Painter, Pricker, Dubber, Porter, Carver, atte Church, Shepherd, Hooper, Seller, Law, del Steeple, Parker, Parson, Barber, Clark, Purser, Hammer, Gardener, Cook, Bacon, Ironmonger, Seal, Marshall, Potter, Thatcher, Mason, Fleshhewer, Hardware, la Skerrar, Prior, Chapel, Carre (probably a form of Carter), and Bosc’ (i.e. ‘Wood’, indicating some sort of forestry connection). ⁹⁹ HRO M B/. The length of lease was not given in this case, but Thomas renewed the lease of the mills and fishery for years in : HRO M B/. ¹⁰⁰ HRO M B/. ¹⁰¹ e.g. Crouzet, First Industrialists, –. ¹⁰² PRO DL /. An even more far-reaching case, not included in our account-based sample, was recorded in a registry book of late th- and th-century leases for the bishopric of Worcester. Here the leases of mills in Alvechurch, Worcestershire, and Blockley, Gloucestershire, were let by William Tybetot and Thomas Warner (both clearly holding in fee of the bishop) to Giovanni Paolo de Gigli, a merchant of Lucca, Italy, in and respectively (the lease of the Alvechurch watermill was for years: WRO BA : (iii), no. , fos. , ).This unusually long-range connection is explained by the fact that two of de Gigli’s relatives were successive bishops of Worcester from to . I am grateful to Christopher Dyer for supplying me with notes for these references.
Entrepreneurs
predominantly lessee–proprietor families, as in the case of the Moon family, who held watermills in Fornham St Genevieve and Fornham All Saints, Suffolk, for much of the fifteenth century. The family’s involvement with mills seemingly started with a joint five-year lease of the watermill at Fornham St Genevieve between John atte Welle and John Moon in . In – the lease of the mill was held by John Clement and John Moon. In , however, John Moon was the sole lessee of the mill for a seven-year lease and was also named on a ten-year lease starting in , while a John Moon (likely a descendant of the first John Moon above) is recorded as holding the lease of the watermill in accounts of – and – (the last surviving account for the manor). By the middle of the fifteenth century the family had extended their control over the watermill of nearby Fornham All Saints, where in – it is recorded that John Moon and John, his son, leased the mill.¹⁰³ Later, in – (the last account for this manor), John Moon, ‘miller’, was still leasing it. Altogether, it appears that at least two and probably three generations of John Moons held one or both of the mills at the two Fornhams until at least the fourth quarter of the fifteenth century. One family whose milling career started about the same time as the Moons but took on a very different pattern was the Shercrofts in the West Riding of Yorkshire.¹⁰⁴ The family first appears in a set of accounts for the duchy of Lancaster’s honour of Pontefract in –, when William Shercroft is recorded as having a four-year lease, starting in , of the windmill at Tanshelf,Yorkshire. In the same set of accounts William is also recorded as leasing the windmill at Scholes (‘Scales’) in the same county, although neither the starting point nor the length of the lease was indicated.¹⁰⁵ In the next surviving set of accounts for the honour, –, William is recorded as leasing the watermill and windmill at Barwick in Elmet, although a different lessee, John Milner of Wetherby, now held the windmill at Scholes while the lessee of the windmill at Tanshelf was not named.¹⁰⁶ In the next surviving set of accounts, –, a Richard Shercroft is recorded as holding the two watermills at Rothwell, Yorkshire, on a lease of unspecified years starting in .¹⁰⁷ In the next surviving set of accounts, –, it is a John Shercroft who appears in the Barwick account as holding watermills in Hillam (in Monk Fryston) and Saxton ¹⁰³ Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds branch, E/./., ., ., ., ., .; ./., .. As can be seen, accounts were sampled from reasonably long series for both manors. A more thorough examination may add detail to the story. ¹⁰⁴ The family name is sometimes spelled ‘Shircroft’ in the documents and is possibly a corruption of ‘Seacroft’, as indicated in the – account, when the name was given alternately as ‘Secroft’ and ‘Shercroft’: PRO DL /. ¹⁰⁵ PRO DL /. ¹⁰⁶ PRO DL /. ¹⁰⁷ PRO DL /. Richard Shercroft seemingly ran into trouble with these mills: see n. above.
Entrepreneurs
on a lease of twenty years which started in . John had also regained the windmill of Scholes, holding it on a twenty-year lease, again starting in .¹⁰⁸ In the next set of accounts sampled for this study (–), John Shercroft and his son Robert are recorded as holding the windmill at Scholes and the Hillam watermill on nine-year leases starting in ; the watermill at Saxton was now held by a William Milner (length of lease and starting year not given).¹⁰⁹ In the next sampled set of accounts (–) the Shercrofts did not appear as mill lessees, but instead Henry Elys is recorded as the lessee for the Scholes windmill and the watermill at Hillam.¹¹⁰ By –, however, a William Shercroft had appeared as the lessee of the Hillam watermill.¹¹¹ Thereafter the Shercrofts were no longer evident as mill lessees.¹¹² Although it is not possible within the confines of this study to determine exactly the relationship between the various Shercrofts mentioned here, beyond John and his son Robert, the surname is sufficiently distinct to suggest that they were all related in some fashion and that the family for at least a century made it a practice to take on mill leases when they could. They would also seem quite different from the Moon family above in that they probably did not operate as proprietor–lessees, since in none of the cases examined here was it mentioned that they were actually millers. Rather they probably took up leases in what seems to have been a highly competitive atmosphere in the honour and possibly sub-leased them or took their profits from them by hiring millers to supply the labour. This certainly would seem to have been the case when they took on several mills at once, as John Shercroft did from the s to the s. Cases of multi-mill leasing, although not always taking place over generations as in the Shercroft example, are reasonably common in the lease sample, as we have seen above in the case of the carpenter–lessee Thurstan Euxton (Section ..). They continued right to the end of our period. Thus, John Harman, probably a descendant of the Philip Harman who leased a mill at Corfe, Somerset, in –,¹¹³ held a fulling-mill at nearby Taunton for life in –, as well as the corn-mill at Pitminster and the Fishery Mill, another grain mill at Taunton.¹¹⁴ In this case and others, particularly after , the impression is of mill leases being taken by people who for the most part were not directly involved in their operation. As a last point here, it should also be said that the extent of the mill-leasing ¹⁰⁸ PRO DL /. ¹⁰⁹ PRO DL /. ¹¹⁰ PRO DL /. ¹¹¹ PRO DL /. ¹¹² At least according to the sets of accounts sampled after –: i.e. –, –, –, and –: PRO DL , , , . ¹¹³ HRO M B/. ¹¹⁴ The length of the lease for the latter two mills was not indicated: HRO M B/.
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activity shown by these families may be minimized here, since they might also have taken up leases of mills from the estates of other surrounding lords for which we have no records (or records which were not examined for this study).¹¹⁵ We should then ask the question whether some at least might have challenged the original landlords as the key investors in milling in the later Middle Ages, that is, creating empires of leased mills across wide swathes of the countryside as landlords had done before them. It would seem unlikely. In many cases, as with Thurstan Euxton, it seems that the activity was limited to the mills of one lordly estate or honour where the lessee had a special, opportunistic relationship. In any case, the lifetime of such lessee ‘empires’ was probably limited to a generation or two and did not have the continuity that the great landlords had. Cases like the Shercrofts which spanned nearly a century were probably the exception. Finally, even for families like the Shercrofts the milling portfolio held by the family could be exceedingly fluid, with leases of mills taken for a few years and then dropped. This was altogether a more small-scale and opportunistic situation than had formerly existed with lords. Finally, it should be said that almost all the long-lasting or far-reaching family concerns in milling involved grain mills only. Extensive family involvements in fulling-mill and other industrial mill leases was much less evident, and it was unusual to see a fulling or other industrial mill leased over more than one generation and seldom involved more than one mill. Exceptionally long leases of fulling-mills, however, like that of John Spencer, citizen of London above, might qualify as extra-generational. Otherwise, lengthy family leases of fullingmills probably occurred most frequently alongside corn-mills, as in the case of the gentry Tempest family above, who leased both the grain mill and the fulling-mill at Bradford over at least two generations.¹¹⁶
... Cooperative Leasing All these examples suggest a vigorous market for mill leases that, in many cases, could be translated into either an extra-generational holding or a small multimill enterprise. The establishment of such concentrations in milling investment belies some fairly sophisticated strategies. Some sense of how these strategies were created and realized can be examined by observing the way in which lessees elected to cooperate (or not) in the taking-on of mill leases. Table . breaks down the mill leases—where the number of lessees was ¹¹⁵ There are a few cases of mill lessees also holding tenant mills, as in the case of Gilbert Legh (see Sect. . below). ¹¹⁶ See Sect. ...
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T .. Mill leases arranged by number of lessees per lease Time perioda
Number of lessees per mill lease
More than b
Total no. of leases
Percentage of co-lessee leases
. . . . . . . .
– – – – – – – –
— — —
— — — — — —
—
Percentage for entire period
.
a
The time periods run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second. Includes cases where the number of lessees could not be determined precisely: e.g. Willelmus Clarion, jr. et alii or Galfridus Mody et socii. Mills leased by entire communities have also been included here. b
Sources: As indicated in App. .
indicated—by quarter-centuries, according to the number of lessees per lease. Leases with only one named lessee dominated the sample at (or . per cent) of the lease total. But the proportion of leases featuring co-lessees was not insignificant and varied markedly over time. In the third quarter of the fourteenth century, in fact, over one-quarter of leases featured more than one lessee, a proportion that gradually dwindled, so that by the second quarter of the sixteenth century considerably less than one-tenth of the leases had more than one lessee, probably reflecting the larger-scale, more gentry-oriented capital that had penetrated the industry by this time. It is possible that the single-lessee leases are somewhat inflated in that many of these leases might have had ‘silent’ partners.¹¹⁷ The number of cases where this might have happened is hard to assess. In cases like the Moon family above, the distinction between times when members of the family joined with others in a lease and when they operated alone seems clear, and here we can probably take the single-lessee leases as ¹¹⁷ A good example of this occurred in a six-year lease of two watermills at Belper, Derbyshire, at a rent of £ per year starting in . In the first year of the lease, –, the mills were recorded as being demised to ‘William del Welde and his associate’ (or associates?: soc’). Two years later in – (and still on the same lease), however, it was simply recorded that the lessee was William del Welde: PRO DL /, .
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being exactly that. In any case the trend towards single-lessee leases over time seems sufficiently obvious, so that by the early sixteenth century it would appear that lords and their officials were dealing mostly with individual people when leases were negotiated. Although the proportion of leases that were held by two or more lessees displayed a fairly obvious and plausible change over time, the variability is somewhat less easy to rationalize when viewed from other perspectives. Thus, when arranged by region the percentage of leases with co-lessees over the period – was as follows: East Anglia, . per cent (out of a total of cases); Home Counties, . per cent (of cases); the South, . per cent (of cases); South-West, . per cent (of cases); East Midlands, per cent (of cases); West Midlands, . per cent (of cases); the North, . per cent (of cases). The highest proportions occurred in East Anglia (nearly in ) and the South-West (over in ). In the case of East Anglia at least, the tradition of fragmented tenant landholding may have been paralleled in the region by an equally fragmented pool of capital, which would have required greater cooperation in leasing things such as mills.¹¹⁸ On the other hand, the low percentage noted for the Home Counties may reflect the readier access to large-scale capital from London, but it is less clear why the same low level of cooperation should also have occurred in the East Midlands. For the larger samples in the West Midlands and the North the results were much more consistent, where the progression towards fewer co-lessee leases over time was fairly clear for both regions. On the other hand, the level of rent for mills seemingly had relatively little obvious effect upon the proportion of co-lessee leases. Of the cases where the mills leased for lower than £ per year, the proportion of co-lessee leases was . per cent; of the cases where the mills rented from £ per year to lower than £ per year, the proportion of co-lessee leases was . per cent; finally, of the cases where mills rented for £ or more per year, the proportion of co-lessee leases was . per cent. Although this shows a trend we might expect, with less expensive mills not needing the sort of financial cooperation that more expensive mills might require, statistically the differences are of doubtful significance.¹¹⁹ There was more significant variation concerning mill type, where the ¹¹⁸ See AHEW ii. –, iii. – for the more fragmented landholding situation in eastern England from the th to the beginning of the th century. The position in the South-West is less clear, with the average size of holding varying markedly from manor to manor (AHEW ii. –, iii, –). ¹¹⁹ Chi-square significance testing which compared the less than £ group with the £ or more group demonstrated that the difference in the proportion of co-lessee leases at these two extremes of the data still failed to reach the per cent significance level (i.e. there was more than a per cent likelihood that the difference was due to the chances of sampling).
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highest proportion of co-lessees was found with fulling-mills at . per cent (out of a total of cases), followed by watermills (for grinding corn) at . per cent (of cases),‘complexes’—that is, some combination of watermills, windmills, and fulling-mills—at . per cent (of cases), windmills at . per cent (of cases), and horse-mills at . per cent (of cases).¹²⁰ The high proportion of co-lessee leases for fulling-mills is, on the surface, puzzling here, since fulling-mills were generally much less expensive to lease than watermills or even windmills. But it appears, as discussed below, that fulling-mills often tended to attract small-scale capital, particularly in urban situations, where consortiums of fullers often took up fulling-mill leases.¹²¹ Most other types of mill seem to have been lumped together around the per cent mark, with the exception of horse-mills, which seem to have been inexpensive enough to require only single lessees (although the small size of the sample makes it difficult to be confident about this). When two or more people decided to group together to lease a mill, what form of cooperative arrangement was most common? Generally speaking, cooperative leasing of mills took place in one of three forms: partnership, family, or community. Partnerships occurred when two or more seemingly unrelated people came together to lease a mill. The motive here, we might expect, would be mostly financial, and I shall give a few examples of this below. Family groupings were more dynastic in nature, often seeking to link together generations of mill lessees (as in the case of the Moon family and in the involvement of women in leases generally, as discussed above). Finally, communities sometimes took on the leases of mills, presumably with the intention of preserving these mills for communal use.¹²² Table . shows the frequency of these types of arrangement, broken down into an early – period and a later – one.The most obvious feature in the table is the proportional increase of family co-leasing arrangements, reflecting the growth of family concerns in mill leasing, as has been discussed above. Partnerships declined somewhat, but still remained the most common type, while community arrangements seem to have been marginal in both cases. In all these instances, however, it is important to note that co-leasing was probably a minority activity, presumably in many cases useful for starting an enterprise or keeping it going while it changed hands, as in the case of family co-leasing. ¹²⁰ Thus, a chi-square analysis comparing the proportion of co-lessee leases of fulling-mills with that of water corn-mills shows the difference to be highly significant at the per cent level. ¹²¹ As in the case of ‘Peter Hulle, Stephen Ede, and other fullers’, who leased one of the bishop of Winchester’s fulling-mills on the manor of Wolvesey (in Winchester) on a -year lease starting in : HRO M B/, m. . See also the Feering fulling-mill case below in this section. ¹²² Although possibly also being coerced by lords to do so: see below.
Entrepreneurs T .. Types of cooperative leasing for mills Time perioda
Partnership
Family
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
– –
. .
. .
. .
.
.
.
a
Community
Total no. of leases
The time periods run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
Some sense of the actual strategies that were involved in leasing can be gleaned from cooperative ventures, however. A good example of this comes from a short series of annual leases (in effect, tenancies at will) for the fullingmill at the Westminster Abbey manor of Feering, Essex, in the early fifteenth century. Here, unusually, not only were the names of the lessees given but also indicated was how much each contributed to the total rent, as follows: –. John Belewe, s., John Frechet s. d., Roger Butler, s. d.Total: s. d. –. John Belewe, s., John Freget (presumably the John Frechet in –), s., John Fuller, s., John Gardyner, s. Total: s. –. John Freget, s., Roger Butler, s., John Fuller, d., John Godeshelf, d., John Russell and John Bimere, together paying s.Total: s.¹²³ Here there seems to be a sharp distinction between some lessees, like John Belewe and John Frechet, who paid the major amounts of the lease, and others, like John Fuller, who paid relatively minor amounts. While this might only have indicated that each co-lessee was to receive profits from the venture in proportion to the amount they contributed to the lease, it would seem more likely that some of the partners supplied mostly capital while others supplied labour. This would particularly seem the case in –, when John Fuller would seem likely to have run the fulling-mill, possibly with the help of John Gardyner, while Belewe and Frechet supplied the capital for the venture. The same would also seem to have occurred in –, with Fuller, Godeshelf, and possibly Butler supplying the labour and the other three the capital. In – it might have been Roger Butler supplying the labour, while Belewe and Frechet again contributed the capital. This sort of distinction between capital- and labour¹²³ WAM , , .
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supplying lessee–partners is also hinted at in the beginnings of the Moon family’s tenure of the mill at Fornham St Genevieve above, where it is notable that on at least two occasions ( and –) John Moon shared the lease with, in turn, John atte Welle and John Clement, the names of both the latter appearing first in the record, suggesting that they paid the majority of the lease. As we have seen above, however, the Moon family eventually exercised sole control of the mill (and later that of Forncett All Saints) until at least the s. A somewhat similar case to that of John Moon involved the watermill and windmill at Birdbrook in Essex, which John and Robert Olmested leased in the early s. In , however, John Olmested began a seven-year lease of the mills with Robert Laurence, Olmested’s name appearing first in the record. In – the same partnership was in effect for the watermill only (the windmill having blown down in –). Robert Laurence, however, started a new tenyear lease in his own name only in , a lease that was renewed (although the length of lease was not given) in . By –, ‘Robert Laurence, miller’ still held the watermill.¹²⁴ Here it would seem that the mill(s) at Birdbook shifted hands from the Olmesteds to Laurence through the latter having a sort of junior partnership for a few years, possibly with John Olmested supplying most of the capital in a semi-retired role while Laurence supplied the bulk of labour, until such time as Laurence was able to take over on his own. Although these sorts of cooperative arrangement are inferred rather than being indicated directly in the record, nonetheless it does fit the overall pattern: co-leasing became relatively less common as individual families gained control over leases and as lease lengths grew longer. It also parallels the leasing of other manorial assets, such as demesnes themselves, where cooperative or piecemeal leasing by such parties as peasants was often gradually frozen out over the course of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries by those such as gentry and merchants who had the capital to take on demesnes as a whole, again accompanied by a gradual lengthening of leases.¹²⁵ Community leasing comprised only a very small proportion (. per cent) of the total mill leases and only . per cent of the cooperative leases in our sample, but this does show the concern that villages and sometimes towns demonstrated in wishing to preserve their milling establishments, especially when there were no individual takers for the lease of a vacant mill or mills. Some of these community leases, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the plague, may have been forced on tenants, as Richard Britnell has shown for the estates of the bishop of Durham,¹²⁶ but others seem to have come about through nego¹²⁴ WAM , , , –, . ¹²⁵ See e.g. Dyer, Lords and Peasants, esp. ch. ; du Boulay, ‘Who Were Farming?’, –, –; Harvey, ‘Leasing’, –. ¹²⁶ Britnell, ‘Feudal Reaction’, –.
Entrepreneurs
tiation with the lord, often involving a notable reduction in rent.¹²⁷ Many of these community interventions were temporary,¹²⁸ but others were more permanent. One such was the borough of Congleton, Cheshire, where the royal watermill, held of the duchy of Lancaster and leased for £ s. d. per year, was washed out in –.¹²⁹ In – the inhabitants of Congleton were allowed to replace the derelict royal mill with a mill or mills built by themselves, originally on a ten-year lease at the much reduced rent of s. d, which was seemingly extended on the same terms right to the end of our period (that is, ).¹³⁰ Similarly the watermill at Lydford Manor, Devon, was farmed out from at least – to the ‘whole homage’, which presumably included the burgesses of Lydford, a state of affairs that again continued right to the end of our period.¹³¹ Sometimes the spokesperson for the community was seemingly identified, as in the case of the watermill at Lostwithiel, Cornwall, which in – was being leased to ‘Roger Umfre and the whole community of the town’ for seven years,¹³² or in Tywarnhaile in the same county, where a half-share in a watermill was leased to ‘Nicholas Trehambell and all tenants in the same place’ in –.¹³³ Although most of these community leases of mills occurred in the first century after the advent of the plague, there were some later examples, as in the case of the watermill ‘next to Shields’ in the manor of Westoe, Durham, which was leased out to ‘the tenants of Harton and Westoe’ in – for £ per year.¹³⁴ Altogether, the cases of cooperative leasing reveal formal arrangements that probably went on informally in many cases where only a single lessee was recorded. It would seem, however, that cooperative efforts as a whole, formal and informal, gradually declined over the period as people or families with larger capital resources began to take on a much larger share of the mill leases.
... Sub-leasing A similarly hidden involvement in milling was by sub-leasing.This is a particularly shadowy area, since lords were not particularly concerned with how lessees ¹²⁷ Thus in the ‘tenants of the vill’ of Kippax, Yorkshire, took over the watermill and windmill there on a five-year lease for the reduced rent of s. d. per year (which used to be s. d. per year for both mills before the plague: PRO DL /, m. ). ¹²⁸ As in the case of Kippax in the note above, where the watermill and windmill was seemingly derelict in – for lack of tenants, but was in the hands of John Stagg in – on a lease of years that had started in (PRO DL /, ). Other unnamed lessees leased the mill until –, at which time the mills were idle for lack of tenants and did not function for the rest of the Middle Ages (PRO DL /, ). ¹²⁹ As, for example, indicated in the – account (PRO DL /). ¹³⁰ PRO DL / etc. ¹³¹ PRO SC / to PRO SC Hen VIII/ (– account). ¹³² PRO SC /; the starting year of the lease was not indicated. ¹³³ PRO SC /. This lease may have only been for part of a year. ¹³⁴ DCD Bursar’s Account –.
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ran their mills, as long as the rents were paid on time and mills were kept in good condition. Sub-leasing was evident early in our period, as in the Wakefield case above, where John de Amyas farmed the town of Wakefield with its mills in , and in turn sub-leased the mills at Thurstanland and Sandal Magna to Henry Calf.¹³⁵ It is likely that sub-leasing of mills became more common as the Middle Ages wore on. Occasionally it is indicated in the new rents sections of accounts, as in the case of d. charged for making a subtenancy of the mill at Elmley Castle, Worcestershire, in –.¹³⁶ As mill lessees came increasingly to come from the higher ranks of society, especially gentry, sub-leasing must often have occurred as an alternative to running the mills themselves. This was especially the case as lease rents began to stabilize on longer leases towards the end of our period, since, as the economy gradually improved towards the beginning of the sixteenth century, increasing profit margins left more room for viable sub-leasing. It is seldom that we can see the apportionment of profits, but a rare survival of what looks to be a sub-leasing arrangement with the added bonus of figures showing how milling revenues might have been shared among lord, lessee, and sub-lessee occurs in an extent for debt from . Here Thomas Daventry, who apparently operated two watermills at Abington (now in the city of Northampton), had fallen into a debt of £ to a pair of mercers from London.¹³⁷ In the description of what could be liquidated of Thomas’s holdings to pay the debt, it was recorded that Thomas held the Abington mills from a certain Thomas Overton, who in turn held them for life from the Hospital of Holy Trinity at nearby Kingsthorpe for a rent of quarters of wheat a year. The master of the hospital recognized Daventry’s presence in the milling hierarchy to the extent that, sometime before , an agreement had been reached whereby Daventry could carry on the lease after Overton died, but that he would have to pay an extra s. d. per year (beyond the quarters of wheat) for the privilege. The jurors supplying information for the extent went on to say that this left Daventry with a revenue free of all charges of d. per year. The paring-down of the profit margin for each of the parties in the chain is obvious. If we assume that each of the quarters of wheat was worth about s,.¹³⁸ then the hospital’s cut of the profits was around s. per year. It would appear that the s. d. per year was the amount that Daventry paid Overton for the sub-lease (in addition to the ¹³⁵ See Sect. .. above. ¹³⁶ WoRO Ref. No. : BA //. I am grateful to Christopher Dyer for notes to this reference. See also the possible sub-leasing arrangement between Richard Jeffrey and Richard Millward at Witney, Oxfordshire, in –: Sect. ... ¹³⁷ PRO C//, m. . ¹³⁸ The price of wheat was around this level for – and –: AHEW iii. .
Entrepreneurs
quarters of wheat that Daventry would have to give to the hospital) and that the master of the hospital was simply taking over this amount should Overton die, essentially assuming the role of lessee as well as lord.¹³⁹ This left d. per year for Thomas Daventry.This would have been a pathetic return for running what was seemingly a substantial operation, and it may be that Daventry had rather more ways of making a profit, legal or illegal, than the jurors indicated. They may have assumed, for instance, that the d. was in excess of the grain that he would need for his own subsistence. Taken at face value, however, this would indicate that the lord of the mills, the master of the hospital, took . per cent of the revenues, the lessee, Overton, took . per cent, and Daventry, the sublessee, took . per cent. Although this distribution might be significantly affected by whoever was responsible for maintenance repairs—if the repairs were assumed by the hospital, for example, it would cut sharply into its share of quarters of wheat rent—it nonetheless also suggests that the position of a sub-lessee was often very precarious, no better than the hired millers I shall discuss in the next chapter. Indeed, many lords were aware of the dangers of sub-leasing (or even sub-leasing of the sub-lease) for the overall viability of mills, as in the case of the archbishop of Canterbury, who sometimes banned mill lessees from sub-letting to other than professional millers.¹⁴⁰
... The Typicality of Mill Leasing Where does the leasing of mills fit within the leasing of lordly assets generally? As indicated above in relation to cooperative leasing, the leasing of mills had some similarity to the leasing of demesnes, in that cooperative ventures in both cases gradually declined over the period. On the other hand, the length of leases for mills, at around twenty years or so on average in the early sixteenth century, were still much less than the + year leases that were often evident for demesnes at the same time.¹⁴¹ R. A. Lomas, however, has commented that the length of leases for demesne mills on the bursar’s manors of Durham Cathedral Priory in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries ‘coincided with those for customary holdings’.¹⁴² The lower mill lease lengths for the country as a whole at this time in Table . might suggest that this was a fairly widespread phenomenon. If so, the trend would seem to be one where millleasing operated more within the peasant economic sphere in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries and then moved more into the capitalistic ¹³⁹ In fact, the hospital maintained the extra charge for future leases, as in when the Abington mills were let out to a trio of Northampton bakers for the quarters of wheat and s. d.: VCH Northamptonshire, iv. . ¹⁴⁰ Du Boulay, ‘Who Were Farming?’, . ¹⁴¹ Dyer, Lords and Peasants, –; AHEW iv. –. ¹⁴² Lomas, ‘Durham Cathedral Priory’, .
Entrepreneurs
world of the gentry in particular in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. To some extent this was also seen for other assets of lords, such as, again, the demesnes themselves, where peasant involvement in leasing demesnes was stronger in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century than it was later, gradually to be replaced by gentry or well-to-do yeoman lessees.¹⁴³ But, unlike demesne leasing, milling continued to straddle the worlds of small- and largescale capital much more comprehensively throughout the period. In particular, the larger-scale capital penetrating the leasing of mills was countered to a considerable degree by the smaller-scale capital affecting milling at the tenant level. It is to the latter that I shall now turn.
.. As I have already discussed in Chapter , the tenant milling sector had a history stretching back to at least the twelfth century. As Holt has demonstrated, mills that seemingly had been attached to demesnes at the time of Domesday were in many cases acquired by tenants in hereditary tenure, either by being directly granted in such tenure or by being let in a series of leases for life or lives which gradually assumed perpetuity, a movement that eventually blended together into a sizeable tenant mill sector.¹⁴⁴ Although, as mentioned in both Chapters and , lords were successful in reclaiming many of these tenant mills back into the demesne, a distinct tenant sector remained, and, again as discussed in Chapter (Section ..), underwent a notable resurgence in numbers during the early sixteenth century in particular. Nevertheless, despite conditions that might again have blurred the distinction between mills attached to the demesne and those held in hereditary tenure, the administrative trend after the advent of the plague was to accentuate the divide between the two, such that, certainly after the middle of the fifteenth century, there was relatively little crossover of mills from one sector to the other. Each were recorded differently, as in accounts, where the leased demesne mills were always recorded in the ‘Farm of Mill(s)’ section and the tenant mills absorbed (usually anonymously, as Holt has pointed out) into the ‘Assised Rents’ section.¹⁴⁵ The practical effect of this stronger separation may not have been so much upon emphasizing differing degrees of security of tenure, since the increasing length of leases and what appears in many cases to be an automatic renewal or extension ¹⁴³ e.g. Dyer, Lords and Peasants, –; id., ‘Were there Any Capitalists?’, –. ¹⁴⁴ Holt, ‘Whose Were the Profits?’, –; id., Mills, –. ¹⁴⁵ Holt, Mills, .
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of them made the lessees’ position quite strong, but with the rights, particularly in terms of suit of mill and access to water, that more often accrued to demesne mills. Certainly, the tenant sector experienced some dramatic changes over the period of the study. Table . shows the figures for the percentage of tenant mills as they appeared decade by decade in the computer program sample, along with the proportion of these tenant mills which were grain or industrial mills. In the case of grain mills, these were almost always water corn-mills, continuing on from the pattern established from the twelfth century, as indicated in Chapter . It should be noted that the number of tenant mills in the computer program sample tended to be small, generally in the range of – mills throughout the period, but even with this qualification the table shows some notable trends. As I have noted in Chapter , tenant mills did show some decline, especially to –, at which point their numbers had seemingly declined by around a third (to an index of compared to an index of in ), after which they recovered somewhat towards the end of the century and then stabilized for nearly a hundred years, only rising sharply in the early sixteenth century (having an index of in , in , in , in , in , in , in , and in ; see Figure .). Nonetheless, with the exception of the sudden rise in the s and s, their proportion overall in the total mill sample as shown in Table . seems to have remained relatively stable, as generally their decline of numbers matched that for the sample as a whole. There was, however, a very striking change in the make-up of the tenant mill sector, which increasingly began to shift towards industrial mills. As shown in Table ., this was a gradual process up to about , after which there was a much sharper climb. As I have already indicated in Chapter , there was a very strong regional dimension to this, particularly in the South-West, where the growth in industrial mills was considerable. Table . shows how much this was led by the tenant sector. The tenant shift to industrial mills also indicates a growing toleration of such investment by lords. Although lords wished to retain grain (and to a certain extent fulling) mills as a demesne prerogative, they were certainly willing to let tenants invest in other mills. Sometimes this was given actual expression in the tenancy agreements. Thus, for the soke of Winchester, Hampshire, in the fifteenth century, John Durforde was allowed to build a grindstone mill ‘on the condition that he should not make any other mill, neither grain nor fulling’ at the same place.¹⁴⁶ However, as the fifteenth century ¹⁴⁶ . . . sub tali conditione quod non faciat aliquod aliud molendinum nec aquaticum [meaning here a grain mill] nec fullereticum: as recorded, for example, in the – and – accounts (HRO M B/, m. v; B/).
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T .. Types of tenant mill in computer sample Time perioda
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – a
Percentage of tenant mills in sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Proportion of grain versus industrial tenant mills (%) Grain mills
Industrial mills
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The time periods run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
progressed, it is clear that these sorts of permission extended to all industrial mills. Fulling-mills in particular were to be increasingly found among the ‘New Rents’ sections of accounts during the fifteenth century, to be increasingly joined by other types of industrial mill in the early sixteenth century. For example, of the tenant mills that were running through the last decade of the computer sample (–), were fulling-mills and were other types of industrial mill (that is, bellows mills and ‘skoff-mills’—for washing and crushing tin ore—from Cornwall, and a grindstone mill near Taunton in Somerset); 10 tenant water corn-mills and tenant windmill filled out the tenant mill complement in the sample for the decade. Despite the small sample sizes, the growing prominence of the tenant sector in the building of industrial mills would seem
Entrepreneurs
abundantly clear.¹⁴⁷ It should also be pointed out that these tenant industrial mills were seemingly all new constructions: that is, they were not taking over the site of a previously erected mill (as often happened in the case of lessees above) but were built on a new site. This is sometimes minutely described by lords as the new mill enterprise sought to fit as best it could in the interstices of preexisting structures on the river, including mills, bridges, and fisheries. Thus, in the case of the fifteenth-century tenant grindstone mill at Winchester mentioned above, the location of the feet of river bank needed for the mill was very carefully laid out between, it appears, a bridge on the east and a fishery on the west.¹⁴⁸ That so many of these initiatives survived to at least speaks to the opportunities that tenants could find in milling, particularly in terms of adapting water power to other purposes than grinding grain or malt. This reflects both a more favourable industrial climate for many regions, especially the South-West, and a marked relaxation of lords’ hold on milling investment. As I shall argue later, this favourable conjuncture of affairs may have been limited to the later Middle Ages, but it also shows clearly the vigour that small-scale operators and capital could bring to the expansion of industries like milling. Nor was the door firmly shut on tenant grain-milling. Although lords were clearly preferring to lease out grain mills rather than let them slip into hereditary tenure, and although the number of tenant grain mills was clearly declining substantially overall, they still maintained some presence. As Holt indicated, some tenant grain mills in fact survived right through the medieval period.¹⁴⁹ In the computerized mill sample the same was seen, for example, in the case of the Glastonbury Abbey manor of Monkton Deverill, Wiltshire, which seemingly maintained a tenant grain mill from to , when the account series ended.¹⁵⁰ A small number of tenant grain mills were created ¹⁴⁷ Again, a chi-square analysis comparing the proportion of grain versus industrial mills in the – time period with that in the – time period shows the difference to be very highly significant at the . per cent level. For the energetic building of fulling-mills, many of them by tenants, in Devon and Cornwall in particular after , see AHEW iii. , –. ¹⁴⁸ HRO M B/, m. v. See Keene, Survey, ii. , for the exact location of this mill on the River Itchen. ¹⁴⁹ Holt, Mills, . ¹⁵⁰ As indicated directly in the – (possibly –; the exact dating of the Glastonbury documents during this period is uncertain; in general I have assumed the earlier date, following Harris, Glastonbury Abbey Records, ) account, where an entry fine of £ was paid by Thomas Maynard for a ‘mill’, ‘overland’, and ‘cottage’ called Wolphenehey that was formerly of Joan atte Mulle and which Thomas had along with Joan in marriage. Presumably this was the same mill as referred to in – (possibly –) when William atte Mulle was allowed s. d. from the rent of a watermill, one messuage, and acres of land ‘called cotsetland’, presumably because he was also reeve: Longleat House NMR , . The mill continued to be referred to in th- and th-century accounts in relation to meadow, formerly of Edith Bourse, that lay next to the watermill. Since at no time did it appear in the ‘Defective Rents’ section, the mill seemingly functioned throughout.
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anew even towards the end of our period,¹⁵¹ but, as the figures in Table . show, these were significantly outnumbered by the new tenant industrial mills that were being built. The identity of the mill-holding tenants themselves is usually obscure, since there is not as strong an occupation or status identity for these tenants as there was for lessees above.¹⁵² Nonetheless, as Table . shows, some of the trends noted for mill lessees shows up among tenant mill holders. Millers were the most common among those who could be identified according to occupation, again appearing most frequently in the period before . The same applied to fullers, indicating that the number of tenants who actually operated their mills was, as in the case of lessees, more common in the earlier period rather than the later. Apart from millers and fullers, however, only a smattering of other occupation or status groups are indicated and trends here are difficult to ascertain. Clergymen had a few mills in tenancy, as did three gentry figures, the most interesting of the latter group being Gilbert Legh. He seems to have started out from humble beginnings in the s, having built a tenant fulling-mill at Leeds sometime around . He also had the lease of the demesne fulling-mill at Leeds in – and again with his son Nicholas on a seven-year lease starting in ; by the end of the s he was styled as a squire.¹⁵³ As among the lessees, women occasionally appeared as holders of tenant mills. Of the four such cases in Table ., two were connected to the mills through their husbands (either alive or dead). Matilda Gill, for example, held half a mill (plus lands) at Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, around , while her husband, John, held the other half (again with lands).¹⁵⁴ Similarly Juliana, wife of Richard ate Burne, who was recorded as holding a third of two mills in dowry at Farnham, Surrey, in the early fourteenth century, was probably the widow of the former holder.¹⁵⁵ The other two women, however, might have been more directly involved in the business. Mabel de Longford alone held a corn-mill, again at Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, c.,¹⁵⁶ while Agnes Burton held two separate fulling-mills at Taunton and nearby Langford, Somerset, in –.¹⁵⁷ ¹⁵¹ For example, d. of new rents was recorded for the first time in – for a joint water corn-mill and fulling-mill at Marsden, Yorkshire, which was to be constructed by Gilbert Savell on a half-acre of land. Seemingly it was built because the yearly payment was still being recorded, now under the name of a William Savell, in –: PRO DL /, /. ¹⁵² Altogether names ( for the pre- period and for the post- period) were given among the mill tenancies in the computerized sample. ¹⁵³ PRO DL /, /. ¹⁵⁴ Charters and Custumals . . . of Holy Trinity Caen, . ¹⁵⁵ As recorded, for example, in the – and – accounts: Pipe Roll . . . –, ; HRO M B/, m. . ¹⁵⁶ Charters and Custumals . . . of Holy Trinity Caen, . ¹⁵⁷ HRO M B/ (under the ‘New Rents’ section of the Taunton account).
T .. Occupation, status, and gender names among tenant mill holders (no.) Time perioda
Millers
Fullers
Clothiers
Bakers
Carpenters, wrights
Smiths
Manorial officials
Clergymen
Male gentry
Women
Others
Total
–
—
–
—
—
—
a
The time periods run from Michaelmas ( Sept.) of the first year to Michaelmas of the second.
Sources: As indicated in App. .
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It is difficult to compare rental levels from mill tenancies because of the difficulties in sorting out the value of the mills versus that for the lands often attached to them, plus the complication that labour services were often included as a non-cash element in the overall rent, especially in the earlier part of our period.¹⁵⁸ Nonetheless, the cash element of rents for water corn-mills at customary or free tenure tended to remain relatively stable right through the period, as shown in Table ..There was, however, a more notable decline in the rents for industrial mills. Always lower on average than the rents for water cornmills, the charges for tenant industrial mills fell off sharply in the first half of the sixteenth century. By then, lords seem not to have considered these mills worth worrying about as important sources of revenue, and the rent in fact was often expressed simply as a charge for access to water.¹⁵⁹ As long as tenant mills remained in the same family, the rent levels were less responsive to market changes than the leasing of demesne mills, with mill tenancy rents often remaining unchanged over at least a couple of generations.¹⁶⁰ Sometimes, however, lords had trouble filling a tenancy when a tenant died. One option was obviously to take the mill into the demesne (‘into the lord’s hands’, as it is usually expressed), but often lords would try to attract another tenant. In such a situation rents could fall, as in the case of the reduction in annual rent for the tenant watermill and associated lands (at least ½ acres) at Burghclere, Hampshire, from s. d. down to s. in the mid-fifteenth century, when the tenancy was transferred from William Coppenis to John Spicer.¹⁶¹ Indeed, after the advent of the plague, rent levels for tenant mills could fall rapidly, as implied in a Newnham (Bridge), Worcestershire, rental of . Here William Bruggeman was recorded as holding a tenant watermill at nearby Boraston (just over the border in Shropshire), which had ‘formerly’ (quondam) rented for s. per year, ‘afterwards’ (postea) for s. d. per year, and ‘now’ (modo; that is, ) at s. per year.¹⁶² As this reflects the language often used by manorial officials in describing declining revenues after the Black Death, the s. per year rent probably was in effect before the plague, dropping to s. d. per year soon after it struck, and gradually being reduced to s. per year ¹⁵⁸ See e.g. the labour services associated with many of the tenant mills at Minchinhampton c.: Charters and Custumals . . . of Holy Trinity Caen, , , –, , . ¹⁵⁹ As at Nailsbourne, Somerset, in –, when William Waryn paid a fine of d. for licence to divert a water-course to his newly built fulling-mill, for which he was henceforth to pay a ‘new rent’ of d. per year.These water diversion ‘rents’ were still being paid in –: HRO M B/, . ¹⁶⁰ See the case of the Savells at Marsden, Yorkshire, in n. above. Similarly, at Preston (in Holderness), Yorkshire, a windmill erected in bond tenancy during – by Roger Coldon of Hedon continued to pay a rent of d. per year from that time to at least –: PRO SC /, /; Hen VII/; Hen VIII/, . ¹⁶¹ As recorded in the – account: HRO M B/, ms. v–. ¹⁶² WCL C.
T .. Cash elements in rents for tenant water corn-mills and industrial mills – () No. of cases
–
–
–
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
Mean
34
s. / d.
s. ½d.
s. d.
s. ½d.
s. d.
s. / d.
s. ¼d.
Median
s. d.
s. ½d.
s. d.
s. d.
s. d.
s. d.
s. d.
Notes: Figures exclude entry fines or valuations for labour services. () Water corn-mills; () industrial mills (fulling-mills, tool-grinding mills, etc.). Sources: As indicated in App. .
34
– ()
s. ¼d.
34
s. / d.
s. d.
s. d.
s. d.
s. d.
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by . The mill at Newnham itself showed a similar but more gradual decline in rents. In the same rental it was recorded that the watermill there plus a cottage or cotland (cot’) called Kitson had ‘formerly’ rented for s. per year, presumably before the Black Death, and ‘now’ was only worth s. per year (being held in by William Muleward). In a rental from the mid- or late fifteenth century, however, the rent for the Boraston mill still remained s. per year, but the Newnham mill and Kitson cottage rent had dropped to s. per year (when it was held by Hugh Good). However, in an account for –, a s. per year increase in rent over the ‘ancient’ s. per year rent was recorded for Newnham mill (and, presumably, Kitson cottage, although it was not mentioned), now in the hands of John Smallman.¹⁶³ As the Newnham case indicates, there are signs that tenant mill rents were beginning to rise again towards the end of the fifteenth century, as was also evident at Alveston, Warwickshire, where the rents for two corn-mills, a fishery, and an island in the Avon rose from s. d. to s. d. from to .¹⁶⁴ The other trend that characterized the development of the tenant milling sector was a gradual stripping-away of land attached to the mills. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, most tenant mills were found alongside reasonably sizeable amounts of land, often a virgate or more.¹⁶⁵ This suggests that in the thirteenth century and perhaps before mills were often an addition to what were basically farming operations, where the mills might often have been mostly for household use. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, however, mills were being created much more as tenancies in their own right (with perhaps a piece of mill meadow attached but little more).This was most obvious in the case of industrial mills, which were usually found on very small plots of land. To a large extent this was in effect what was happening in the demesne sector as well, where the leasing of mills by lords (from at least as early as the twelfth century, as we have seen) was in effect breaking up the demesne as an overall productive unit and relegating aspects of the demesne, such as mills, for others to operate.¹⁶⁶ In just such a way the tenant sector was also separating mills away from land as money-earners. The combined effect over time, at both the demesne and tenant levels, was a much sharper focusing upon mills as an object ¹⁶³ WCL C, C, C. ¹⁶⁴ Although the reference also included a messuage and cotland that was added to the mill sometime after : WCL E ( Oct., court roll); WCL C ( July , rental). I am grateful to Christopher Dyer for supplying me with notes for the court roll entry. ¹⁶⁵ Again, in the case of Minchinhampton, the lands associated with the nine tenant mills there ranged from a single messuage up to nearly four virgates: Charters and Custumals . . . of Holy Trinity Caen, , , , , , –, , , –. ¹⁶⁶ Note the similar ‘divorce’ of demesne and village in the later Middle Ages: Dyer, ‘Were there Any Capitalists?’, .
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of investment, in effect separating the ‘milling industry’ from the industry of agriculture. In conclusion, the configuration of the tenant sector of the milling industry changed significantly over the course of the period from to , such that it and the demesne sector now represented very differing types of mill, with the demesne sector being dominated by grain mills and the tenant sector by those for industrial purposes. Since demesne mills were normally in a stronger legal position to tenant mills, the inevitable result was that, although industrial mills were now found in much greater numbers, especially in the tenant sector, their position was in fact very vulnerable. Although this vulnerability was not much in evidence by the end of our period, when tenant industrial mills were still increasing in number, there was certainly potential danger for them in the future.¹⁶⁷
.. The purpose of this section is to examine the degree to which the responsibility for milling investment was leaking from lords (or the demesne sector generally) to the borough and domestic sectors and to examine the impact that this may have had on investment in these sectors. In both cases it is very difficult to be categorical here since neither sector has information readily available in documentary types that easily allow systematic analysis over time.
... Borough Sector In terms of boroughs, I have already discussed this to some degree in relation to demesne mills leased to communities, sometimes for very long period, as in the cases of Congleton and Lydford above. In many cases burgesses acted like lords in their relationships with lessees and tenants. A good case is provided by a series of leases and grants preserved for the town of Carlisle over our period. Like lords elsewhere, the burgesses of Carlisle leased the town mills, as in the ¹⁶⁷ For example, a survey of royal mills made in prior to their being surrendered en masse to various milling entrepreneurs from London and elsewhere showed a heavy predominance for water-powered grainmilling. Of the mills surveyed (or . per cent) were apparently water-powered corn-mills, (or . per cent) were windmills, (or . per cent) were horse-mills, (or . per cent) were fulling-mills, and (or . per cent) were other types of industrial mill (i.e. two ‘iron’ mills and a ‘lead-ore’ mill): Richard Bennett and John Elton, History, iii. –. The weak showing of industrial mills in this sample was underscored by the reference to one fulling-mill at Ottery St Mary in Devon having been recently converted to a corn-mill (ibid. iii. ). See also Edward Coke’s comments below on a Somerset case in involving the conversion of two fulling-mills to corn-mills (Sect. ..).
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case of the lease of the ‘Boroughmill, Castlemill, and Newmill’, which were farmed to nine co-lessees in February of either or for twelve years at a rent of £ per year. Details of the lease included a reference to allowances given to the lessees should the mills be burnt by the king’s ‘enemies’, an allusion to the uncertain future for mills on the Scottish borders.¹⁶⁸ Similarly, as in the case of tenant mills described above, the burgesses allowed some outside entrepreneurship in the matter of industrial mills, as in the case of the forty-year lease granted to Thomas Dowson, smith, and John Pinchene in of a tenement next to Castlebridge at a rent of s. per year, where they were allowed to set up a ‘wheel with gearing’ (rota cum apparatu) to run a grindstone, apparently drawing from the pond that fed Castlemill.¹⁶⁹ As with many of the cooperative leases discussed above, John Pichene would later quitclaim his half-share of the mill in , leaving Dowson in sole control of the lease.¹⁷⁰ Water rights also were also probably a concern of Carlisle’s citizens, as suggested by a agreement to settle a dispute between the mayor, bailiff, and community of Carlisle and Robert of Tybbai concerning a mill and pond built by Robert on the River Calder as it ran through his lands on its way to ‘the town mill’ and ‘a mill called Boroughmill newly built on lands belonging to Robert of Tybbai’. It appears that the burgesses saw Tybbai’s most recent mill construction as a violation of prior rights of the two borough mills, one of which had previously been built on Tybbai’s land. The dispute seems to have ended in a compromise whereby Tybbai’s mill was allowed to stand in return for his recognition of the ‘rights’ of Borough Mill (presumably in regard to suit of mill and access to water; see next chapter).¹⁷¹ The same sort of interplay between urban milling sectors is seen in the detailed analysis of the Winchester mills by Derek Keene. Winchester was a heavily manorialized town where the burgesses played a relatively minor role in the control of mills, which were mostly under the aegis of the town’s various ecclesiastical lords, especially the bishop of Winchester.¹⁷² There was one water corn-mill in hereditary tenure at the start of our period, but it fell into disuse during the early fifteenth century,¹⁷³ displaying the continuing move towards concentration of grain-milling in the demesne sector, either being run directly or being leased out. The proliferation of grain mills in Winchester at the start of our period ()—there were probably at least of them in Winchester and its immediate environs in —gradually shrank to by the time of the Reformation.¹⁷⁴ Part of this was undoubtedly due to the hard times that the city faced in the early sixteenth century,¹⁷⁵ but there was also a certain ¹⁶⁸ ¹⁷² ¹⁷³ ¹⁷⁴
CuRO Ca.//. ¹⁶⁹ CuRO Ca.//. ¹⁷⁰ CuRO Ca.//. ¹⁷¹ CuRO Ca.//. Keene, Survey, i. –. i.e. the mill at Sparkford, which Keene indicates survived until : Survey, i. n. Ibid. –. ¹⁷⁵ Ibid. .
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concentration and specialization of grain milling at a few favoured sites, particularly Segrim’s Mill, belonging to the bishop, which eventually milled only wheat.¹⁷⁶ Even with reasonably abundant water-powered milling in the town, hand-querns remained in evidence throughout the period, judging from archaeological evidence and the fact that at least one inhabitant of Winchester in the fourteenth century was styled as a ‘quernmaker’, although possibly such hand-mills existed in increasingly smaller numbers as the Middle Ages wore on.¹⁷⁷ Finally, water-powered fulling was a major activity in Winchester during the fifteenth century (comprising up to per cent of all milling revenues for the town in the s), and one fulling-mill was constructed by the fullers themselves.¹⁷⁸ Most of Winchester’s fulling-mills remained in the demesne sector, however, where on the bishop of Winchester’s estates in the city (e.g. the manor of Wolvesey) they shrank from a high of fulling-mills in the mid-fifteenth century to only in .¹⁷⁹ A town with a similar milling profile was Colchester, where the number of mills reached a peak in the early s, with perhaps as many as corn-mills and probably at least fulling-mills, and then went into decline over the course of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, shrinking to as few as corn-mills and probably a lower number of fullingmills.¹⁸⁰ Often the borough experience tended to correspond with the trend of the surrounding countryside, as in the case of Exeter, which joined in with the industrial mill boom, especially in fulling-mills, that characterized the SouthWest as a whole. The city not only built new corn-mills in the late fourteenth century, bucking the general country-wide trend of a falling population, but also at least new fulling-mills by . Yet more fulling-mills were added in /, matching the building of fulling-mills on various other manors around the city.¹⁸¹ In short, the borough milling sectors in towns like Exeter probably followed the urban experience outlined in Chapter . There the comparison of mills in the rural and urban sectors shows that there was a greater decline of grain mills in rural communities than in urban ones (that is, an index in , compared to in , of for rural grain mills versus for urban ones), not surprising given the vulnerability of smaller rural mills to declining demand after the plague. In terms of grain mills, we would expect borough mills to follow the overall urban pattern, that is, picking up some trade from the countryside, or at least not being as vulnerable to the demographic decline. But, as the ¹⁷⁶ Ibid. . ¹⁷⁷ Ibid. . See also Martin Biddle’s analysis of querns at Winchester below. ¹⁷⁸ i.e. in : Keene, Survey, i. . ¹⁷⁹ As recorded in the computerized milling sample; see also Keene, Survey, , for the decline of ‘the fulling industry’ in Winchester in the early th century. ¹⁸⁰ Unfortunately the records after become less forthcoming about the total number of mills in the town: Britnell, Growth and Decline, –, –, –, –, –. ¹⁸¹ Kowaleski, Local Markets, , .
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overall urban figures and the experience of Winchester and Colchester in particular indicate, the borough grain-milling sector was probably doing no more than holding its own.There was little or no major investment in grain mills, and what change occurred was to increase the specializations of various mills to make them more efficient. Investment in industrial mills was another matter, as the number of industrial mills in both rural and urban communities increased markedly (doubling in the case of urban communities and trebling in the case of rural ones: see Chapter ). Winchester’s (and perhaps Colchester’s) experience of a shrinking number of industrial mills towards the early sixteenth century swam rather against the tide of most urban communities,¹⁸² but the relevant point here is that rural investment in industrial mills generally outpaced that in towns in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and so it is unlikely that burgesses played an exceptionally strong role in the establishment of such mills.
... Domestic Sector Finally, we come to the so-called domestic sector, where muscle supplied the power rather than wind and water, particularly in the hand-milling of grain. It would appear almost axiomatic, for instance, that some slippage of grainmilling from the water- and wind-powered milling of the demesne, tenant, and borough milling sectors would have occurred towards the hand-milling domestic sector, as many communities lost their water- or wind-powered milling capabilities in the aftermath of the plague. The degree of investment in handmills may always have been considerable, since large numbers of them were imported.¹⁸³ Documentary sources such as extents for debt also indicate a fair number of hand-mills or querns or at least stones for them.¹⁸⁴ It is doubtful, however, that the use of hand-mills or querns actually increased over the later Middle Ages. The fact that watermills and windmills for grinding grain as a whole did not decline as much as population (even at their nadir in the fifteenth ¹⁸² For example, on the bishopric of Winchester manor of Taunton in Somerset, the town added another fulling-mill in demesne to a pre-existing one between and and kept both in operation to . In addition, three tenant fulling-mills and a combination tenant fulling-/tool-grinding mill were seemingly established at Taunton between and (from the computerized sample: see App. ). ¹⁸³ As in a customs account for King’s Lynn in –, where part of the cargoes for several ships was given over to the carriage of hand millstones (seemingly from Germany): Gras, Early English Customs System, , , , . ¹⁸⁴ For example, Robert Beveridge at Stratford Langthorne, Essex, holding acres of arable, ½ acres of meadow, and ½ acres of pasture in also had two ‘millstones’, presumably for a hand-mill, worth s. (PRO C/, no. , m. ); John Pyry of Northampton had unam molam manualem valued at s. in (PRO C/, no. , m. ); and Robert Cokman, farming acres of land at Upchurch (Kent) in , had unum querne, also priced at s. (PRO C/, no. , m. ); see also Sect. ..
Entrepreneurs
century grain mills as a whole only sank to an index of (compared to in ), while water corn-mills, which arguably always carried the bulk of demand, only sank to an index of in the s) suggests that there was not a vast transfer of custom to hand-mills. Indeed, the evidence, although meagre, suggests there might even have been a significant decline in hand-milling from early times. Martin Biddle’s analysis of the archaeological remains of medieval querns or hand-mills at Winchester suggests that hand-mills were very common in the eleventh and twelfth centuries but that they fell off sharply afterwards, perhaps gradually being replaced by larger-scale water- and windmills.¹⁸⁵ Given the evidence from the customs accounts of imported hand-millstones and the continued presence of hand-mills and querns in other documentary evidence, it would seem that Biddle’s conclusions are probably too severe, and that querns and hand-mills continued to play a significant role in grain and other food milling for some time, although possibly in a somewhat diminished role.¹⁸⁶ Similarly, although it is very difficult to measure, the substantial increase in industrial mills for a much lowered population in the later Middle Ages suggests that much human labour for industry (as in foot fulling) was replaced by water-powered mechanisms of various sorts.
.. : Overall, it would appear that the trend was for a gradual fragmentation of milling investment over the course of the later Middle Ages. Certainly this was most obvious in the case of the great lords, who were the mega-entrepreneurs in milling during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Gradually, they relaxed their hold over the industry, first by leasing any of those mills that were still being operated directly and, secondly, by reducing their role in building or maintaining mills. Until at least the middle of the fifteenth century, however, there was little planning in this, and lords of the greater estates at least seem to have reacted more to specific circumstances than in the certain knowledge that they should get out of milling as quickly as they could. Eventually, however, over the course of the fifteenth century their role in the promoting of new mill ¹⁸⁵ Although Biddle’s figures suggest that mortars and pestles may also have been replacing querns: Object and Economy, –. ¹⁸⁶ The plaintive cry of the tenants of Milton Hall in Essex at the turn of the th century (Sect. .) indicates that these tenants at least did not have sufficient recourse to hand-mills to make up for their disabled mill.
Entrepreneurs
building became at best a subsidiary one in allowing permission for others to invest in mills or possibly helping in the financing of such ventures. The impetus for investment in larger-scale milling (that is, watermills and windmills) thus gradually passed to two groups: lessees and tenants. In the case of lessees, the evidence suggests that lessee-proprietors, relatively small-scale investors with probably limited ambitions beyond running the single mill which they leased, initially dominated (or at least were more numerous than they would be later). This situation seems to have existed for at least a century after the Black Death, and it is when this group seemingly began to dry up during the middle of the fifteenth century that milling entered its crisis period. Lords responded, first, by taking on more in the way of maintenance costs, and when this failed, by lowering rents and probably increasing lease lengths, in return for which lessees agreed to take back more in the way of maintenance costs. This process of accommodation probably averted a full-scale crisis in the demesne milling sector (which might have resulted in a much greater loss of mills than in fact happened), so that it was able to limp along, even in the face of a possibly severe shortage of specie, until a stronger consumer demand for milling towards the end of the fifteenth century began to allow greater margins of profit. When this happened, it appears that the group best positioned to take advantage were neither lords nor lessee–proprietors, but those, particularly gentry, who had what we might call middle-scale, rather more family-oriented capital that enabled them to take up leases of one or more mills, which they in turn sub-leased or operated directly through a hired miller. In some cases this allowed the accumulation of many mills within the grasp of a single lessee or family, although almost certainly never approaching anything like the mill holdings enjoyed by the great estate owners of the early fourteenth century. It should also be said that this new group of lessees was not particularly innovative. They seem concerned not with creating entirely new milling operations, but, at best, with resurrecting old ones, partly because the old sites carried with them the still quite powerful and very desirable legal rights of the demesne sector. A much greater degree of entrepreneurship, in its pure sense, was shown by the tenant sector. Here from the middle of the fifteenth century and certainly in the early sixteenth century the number of industrial mills in particular grew on tenant holdings. It is here that potential lessee–proprietors may have turned their attention after gradually being superseded in the leasing of demesne mills by gentry and others with middle-scale capital. They did so in a particularly vigorous way, benefiting both from the relaxation of lords in the investment of other than grain mills and the fact that the now more gentry-oriented lessees had not yet gained a position whereby they could restrict such tenant initiatives.
Entrepreneurs
The result was a great increase in the mechanization of various industrial processes, clearly outstripping, it would appear, the much vaunted ‘industrial revolution’ of the twelfth and thirteenth century (see Chapter ). This sudden burst of investment at the tenant level involved very small-scale capital, with the new industrial mills springing up, like weeds, wherever they could on tiny plots between pre-existing mill sites. It was clearly very regional, being dependent upon local demand from various industries, most notably the cloth industry in the South-West and North and, more narrowly, the tin industry in Cornwall. It may well have appeared in other areas not well covered by the computer sample, especially the Weald, where iron production flourished.¹⁸⁷ In short, it was arguably the most innovative phase of mill-building since the sudden efflorescence of windmills from the late twelfth century to . It also shows how quickly and effectively small-scale capital could be mobilized if allowed. This is clearly not what Marx had in mind when he discussed the so-called transition from feudalism to capitalism. Indeed, many of the people to whom he alluded, especially the gentry, were certainly active in the late medieval milling industry, but they clearly focused on well-established milling sites in the demesne sector, complete with the traditional and legal rights which these sites enjoyed. Comparing them to the expanding tenant sector would, in a modern sense, be like comparing corporate takeovers with setting up corner shops. In the end what was gained by the milling industry was seemingly a much stronger penetration of middle- and small-scale investment, through the agency of leases or the establishment of new tenant mills. This more piecemeal recapitalization of the milling industry was seemingly unaffected in any sustained fashion by disruptions in capital flow through taxation, lack of specie, or scarcity of credit.¹⁸⁸ This was probably in part because much of the ‘capital’ involving the establishment of these new mills came from the labour or other non-monetary resources of lessee, tenant, or even landlord.¹⁸⁹ What was lost, for the moment at least, was probably the ability to fund really large-scale milling projects. It is hard to believe that the prodigious input of capital for the (eventually failed) tide mills at Lydden or Southwark in the early fourteenth century¹⁹⁰ could easily have been replicated in the late fifteenth or early ¹⁸⁷ Cleere and Crossley, Iron Industry, –, –, –. ¹⁸⁸ For a recent survey of the allegedly heavy impact of taxation upon the economy of the early and midTudor period, see Hoyle, ‘Taxation’. ¹⁸⁹ Especially in regard to the wood and other material resources that lords were often willing to let lessees or tenants have, as in the case of the fulling-mill at Leeds constructed by Gilbert Legh in the mid-s, where the king allowed Gilbert to have two trees from Rothwell Haigh for the purpose of building the mill (reported in –: PRO DL /). ¹⁹⁰ See n. above.
Entrepreneurs
sixteenth centuries.¹⁹¹ This is not only due to the smaller pool of capital attendant upon both lower levels of money and population, but also because the capital that people were willing to invest in milling seems increasingly to have been more finely dispersed over the period.¹⁹² Finally, what sort of overall theoretical view does the evolution of investment patterns described in this chapter support? The answer to this remains unclear. Certainly, the new set of tensions that developed in the milling industry was not, as argued by Marx for late medieval and early modern society as a whole, between capitalists and a budding proletariat, but between newly reconfigured sectors of the industry, particularly between the old demesne sector, now dominated by lessees, and a tenant milling sector now much more oriented towards industrial activities. Both injected new strains of investment behaviour that had the potential of leading to new organizational and technological formulations for the industry. The strong swing towards using water power for non-agricultural purposes was undoubtedly an important event, and there are some signs of an intensified technological investment in water-control systems.¹⁹³ But the strength and longevity of such trends are very much in question. They were clearly not irreversible, and indeed there are signs of a demesne sector, now led by lessees, once again trying to regain the upper hand over a rising but vulnerable tenant mill sector, particularly with regard to water supply. One possible future result of this would be that the make-up of mill types might well have a tendency to return to earlier patterns, with corn-mills again beginning to dominate heavily as population grew again.¹⁹⁴ The investment profile here would thus have a cyclical pattern that was more Malthusian than Marxian (or Weberian). It is also uncertain what was happening to mills in borough corporations. The analysis above suggests that, in the matter of milling investment, burgesses displayed a behaviour very similar to demesne mill holders (either lords or lessees): that is, proceeding cautiously and with an eye to maintaining legal advantages as much as possible. The domestic milling sector, too, probably did not show much new activity over the later Middle Ages, as hand-mills were largely given over in preference for grinding household corn at watermills or windmills. But arguably enough of a base might have remained to promote commercial, household-based hand-milling once population began to rise ¹⁹¹ Note the decline of tide mills in late medieval Southwark: Martha Carlin, Medieval Southwark, –. ¹⁹² See also John Hatcher’s view of the fragmentation of capital for the tin industry over the later Middle Ages: English Tin Production, –. ¹⁹³ Particularly in such things as the building of the new gurges for the weir at Taunton in – (Sect. ..); also Langdon, ‘Inland Water Transport—View from the Mills’. ¹⁹⁴ See n. above.
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again in the sixteenth century, once more supporting a cyclical pattern to milling investment. All of this, however, is a question for future work on the period after . As for how investment was initiated and the various forms it could take among the new parties involved, perhaps there is nothing much surprising here. The actions of lessees in terms of taking on partners when necessary, attempting to establish long-lasting family interests in milling, seeking to retain the privileges that lords had formally enjoyed with demesne mills (particularly in limiting competition), seeking to maximize profits by evading maintenance responsibilities as much as possible or by getting rents lowered, among any number of stratagems, seem only natural. It does, however, point to a more fluid and vibrant situation for milling, where access to the industry was gradually opened up to a broader range of investors. Certainly, in terms of the personnel involved in investment, lessees were inserted as a much more important and permanent element.Tenants, too, were able play a much more influential role by building industrial mills in particular on their holdings, although their position was likely less secure. But, above all, in the one trend that does seem to have been undeniably irreversible, the era when landlords effectively directed milling investment was finally and firmly extinguished.
Workers and Customers
v I this chapter I am going to consider the other two groups of people who were intimately involved with the milling industry: those who derived employment from it and those who patronized it. As we have already seen, the reach of the milling industry in terms of its distribution across the countryside was very broad indeed. On the one hand, this required an extensive personnel to enable the industry to function smoothly and without undue interruptions. The fact that the diverse episodes of very inclement weather, catastrophic disease, political crises, and severe bullion shortage characterizing the period did not lead to a devastating loss of mills but, in many instances, were instead dealt with by certain adjustments (such as, say, converting water corn-mills to industrial uses or the selective culling of windmills) is powerful testimony not only to a determined entrepreneurial spirit but also to a ready supply of operating and service personnel and a basically loyal consumer base. None of this happened by accident, however. The supporting personnel existed as part of the economy at large, and perhaps it should be considered that much of the flexibility and durability of the industry was due to the prior establishment of a sufficiently robust monetary economy. Indeed, the presence of supporting casts for industries like milling has never been a matter of debate in medieval studies. It has been assumed that the demands of the industry in terms of labour and material would be met naturally through the workings of the economy, and to a large degree it was. One reason for this was that milling paid its workers well, thanks to the skill needed for mill construction and maintenance, or the possibilities for income supplementation, often illicit, that millers in particular might enjoy. As we shall see, perhaps these notions should not be accepted uncritically, but one is nonetheless struck by how readily the industry could respond to potential crises on the personnel side. Part of the purpose of this chapter, then, is to discuss the nature of the workforce and how it changed during the period. At the very least, this helps to address the old Marxian
Workers and Customers
problem of the creation of a proletariat. In short, was milling becoming a classic capitalist enterprise, with the workforce being very much at the mercy of mill owners or proprietors? Much more heavily debated, however, has been the nature of the consumer response. Milling has long been perceived in the literature as being coercive in nature, with manorial tenants being forced to patronize the manorial mill. This argument has a long pedigree, stemming in particular from the hugely influential work of Marc Bloch, and even now exerts a powerful hold over prevailing views of the medieval economy and society.¹ Yet, despite the undoubted power of lords, it can be debated whether an industry of the size and extent of milling could be supported by compulsion alone. With these issues in mind, I shall first consider milling’s labour force.
.. Given the number of mills of all types in medieval English society, it is hardly surprising that it provided employment for a large and varied workforce. Elsewhere I have used manorial accounts to estimate the personnel needed to service watermills and windmills (and primarily those for grinding grain) at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Depending on the assumptions made, the number of personnel, both operating and maintenance, was probably in the range of , to , full-time equivalent workers.² About per cent were operating personnel, such as millers and fullers, while the remaining per cent were construction and maintenance personnel such as carpenters, smiths, masons, carters, and general labourers, or labour wrapped up in the supply of essential materials like millstones, iron, brass, canvas, or timber.³ Given the decline of mills in the later Middle Ages, this level of personnel obviously declined as well, but since the total number of mills at any time during the later Middle Ages seems not to have dipped below per cent of what the numbers were in , we can presume that the attendant labour force did not decline more than per cent either (making a range of , to , equivalent fulltime workers even at the nadir of the industry in the mid-fifteenth century). Conditions of employment for this labour could be exceedingly varied, according to the skills of the worker or the degree to which he (since we are virtually always discussing males here) was involved in the proprietorship of the ¹ For a recent review of the debate, see Langdon, ‘Lordship’, esp. –; see also the opening remarks in Sect. . below. ² Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’. ³ Ibid. .
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enterprise. Perhaps this variety was no more so than in the case of operators like millers and fullers, whom I shall now discuss.
... Operators The most prominent category here are millers, since grain-milling tended to dominate throughout our period, particularly at the beginning but even towards the end. Medieval English millers have already been considered in some depth by a number of historians, particularly Bennett and Elton and, most recently, Holt.⁴ While I have a certain amount to add to their accounts, it in no way supersedes them and, in terms of acquiring a comprehensive view of medieval English millers, their versions should be read alongside my own. Millers have been particularly difficult to categorize in medieval society, because their status and prosperity could vary immensely from case to case. There are plenty of instances of millers being little more than hired hands, but others could be very well-off individuals: for example, the millers portrayed in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, perhaps even hiring other millers to help them. Even hired millers could exist under a broad range of employment conditions, as Holt has pointed out from a number of examples taken around the beginning of the fourteenth century.⁵ In terms of their cash wages and liveries of grain in manorial accounts, millers were considered as part of the famuli (that is, manorial servants). Holt, for instance, provides a case of two millers (of two mills) at Burwell, Cambridgeshire, in , each of whom was paid s. d. and quarters of grain per year, almost identical to the ploughmen on the same manor, except that the latter were given the slightly higher cash payment of s. per year.⁶ Like other famuli, the millers’ names tended not to be recorded in the accounts and so identifying them even when other manorial records are available can be problematic. Terms of employment could also shift according to circumstance, and Maryanne Kowaleski has pointed out that urban mills could pay much higher rates than rural ones. Thus, in the s, admittedly a time of higher salaries than the first half of the century, John Berie, the master miller for the Duryard mills in Exeter, was paid d. a week (a yearly salary of over £), while those millers under his supervision were given –d. per week.⁷ Most of Holt’s and Kowaleski’s data are spot checks at particular moments, so it might be fruitful to concentrate on the experience of millers over more extended periods. A trio of cases is provided from the estates of Westminster Abbey.The first concerns the double water corn-mill site (that is, powering two ⁴ Richard Bennett and John Elton, History, vol. iii, chs. and ; Holt, Mills, ch. . ⁵ Holt, Mills, –. ⁶ Ibid. . ⁷ Kowaleski, Local Markets, .
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waterwheels and two sets of millstones) at Feering, Essex. Up to the Abbey of Westminster had leased the mills at Feering for quarters of ‘mixed’ grains per year. In apparently a switch in policy was made, seemingly because of the abrupt end of the lease in the middle of the accounting year of –, perhaps because of the death of the lessee (although no reason was given). The event marked the transition to over twenty-five years of direct management which only ended in the early s.⁸ The length of the experiment clearly indicated that it was to some extent successful, but it was not without some adjustments. In the late s the abbey hired a single miller, again unnamed in the accounts, to run the two mills together, paying him s. per year and a quarter of mixed grains every eight weeks (making ½ quarters per year) plus a d. bonus for Christmas. As in the Burwell case above, his cash and grain payments were normally included with other members those of the famuli, but the amount paid, especially in grain, was easily in the upper range of millers’ wages at the time.⁹ However, it became obvious that a single miller could not handle both sets of millstones, so extra help was supplied. This was first evident in an additional Christmas payment of d. each to two ‘miller’s boys (or servants)’ (garciones molendinarii), perhaps members of the miller’s family who were helping him, since no other payment was recorded for them.¹⁰ But presumably this was still not enough labour, for in – an additional miller was hired, which the abbey effected by simply halving the salary that they had paid the first miller, thus giving each of the two millers s. d. per year and quarter of grain every sixteen weeks—that is, ¼ quarters per year.¹¹ Again it is possible that the second miller was related to the first, so that in effect a single, reasonably well-paid job (for a miller) was being spread throughout the family. Certainly, the only extension in payment beyond the previous wage for the single miller was that d. as Christmas bonus was given to both millers, while the two ‘miller’s boys’ were also recorded as receiving d. each and so presumably remained on site. This arrangement worked extremely well for the abbey, since the amount of multure grain received jumped from an average . quarters per year in the late s to . quarters per year for the first two decades of the fourteenth century, an increase of . per cent. The success at keeping the multure grains at this level fairly consistently through the s and s (with the exception of the famine year, –, when there was a drop down to quarters) suggests that supervision was fairly tight. When low grain levels occurred for any particular year, the reeve was quick to give a reason, ⁸ WAM –. ⁹ The cases Holt cites suggests that the average wage for millers would be about –s. and quarters of grain per year: Holt, Mills, –. ¹⁰ As in the – and – accounts (WAM –). ¹¹ WAM .
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as in –, when it was reported that there were only quarters of multure, because ‘Northmill’ was down for four weeks for repairs and ‘Southmill’ down for two weeks and also because of ‘the great dearness of corn’,¹² while earlier in – and – relatively low multure levels of ¼ and ¼ quarters respectively were justified (by the reeve) as being so low because new windmills had just been built in ‘Tey Mandeville’ (now Marks Tey) and Inworth, both within to miles of Feering. The higher echelons of the abbey administration, however, were clearly suspicious of this excuse, because the ¼ and ¼ figures were crossed out and replaced with and quarters respectively.¹³ Not all the abbey’s experiences with operating mills directly were successful, however. In marked contrast to Feering, the abbey’s experience with the windmill (possibly a tower mill, as discussed in Chapter ) on the manor of Turweston, Buckinghamshire, was a disaster, in which the difficulties of supervising millers probably played an important role. As I have written elsewhere, the building of the Turweston windmill in was probably a questionable investment in the first place.¹⁴ It was seemingly built without the benefit of suit of mill, which was already claimed by a tenant watermill on the manor. From to the abbey operated the mill directly with a hired miller, who was given s. cash per year and a grain livery of quarter of grain, half wheat and half ‘mixed’, every twelve weeks. Initially, he was also supplied by a helper (again garcio) for the entire year except for five weeks in the harvest, who was given quarter of grain, again half wheat and half ‘mixed’, every twenty-four weeks. Although the mill managed to turn a modest profit for the first couple of years, it was soon clearly operating at a loss.¹⁵ In the face of these falling revenues, the helper was taken away from the miller (by ), but this failed to stem the decline in profits.There are some signs that the miller may have been part of the problem, because in – he was only given s. for the winter half of the year ‘and no more because he forfeited his summer wages’, although no reasons were given.¹⁶ In any case, by – the mill was leased out for s. per year, seemingly a much better deal for the abbey, since outgoings for the abbey were only d. (for repairs). However, the mill was back in the abbey’s hands by March , and the abbey had to hire a miller for half the year at s. d. plus a quarter of grain every twelve weeks. In the next year (–) the mill was again leased for half a year, after which it was back in the lord’s hands and run by a miller paid the same amount as in . The miller was still running the mill in –, when the windmill seemingly suffered severe damage in late May .¹⁷ Although ¹² WAM . ¹⁵ Ibid. .
¹³ WAM , . ¹⁴ Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’. ¹⁶ WAM . ¹⁷ WAM –.
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the mill was later resurrected twice, it was never again run directly and eventually was permanently derelict by .¹⁸ The third example of the abbey of Westminster’s experience with using hired millers occurred with the windmill on the manor of Oakham, Rutland. This was an easier experience for the abbey than with the Turweston windmill, since the Oakham mill was still operating at the time of the last surviving account for the manor (–).¹⁹ Built at Oakham sometime between and , the windmill was seemingly run directly from its inception to about the mid-s, after which it was leased. Returns of multure during this period of direct operation were reasonably high, usually exceeding quarters ( bushels) per year. The miller was here paid a relatively modest cash wage of s. per year, and, instead of a fixed grain livery, was allowed to take ‘every seventh bushel’. This productivity-related grain livery seems to have worked well for the abbey, although it was not overly generous for the miller, since in effect it meant that he seldom received much more than quarters.²⁰ Two other examples of such productivity-related wages have been cited by Holt, an early case at Staverton, Suffolk, in , when the miller received one-third of the multure corn, and a later case in Farleigh Hungerford, Somerset, in , when the miller received one-fifth.²¹ All three of the Westminster cases do not portray the abbey as a particularly generous employer, but the lot of the miller here was probably not out of line for most hired millers at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The Feering, Oakham, and, to a lesser extent, Turweston cases indicate that the optimum window for the direct operation of mills was probably the period from the s to about the s, at which point milling seems to have gone into something of a decline, probably due to over-saturation of the market.²² This clearly began to drive many lords to lease out their mills as a more certain option for a steady income, although the success of this was clearly not guaranteed, as the Turweston case shows. Even when mills were leased, there were presumably still openings for hired millers working for the lessees. As we have seen in the previous chapter, this probably lessened in the later fourteenth century, as many lessees were in fact miller–proprietors, like the Moon family chronicled in the previous chapter.²³ Towards the end of the fifteenth and into the early sixteenth ¹⁸ Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, –. ¹⁹ WAM . ²⁰ Thus, in –, for example, of the quarters received as multure, the miller received quarters 3/4 bushels: WAM . ²¹ Holt, Mills, . ²² As indicated by the complaint of the reeve at Feering in – and – above; see also Langdon, ‘Lordship’, . ²³ Sect. ...
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century, hired millers probably became more common once again. Their terms of employment are only occasionally glimpsed, however, usually when mills came briefly into the hands of lords during the interval between leases, as when Thomas Miller and Nicholas Andrew, ‘millers’, were hired at the decidedly unprincely sum of d. per week (for both of them) for running the tide mill (called ‘Sea Mill’) at Bosham, Sussex, in –.²⁴ Those millers who had some sort of proprietorial control over their mills, whether through lease or hereditary tenure, were often much better off, as in the case, related by Holt, of Leuric the miller of Sturminster Newton, Dorset, who held the watermill in hereditary tenure there in the s and whose family continued to hold it into the s. Leuric was indeed prosperous enough to hire his own miller.²⁵ Although, as we have seen, hereditary corn-mills continued to decline into our period as they were reclaimed by the demesne, millers’ acquisition of demesne mills through lease was clearly a common occurrence after the Black Death, which allowed miller families like the Moons to gain control of mills for extended periods of time. These miller–proprietors are probably the model for Chaucer’s millers in The Canterbury Tales, who were seen as uncouth, but reasonably well-off, individuals. The miller’s status, and his resulting image, could clearly be variable. When they worked for wages, millers were well down the economic social order—at worst nameless figures among the manor’s famuli, at the best named but not exceptionally wealthy individuals. Even the master miller John Berie, of the Duryard mills at Exeter in the s (mentioned above), who occupied about as good a position as a hired miller could get, only made d. per week or d. per day (assuming a six-day working week), barely reaching that for a skilled craftsman at the time.²⁶ Hired millers might also be able to supplement their earnings through holding land in their village, although these properties were often minimal, as in the case of William the miller of Walsham le Willows, Suffolk, who died in holding a modest acres in customary tenure and had no animal to leave as heriot.²⁷ As for miller–proprietors, whether holding in hereditary tenure or leasing demesne mills, we should probably see them at least middle-level peasants, who often served as pledges and were frequently involved in village activities (legal and illegal).²⁸ Some may have had more ²⁴ WSRO Acc. II/A/. ²⁵ Holt, Mills, –. ²⁶ Cf. the wages for carpenters and masons, which both averaged between d and d. per day in the s: AHEW iii. (table .). ²⁷ Court Rolls of Walsham le Willows, . ²⁸ For example, a Hugo the miller served as a pledge in a court roll for Houghton, Huntingdonshire: Court Rolls of the abbey of Ramsey, . See also the unneighbourly actions of Simon the miller at Wheathampstead and Harpenden below.
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upwardly mobile expectations, as Chaucer’s picture of Simkin, the miller of Trumpington (in ‘The Reeve’s Tale’), suggests. Simkin could presume to marry into what we would call genteel society—that is, taking as his wife the illegitimate, but well-educated, daughter of the parson of Trumpington—and he was well aware of his yeoman status.²⁹ A similar real-life example may have occurred with Adam the miller, holder of one of the mills at Cuxham, Oxfordshire, in the s, who was able to have one of his sons educated as a clerk.³⁰ But generally these pretensions, if such existed, were countered by the realities of being in a world where roles were fairly sharply circumscribed and where access to capital and a better social standing faced severe obstacles. Millers might well wish to escape their stereotype by hiring millers to do the manual work and elevating (or retiring themselves) to a more genteel position, as in Holt’s case of Leuric the miller in the thirteenth century, or in the case of John Olmested (in Chapter ), who may have released the actual running of the mill to the man Robert Laurence, with whom he shared the mill lease.³¹ But there were clearly limits to how far this could go, and, as we have seen in the case of the Shercrofts and other mill lease entrepreneur families who tried to elevate themselves above the level of being merely practising millers, such mini-mill empires tended to be ephemeral and fragmentary. Seldom, it appears, could milling provide a launching pad for its practitioners into the higher ranks (e.g. gentry) of society. In urban situations the categorization of millers is even clearer and also more easily measured, especially in relation to their credit–debt standing, a strong economic indicator of social standing; at Exeter, for example, they appeared in court mostly as debtors rather than creditors, the only group having a worse creditor–debtor ratio being the cooks of the town.³² Millers, whatever their economic position, were most usually lumped in with the peasantry and enjoyed a reasonable camaraderie with their peasant or urban working-class neighbours. In , for instance, the rebelling peasants felt it reasonable to consider ‘John the Miller’ as one of themselves.³³ It was perhaps not until the eighteenth century that millers routinely began to be singled out as the objects, rather than the accomplices, of rioters, as they began to be lumped together with bakers and corn-dealers as people who were manipulating the food supply for their own benefit.³⁴ ²⁹ Chaucer, Canterbury Tales –. ³⁰ P. D. A. Harvey, Medieval Oxfordshire Village, –, . ³¹ Sect. ... ³² Kowaleski, Local Markets, . The lay subsidy for York also shows millers to have been largely indistinguishable from the mass of other artisans in the city: Swanson, Medieval Artisans, –. ³³ Dobson (ed.), Peasants’ Revolt, –. ³⁴ Thompson, ‘Moral Economy’, –. However, some suspicion about the collusion of millers and bakers was also evident in the medieval period: Britnell, Growth and Decline, ; Swanson, Medieval Artisans, . See also the case of John Knight of Andover in Sect. .. below.
Workers and Customers
Despite this, it is clear that millers of grain had a decidedly distinctive image in medieval (English) society, one that was extremely colourful and remarkably consistent. The well-known characterizations in The Canterbury Tales stand as typical examples.The two millers presented (that is, the miller in the ‘Prologue’ and Simkin, the miller of Trumpington) are of a very similar type: brawny, brash, crafty, and all too adept at stealing grain from their customers.³⁵ The dishonesty angle is also echoed in the early fifteenth century by the poet John Lydgate, who suggested that millers (along with bakers) should have their church or chapel situated under a pillory.³⁶ Other references, especially from the lower classes, are more explicit and direct. Proverbial sayings, such as ‘Many a miller, many a thief ’, or riddles such as ‘What is the boldest thing in the world?’ A miller’s shirt, for it clasps a thief by the throat daily’ continually reinforced the warning that the customer should be wary.³⁷ This image of the miller as a crafty thief did not fade away as the medieval period closed, but indeed proved remarkably durable. E. P. Thompson, in his famous article on the moral economy of the crowd, commented that the image of millers in the eighteenth century was essentially the same as that which had existed centuries before, with perhaps a heightened emphasis on the lecherous predilection of millers (hence the double meaning of the word ‘grind’).³⁸ As a result, over time there was a tendency for the various observations and perceptions of millers to merge into a single type that was as instantly recognizable in Chaucer’s time as it would be later. The result was an image of some complexity, but also of great consistency—that of a dishonest, crafty, very jovial, and self-confident man with an eye for the ladies. The physical type was also sharply drawn. It was and is hard to think of the miller as being weedy and timid-looking. Instead we see a big, brawny man, with coarse features and characteristics.³⁹ It is inevitable that this sort of stereotyping would occur, since it did for many other trades (for example, the village smithy), but in the miller’s case it would seem to have been exceptionally strong and not very flattering. Just how far did the image of the miller reflect reality? In order to observe the miller at work or crime in medieval England, we have a plethora of manorial and other records to draw from, the most revealing being court records of various sorts. Manorial courts catch millers at the level of petty crime, particularly in the offence recorded as ‘taking excessive tolls’, that is, abstracting an inappropriately large measure of grain for the milling process. The original method was probably to take handfuls of grain—as much as could be held ‘in the palms ³⁵ Canterbury Tales –, –. ³⁶ Bennett and Elton, History, iii. . ³⁷ Hanawalt, Crime and Conflict, ; Bennett and Elton, History, iii. . ³⁸ ‘Moral Economy’, –. ³⁹ Chaucer’s description of the miller in the Prologue is a classic representation: Canterbury Tales, –.
Workers and Customers
of two hands’, according to a Henry II document⁴⁰—but gradually wooden toll dishes became popular. The dishes were to be of a size that equated to the proportion of grain that the particular mill charged for the milling process. Often several dishes had to be available, since the charge could vary from customer to customer.⁴¹ Thus, a number of cases survive claiming that millers were using toll dishes of incorrect size,⁴² while the more general complaint of millers taking ‘excessive toll’ was also in evidence.⁴³ There were also more complicated methods for pirating grain, such as the ruse known in more modern times as ‘ringing the mill’.⁴⁴ This was the practice of creating gaps in the millstone wooden casing in order to let grain or meal drop down into a hidden cranny, where it could be retrieved by the miller at the end of the day, for which Holt has found at least one Yorkshire case from .⁴⁵ Another trick known from more modern times, which might have been practised earlier, was to have a hidden bag (the so-called ‘mill bitch’) near the millstones, into which the miller could surreptitiously slip an occasional handful of grain or flour.⁴⁶ Yet another device to aid theft might have been to sprinkle the grain with water so that the resultant meal would be moister and have a greater volume and so help conceal any pilfering that the miller had done.⁴⁷ Finally, in relation to those who hired them, millers were often guilty of gross negligence, and Robert Palmer cites four cases from to where millers failed to ‘guard’ the mills in their care properly, so that the mills suffered catastrophic damage.⁴⁸ As with any other group in society, millers were also involved in more serious criminal activities. Barbara Hanawalt, however, indicates that of some ,– , males involved in criminal cases for Norfolk in the early fourteenth century, only were millers,⁴⁹ which does not suggest that millers were an unduly criminal element in society. The crimes committed by millers were varied, but in particular the stealing of grain and mill parts was prominent.⁵⁰ To this might be added the charge that millers often acted as receivers of stolen grain. Hanawalt quotes a German proverb as saying that ‘Millers and bakers do not steal, they buy the booty’, although her figures seemingly point to theft rather than receiving.⁵¹ The competitive nature of their trade sometimes brought rather striking intra-miller violence, as in a case, where the miller of Ragnall, Nottinghamshire, was attacked and killed (by a blow to the head ⁴⁰ ⁴³ ⁴⁴ ⁴⁶ ⁴⁸ ⁵¹
Bennett and Elton, History, iii. –. ⁴¹ See Sects. .. and ... ⁴² Holt, Mills, –. Most of the miller violations in Tables . and . involved excessive tolls. Thompson, ‘Moral Economy’, . ⁴⁵ Holt, Mills, . Gauldie, Scottish Country Miller, . ⁴⁷ H. S. Bennett, Life on the English Manor, . English Law, –. ⁴⁹ Hanawalt, Crime and Conflict, , . ⁵⁰ Ibid. . Ibid. –.
Workers and Customers
with a staff ) by two other neighbouring millers, over some undisclosed dispute; similarly, in Richard Whittaker, miller of the Roche Abbey mill at Armthorpe, Yorkshire, killed John Alle, miller of nearby Kirk Sandall mill, with a knife in the midst of an altercation between the two.⁵² In summary, crimes committed by millers do not seem to have been wildly out of line with criminal acts committed by other members of medieval society. On a community level they were undoubtedly cited for the types of crime or misdemeanour for which they received their reputation, but it is difficult to say whether this occurred frequently enough to justify an image of obsessive thievery or malfeasance. It is important to note, for instance, that in any series of court roll records complaints against millers tended to occur infrequently or in clusters (see Tables . and .), suggesting that it might only be individual millers who were at fault, not the ‘profession’ as a whole. For example, in the court rolls of Harpenden and Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, a flurry of complaints appeared against Simon ate Gate, alias Simon the miller, who, with William son of Reginald (already holding another mill in the villages), took the lease of the mill of Pickford in Wheathampstead in . Within a few months Simon, his co-lessee, and William Muriel (another miller?) were charged with taking excessive tolls. Beyond this dishonesty to his customers, Simon seems to have been something of a troublemaker generally. In a series of courts stretching from December to June, –, he was charged with not coming to court when he was summoned, for taking wood illegally, for trespass, and for digging in front of a neighbour’s house.⁵³ Holt cites a like malcontent in Richard the miller at Hemingford, Huntingdonshire, in ,⁵⁴ while the Wakefield courts rolls contain a similar series of incidents in regard to Robert Stirk and other millers at Cartworth mill in the late thirteenth century.⁵⁵ However, judging from the infrequency of complaints against millers in general (Tables . and .), these cases might be seen as the exception rather than the rule. There are certainly also occasional cases where millers were acting in defence of their neighbours, such as Walter Craske, miller of Walsham le Willows in Suffolk, who was placed in contempt of the manorial court when he refused to name those ‘who milled away from the lord’s mill’.⁵⁶ But are there other factors that would single millers out for special and unfavourable attention in the minds of their contemporaries? The isolation of millers has been commented upon by Enid Gauldie,⁵⁷ which may have been a factor in our period, particularly in the case of windmills, which were often ⁵² PRO Just /, m. ; /, m. . ⁵³ WAM . ⁵⁴ Holt, Mills, . ⁵⁵ Court Rolls of . . . Wakefield, i. , –; iii. –, ; see also Holt, Mills, . ⁵⁶ Court Rolls of Walsham le Willows, . ⁵⁷ Gauldie, Scottish Country Miller, .
Workers and Customers
situated on hilltops or other rising ground well away from the villages in the valley. Also, the sorts of misdemeanour millers committed were much more sharply focused on a particular practice (rather than on something more diffuse like trespass or even assault) and were not generally crimes committed by the rest of society and so would tend to stand out and be remembered more. More important was probably the very fact of their trade, which put millers among that handful of village members—smiths, carpenters, wheelwrights, and the like—who to some extent at least were removed from the occupational mainstream of community life (that is, farming). But a difficulty in this is that it was only the miller who seemingly developed a strong and largely unsavoury reputation. This may have been due to the nature of the transactions in which millers were involved. Unlike smiths and other craft-workers, who received cash for their labours, millers were virtually always paid in kind, which had several important consequences. The first, already mentioned, was that this manner of payment was subject to all sorts of questions over measurement—not only in relation to the size of toll dishes, but also in relation to what the finished product was supposed to yield (see Chapter for the variation in the mill products). Coupled with the fact that the mill machinery was a sort of ‘black box’ over which the customer had no control and where the machinery was both complex (for the time at least) and most often hidden from view, it is not surprising that many medieval customers were mistrustful. Finally, the miller’s intimate association with the most crucial commodity for medieval society (that is, grain) also intensified the suspicions with which both employers and customers held millers. In this regard, the miller’s image may have had some connection with the image of the bulk of peasant producers. Much of the unflattering, even menacing aspect that medieval artists and writers gave to the peasantry at large arose out of the appreciation that peasant producers were the ultimate controllers of the food supply and might not so complacently continue to provide this vital commodity in the future.⁵⁸ The miller’s image might simply be a subset of this. If the peasantry as a whole might be considered a stumbling block through or from which grain had to flow, the mill was even more so. It was the bottleneck through which the great majority of grain had to go in order to be fit for human consumption, and, as such, the controller of this bottleneck, the miller, was bound to attract the attention and distrust of the rest of society. The miller’s curious position was that, although he was nominally one of the peasantry, he attracted distrust in almost equal measure from both sides, so that his image was formed not only by an upper⁵⁸ e.g. Bishop Adalbero of Laon’s sermon, c.: Hilton, Bond Men Made Free, .
Workers and Customers
class view (e.g. Chaucer, Lydgate) but also by a lower-class one, which may explain the variety and richness of the characterization. By contrast, fullers, smiths, and other industrial mill operators were anaemic figures. They are encountered most obviously as lessees or tenant holders of hereditary mills, while, as employees, they are scarcely indicated, because even demesne fulling-mills were almost invariably leased out. Hired operators were probably common in cases where the fulling-, forging, or other type of mill was leased to genteel lessees, as in the case of the Tempest family, leasing the cornmill and fulling-mill at Bradford.⁵⁹ Although no cases of wages for people operating fulling- or any other form of industrial mill were uncovered in this study, it is doubtful whether they were any higher than those for hired grain millers, since the skill required for these processes was no greater than that for grainmilling. Unlike grain-milling, however, the customer paid in cash, and so some of the complications or tensions that arose with payment in kind were avoided.
... Maintenance Workers Those who maintained mills were as important as those who operated them. Although it was expected that mill operators would do at least some of the repairs themselves, especially replacing the wooden cogs and rungs of the lantern-pinion gearing,⁶⁰ various types of craftsmen and other workers would be called in to do maintenance jobs. Indeed, the number of full-time equivalent construction and maintenance workers plus those employed to produce materials for the industry, like millstones, was roughly a half to three-quarters of the number of operating personnel.⁶¹ In terms of costs the proportion would be even more, since craftsmen’s wages in particular could be easily double that for, say, hired millers. It would seem entirely plausible to posit that roughly as much money was spent on maintenance personnel as operating ones. Using data from the ‘Cost of Mill(s)’ sections in medieval accounts, the breakdown of labour costs in the construction of a small selection of watermills, fulling-mills, and windmills during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is shown in Table ., while Table . provides a similar breakdown for routine maintenance labour costs once mills were functioning normally. In terms of construction labour costs, mills being largely wooden structures, it is not surprising that carpenters and other workers in wood dominated. Carters and other carriers were important for the watermills in fetching various items, and ⁵⁹ See Sect. ... ⁶⁰ Holt, however, feels that even cogs and rungs might have been replaced professionally: Mills, . ⁶¹ See Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, esp. (table ).
T .. The labour component in mill construction costs Type of labour
Marlborough (Wiltshire) water corn-mill –
Marlborough (Wiltshire) fulling-mill –
West Farleigh (Kent) water corn-mill –
Pence
%
Pence
%
Pence
%
Woodworkers Carpenters Woodcutters Roofers, etc. Smiths Carters etc. Manual labourers Othersa
. . . . . . —
. . . . . . —
,. . . . . ,. —
. . . . . . —
,. . . . . ,. .
. . . . . . .
,.
.
,.
.
,.
.
Turweston (Buckinghamshire) windmill
Walton (Somerset) windmill
Pence
%
Pence
%
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
, — — —
. . — . — — .
,.
.
,
.
Note: These figures give the amounts and percentages of the labour costs only. Material costs (such as millstones or canvas) are not included. For the total costs of building these mills, see Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, tables –. a
Includes mainly masons and stonelayers.
Source: Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, tables –.
T .. The labour component in mill maintenance costs Type of labour
Feering (Essex) water corn-mill – ( account-yearsa) Pence
Turweston (Buckinghamshire) windmill – ( account-yearsa) %
Pence
Oakham (Rutland) windmill – ( account-yearsa) %
Pence
%
Woodworkers Carpenters Woodcutters Roofers, etc. Smiths Carters etc. Manual labourers
. . ,. . . .
. . . . . .
. . — . . —
. . — . . —
. — — . . —
. — — . . —
,.
.
.
.
.
.
Note: These figures give the amounts and percentages of the labour costs only. Material costs (such as millstones and canvas) are not included. For the total costs of maintaining these mills over the years indicated, see Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, tables & . a Indicates the number of full account-years within the range of years indicated for which complete maintenance documentation has survived. The labour costs were taken from these full account-years only.
Source: Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, tables and .
Workers and Customers
manual labour was essential in large quantities for excavating water-control systems. Perhaps most surprising is the small proportion of labour costs apportioned to smiths for iron work, particularly for watermills, although smithing played a larger role in windmill construction. Sometimes omissions in the account led to under-representations of certain sorts of labour contribution, but, if so, it was carpentry rather than smithing costs that were more likely to be excluded, as in the case of Turweston, where the wages of the master carpenter were not included in the account because it appears he was already on retainer to the abbey.⁶² Routine maintenance costs again display a predominance of carpentry work, although the heavy costs for roofers for the double watermill at Feering was based almost solely upon a major renovation of the mill housing in –.⁶³ As in construction, maintenance work for smiths seemed to be proportionally more necessary for windmills. Carters or other carriers were less in demand in routine maintenance, except for fetching items like millstones. Manual labour was needed much more for watermills than for windmills, largely because of the requirement for digging and other relatively unskilled work for creating and maintaining water-control systems. Sometimes this took on formidable proportions, as in the case of the people mentioned in Chapter to uproot the old gurges at Taunton in –. Work on water-control systems sometimes required masons, and at least twelve were hired in this case to lay a course of stone for the bottom of the water-channel and part of the wall.⁶⁴ It is notable, however, that no masons nor stone-layers were hired for the mills in Table ., which reflects the durability of stone, once installed, and also that its use was more a feature of the later Middle Ages than for the period covered in Tables . and .. Although mills might have some respite from heavy expenses for a few years after their initial construction,⁶⁵ maintenance costs soon became a steady drain on the capital of mill proprietors. But it was not only this sort of ‘direct’ labour that was involved in maintaining the milling industry, but also labour the involved in various materials producing and parts for mills. In the original construction of mills or major renovations as in the Taunton case above, timber, stone, and processed metals such as iron, brass, and steel were required in some quantity, which in many cases were procured or purchased off-site. A recurring expense, of course, was for millstones, already discussed in Chapter . Canvas was also a persistent cost for windmills, where it appears that a new set of sails was installed annually. ⁶² Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, ; id., ‘Mobilization of Labour’, . ⁶³ WAM . ⁶⁴ See Sect. ... ⁶⁵ As in the case of the Turweston windmill: Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, .
Workers and Customers
Thus, in the Turweston case just over s. per year was spent on canvas, while for the Oakham windmill the cost was over s. per year.⁶⁶ If we assume that the number of windmills in England around was about , and that a minimum cost for canvas of s. per windmill per year was required, then £, per year worth of the material was produced—probably at least , yards—for the windmill part of the milling industry alone.⁶⁷ The production of this amount of canvas would likely provide employment for between and full-time workers.⁶⁸
... Millwrights and Master Carpenters As a result, from Tables . and . it is easy to see that the workforce gathered around the milling industry was a considerable one. One group who were more visible than most were those who supervised the actual construction of the mills: that is, millwrights and master carpenters. Of course, lords and others who commissioned mill-building projects certainly dictated financial and other conditions under which the mills had to be made, and in some circumstances might even have suggested the basic form of the mill (as perhaps in the case of tower windmills: see Section ..). But it was clearly millwrights or master carpenters who managed the enterprise and worked out the design particulars.The relationship they had with their employers is perhaps best encapsulated in the numerous building contracts that survive for the construction of watermills, windmills, and fulling-mills, where the employer’s wishes were laid out very clearly,⁶⁹ and terms of salary and timetable for the construction also itemized very carefully.⁷⁰ In short, master carpenters or millwrights were very entrepreneurial in their activities, negotiating with their client, designing the mill, and organizing the workmen and materials required to build it, much as building contractors do today.They were handsomely paid for this, usually in the form of an ‘agreement’ ⁶⁶ Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, . ⁶⁷ For the estimate of , windmills c., see Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, , n. . As to the amount physically produced, canvas normally sold for about d. per ell. Since an ell was about a yard to a yard and a quarter in length (see Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, , n. ), then assuming the low side of the length of an ell— i.e. a yard—would mean that a pound sterling could buy yards of canvas. ⁶⁸ Using the assumption made in Langdon, ‘Mobilization of Labour’, , that about half of the value of the canvas was translated into actual wages, this would result in £ worth of wages each year. If we assume, for the beginning of the th century that the wages even for skilled workers like hemp weavers would be unlikely to top £ per year, the minimum number of full-time annual salaries would be (that is, /), while a more realistic wage of £ per year would result in full-time wages per year. ⁶⁹ As in the very detailed contract for the building (or rebuilding) of a fulling-mill at Chartham, Kent, in : Salzman, Building in England, –. ⁷⁰ See Salzman, Building in England, –, , –, –, –.
Workers and Customers
(conventio) made for a lump sum between the carpenter and his employer.⁷¹ A sample of these payments, as taken from contracts or construction accounts throughout our period, is shown in Table .. Even the two pre-Black Death cases show the carpenters probably making in excess of d. per day, assuming their fee was to be spread out over an entire year.⁷² But construction of windmills usually only took a few months,⁷³ so that the carpenters in the East Knoyle and Walton cases were probably making daily wages considerably higher than d. per day. After the advent of the plague the fees for carpenter–millwrights rose dramatically. Although in some cases this was because the carpenters also found the timber for the construction, as in the Southwark example, the remuneration was sizeable. The £ paid to John Aston for building the mills at (King’s) Lynn was seemingly only for a period from September to Christmas (although again John had to find his own timber). Similarly restricted time periods for building the mill(s) applied to the mill at Carlisle, which was to be built between May (the date of the contract) and November; the mill at Tivetshall from June to November; and work on the weir and mill-wheels at Ringwood from February to April. A more leisurely pace was allowed for the fulling-mill at Chartham, where the carpenters were set a date of Michaelmas ( September) after the date of the ‘indenture’ ( November ). In five of the eleven cases in Table . the places of origins of the carpenters and millwrights were indicated. Sometimes this was from quite far away, as in the case of the work on the Southwark mills, which was carried out by a trio from Colchester or its environs (about miles away from London). Most of the others, however, lived within a few miles of their place of employment. Diss, for example, was only miles or so from Tivetshall, Battramsley a little over miles from Ringwood, and Wisbech and Pluckley about miles from Lynn and Chartham respectively.These distances suggest that prospective employers might have to search around a bit for millwrights and master carpenters, but could usually find them not too far away. Large estates might well hire such carpenters on a more or less permanent basis, as in the case of the carpenter–lessee Thurstan Euxton, mentioned in Chapter .⁷⁴ Euxton, in fact, used his position as the master carpenter of Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire to pick up some lucrative contracts in addition to the mill leases he acquired. In he entered into a ten-year agreement whereby he was paid s. per year to maintain the weirs for ⁷¹ For example, in the Walton case the agreement was made between the carpenter and Brother Thomas Everard, the cellarer of Glastonbury Abbey: Keil, ‘Building a Post Windmill’, –. ⁷² Assuming that a working year comprised or so days of the or total per year (eliminating Sundays and major feast days), then a salary of d. per day would equal £ per year. ⁷³ e.g. Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, –. ⁷⁴ Sect. ...
T .. Wages of millwrights and master carpenters for mill construction work Place
Year
Type of work done
Name of millwright or carpenter
Wages
Birdbrook, Essex Carlisle, Cumberland Chartham, Kent
–
Rebuilding a water corn-mill Building a watermill Building a fulling-mill
£ s. d. s. d. marks (£ s. d.)
East Knoyle, Wiltshire Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire (King’s) Lynn, Norfolk
– –
Building a new windmill Building a new watermill Building two watermills
Midhurst, Sussex Ringwood, Hampshire
Southwark, Surrey
–
Rebuilding a watermill Major rebuilding of a weir and renewing mill-wheels Rebuilding two watermills
Tivetshall, Norfolk Walton, Somerset
–
Building a new windmill Building a new windmill
John Morgan, carpenter John Lightfoot, carpenter John and Richard Bochor, millwrights, from Pluckley Carpenter (unnamed) John Brys, carpenter John Aston of Newton, nr. Wisbech, carpenter ‘alias wright’ Nicholas Wykford (carpenter?) Thomas Everton of Battramsley, carpenter Will. Vynt and Alex. Tilsyk, carpenters of Colchester; John Artour, carpenter of ‘Kirkeby’ John Hore of Diss, carpenter Carpenter (unnamed)
£ s. d. £ s. d. £ £ s. d. £ + ‘profits from grist of mills until Michaelmas’ £
robe + £ s. d. s. + qrs. wheat
Sources: WAM (Birdbrook); CuRO Ca.// (Carlisle); Salzman, Building in England, – (Chartham); HRO M B/ (East Knoyle); B/, m. v (Ivinghoe); NRO Knyvett MSS, no. ( (King’s) Lynn; I am grateful to Mr Paul Rutledge for directing me to this document); Salzman, Building in England, – (Midhurst); ibid. (Ringwood); ibid. – (Southwark); ibid. (Tivetshall); Keil, ‘Building a Post Windmill’ (Walton).
Workers and Customers
the millponds at Rothwell, Yorkshire.⁷⁵ A century or so earlier the honour of Pontefract paid £ s. to ‘Robert, the carpenter’ during –. Robert was so valued an employee that the account goes on to say that, for maintaining the houses and mills of the honour, Robert was to be given ‘d. per day for the term of his life through a letter of the lord [the duke of Lancaster], such that if he should become disabled (impotens) through disablement of his body or great age, through which he could not work, from that time he should take s. per year [that is, as a pension]’.⁷⁶ Most carpenters were not so privileged as this super-group and would be brought on site solely as journeyman carpenters hired for a set number of days for a specific task. Thus, for example, during the construction of the watermill at Ivinghoe (see Table .) Thomas Kyng was hired for sixteen days to help John Brys work on the ‘bays’ of the mill. Similarly, John Woddye, ‘Mylwryght’, worked for sixteen days on the (wind?)mill at Milton Hall, Essex, in –, for a well-paid d. per day.⁷⁷ Alternatively, the master carpenter may have worked in more of a supervisory role, as in the case of ‘Master Richard’, the carpenter in charge of building the windmill at Turweston, Buckinghamshire, in , where various carpenters were hired by piecework (ad tascham) to cut and carry wood and do other occasional jobs.⁷⁸ Smiths, masons, and stone-layers were similarly hired on very temporary bases,⁷⁹ although occasionally a smith might take on a sort of second-in-command role in the building of a mill, as in the case of the smith present at the construction of the East Knoyle windmill in –, who was hired for s. (about half of that for the carpenter, but also through an agreement) to make a whole series of carefully itemized iron work for the mill.⁸⁰ Sometimes, on smaller jobs, such as the horse-mill built at Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire, in – to replace the watermill built earlier in – but derelict by , there was no clear supervisory structure. Here one carpenter and three ‘men’ were hired to scavenge wood from the watermill for the horse-mill (for s. in total) and one carpenter was hired to build the housing for the mill (s.). In addition, one carpenter was hired ‘to make the mill-work (le mulnework) of the horse-mill’ (s.), while other ‘men’ were hired for providing the wattling and plastering of the walls and thatching of the roof (s. d.).⁸¹ Assuming that these were all different workers, ⁷⁵ As recorded in the – account: PRO DL /. ⁷⁶ PRO DL /, m. v. Such pensions were rare even in the early modern period: Woodward, Men at Work, . ⁷⁷ CCA DCc MA. ⁷⁸ Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, –. ⁷⁹ Again, as at Turweston and Walton: Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, –: Keil, ‘Building a Post Windmill’, –. ⁸⁰ HRO M B/. ⁸¹ See App. .
Workers and Customers
it suggests that there was some specialization in the carpentry work for mills, but that those carpenters familiar with the inner mysteries of mill workings probably commanded the greater stature and reward. Finally, the milling industry attracted what appear to have been a number of other specialist workers, particularly around the installation of millstones and the setting-up of windmill sails.⁸² In summary, the milling industry needed a substantial and varied labour force in order to function smoothly. Occasionally hiccups in the supply of labour undoubtedly occurred, as it often did for materials like millstones. In the period after the Black Death this might have made itself felt in not only higher wages overall,⁸³ but very favourable contracts, such as that for Master Robert above. Advancement through the ranks of labour was probably possible for both operators (millers, fullers, etc.) and maintenance people. For operators this was mainly through the agency of leasing mills themselves and becoming ‘their own boss’. As we have seen in Chapter , it was often a risky business, but many seem to have done it successfully. For maintenance people, and particularly for carpenters, since it was their work that was so directly required by the industry, there were possible two routes to advancement. One was through leasing mills, as at least some carpenters did, often fairly spectacularly, as in the case of Thurstan Euxton above. Others, however, might have been able to achieve success by simply remaining as repair or construction people. If they were good enough at it, their wages would certainly be gratifying, especially after the plague. Even more profit might result if the builder was less than scrupulous about the care and time put into the job, and the careful setting-out of conditions in building contracts indicates the suspicions that many employers often had about carpenters and other repair people. Clearly, there were many ‘cowboys’ in the business, as in the case of the horsemill which the abbot of Meaux, in Yorkshire, commissioned around , which was so badly built that it shook apart from the vibrations of operation.⁸⁴ As L. F. Salzman remarked perceptively about the case, ‘it is refreshingly clear that bad workmanship is not the monopoly of our own generation’.⁸⁵ ⁸² Thus, John Ware was hired to install new millstones for the Merstham, Surrey, watermill in –: CCA DCc MA, fo. v. Similarly, for the new windmill built at Burstwick, Yorkshire, in –, d. was paid (to an unnamed person or persons) for clothing the sails (see App. ). ⁸³ See esp. AHEW iii. . ⁸⁴ Salzman, Building in England, . ⁸⁵ Ibid. . See also a case in the – eyre of Kent of non-fulfilment of a contract to build two watermills at Maidstone, where the carpenter hired to do the job apparently left it half-finished; the case was brought against the pledges who had stood as security for the carpenter: Eyre of Kent, ii. .
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.. The relationship that customers had with mills has been the subject of considerable debate for many years. It has long been a tradition in the literature that customers often went to watermills and windmills rather unwillingly and that normally they would have wished to do their milling themselves with handmills or at the least to have had the freedom to seek out cheaper prices for the milling process. This argument has stemmed largely from a famous article by Marc Bloch in , who argued that the main impetus behind the establishment of mills (and hence the milling industry) in the Middle Ages lay with the power that lords had to force their tenants to grind their corn (and perhaps even full their cloth⁸⁶) at their mills.⁸⁷ This coercive power, Bloch argued, provided the requisite environment in which profitability for mills could be guaranteed and thus encouraged lords to invest in both watermills and later windmills. Marxist historians were quick to pick up the theme and especially its more exploitative elements, by pointing to the struggles that peasants often undertook to avoid the milling banalité, or ‘suit of mill’ as it was more normally called in England, or the fact that they would have much preferred to do their milling at home with hand-mills.⁸⁸ More recently, the trend has been to identify complications in the application of ‘suit of mill’ and to show that it was by no means uniform or straightforward in its application.Thus, Holt has argued that suit of mill was applied very differently between free and bond tenants, and, perhaps most pertinently, that the milling ‘soke’, the term most often encountered in the documents to indicate the extent of the monopoly enjoyed by lords for their mills, was a personal rather than a territorial concept, being brought into play by a tenant’s villein status rather than being determined by the bounds of the manor. Holt further argued that this concentration upon a more narrow band of peasant society left a considerable group of free tenants who could patronize whatever mills they wished, which to Holt explained why tenant mills, many of which he felt operated without suit of mill, managed to survive.⁸⁹ Most
⁸⁶ Carus-Wilson gives several examples of suit for fulling-mills: ‘Industrial Revolution’, –. Sometimes the lessees of fulling-mills were also given the ‘fulling-office’ (officium fullonicum), which presumably gave the lessee monopoly rights for fulling within the manor, as at Bradford, Yorkshire, in – and –, where s. d. was charged for the privilege (PRO DL /, ). Certainly, this was indicated for the ‘office of dyer’ (officium tinctoris) at Bradford, for which again s. d. or s. d. was paid by the holder ‘so that no-one else [can] receive cloths to dye [within the manor]’ (as recorded for – and –: PRO DL /, /). ⁸⁷ Bloch, ‘Advent and Triumph’. ⁸⁸ Anderson, Passages, ; Dockès, Medieval Slavery, –, –; Razi, ‘Struggles’, –; Poly and Bournazel, Feudal Transformation, –, –. ⁸⁹ Holt, Mills, esp. –.
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recently, the double-pronged nature of suit of mill (or the manorial milling monopoly) has been emphasized, in that it was meant not only to keep the manorial tenantry faithful to the manorial mill, but also to exclude rival enterprises from gaining a foothold within the manor. This was aimed not only at rival watermills, windmills, and even horse-mills, but also at handmills which might have been operated commercially by peasant families drawing upon the custom of neighbours. Indeed, the direct coercion of the tenantry—being forced to mill their corn at the lord’s mill under the threat of fines and confiscations—probably played a secondary role to the elimination of competition.⁹⁰ The conflicting ideas about the nature of the milling monopoly and that elusive concept called ‘suit of mill’ are very difficult to reconcile. Medieval society generally had considerable choice in the purchasing of goods and services, especially through the great expansion of the market structure in England over the thirteenth and early fourteenth century.⁹¹ But there were some services for which options were constrained, in that consumers were directed, often quite strongly, to a particular supplier of that service. This has been especially associated with milling, where lords or other proprietors of milling services often had legal (and social) powers of coercion either to limit competition or to force tenants to direct their custom to a particular mill or mills. As a service, it was not alone in this, and others such as the communal oven were in the same category.⁹² But we should not allow our appreciation of these feudal elements in milling to camouflage unduly indications of much freer economic conditions for the industry. I have, for instance, already commented upon the variety of options for milling grain, including the presence of four major sectors in the industry.⁹³ These provided a very wide range of milling services for the consumer, and it is not surprising that people at all levels shopped around for the best milling bargain. The degree to which this economic self-interest was constrained by the forces of lordship is a critical issue for understanding how milling functioned as an economic activity and, arguably, of how we should perceive medieval society itself. ⁹⁰ Langdon, ‘Lordship’, esp. , . ⁹¹ e.g. Britnell, Commercialisation, pt. ; Masschaele, Peasants, Merchants, and Markets, pt. . ⁹² It has not been the purpose of this study to examine suit of oven, which was a much rarer phenomenon in England than in, say, France (Bloch, ‘Advent and Triumph’, ; Faith, English Peasantry, ). But there were some cases of suit of oven in medieval England, as at Manchester, where in it was recorded that ‘There is a common oven [or bakehouse] of the lord, worth by the year half a mark [d. d.] at which every burgess at Mamecestre ought to bake of custom’ (Mamecestre, ii. ). For cases of mills and ovens leased together, see Ch. (Sect. ..). ⁹³ See Sect. ..
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... Legal Commentary and Legislation on Suit of Mill and Other Milling Issues Further progress in elucidating these matters will depend upon a closer analysis of the concepts and assumptions that dominate the subject and in particular the issue of ‘suit of mill’. Here it is important to define what it meant, how it was applied, and its success or failure as a tool of seigneurial power. As is universally agreed, suit of mill issued out of manorial law, most often expressed in the documents by the twin concepts of soca and secta. The first term (soca) referred to those who were bound by a particular manorial custom, while secta referred to the obligation itself (in this case, patronizing the manorial mill) and to the particular suit or action at law which gave it juridical authority. Normally these issues should have been strictly a preserve of the manorial courts, but inevitably there were disputes concerning suit of mill which could not be settled at the manor court and thus began to percolate up to higher levels of the law. It is in the higher courts, rather than those at the manorial level, that most of the insights about suit of mill and its application can be found.This was partly because such cases then drew the attention of the various legal commentators and compilers of law, who were mostly concerned with the actions between free litigants. As a starting point, perhaps the easiest way to get some sense of how legal opinion began to develop in relation to suit of mill and other milling matters is to examine the surveys of law that began to be written from the Norman Conquest onwards. Initially, interest in milling matters was virtually non-existent in the early laws. None of the compilations of Anglo-Saxon law nor the great postConquest code the Leges Henrici Primi were concerned with mills directly, although issues such as the dissolution of partnerships that appear in the Leges foreshadow questions of partnership that would characterize the later milling industry, as we have seen in Chapter .⁹⁴ The first reference to legal matters directly concerned with milling occurred in the law treatise known as ‘Glanvill’, seemingly written in the late s. Here a writ of novel disseisin⁹⁵ was drawn up as an exemplar for a case of nuisance involving damage caused to neighbouring lands when a mill owner was malicious or careless concerning the level
⁹⁴ Leges Henrici Primi, –. There is also an incidental reference to mills in relation to hamsoken, literally the crime of breaking into a house to attack someone taking refuge there, which was also felt to apply to someone fleeing to a mill or sheepfold (ibid. ). ⁹⁵ Literally meaning ‘a new dispossession’. For the establishment of novel disseisin as an action in English law during the reign of Henry II, see Warren, Henry II, –.
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of his millpond.⁹⁶ This issue of the mill as nuisance was further elaborated upon by the great legal compiler Henry of Bracton, writing in the s or s. Here Bracton began to separate the damage caused by the new construction of mills into ‘wrongful’ or ‘rightful’ categories. Nuisances that were wrongful, he contended, were those that affected something ‘contrary to law or a constitution’.⁹⁷ In this category he placed instances such as where a mill owner might raise the level of his millpond and flood a neighbour’s land, a case which clearly constituted novel disseisin, because the neighbour would have been deprived of the use of something (i.e. his land) which he had formerly enjoyed. On the other hand, simply building a mill close to a neighbouring mill was not considered wrongful (that is, it was legally rightful), since, although it clearly could do damage to the neighbour’s milling revenues by taking away custom, it did not violate any particular law, at least to the extent that it could be considered a form of novel disseisin. As Bracton put it specifically, each may do on his own property [whatever he wishes if ] wrongful damage does not accrue to a neighbour, as where one erects a mill on his own land and takes from his neighbour his own suit and that of others; he does his neighbour damage [damnum; here meaning loss of custom] but no injuria [here meaning legal injury] since he is not prohibited by law or a constitution from having or erecting a mill.⁹⁸
This concept was clearly still considered valid by the time of Fleta, written no earlier than the late s. Here, significantly, Fleta’s anonymous author was commenting from the vantage point of Edward I’s legislation in the late thirteenth century, especially the Statute of Westminster II of , where the redress of nuisance under the assize of novel disseisin was expanded significantly.⁹⁹ This, however, does not seem to have affected markedly the position laid out by Bracton. As viewed by Fleta, mills (and other like structures) could act as nuisances, but only in some direct physical way, such as the flooding of land, causing the loss of water to a neighbour’s mill or other facility (such as a fishery), or denying access to pasture or pre-established rights of way across land.¹⁰⁰ But simple competition among mills, no matter how close to each other, was considered to be licit.¹⁰¹ The general rules elucidated in ‘Glanvill’, Bracton, and Fleta began to be reflected in the proliferation of writs designed to direct cases more efficiently through the courts. The Brevia Placitata, a mid-thirteenth tract at about the ⁹⁶ Treatise . . . called Glanvill, –. ⁹⁷ Bracton, iii. . ⁹⁸ Ibid. ⁹⁹ As quoted and commented upon in Fleta, iii. . ¹⁰⁰ Ibid. –. ¹⁰¹ Ibid. . The same is indicated in somewhat more concise form in the nearly contemporaneous treatise, Britton, esp. i. .
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time of Bracton, containing forms of writs for initiating various legal actions, has writs for both mills as nuisance and as the focus for suit-of-mill cases.¹⁰² Writs commanding alleged free suitors to fulfil their milling responsibilities at the mill in question appear from at least the second quarter of the thirteenth century.¹⁰³ Other writs appearing at about the same time could initiate cases at law to enforce suit to a mill, to establish the right of having one’s corn ground free of charge at another’s mill, to command a lord who had admitted his responsibility to do suit to another lord’s mill to make sure his villeins did so as well, and to assure compliance in mill repair agreements.¹⁰⁴ By the time of the Novae Narrationes, a compilation of writs up to the late fifteenth century, a wide range of such instruments dealing with milling matters had been established.¹⁰⁵ Milling also entered into statute law, but in a more limited way.The key piece of medieval legislation was the so-called Statute of Bakers, probably originating sometime early in the reign of Edward I or perhaps in the latter years of Henry III.¹⁰⁶ An early version of the statute, called Statutum Mareshaucie and dated in its base text to ,¹⁰⁷ provides what appears to be a fairly reliable version of the original pronouncement, the relevant part relating to milling being translated as follows: The mill toll should be taken according to the communal custom of the kingdom and according to the strength of the water-course, either at the twentieth or twenty-fourth grain. And the measures through which toll ought to be taken should be concordant with the measures of the lord king, and toll should be taken through the razed [measure] and not with the heaped or mounded. And the farmer [here clearly the lessee of the mill] should find [provide for] the millers their necessaries [that is, their remuneration?], such that they [the millers] should take nothing beyond the correct toll and if they do otherwise they should be gravely punished.¹⁰⁸
The first element provides a guideline for reasonable rates of multure. The second specifies how grain should be taken by toll-dishes, that is, through flattened rather than heaped measures.The third, more difficult to interpret, seemingly urges proprietors (lessees or otherwise) to keep their millers honest by ¹⁰² Brevia Placitata, –, . ¹⁰³ Early Registers of Writs, . ¹⁰⁴ Ibid. –, –, . ¹⁰⁵ The writs derived from the reign of Edward I to the th century: Novae Narrationes, pp. ix–xiii, xc–xcvi, xcviii–xcix, –, –. ¹⁰⁶ Connor provides a translation of the more commonly accepted version, which he dates to : Weights and Measures, . ¹⁰⁷ BL Stowe , fos. –. I am extremely grateful to Richard Britnell for providing me with an annotated transcription of the relevant passages of this statute. ¹⁰⁸ Tolnetum ad molendinum secundum communem consuetudinem regni et secundum fartitudinem cursus aque capiatur uel ad vicesiumum granum uel ad xxiiiitum granum. Et mensure per quas tolnetum per rasum et non cum cumulo uel cantello. Et firmarius inveniat molendinariis necessaria sua ita quod nihil capiant preter rectum tolnetum et si aliter fecerint grauiter puniantur.
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paying them properly and punishing them when they were miscreant. Otherwise, apart from the Articles for the Clergy of Edward II, where the appropriation of tithes upon the building of a new mill was reinforced,¹⁰⁹ statute regulation of milling was slight. Indeed, it was not until that another major legislative effort was made to regulate milling, particularly in regard to the payment for the service.¹¹⁰
... Case-Law in Medieval Milling: The Curia Regis Rolls How were these various pronouncements and procedures about the way milling was to be handled in the law actually translated into case experience? Unfortunately, it is a prodigiously difficult undertaking to sift through the massive amounts of central court material for relatively rare cases about milling over the entire period of this study. The task is made easier by the appearance of some material in print, but so far the great bulk of printed central court records comes from the early thirteenth century when English law was being established. Nevertheless, although this earlier material falls before the avowed period of this book, it can reveal much about how milling litigation developed and set the pattern for later periods. The current eighteen printed volumes for the Curia Regis rolls from – provide a relatively easily abstracted sample of milling cases appearing at this early stage. Of the approximately , cases that are recorded in these volumes there are directly involving mills, as itemized in Table .. The majority of these cases (over per cent) involved disputes over the ownership of mills (often with land). Many of these cases involved dowry; but sometimes it was the mill issues (that is, the grains taken as multure) that were in dispute. Other types of case occurred much less frequently but with enough incidence to suggest that they were of concern. Suit-of-mill and nuisance cases comprised nearly a quarter of the cases between them, while cases concerning the status of mills (about which more later), or the tithes and labour services for them, comprised just under per cent of the cases. Miscellaneous cases, which covered everything from attacks on mills by disgruntled villagers to default of rent by incumbent mill lessees, rounded out the last per cent or so. Some of these cases were very time-specific, particularly the three concerning the status of mills, which all came early (two in and one in ) and reflect the desire of landlords to retract mills back into the demesne—a concern seemingly spilling over from the late twelfth century.¹¹¹ On the other hand, ¹⁰⁹ Statutes of the Realm, i. . ¹¹⁰ Statutes at Large, xl. –. ¹¹¹ For example, in Thomas of Brancaster pled a case versus Christian of Wallingford (Berkshire) concerning the status of a mill in Wallingford called Brictmeri [Brightmere?] Mill. Christian claimed that he paid
T .. Mill cases in the Curia Regis Rolls, – Ownership of mill or mill issues cases
Suit-of-mill cases
Nuisance cases
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Source: CRR.
Mill status cases
Mill tithe cases
Mill labour service cases
Miscellaneous cases
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suit-of-mill cases gradually became more common towards the middle of the thirteenth century, perhaps reflecting greater competition, while nuisance cases were spread relatively evenly over the period –. The cases themselves often highlight very clearly the crucial issues involved in various aspects of milling. Of prime concern for this study are those that dealt with nuisance and suit of mill. Nuisance cases, where operation of the mill caused damage to neighbouring property, seem to have followed the prescriptions that would later be expressed by writers such as Bracton and the author of Fleta. Over-raising millpond levels, breakage of the pond itself, or the altering of the mill water-courses led to most cases. A typical example involved a certain Jordan Miller and his watermill at Weston, Hertfordshire, in . It was alleged that he had raised the level of his millpond to the harm of an unspecified number of free tenements in Weston, probably by flooding land. The entry records that the millpond should be ‘thrown down’ (prosternatur) and that Jordan was to be charged damages of s. as well as being fined half a mark (s. d.).¹¹² Further concern over the level of a millpond was involved in a Lincolnshire case in where a millpond owner was charged with raising the level of his pond after it had been measured in front of the justices for a previous novel disseisin case. The defendant claimed that he had simply repaired the pond and had not raised its level.¹¹³ Finally, sometimes cases were brought well after a mill or pond had been constructed. Again in Lincolnshire, the prior of Wilsford brought a case in , claiming that the prior of Haverholme had raised a ‘mill’ (type unspecified) in Wilsford to the harm of the former prior’s free tenement in the same village. The prior of Haverholme responded that the mill had been built in the time of his predecessor ten years before he himself took his office, which the prior of Wilsford was not able to deny.¹¹⁴ The argument was strong enough to win the case because the prior of Wilsford was placed in mercy, although the grounds for the verdict are unclear. It may be that there was a time limitation in which such nuisance cases could be brought, or it may have been considered that the prior of Wilsford committed a fatal procedural error by naming the wrong prior of Haverholme.¹¹⁵ In any case, these and the other nuisance cases s. per year for the mill in hereditary tenure, which his ancestors had held from the time of Henry I. Thomas counter-claimed that the mill was in fact part of his (Thomas’s) demesne and was only leased out to Christian from year to year at s. per year. The court ordered the case to be put to a jury: CRR i. ; see CRR i. , ii. – for the other two cases. ¹¹² CRR ii. . ¹¹³ CRR xiv. . ¹¹⁴ CRR xvi. . ¹¹⁵ Bracton indicates on several occasions that the passage of time could often legitimize the existence of a situation which may originally have been questionable in a legal sense: e.g. ‘possession is naked until a vestment is acquired through time and peaceful seisin’, or ‘and so one acquires a causa and a title of possession through
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in this sample indicate that there were strong legal tools in place by the middle of the thirteenth century which could constrain new mill construction, particularly that of watermills. The suit-of-mill cases in the sample present a somewhat more complex situation. In contrast to the obvious physical manifestations to which the nuisance cases above could give rise (especially flooding), suit-of-mill cases were less clear in their consequences and probably gave rise to more subtle legal manoeuvring. The assessment of suit-of-mill cases in medieval English courts depended upon a complex combination of the status of the suitors, custom, and contract. The status of suitors was reflected in the origins of suit of mill in customary manorial law, where it was an obligation particularly associated with villeinage. Custom referred to how long the duty of suit of mill had been in existence and, an important but often overlooked corollary, how solidly it was entrenched in the present, an aspect which, as we shall see, could override the issue of status. Contract, on the other hand, could be relatively recent in provenance, having come about according to an agreement among various parties, thus establishing a new set of rules (or sometimes re-establishing an old set) through which suit of mill could operate. All three of these elements are evident in the cases abstracted from the Curia Regis rolls and were appealed to on numerous occasions. The status of the suitors was clearly relevant to some degree. Thus, Robert de Wodecot and Millicent, his wife, acknowledged the requirement of their villeins to do suit of mill at the mill of Walter de Witef ’ (probably Watefeld) and his wife, Eva, in a Staffordshire case of .¹¹⁶ Similarly, in Adam Bertram at Great Whittington, near Corbridge, Northumberland, had a free tenement and seventeen bovates of land in villeinage, which he held of William of Halton; among the services that William demanded of Adam was the requirement of Adam’s villein tenants to do suit to William’s mill at the multure rate of 1/13.¹¹⁷ Further south the villeins of the abbot of Ramsey at Ness, in Burwell, Cambridgeshire, were required to do suit of mill at the mill of Fabian of Ness in the same village in .¹¹⁸ Finally, the status of the tenantry was the focal point of a very illuminating case in , where five tenants of the manor of Thrussington, Leicestershire, were charged with evading suit of mill to the village mill, purchased by Henry, son of Peter of Thrussington, five years previously.The five tenants replied that, although they had been villeins of Thomas de Wapenbyri at the time the mill had been sold to Henry, Thomas had afterwards converted time’ (Bracton, iii. , ). See also the similar situation where villeins might establish free status over time through the neglect of the lord (Bracton, iii. ).The crucial importance of identifying correctly the person who created the alleged nuisance is emphasized in Britton, i. . ¹¹⁶ CRR v. .
¹¹⁷ CRR xi. –.
¹¹⁸ CRR xvii. .
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their holdings into free tenure, ‘and after they were made free, they withdrew themselves from the aforesaid suit [of mill]’.¹¹⁹ The court, however, ruled that the five had known about and had observed the suit of mill both before and after the mill had been sold to Henry, in effect pronouncing that the custom of doing suit of mill was still in place despite their change in status. This case and the confusion about who should be covered by suit of mill generally (as discussed below) shows that custom probably provided better leverage in suit-of-mill cases than status. Some plaintiffs were very direct about this, as in the case where Richard, son of Hawise, was charged with owing suit of mill to the mill of Maurice, son of Robert, in Yorkshire in , ‘as his ancestors had done’.¹²⁰ Jurors, as a result, were often called in to make judgments about what the state of practice and its precedents were. For example, they were firm in reestablishing suit to a mill at Wormhill, Derbyshire, in , from several surrounding communities, which had been illegally disrupted by a neighbouring lord.¹²¹ In other cases, they were less certain of all the details, but were willing to make a judgment of sorts. For example, in jurors were called to pronounce on the services of the ‘men’ (homines) of the manor of Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire; they said in relation to the mill that the tenants had to observe suit to it, but they did not know at which ‘toll’ (teloneum; i.e. multure rate).¹²² Similarly, in another recital of services owed for the tenants of Spofforth, Yorkshire, in , the jurors ruled that the tenants owed suit to the lord’s mill, but could go elsewhere if the mill were not working.¹²³ As frequent as the appeal to custom and the jury, however, was the appeal to contract. Suit of mill seems often to have been created (or at least confirmed or ratified) through contract. In many cases this was established along with the grant of a mill. Thus, in William de Ceriton confirmed a charter in the king’s court that guaranteed the gift to the priory of Bermondsey of his mill at Farningham, Kent, ‘along with the multure of my men of Farningham and of Chimhams (in Farningham) and of Boxherse’.¹²⁴ Once in place, these contracts could be used to maintain suit of mill and to discourage competitors. Thus, in Peter, son of Herbert, complained that the men of Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, had withdrawn their suit from the two mills at Swerford that Henry de Oyly had given him along with the manor there. Henry’s attorney acknowledged the charter that recorded the gift, and Peter’s right to command suit of mill from the men of Hook Norton (presumably within the manor) was confirmed.¹²⁵ More dramatically, the prior of Holy Trinity, Canterbury, complained in that William de Wode had dishonestly obtained royal con¹¹⁹ CRR xvii. –. ¹²³ CRR xvi. –.
¹²⁰ CRR i. . ¹²⁴ CRR ii. .
¹²¹ CRR xv. –. ¹²⁵ CRR xii. .
¹²² CRR vi. .
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firmation of his construction of a windmill in Monkton, Kent. This was contrary to a previous agreement that the prior and William had reached, whereby William had admitted his fault in erecting the windmill (thus violating the prior’s right to suit of mill in the village) and had agreed to pull down the windmill. The judgement was that the prior was right and that this previous agreement overruled the king’s pronouncement and that William’s windmill was to be pulled down.¹²⁶ As suggested by the Monkton case, the increasing pre-eminence of contract when dealing with suit-of-mill cases was particularly evident when owners of established mills tried to counter the incoming windmill. As we have seen in the discussion of Bracton and the anonymous author of Fleta, attempts to deal with such mills through the agency of nuisance (using the assize of novel disseisin) were not necessarily going to receive sympathetic hearings from the courts. A number of cases in the Curia Regis roll sample testify to this. Thus, Philip de Snaringes complained in that the abbot of Waltham unjustly raised a windmill in Guist, Norfolk, ‘to the hurt of the free tenements of Philip himself in the same village’ (echoing the language of writs of novel disseisin). Philip went on to say that he was accustomed to give s. per year to the (free) men of the village to follow the suit of his mill, and that the raising of the abbot’s mill took away from that suit. The abbot countered by asserting that he had only erected the windmill for the use of his own house, and had no claim on the multure of the men of the village.The court accepted this, but ordered that the sheriff of Norfolk should make sure that no one owing suit of Philip’s mill should ‘follow’ the mill of the abbot.¹²⁷ An equally convoluted case occurred in the same county in the following year () where Adam de Kailly was charged by Margery de Panninges with, among other misdeeds, wrongfully erecting a windmill at West Bradenham, contrary to a chirographic agreement through which Adam had given Margery and her former husband, Michael, the manor of West Bradenham in tenancy. However, Margery went on to say that ‘the same Adam against that final agreement by means of a man which he [still] has in the same village raised one mill [later specified as a windmill in the record] to the harm of her free tenements in the same village and to the harm of her mill, through which he took away her whole suit to him [i.e. his mill]’.¹²⁸ As in the case above, in addition to making an appeal to nuisance through the language of novel disseisin, Margery also appealed to contract in her case. Adam in turn acknowledged his prior agree¹²⁶ CRR iii. –. ¹²⁷ CRR xii. . ¹²⁸ . . . idem Adam contra finem illum occasione unius hominis quem habet in eadem villa levavit j molendinum ad nocumentum liberi tenementi sui in eadem villa et ad nocumentum molendini sui, per quod abstuli ei totam sectum suam: CRR xii. .
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ment with Margery and her former husband, but countered that he had only raised the windmill for use on his own land (pro emendacione terre sue) and that he did not coerce any of her ‘men’ from making suit to her mill. Again, consistent with the preceding case, the court accepted that Adam had the right to erect the windmill for his own use despite the potential harm it could do to the revenues of Margery’s mill. Finally, it was not only watermills and windmills that were targeted in such a fashion, but also occasionally hand-mills. An interesting case with notable resonances with later attempts by lords to suppress hand-mills occurred in , when John of the Mills, who held the mills of Staines, Middlesex, of the abbot of Westminster at fee farm for £ per year, charged Martin of Feltham and his wife, Agnes, also of Staines, with raising a hand-mill to grind their grain, thus denying him his due multure.¹²⁹ Martin and Agnes countered that they did not owe suit of mill because they held their tenement in Staines freely and that it had never been bound by suit of mill except voluntarily. In the end the case was decided on whether the ancestors of Agnes (through which the holding had come) had done suit of mill to John’s mills at the time he acquired them from the abbot. The empanelled jury decided in favour of Martin and Agnes, saying that the holding that Martin acquired through his wife had never owed suit to the mills of Staines unless voluntarily. They did, however, add the noteworthy clause ‘on condition, however, that they should not mill alien corn at that mill [i.e. the hand-mill]’.¹³⁰ It is likely that this explains why so much fuss should have been raised over a single hand-mill, since John clearly saw it as a commercial competitor, a theme that foreshadowed later skirmishes over hand-mills.¹³¹ What makes the case doubly interesting is that Martin and Agnes in fact had two tenements in Staines. One was held by Martin in villeinage; the other, upon which the hand-mill was situated, as indicated above, came through Agnes and was held freely. Clearly, if the hand-mill had been on Martin’s villein holding the situation might have been very different. Moreover, it is very clear that the case revolved not around the status attaching to the persons of either Martin and Agnes but around the status of their holdings, supporting Rosamund Faith’s assertion that this perspective became increasingly common in post-Conquest English law.¹³² ¹²⁹ CRR xvii. –. ¹³⁰ . . . ita tamen quod non molent alienum bladum ad molendinum illud: CRR xvii. . ¹³¹ e.g. Langdon, ‘Lordship’, –. Robert Palmer also cites a case, where Robert Crokhorn was charged with violating suit of mill to the abbot of Evesham’s two mills in Evesham after having ‘erected anew a certain manual millstone there to which divers residents in the said vill [Evesham] milled their grain and day to day they do not desist from milling, whereby [the abbot] lost a great part of the profits of his abovesaid mills’: Palmer, English Law, . ¹³² Faith, English Peasantry, .
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... Case-Law in Medieval Milling: The Year Books The Curia Regis rolls thus provide a strong sense of how the law about milling was forming during the course of the early thirteenth century and some at least of the principles that governed it, principles also articulated by later commentators attempting to summarize the law (e.g. Bracton, Fleta). Did these principles determine the outcomes of cases in future centuries? Unfortunately the easy access to a large and comprehensively covered block of the central court records provided by the printed Curia Regis volumes is not available for later centuries. The next-best set of printed records dealing with a large amount of central court material is the fourteenth-century year books published by the Selden Society, the Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores series, and the Ames Foundation. The year books contained summarized commentaries of cases going mostly through the Court of Common Pleas.¹³³ They were clearly meant as a record of the more important and complex legal pronouncements and decisions for the edification of future law students and legislators, but their very nature meant that they were selective in what they covered. The biggest block of printed year book material covers the period from to .Those concerning milling centred largely around water issues, including nuisance, or suit of mill.The former comprised straightforward instances of the flooding of land occasioned by the building of a new mill¹³⁴ to cases which were truly artful in their legal argument. One such of the latter concerned the case of a weir thrown across the Thames by Denise, wife of (the seemingly predeceased) John de la Rivere of Sandford, Oxfordshire. In doing so, she affixed the weir to the lands of the abbot of Abingdon on the Berkshire side of the Thames. The abbot apparently used this as an excuse to tear down the weir as a whole. Denise brought the case to the Court of Common Pleas in , charging trespass against the abbot for the destruction of her weir. Cannily her attorney argued that she was seeking damages only for that part of the weir on the Oxfordshire side of the Thames,¹³⁵ thus sidestepping the unauthorized nature of the construction in the first place, certainly—it appears—in not obtaining permission from the abbot to attach the weir to his side of the river.¹³⁶ Although it is not certain that the weir was for a mill specifically (since the record does not
¹³³ e.g. F. W. Maitland’s classification of them as ‘Common Bench reports’: Year Books, Edward II, p. xi. ¹³⁴ For example, the case of an unnamed abbot who tore down the mill of a tenant because it flooded the abbot’s meadows: Year Books, Edw III, –. ¹³⁵ Here the attorney was probably following Bracton’s recommendations about how to handle a suit of this kind (Bracton, iii. ). ¹³⁶ She won her case for some of the damages at least, although clearly the venture of building the weir in the first place had been a misplaced one: Year Books, Edward II, – .
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specify this at any stage), the case shows clearly the difficulties which now could occur with the establishment of a new watermill, at the very least requiring the consent of neighbours.¹³⁷ Suit-of-mill cases in the early fourteenth century more or less followed the pattern of the earlier century. Writs following some form of secta ad molendinum were well recognized by the early fourteenth century. Some cases revolved around the status of the tenants, as they had a century before, as in the case of Bartholomew de Fanacourt and his wife, Lucy, who brought a writ of quod permittat villanos facere sectam ad molendinum against Henry de Bretville. This involved bovates of land that Henry held at Tibthorpe, Yorkshire, the villein tenants of which allegedly owed suit to the ‘thirteenth vessel’ to the Fanacourt mill at nearby Kirkburn on the Yorkshire Wolds.¹³⁸ Custom and contract also played a role in many cases, as neatly summarized by one of the attorneys acting for the prior of Launceston in , who was accused of preventing his villeins from doing suit to a mill, allegedly built in the previous ten years, belonging to Nicholas of Trenoda in a place called ‘Trenodaburgh’ in Cornwall.¹³⁹ As attorney Mutford (acting for the prior) put it, ‘He [Nicholas] can only demand this suit by one of two ways; either as being ancestral or by virtue as a deed; as being ancestral he cannot, because the mill is newly built; by deed he cannot, for he produces none in Court; and we pray judgment . . . ’¹⁴⁰ Nicholas’s attorney counter-claimed that the mill he had built was a replacement of one that had existed on a slightly different site and which, as was further argued, had enjoyed the claim of suit of mill to the villeins of Trenodaburgh during the reign of Henry III.The case then turned on whether rebuilding the mill in another place was a fatal impediment to claiming suit of mill, or whether the new mill being built in the same ‘fee’ (i.e. within the manorial boundaries) was sufficient to continue claiming suit of mill. One of the judges (Brumpton) was sceptical about expecting suitors to observe their obligation when the service in question was moved somewhere else, but Nicholas’s attorney was quick to point out that the new mill was scarcely a perch (about – feet) from the old site.¹⁴¹ The prior’s attorneys were clearly worried about this argument, since, in a possible attempt to cloud the antecedents of Nicholas’s mill, they tried to claim that Nicholas had in fact been given a nearby mill, along with furlongs of land, by ¹³⁷ For some good Yorkshire and Cornish examples of the agreements often made between neighbours concerning water rights and the building of weirs and millponds in the Middle Ages, see Faull and Moorhouse (eds.), West Yorkshire, ; Cartulary of St. Michael’s Mount, pp. xx–xxi, –, –. ¹³⁸ Year Books, Edward III, –. ¹³⁹ Possibly Treworgey manor (about miles north-west of Liskeard): Polsue, Lake’s Parochial History, iii. –. ¹⁴⁰ Year Books, and Edw I, . The entire case covers pp. –. ¹⁴¹ Year Books, and Edw I, .
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a previous prior of Launceston for s. per year; it was further claimed that Nicholas had stopped paying rent for this mill (because it had broken down?) and had subsequently built the new mill at Trenodaburgh, for which he was now claiming suit. In this instance, and indeed for the previous Tibthorpe case, it seems likely (although not mentioned) that the defendant had raised a mill or mills of his own, hence the struggle for the villein clientele. Eventually, it was ordered that the case was to be put to a jury, the outcome of which is unfortunately unknown, but the implication is that the first established mill on a manor could maintain its legal position even after a lengthy period of absence or dereliction. Later experience would certainly illustrate how durable such notions were and how strongly they were associated with the demesne. Edward Coke, the great English jurist of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, commented upon a case in , which involved the action of a lord, Edward Cottel of Dunster, Somerset, who replaced two derelict fulling-mills on his demesne with two new corn-mills. Three of Cottel’s neighbours, led by George Luttrel, who became the main defendant in the case, diverted the water from the cornmills, so that they could not operate for over two months in late , leading Cottel to bring a case for damages at Westminster.The attorney for Luttrel and the other two defendants argued that the conversion of the two fulling-mills to corn-mills invalidated the prescription or right to the claim on the water that the fulling-mills had previously enjoyed.The argument, however, failed to convince a jury and damages were awarded to Cottel. In Coke’s long description and comment on the case, at least two notable opinions stand out. The first was that it was the fact of the existence of the mill that mattered not its type. In Coke’s words: the Mill is the Substance, and the Thing to be demanded, and the Addition of Grist, or Fulling, are but to shew the Quality or Nature of the Mill, and therefore if the Plaintiff had prescribed to have the said Water-course to his Mill generally (as he might well) then the Case would be without Question, that he might alter the Mill into what Nature of a Mill he pleased . . .¹⁴²
Coke was even more unequivocal about the pre-eminence of demesne status in the matter of milling and the right of the lord to place his mill(s) anywhere he liked within his manor. Again, as Coke asserted, commenting upon a case from the reign of Edward II: ¹⁴² Reports of Sir Edward Coke, iv. (under ‘Luttrel’s Case’). In his private notebook compiled from the s onward, the jurist John Port (d. ) made a similar point about nuisance to a mill: ‘If someone sets up a watermill, and another mill is set up on the same watercourse, and the second mill is a nuisance to the first, the person who had the first mill shall have an assize of nuisance. If, however, the old mill still works and has enough
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Divers Tenants held of another as of his Manor by Fealty and Suit to the Lord’s Mill, the Lord alien’d the Mill, with the Suit to the Tenants, and afterwards the Vendor died, and his Son entred, and conceiving that the Tenants who held of his Manor could not do Suit to him who had not the Manor, of himself made a new Mill elsewhere upon other Parcel of his Demesns, and had the Suit to his own Mill which the Vendee ought to have had; for no Man can have Suit to his Mill by Reason of Tenure, if it were not of Corn growing in certain Land, and that within his Seigniory . . . And by the said Case it appears, that altho’ the ancient Mill is aliened, or if it falls, the Lord may erect a new Mill in another Place within his manor, for the Tenure in such Case is to do Suit to the Lord’s Mill generally, and not to any particular Mill . . .¹⁴³
A striking feature of Coke’s comments and the precedents he intersperses within the text is how dependent his opinions were on cases stemming from the early fourteenth century, which seems to have been a critical period for setting the legal boundaries for suit of mill. This extended to the rate of multure, to which the early fourteenth-century year books frequently allude, and it is this period that supplies much of the information we have about multure rates (see Appendix ). After this, cases about suit of mill and its attendant multure rate seem to die away, as indicated by the years books of the reign of Richard II,¹⁴⁴ a trend paralleled by the decline of suit-of-mill cases in manorial courts after the plague (discussed below). Altogether, suit of mill by the early fourteenth century had, in principle, developed into a comprehensive concept of law which both bound the tenantry of manors to the manorial mill and affected the nature of competition. One attitude that clearly stood out was that close proximity was not a sufficient reason for restricting milling competition. Unless mill-holding plaintiffs could point to some direct physical impact leading to material loss (as through flooding), it was unlikely that they would have much success in eliminating actual or potential rivals. Only within the bounds of the manor could lords exert considerable power in eliminating other milling competition, particularly in asserting the rights of the demesne. In some cases other mills could appear with legal impunity on the same manor, as in the Guist, West Bradenham, and Staines cases from the Curia Regis rolls above, although normally it was stipulated that they be used for the private use of that tenement only. water, then even though he is damaged [by the competition] by the setting up of the second mill he shall not have an assize of nuisance, for it is dampnum sine injuria. If the old mill falls down and a new one is built after the nuisance, it was argued whether the nuisance ceased. Frowyk thought that the assize lay during the time the mill was fallen; and therefore a fortiori it lay after it was rebuilt’: Notebook of Sir John Port, . ¹⁴³ Reports of Sir Edward Coke, iv. . ¹⁴⁴ Cases concerning mills in later th-century year books seem to concern accessories to mills rather than quarrelling over suit of mill, as in a Berkshire dispute over the right to use a fishery attached to three watermills: Year Books, Richard II, –.
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Thus, the legal environment increasingly played an important role in shaping the industry. In terms of the power orientation of milling, it certainly seems to have influenced the viability of watermills versus windmills. Watermills were always more prone to nuisance cases through the assize of novel disseisin or other legal avenues, and throughout the later Middle Ages cases were brought with some frequency against watermills for flooding meadows, roads, and bridges, restricting river traffic, and washing out fords.¹⁴⁵ On the other hand, windmills were seldom to be considered nuisances in the same physical way, at most perhaps denying communal pasture rights on the small plots of land upon which windmills stood or the pathways needed to gain access to them,¹⁴⁶ hardly a serious matter. Some novel disseisin cases were brought against windmills as bringing unwelcome competition, but, as we have seen, there was a distinct unwillingness on the part of juries and judges to restrict people from building mills on their own property for this reason alone, reflecting the views of Bracton and others. Given the relative lack of an effective legal challenge against them, this provides a strong supplementary reason for the sudden efflorescence of windmills from the late twelfth to the early fourteenth century.
... The Practical Effect of Suit of Mill upon Communities With the above legal considerations in mind, it is time to look at the impact of suit of mill upon the consumer. How did suit of mill apply at the local level? How extensively did it apply in its ability to draw surrounding communities into its influence? Did it draw its authority over people or over territory? Did the philosophy and legal principles guiding suit of mill spill over into other aspects of milling, such as in the way multure rates were applied to a community? I will start here by considering those communities that did not have wateror windmills. The number of such villages and hamlets was undoubtedly very large. In the sample of manors used in Chapter , (or . per cent) had no watermills, windmills, or horse-mills at any time during the period to . Also, as we have seen, many manors that did have windmills, in particular at the start of the fourteenth century, lost them after the advent of the plague. Altogether, the proportion of manors without mills might have been quite ¹⁴⁵ Public Works in Medieval Law, i. –, , –; ii. –, –, –, , , –, –, , , –, –, , , . ¹⁴⁶ For example, the pasture lost to provide access to the windmill at Turweston, Buckinghamshire, in the early th century: Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, . See also the agreement between the abbot of Crowland and William of Peterborough over a piece of pasture at Peakirk (‘Peychirche’), Northamptonshire, upon which William had built a windmill: CRR xvi. .
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large, say by the middle of the fifteenth century. Also, manors were often composed of several communities, the more outlying hamlets having of necessity to use a more centrally located mill in the manor, often several miles away.¹⁴⁷ Many communities—likely at least a half or more¹⁴⁸—had no watermill or windmill of their own and had to use those in neighbouring communities or to grind their grain with hand- or possibly horse-mills. How did suit of mill treat such communities? One thing seems very clear—that is, all communities within a particular manor were considered to be bound by suit of mill. A very clear example of this is provided by the manor of Manchester, where a survey of specified that the burgesses and tenants of Manchester, as well as the tenants of the surrounding hamlets of Ardwick, Openshaw, Cursall, Moston, Nuthurst, Gotherswick, and Ancoats, all owed suit to the mill of Manchester on the River Irk to the sixteenth grain, save the ‘lord of Moston’, who milled at the twentieth grain and was ‘hopper-free’ (that is, he—or, more likely, his servant—could go to the head of the queue when coming to the mill).¹⁴⁹ Even when communities were on separate manors, they might be tied to each other for the purposes of suit of mill because they were on the same estate. Thus the bishop of Winchester seems to have had the tenantry of his manors at East Woodhay and Ashmansworth, Hampshire, tied to the windmill at Burghclere, about to miles away in each case, such that the ‘whole vill’ of both places elected to pay a small fine to be free of suit to the Burghclere mill.¹⁵⁰ Even when the Burghclere windmill became derelict in –, the communities of East Woodhay and Ashmansworth continued to pay this fine for the rest of the Middle Ages.¹⁵¹ Sometimes lords could make an extra-manorial claim for ¹⁴⁷ One notorious example being the large manor of Halesowen, where tenants of outlying hamlets had to take their grain (often very unwillingly) to the mills in the town of Halesowen itself: Razi, ‘Struggles’, , . ¹⁴⁸ As a hypothetical example, let us employ the Domesday count of , settlements in (Darby, Domesday England, ) and increase this to, say, , settlements c., taking into account the missing counties, boroughs, etc., in Domesday and the additional settlements created between and the early th century. Even taking the upper limit of , watermills and windmills in England c. (discussed in Ch. ) would suggest that at best only three-quarters of communities had such a mill. Using the more realistic figure of , watermills and windmills at would indicate that only one in two communities had one. In fact, the proportion was bound to be much lower than even this, probably at best one in three and possibly more like one in four, particularly as many communities, especially towns, had more than one mill. To some extent, this corresponds with Kosminsky’s analysis that small manors (i.e. those with less than acres of arable and hence more likely to have no mills) comprised nearly two-thirds (by number) of all the manors in England: Kosminsky, Studies, –. ¹⁴⁹ Mamecestre, ii. . ¹⁵⁰ e.g. in – the fine from Woodhay ‘for not doing suit at the windmill’ was s., while for Ashmansworth it was s. d.: Pipe Roll . . . –, , . Although the location of the windmill is not revealed in the accounts, it must be the windmill at Burghclere, which the bishop had built by the early th century (e.g. Pipe Roll . . . –, ). ¹⁵¹ They were still paying it in –, the latest account sampled for the study: HRO M B/. For more cases of communities paying to be free of suit of mill, see Holt, Mills, –.
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suit of mill, although it had to be well established by contract or royal grant, as in the Exchequer of Pleas for , where the plaintiff Roger Baynard cited a grant of Henry II, which claimed that the bakers and other men in the halfhundred of Maldon, Essex, owed suit to Roger’s watermill in Little Maldon. Contrary to the charter, Geoffrey le Palmer had erected a windmill in the same village (presumably on his own land), so that, according to the plaintiff, ‘the aforesaid bakers and men do not grind at the aforesaid mill of the same Roger’. The grant evidence was seemingly enough for Roger to win his case, since Geoffrey did not show up to defend himself and the sheriff was ordered to take the defendant and his lands into custody.¹⁵² The Curia Regis and year book material above also show examples of communities without mills owing suit to those nearby with mills, in some cases perhaps by contract.¹⁵³
... The Practical Effect of Suit of Mill upon Tenants In short, suit of mill easily extended outside those communities that had mills to those that had not in a variety of ways, and it is easy to see much (if not virtually all; see below) of England being covered by it in some fashion. How did it encompass the tenantry within manors? As we have seen from the Curia Regis Rolls, both people and tenements were targeted for suit of mill. Holt has argued that it was very much geared towards people, and particularly towards bond (or unfree) tenants, who, Holt felt, perhaps in too minimalist a fashion, were the only sector of society bound by suit of mill.¹⁵⁴ It is possible that suit of mill started out this way, and that villeins at the time of, say, Domesday were bound to their local mill, if their manor had one. The tenants at Thrussington mentioned above obviously felt that moving from villein to free tenure made a difference, although, as we have seen, the justices quickly disabused them of this notion and insisted that they were still bound by the suit of mill of their manor through custom. Although the reinforcement of suit of mill through custom or indeed contract or grant often made the issue of status irrelevant, nonetheless the idea that suit of mill was particularly attached to villeinage was clearly a widespread one, as the cases from the year books above indicate. On the other hand, from the middle of the thirteenth century onwards there are plenty of signs that other groups of tenants were drawn into the net. For ¹⁵² Select Cases in the Exchequer of Pleas, . ¹⁵³ As in the case of Philip de Snaringe’s deal with the ‘men’ of Guist, Norfolk, to observe suit to Philip’s mill (also presumably in Guist) for a payment of s. per year (Sect. ..). See also the cases of Chimhams and Boxherse (Kent), Hook Norton (Oxfordshire), and Tibthorpe (Yorkshire) above, all communities that owed suit to mills elsewhere: Sects. .. and ... ¹⁵⁴ Holt, Mills, .
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example, at Tredington, Warwickshire, in , a tenant received the manorial watermill in customary tenure complete with the suit of mill of both free and customary tenants (tam liberorum quam nativorum).¹⁵⁵ Indeed, many references indicate that suit of mill was considered to be a charge on the community—or at least the combined tenantry—as much as the person or the holding. An early example came from the late s or early s, where the monks of Norwich Cathedral Priory in Norfolk—hardly a bastion of seigneurial power—were granted two mills in Thornham in the same county, complete ‘with the total suit of the whole homage in the same village to the same mills’.¹⁵⁶ The same sort of reference is encountered later, as when James Schipalbothom was given the farm of the two corn-mills at Tottington, Lancashire, in –, ‘along with the suit of all the tenants and customary tenants to the same mills [as] owed and [as] custom from ancient times’.¹⁵⁷ The longevity of such attitudes is shown in a – reference to the establishment of a hereditary tenant mill in the Forest of Rossendale in the same county, complete with ‘the total soke of every tenant and inhabitant’ of five communities in the area.¹⁵⁸ In an urban situation the same thing was seen in the lease of the watermill at Congleton, Cheshire, ‘with suit of multure of every tenant and burgess of Congleton’.¹⁵⁹ The fact that exemptions to suit of mill were often paid off by communities as a whole, as we have seen with East Woodhay and Ashmansworth above, suggests the same thing. As we have seen in Chapter , this was also paralleled by communities leasing the demesne mill.¹⁶⁰ Sometimes echoes of the older tradition would be heard, as a narrower strand of village community would be indicated—as at Altofts, Yorkshire, in –, when s. was paid by the nativi and cotarii to be free of suit of mill and millpond repair services,¹⁶¹ or at Harpenden and Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, in –, when it was recorded that six ‘nativi of the lord’ paid d. per year each to be free of suit of mill¹⁶²—but in the main the broader definition of suit of mill as including the whole community seems to have become predominant. This could even extend to the lessees of demesnes, as in a case at East Rainton, ¹⁵⁵ WCL E. I am grateful to Christopher Dyer for supplying with notes of this reference. ¹⁵⁶ Charters of Norwich Cathedral Priory, i. . ¹⁵⁷ . . . una cum secta omnium tenentium et custumariorum ad eadem molendina ex antiquo tempore debitas et consuetas: PRO DL /. ¹⁵⁸ . . . cum toto soco omnis tenentis & inhabitans [sic] in Rossendale, Musbury, Newalkey, Cowpy & Lenche: PRO DL /. ¹⁵⁹ . . . cum secta multure omnis tenentis & Burgencis de Congleton: PRO DL / (account for –). ¹⁶⁰ See Sect. .. above. ¹⁶¹ PRO DL /, m. . See also the ‘bond tenants and cottagers’ who were leasing the windmill at Elmsall in –: PRO DL /. ¹⁶² WAM . These tenants were to pay the fine ‘until the mill at Pickford was rebuilt’, which they seemingly did at least until a mill with two sets of stones was erected on the manor in – (WAM ).
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Durham, where the demesne was leased in under the condition that any corn to be ground from these lands should be taken to the prior of Durham’s mill (on the same manor) ‘in the same way as they mill from the lands of husbandmen’.¹⁶³ Even when suit of mill seemingly applied to the entire tenantry in a manor, however, status still often made itself felt in a sort of pecking order in relation to the amount paid in multure. On the lowest rung (and paying the highest rate of multure) were bond or unfree tenants, where, depending upon the region, a peasant might pay as much as one-twelfth of his grain as multure (see Appendix ). Burgesses, free tenants, or even tenants-in-fee generally paid lower rates, perhaps one-twentieth or so, but the key point is that, despite paying lower rates, they were seemingly as bound to the manorial mill as unfree tenants were. Outside of these, ‘foreigners’ (extranii) were also allowed to grind their corn at the mill, and were often offered cheaper rates,¹⁶⁴ as lords tried to entice as much custom as possible to their mills. In addition to rules regarding multure rates, protocols were often in place regarding priority in mill line-ups, such as the ‘hopper-free’ lord of Moston (in the manor of Manchester) mentioned above. Clearly the lord or his servants would also take priority in such cases,¹⁶⁵ but sometimes it was stipulated that tenants living on the manor should take priority over outsiders.¹⁶⁶ Differential rates could also apply to the status of the grain, especially as to whether it was grown on the manor or bought elsewhere.Tenants on the manor of Ashton under Lyne, Lancashire, during the fifteenth century (see Appendix ) were allowed a lighter multure rate for grain that they bought than that which they grew (which may have been a considerable concession for smallholders in particular). The same is implied for the earldom of Lancaster manor of Almondbury, Yorkshire, in , where an extent describing the obligations of free tenants indicated that they ‘made suit [of mill] to the lord’s mill of his own grown grain for suit (pro secto; that is, through the obligation of suit of mill) and of bought grain out of love and good wishes [for the lord]’.¹⁶⁷ This coy way of getting all grains, whether grown or bought, covered by suit of mill nonetheless suggests that there was some link with the right to claim multure ¹⁶³ Halmota Prioratus Dunelmensis, . ¹⁶⁴ As at Jarrow, Durham, where a 1/20 rate was given to outsiders in comparison to that of 1/13 which applied to customary tenants nearby: DCD HR, Spring, ; see also App. . ¹⁶⁵ As reported in the late th century for the canons of Guisborough Priory, who were to have their corn ground without toll at the mill of Ormesby (Yorkshire) ‘next after the grain found in the hopper’ (proximo post bladum quod in tramelo invenietur): Cartularium Prioratus de Gyseburne, i. . Holt, Mills, , gives other examples. ¹⁶⁶ As ordered by Durham Cathedral Priory in : Lomas, ‘Durham Cathedral Priory’, . ¹⁶⁷ PRO DL /, fo. .
Workers and Customers
and the growing of grain on the manor itself, as also reflected in a number of cases where suit of mill was connected to grain grown on the holdings.¹⁶⁸ ‘Bought corn’ in effect referred to grain grown outside the manor, and may link to the preferential rate given to ‘foreigners’ who came to the mill.¹⁶⁹ Finally, an interesting differential rate of multure was recorded in a extent for the earl of Albemarle’s manor of Pocklington, Yorkshire, where the multure rate for the mill there was 1/16 from the feast of St Peter ad vincula ( August; the traditional start of the harvest) to Christmas, while from Christmas to the following August it was only 1/20.¹⁷⁰ This sense of a rush of custom from the beginning of the harvest onwards is indicated in a reverse fashion for the Ramsey Abbey manor of Pegsdon around , where tenants were allowed to mill elsewhere if the lord’s mill was too busy during the period from August to September.¹⁷¹ The bottom line of all this is that suit of mill was a pervasive institution throughout England, but that is was riddled with exceptions and complications. As was said by a justice of Edward II, ‘[the duty] to grind corn on certain lands at somebody’s mill is not [imposed by] common law, but follows the usage of the country’.¹⁷² The suit of the manorial tenantry was certainly a very desirable thing for a mill to have. A number of cases appearing in the inquisitions post mortem of the early fourteenth century highlight this quite starkly. For example, at Aston next to Birmingham in it was recorded that there was a certain watermill with a pond which was only worth s. per year because it did not have suit of mill unless by wish of the neighbourhood.¹⁷³ Indeed, mills without suit of mill were often described as ‘debilitated’ (debilis),¹⁷⁴ in the same way as damaged mills desperately needing repairs. Mills having call on a small tenantry were similarly considered to be in a vulnerable position, as in the case of the plaintive bleat heard in about a windmill at Wyberton, Lincolnshire, that was worth s. per year ‘and no more because of the smallness of the soke [that is, the number of tenants observing suit of mill to the windmill] and because there are mills on either side of it’.¹⁷⁵ ¹⁶⁸ e.g. the cases for Silksworth, Durham, and for Dalton, Nesbit, and Wallsend, Northumberland, in App. . See also Coke’s comment on an Edward II case (Sect. ..). ¹⁶⁹ See n. above. ¹⁷⁰ Yorkshire Inquisitions, . ¹⁷¹ Cartularium Monasterii de Rameseia, i. . ¹⁷² Year Books, Edward II, . ¹⁷³ Item est ibidem quoddam molendinum aquaticum cum stagno quod valet per annum .x.s. & non plus quia non habet sectam nisi pro voluntate vicinorum: PRO C /, m. . ¹⁷⁴ As at Petworth, Sussex, in and Little Weldon, Northamptonshire, in : PRO C /, m. ; /, m. . ¹⁷⁵ . . . et non plus propter parvitatem sokne et quia plura sunt molendina ex utraque parte eiusdem molendini: PRO C /, m. ; see also Langdon, ‘Lordship’, .
Workers and Customers
... Multure Rates: The Cost to the Customer It is difficult, however, to determine how much the ubiquitous and arbitrary nature of suit of mill translated into actual cost and perhaps chagrin at the tenant level. Of key importance is to ascertain the fraction of their grain that customers had to pay for the service of milling, a difficult problem since multure rates are only occasionally given in the documentation. A selection of these rates from the thirteenth century onwards has been collected in Appendix . The heaviest multure rate—at 1/10—was indicated in the year books for two places difficult to place as to county (see Table A.). One of these cases—that for ‘Assheton’ (possibly in Lancashire)—targeted the bread (and perhaps more commercial) grains of wheat and rye for this rate of 1/10, while allowing barley and oats to be ground at the lighter rate of 1/20.¹⁷⁶ Given the nature of the year books, it is possible that these rates—not found in any of the cases that could be identified as to region—were chosen for illustrative purposes rather than reflecting actual practice.¹⁷⁷ Otherwise, most of the high multure rates—and indeed the bulk of references to multure as a whole—were recorded for northern parts of the country.The most northerly counties—Cumberland, Durham, Northumberland, and Westmorland—registered a number of rates of 1/13 and on one occasion 1/12. As indicated above, these were the usual charges for unfree tenants on rural manors. Lower rates were paid by urban tenants (as in the case of the burgesses at Morpeth and Elvet). Lessees and fee-holders also paid less (Gateshead, South Pittingdon, and Woodham), but not their tenants, as at Woodham, where the lessee was charged 1/20 but his tenants 1/13. A little further south—in the counties of Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire—multure rates for villeins and other tenants normally settled around 1/16. This rate of 1/16 is interesting, because it has been long held in the literature as being probably the normal rate that applied all over England,¹⁷⁸ but Richard Holt’s observation that it may only have been prevalent in some parts of the North seems to be well taken.¹⁷⁹ These North Midlands counties formed a sort of band between the heavy exploitation of milling in the far North and a freer, more competitive situation obtaining in the South of the country. Occasionally rates more characteristic of those further north would be found here, as ¹⁷⁶ Note the similarity here with the Silksworth, Durham, case in Table A.. ¹⁷⁷ Also, I am not including here the anomalous case at Cirencester, Gloucestershire, where a free tenant holding a sizeable holding ( carucates (probably in excess of acres) and acres) of the abbot of Cirencester allegedly owed, for the grinding fee, a third of the wheat growing on the acres and a sixth of the wheat growing on the carucates: Bennett and Elton, History, iii. . These multure rates are so heavy as to suggest that they in fact were substituting as rent. Bennett and Elton (ibid. –) cite a similar case from Cluny, Scotland, in , where a third of the grain was paid as multure (‘thremulture’). ¹⁷⁸ Ibid. ; H. S. Bennett, Life on the English Manor, . ¹⁷⁹ Holt, Mills, .
Workers and Customers
for the 1/13 levied at Kirkburn, Yorkshire, and on the Yorkshire manors of Whitby Abbey (Hackness, Sleights, Silpho, Suffield, Burniston, etc.). These seem to suggest a gradual movement of heavier multure rates from the North to the South, at least to the early fourteenth century, as best seen at Wirksworth, Derbyshire, where an attempt to replace a previous 1/20 multure rate with one of 1 14 / seems to have occurred during the thirteenth century.¹⁸⁰ Below the Humber multure rates began to fragment, becoming more variable and, judging from the rates given in Table A., much lower, usually 1/20 or less. As indicated above (Section ..), this agrees with the Statute of Bakers, where multure rates of 1/20 or 1/24 were recommended, depending upon the strength of the water-course. Holt, in fact, feels that multure rates in the South may have been as low as 1/32,¹⁸¹ and a few cases from purveyance accounts actually support this (Table A.). In the king ordered large amounts of wheat to be milled in preparation for the wars in France and Scotland. At ‘Holmilne’ in Wixamtree Hundred, Bedfordshire (probably Holme Mills in the parish of Southill¹⁸²) quarters were taken as multure for the grinding of quarters bushels of wheat, a rate of just under 1/26. At the same time quarters bushels of wheat were ground at ‘Wycombe’ (presumably High Wycombe), Buckinghamshire, for which the charge was ½ quarters, a rate of just under 1/34.¹⁸³ A little later in the year the milling charge from a combined batch of quarters bushels of wheat sent to the mills at both ‘Holmilne’ and ‘Wycombe’ was quarters, a rate just under 1/27.¹⁸⁴ Given that this involved the most powerful customer in the land, we may take these multure rates as being as low as probably could be found. It seems likely, then, as Holt believes, that multure rates below the Humber were generally between 1/20 and 1/32. As such, the lack of specific statements in manorial and other documents regarding the multure rate in this part of the country may be because rates were not pumped up by seigneurial authority, as they were in the North, but were left to fluctuate according to what the market would bear.¹⁸⁵ Despite this more complicated picture of multure rates than traditionally supposed, a fairly comprehensive countrywide view of the variation of milling exploitation can still be discerned by looking at the valuation of mills provided by inquisitions post mortem. Map . shows the average value of mills per manor as computed from the inquisitions for the reign of Edward II.¹⁸⁶ Geographically, the picture is quite clear. The average value of mills per manor in the far ¹⁸⁰ Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, i. –; see also Langdon, ‘Lordship’, . ¹⁸¹ Holt, Mills, . ¹⁸² VCH Bedfordshire, iii. . ¹⁸³ PRO E//. ¹⁸⁴ PRO E/, m. v. ¹⁸⁵ A view I expressed in ‘Lordship’, esp. –, . ¹⁸⁶ The valuations are somewhat problematic, as there was a tendency to under-evaluation, but they are useful for comparison purposes from region to region: ibid. –.
Workers and Customers
Average value of mills per manor (in d.) Less than 240 240–479 480–719 720–959 960 and over
M .. Mill values per manor per year, ‒
North was strikingly higher than elsewhere. Indeed the average mill values for Northumberland and Durham were, in fact, over £ per manor,¹⁸⁷ while Cumberland’s was slightly less than £ per manor.This would match the rather high multure rates found here. Below these counties there was a solid band of medium-valued counties that stretched down from the far North to the North-Western Midlands, which might equate with the area where multure rates of 1/16 were more common. Below this the average value of mills per manor breaks up, with some counties showing reasonably high mill values per manor (Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, Herefordshire, and Devon) but most counties having significantly less than this. When the value of mills is expressed as a percentage of overall manorial values (a useful way of expressing the figures because it tends to remove manor size as a factor), as in Map ., the picture of high milling exploitation in the far North is reinforced, but with a shift to the North-West rather than the North-East. The county with the highest figure ¹⁸⁷ Although Durham, because it was a palatinate held by the bishop of Durham, where the writ of the inquisitions did not run, had only five manors (with nine mills) in this particular sample.
Workers and Customers Mill values as a percentage of manorial values Percent 0–4.9 5.0–9.9 10.0–14.9 15.0–19.9 20 and over
M .. Mill values as a percentage of manorial values, ‒
here was Cumberland, with its mills comprising nearly . per cent of total manorial values, with Westmorland fairly close behind at . per cent, while Northumberland and Durham slipped to . and . per cent respectively. Below that there was a band of relatively high mill valuations against total manorial valuations running down the west side of the country from Lancashire through Cheshire to Staffordshire. The relatively high milling valuations relative to total manorial values in Middlesex and Surrey (at . and . per cent respectively) were probably influenced by the presence of London. It should be said that the very considerable weight given to milling revenues in the North might have been due to the frontier conditions existing there, especially in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest, where the destruction wrought by the ‘harrying of the North’ led to a notable economic and social restructuring that placed it out of step with much of the rest of the country.¹⁸⁸ It was in this situation that a more draconian exploitation of milling took place. In ¹⁸⁸ Langdon, ‘Lordship’, –.
Workers and Customers
the rest of the country, particularly the South and East, a much more ‘relaxed’ position existed, where the evolution of milling was able to take place more naturally.
... The Reaction of the Customer This, then, is roughly the picture the customer faced, where exploitation was clearly strongest in the North, but with occasional pockets of relatively high exploitation elsewhere, such as the North-West Midlands. How did the customer react to this milling situation? Do we consider it as contributing strongly to class tensions, to the point of supporting the class struggle model of the late medieval economy and society?¹⁸⁹ Lords, in justifying charges for mills, generally seem to have put them in terms of providing—out of the goodness of their hearts—a service for their tenants, for which tenants were supposed to be suitably grateful.¹⁹⁰ Perhaps sometimes they were. But there are also many recorded cases of ‘customers’ not taking very kindly to being forced to patronize a particular mill. Cases of tenants avoiding suit of mill are common enough in the record to suggest that, if a mill were charging an exorbitant rate for milling, then they would go elsewhere. To some extent lords could demand extra from their tenants for reasons of convenience, since transport costs may well mean that a tenant would go to the community mill even if the charge was somewhat higher than they could obtain elsewhere. On the other hand, often there were transport costs associated with going to the designated seigneurial mill, as in the case of large manors with outlying communities, where a mill on a neighbouring manor might be closer than the designated manorial mill.¹⁹¹ Sometimes resentment over milling could reach such a pitch that it led to violence (as at St Albans and Halesowen).¹⁹² Altogether it is difficult to determine whether such animosity was typical and the degree to which evasion of suit of mill was endemic. Manorial court rolls are a help here, however, and Tables . and . show the incidence of suitof-mill violations as found in various manorial court roll series before and after the Black Death. Violations of suit of mill were certainly evident throughout our period, particularly before the advent of the plague, where altogether some people were charged with the offence in the , courts from fifteen communities that were examined. These violations were usually expressed as going ¹⁸⁹ See Hatcher and Bailey, Modelling, ch. , for a good summary of the model and its history. ¹⁹⁰ See e.g. the Almondbury case above (Sect. ..). ¹⁹¹ As in , when Richard son of Amiscie, a tenant of the abbot of Halesowen, went to nearby Frankley mill rather than the abbot’s mill at Illey: Court Rolls of . . . Hales, i. . ¹⁹² See Holt, Mills, –, for these and other notorious cases.
Workers and Customers
T .. Frequency of suit-of-mill and miller violations from selected court roll series, pre- Manor
Ashwell, Hertfordshire Bircham, Norfolk Boxley, Kent Brancaster, Norfolk Claret, Essex Halesowen, Worcestershire Halton, Cheshire Harpenden and Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire Launton, Oxfordshire Pleshey, Essex Scalby, Yorkshire Sevenhampton, Wiltshire Wakefield, Yorkshire
Widnes, Lancashire Wirksworth, Derbyshire
Time period
No. of courts
Suit-of-mill violations
Miller violations
()
()
()
()
– – – – – – – – –
– – – – – – – – – –
a
Note: () Total number of violations; () average number of violations per year. The average number of violations per year have been rounded off to the nearest whole number (including when the average number is less than .), since it had to be calculated somewhat roughly in an equation involving the number of courts per year.This varied considerably, from four courts per year for Launton to – courts per year for Halton and Wakefield. a
This is very much a minimum figure, since it does not include three hamlets—Fixby, Bottomley, and Barkisland— which were accused collectively of evading suit of mill in , although the actual number of offenders was not specified: Court Rolls of . . . Wakefield, i. , , . Sources: PRO SC /– (Ashwell); PRO SC /– (Bircham); PRO SC / (Boxwell); PRO SC /– (Brancaster); PRO SC / (Claret); Court Rolls of . . . Hales, BRL – (Halesowen); PRO DL / (Halton); WAM – (Harpenden and Wheathampstead); WAM –, – (Launton); PRO DL /–, (Pleshey); PRO DL /– (Scalby); PRO SC /– (Sevenhampton); Court Rolls of . . . Wakefield (Wakefield); PRO DL / (Widnes); PRO DL /, –, , (Wirksworth).
to mill elsewhere or by using hand-mills. However, when spread over the entire period and when expressed in average number of violations per year, the numbers become much less impressive. The greatest incidence was found in Wakefield in the period –, where on average eight people per year were charged. But this was an exceptionally high number and also involved an
Workers and Customers
T .. Frequency of suit-of-mill and miller violations from selected court roll series, post- Manor
Bircham, Norfolk Boreham, Essex Newhall (in Boreham), Essex Bradninch, Devon Brancaster, Norfolk Claret, Essex Congleton, Cheshire Halesowen, Worcestershire
Halton, Cheshire
Launton, Oxfordshire Liskeard, Cornwall Scalby, Yorkshire
Widnes, Lancashire Wirksworth and area, Derbyshirea
Time period
No. of courts
Suit-of-mill violations
Miller violations
()
()
()
()
– – –
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Notes: () Total number of violations; () average number of violations per year. The average number of violations per year have been rounded off to the nearest whole number (including when the average number is less than .), since it had to be calculated somewhat roughly in an equation involving the number of courts per year. This varied considerably, from four courts per year for Launton to – courts per year for Halton and Wakefield. a
Includes courts from Bonsall, Matlock, Ireton Wood, Melbourne, Brassington, Hartington, and Ashbourne.
Sources: PRO SC/– (Bircham); PRO SC / (Boreham); PRO SC / (Newhall, in Boreham); PRO SC /, (Bradninch); PRO SC /– (Brancaster); PRO SC / (Claret); PRO DL / (Congleton); BRL –, –, – (Halesowen); PRO DL /, , (Halton); WAM – (Launton); PRO SC /, (Liskeard); PRO DL –, –, , , – (Scalby); PRO DL / (Widnes); PRO DL /, /, /, /, /, / (Wirksworth).
Workers and Customers
exceptionally large manor. Of the fifteen sets of communities from which court rolls were sampled before , nine recorded no suit-of-mill offences at all, and for three of the other communities—Ashwell, Brancaster, and Claret— offences averaged one violation per year or less. The same low level was observed for Halesowen in the late thirteenth to early fourteenth century, and it was only later that the number of violations seemed to rise (that is, in the sample of court rolls in the s). The other two communities (Launton and Wakefield) showed the same increase in violations leading up to the Black Death and, as I have speculated elsewhere, this may have been in response to a decline in milling revenues in these particular pre-plague decades.¹⁹³ After the Black Death the incidence of suit of mill violations declined sharply. Here only twenty-four suit of mill violations were found among the , courts sampled for fourteen communities. Even at Halesowen, where the abbots were long known for their tough stance against their tenants, the enforcement of suit of mill had ended by the fifteenth century. Indeed, enforcement of suit of mill after seems to have been limited mostly to the late fourteenth century.¹⁹⁴ This was seemingly the last gasp in the attempt to force tenants to patronize the manorial mill, perhaps reminiscent of the attempts to control wages during the same period.¹⁹⁵ This all suggests that lords or lessees of mills with suit of mill had to content themselves with trying to limit competition as best they could, while allowing their tenants to mill wherever they wished. Did this lead to a decline of multure rates after –? Those multure rates taken from fifteenth-century documents, as shown in Appendix (especially in Tables A. and A.), suggest multure rates roughly in line with those of the previous two centuries. However, the fact that multure rates seem to be less recorded after , even in the North, implies they were beginning to fluctuate more, such that recording the rate at a particular time was now seen as pointless. In short, the customer base for watermills and windmills was probably reasonably secure even without a pervasive application of suit of mill, as suggested by the survival of so many mills throughout the later Middle Ages. Suit of mill was undoubtedly a useful institutional tool for enhancing mill profits,¹⁹⁶ but lords also ran the risk of alienating their tenantry over such matters.¹⁹⁷ In the end, as with the case of wage labour restrictions, they seem to have given up the fight by the start of the fifteenth century. Coerced patronage of mills then effectively came to an end. The point is, however, that judging from both Tables . and ., such coercion was never very strongly applied.Thus, the revenues made by mills and the impulse by lords to invest in them always depended much more ¹⁹³ Langdon, ‘Lordship’, . ¹⁹⁴ Only the two cases for Liskeard occur after . ¹⁹⁵ Penn and Dyer, ‘Wages and Earnings’. ¹⁹⁶ Langdon, ‘Lordship’, , . ¹⁹⁷ The well-known case of St Albans probably being the most publicized example: Holt, Mills, –.
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upon basic consumer demand than upon the coercive efforts of lords.¹⁹⁸ Customers generally came to mills because they wanted to, not because they were forced there. This is not to deny some customer ambivalence about mills. Millers were a distrusted lot, and they could also be uncomfortable neighbours, as evidenced by cases of malicious water control. In a case heard at Westminster in the Easter session of , for example, John Gerberd of Thorley, Hertfordshire, complained that John de Matham had ‘blocked and retained water through [his] floodgates’ (that is, he seemingly kept his pond level high), so preventing John Gerberd from mowing and drying his hay.This was contrary to a previous agreement between the two families, where presumably the Mathams lowered their pond level during the haymaking season. Gerberd and others in the neighbourhood used this as a pretext to remove and take away Matham’s water-gates ‘by force and arms’ (which led Matham to bring the case to Westminster).¹⁹⁹ More generally, there were certainly some fears from customers and the public at large about any person or group controlling too much of the food-processing chain. In the late fourteenth century, for instance, a pronouncement at Beverley, Yorkshire, forbade bakers from hiring any milling establishment at any time.²⁰⁰ Mill proprietors were also sometimes thought to be too much in control of a community’s grain supply, as in the proceedings in Star Chamber against John Knight. In a somewhat convoluted case of forestalling and regrating, he was accused by bakers, brewers, and others in the town of Andover, Hampshire, of taking the multure from his mill, plus great amounts of grain that he bought up around Andover, to other places for sale. This, they claimed, created a local shortage of grain, which allegedly drove up prices and made bread and drink scarce in the town.²⁰¹ But for the most part customer dealings with mills were undoubtedly uneventful and routine.Trips to mills by householders must have been frequent. Illustrations in manuscripts generally show customers walking to mills or going there on horses or mules, sometimes carrying a bag of grain on their shoulders or on their heads or across the neck or back of their beast of burden.²⁰² Seldom do they show them going in carts, which would have allowed or quarters of grain to be milled at a time. One piece of documentary evidence that shows that a packhorse load might have been the normal way of bringing grain to the mill comes from a court roll entry for (Great) Waltham, Essex, in October , ¹⁹⁸ As argued particularly in Langdon, ‘Lordship’. ¹⁹⁹ PRO KB /, m. . I am grateful to John Bedell for pointing out this case to me. ²⁰⁰ Beverley Town Documents, . For similar nervousness in York and Colchester about allowing bakers to lease mills, see Swanson, Medieval Artisans, ; Britnell, Growth and Decline, . ²⁰¹ Select Cases in the Star Chamber, ii. –. ²⁰² See Pls. ., ., and .; Holt, Mills, pl. (frontispiece), (pl. ), (pl. ).
Workers and Customers
where Peter le Fuller was distrained for a transgression made to a customer to his mill, namely that he spoiled a half-bushel from bushels that John Stront seemingly brought to his mill.²⁰³ The bushels involved was roughly the amount which could be carried by a single packhorse.²⁰⁴ In a similar fashion John Dodgeson was apprehended in re-entering the Durham Cathedral Priory manor of Harton, Durham, with his horse loaded with flour which had been ground at a mill ‘outside the demesne’ (extra dominium).²⁰⁵ Presumably most of the milling was done in this small-scale way, possibly for reasons of preventing spoilage through keeping large amounts of flour over extended periods of time. A -bushel load on a horse would probably have sufficed a family of, say, five for about three weeks.²⁰⁶ The mill as one of the foci of the community is something seldom commented upon in the literature. It may in fact have provided the opposite pole to the village church. On the Continent, for instance, mills were sometimes alleged to be the haunts of prostitutes, and they may more generally have served as meeting places for much of the community.²⁰⁷ The siting of windmills in open places might be particularly attractive in this way, and a provocative early fourteenth-century illustration from the Smithfield Decretals shows a couple seemingly having sex on or near the tailpiece of a windmill, much to the anger of the miller who is threatening them with a mallet (see Plate .). Certainly, the excitement occasioned by the opening of a mill can sometimes be observed in the surge of custom at the start of operation.²⁰⁸ Mills also had practical uses beyond that of milling, and often served, for example, as prisons.²⁰⁹ This combination of community functions that mills served may have put it close to the category of the church or manor house in many a village—one of three or four special places in the community where people could—or were accustomed to—meet in the ordinary course of their lives. Finally, the role of the customer in the milling industry was to some extent determined by the nature of the industry itself. As I have described elsewhere, ²⁰³ PRO SC /. ²⁰⁴ e.g. Langdon, Horses, Oxen, . ²⁰⁵ DCD Halmote Rolls, Spring, . See also the generic warnings at Broadwas, Worcestershire, in , and at Hexham, Northumberland, c., where tenants violating suit of mill were threatened with the confiscation of their horses and sacks of meal: Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, ; Priory of Hexham, ii. . ²⁰⁶ Christopher Dyer has estimated that a medieval couple with three children would probably have consumed bushels of wheat, barley, and oats per year (or about a bushel a week): Standards of Living, . Assuming all this was milled (perhaps questionable in the case of the barley and oats), then bushels would cover three weeks. If some of the grain was consumed without grinding (i.e. as pottage), then bushels of ground grain might last closer to a month. ²⁰⁷ Comet, ‘Technology and Agricultural Expansion’, ; Philippe, ‘L’Église et l’énergie’, . ²⁰⁸ As in the case of the new windmill at Turweston, Buckinghamshire, in : Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, –. ²⁰⁹ For example, among the services owed by smallholders at Hadleigh, Suffolk, and Borley, Essex, in was the responsibility of guarding felons ad molendinum domini vel alibi: CCA DCc Register J, , . Millers
P .. Windmill, miller, and ‘cuddling couple’, Smithfield Decretals, c.
Workers and Customers
the milling industry could well be considered ‘as a major but very fragmented economic activity, operating within a myriad of tiny manorial cells’.²¹⁰ The degree to which milling can be seen in corporate terms—or not—is important here. If mills normally worked on an estate basis, with mills being grouped together for accounting purposes, as they were on the Durham Cathedral Priory estates, then the relationship of entrepreneur, worker, and customer could well have been much more impersonal. But if mills were seen as functioning primarily on a manorial basis—and there is certainly enough evidence to suggest that decisions about mills were often made on a manorial level rather than having common policies apply to them right across an estate²¹¹—then the industry would clearly be much more responsive to local influences. Customers could make themselves heard through their status as tenants, for example, as in the Milton Hall case mentioned in Chapter (Section .). Similarly, perhaps the reason why animosities over milling were generally recorded at such low levels in manorial court rolls and other records, even against the wily miller, was that members of communities not only saw each other on occasion in the context of the milling industry but also more widely in the context of friends, neighbours, and even relatives, which complicated the nature of their interaction and made it much less like the more impersonal interaction that normally regulates our own daily economic lives. This may even have affected lords, who applied a paternalistic attitude to their tenants that may have guided many of the decisions taken in regard to manorial mills, particularly in keeping them going when the hope of reasonable profits dimmed considerably. The trend over time was for that paternalism to die away as harder economic decision-making began to make itself felt. Nevertheless, this new decision-making kept many of the trappings of the old system, particularly in relation to suit of mill with its ability to quash local competition. The customer, however, was increasingly left alone, as constraints upon their choice of milling supplier were effectively removed. Eliminating competition, arguably the hallmark of the capitalist system (certainly according to Marx) and here, ironically, still buttressed by the feudal suit of mill, became the weapon of choice for controlling the consumer. as gaolers were also recorded in a – case in Kent, where a prisoner died in their charge: Eyre of Kent, and Edward II, vol. i, pp. lxvi, . ²¹⁰ Langdon, ‘Lordship’, . ²¹¹ It is interesting to note, for example, that pronouncements about suit of mill in surveys and extents were usually done on a manor-by-manor basis.
Workers and Customers
.. : Entrepreneurs, workers, and customers thus met in a nexus of economic activity that all no doubt accepted as a normal feature of life, even at the beginning of our period. All were performers in an industry that was much more tightly bound than industries today. The relationships among the various groups did change over time, but the emphasis was probably more on continuity. This was probably most obvious in the relationship of entrepreneurs to workers, the latter for the most part operating as wage employees from at least onwards. In the case of millers, this might have been disrupted by a higher than usual level of mill proprietors in the later fourteenth century, but it seems likely that the actual operators of mills returned to their positions as wage labourers—and perhaps rather menial ones at that—by the end of our period. The fact that all mills were now leased out rather hides this, but the growing presence of gentry and other non-menial lessees makes this increasingly likely. Holders of tenant mills were much more likely to be owner–proprietors over the entire period, but increasingly in the area of industrial rather than grain mills. Maintenance workers clearly remained as a wage-earning proletariat throughout, and only in the few instances where maintenance people took on leases might there have been an element of actually working the mill itself, although even here it is likely they hired millers to do the actual running of it. But even if we label maintenance workers as part of a growing proletariat, it is unlikely they saw themselves as that, since—by their standards—they were clearly making good wages and were in a very strong bargaining position virtually throughout our period,²¹² and master carpenters in particular would undoubtedly have considered themselves more as entrepreneurs. The main point is that the position of workers in the industry, whether as operators or maintenance personnel, was virtually the same in as it had been in . Also, there is very little sense of a shift in the relationship of workers and entrepreneurs (capitalists?) throughout the period such as that claimed by Marx (or by many of the proponents of the Brenner debate). In short, the concept of a newly emergent proletariat seems inappropriate for our period. Rather more change can be seen between entrepreneurs and customers. It is clear that when lords were the pre-eminent investors in the milling industry,
²¹² Only in the early th century was there an exception, as craftsmen’s wages clearly declined in real terms from to : AHEW ii. .
Workers and Customers
there was more concern about customers (i.e. mostly peasant tenants) in terms of providing a reliable clientele. Although there was a clearly defined philosophy about this—lords were providing a service which their tenants should appreciate by being faithful to their manorial mill—and a body of law forming to support this philosophy, its practical application was decidedly anaemic. Certainly by the end of, say, the fifteenth century concepts such as suit of mill had become more territorial, less personal, in nature, and the real battlefield shifted to keeping rival mills at bay. But we should not see even this as changing dramatically over the period. As we have seen, lords did not try overly hard to constrict consumer options, even at the supposed height of their powers in . In this regard, issues such as the dissolution of serfdom, which has often been claimed as a critical feature of the later Middle Ages,²¹³ scarcely played a role in milling. The law regulating the affairs of milling, including suit of mill, were firmly established by the early fourteenth century and remained in place until the eighteenth or even nineteenth centuries. Overall, as indicated above, there seems to have been a certain broadening of the concept of suit of mill to include all tenants of a manor, to the extent that what was more important eventually was the area over which a lord had control in enforcing suit of mill rather than the personal status of the tenant him- or herself.Territory, easier to monitor and control than human behaviour, was probably even by the start of our period becoming the ruling factor in a practical sense for maximizing mill profits, particularly in limiting competition. The third of the linkages—between customer and worker—is more difficult to categorize. We can probably take it that the contact between customers and the workers who maintained mills was minimal. But the relationship of millers to customers was, as we have seen, a potential source of friction. This may have well have spilled over into violence, as shown in a pair of illustrations in the Smithfield Decretals. The first shows what appears to be an argument between a woman customer and a miller at a windmill and is followed by a scene of the woman setting fire to the mill (Plates . and .). What do we make of this little tableau? If it was based on an actual incident (and not just a figment of the illustrator’s imagination) then it shows a scene of violence not out of place with those that occurred in the revolt of or Cade’s Rebellion in . The text at this point of the manuscript does not seem to give a direct clue (although closer examination might provide some textual rationale for the illustrations), but the illustrations certainly show a palpable tension crossing the boundary between the supplier of a service and the customer. Such day-to-day frictions were clearly not unknown in any number of forms in late medieval England, as ²¹³ e.g. most recently, Whittle, Development of Agrarian Capitalism, esp. –.
P .. Woman and miller arguing? Smithfield Decretals, c.
P .. Woman setting fire to windmill, Smithfield Decretals, c.
Workers and Customers
evidenced by the level of violence routinely indicated in various records of the time—from manorial through to coroners’ rolls—a suggestion of a much more unruly society than perhaps we are used to today. Do we see this sort of interpersonal violence as so endemic that the rebels of would try to paper it over with an appeal to all sectors of (male) society to bury their differences? This speaks not to class tensions, but to tensions of all sorts, between members of the same profession (hence the cases above of millers killing other millers), between professions (the animosity sometimes seen between millers and bakers or brewers, for instance²¹⁴), between sexes (Plates . and .), between members in a community, between members in a family. Seen against this range of potential tension, ‘class’ tensions per se may well have been the least of these. In this regard, E. P. Thompson’s vision of class tensions without class does a far better job of capturing the much more amorphous tensions of the later Middle Ages. To quote his views about eighteenth-century English society: The characteristic fissures in that society do not arise between employers and wagelabourers (as horizontal ‘classes’) but on the issues out of which most riots actually arise: when the ‘plebs’ unite as petty consumers, or as tax-payers or excise-evaders (smugglers), or on other ‘horizontal’ libertarian, economic or patriotic issues. Not only was the consciousness of these plebs different from an industrial working class, but also their characteristic forms of revolt: as, for example, the anonymous tradition, ‘counter-theatre’ (ridicule or outrage against the symbolism of authority), and swift, destructive direct action.²¹⁵
Thompson here is talking about group action, but the same would also seem to characterize actions between individuals. ‘Swift, destructive direct action’ would seem equally to be reflected in Plates . and . and in the myriad of ‘self-help’ actions taken to correct individual wrongs in the Middle Ages, such as the tearing out of millers’ floodgates when the haymaking season occurred.²¹⁶ These actions seemingly indicate a mindset that had not changed for centuries, and would not change for several centuries afterwards. In this sort of environment, the sort of radical shift in mentality required by Marxist and other models, whether in the realm of capital formation or the creation of a proletariat, seems scarcely credible. Indeed, it is easier to see the later medieval period as ultra-conservative, where age-old patterns of behaviour deepened, rather than the era of revolutionary change it is so often portrayed as being. ²¹⁴ As in the case of John Knight of Andover above (Sect. ..). ²¹⁵ Thompson, ‘Eighteenth-Century English Society’, . ²¹⁶ See the Thorley, Hertfordshire, case above (Sect. ..).
Conclusion: The Later Middle Ages as an Era of Change T has been a study about a particular industry during a -year period traditionally seen as an age of notable transformation, and it has been one of the purposes of this exercise simply to test this notion of potential revolution in the later Middle Ages. In this regard, it was felt important to understand some sense of the scale of change within the activity being examined, which was attempted through the mill demography of Chapter . The following chapters investigated the nature of flux in the industry, first in its technology (Chapter ), then as a functioning industry (Chapter ), and finally in the human role of entrepreneurs, workers, and customers (Chapters and ). Along the way it pointed out the key importance of a number of overarching mentalities, not least the legal context in which the industry had to function, but also the establishment of a powerful technical tradition ruling the way mills were constructed, a profit-based seigneurial mentality, which was replaced by a similar mentality at the tenant and lessee level, and a not inconsiderable consumer mentality which accepted—very readily, it would appear—the advantages of having someone else do their milling for them, whether it was powered by water, wind, horse, or hand. In our poststructuralist world, it is very difficult to claim that we can understand these mentalities precisely (or even approximately) but, from our remote perspective, we can at least try to reconstruct some of the thinking that lay behind the more apparent trends and priorities observed in the late medieval milling industry.¹ Perhaps one of the best places to start is with the relationship between technology and economy. Both of these were obviously fairly closely connected (as they are in our own world), but the nature of their relationship in the later Middle Ages tells much about some of the underlying principles and thought processes that governed economic and technical activity at the time. It is perhaps easiest to see this in the types of mill that medieval English society ¹ As Cullen put it perceptively about being able to reconstruct the past (here in relation to the issue of cultural evolution): ‘the difficulty (or even impossibility) of reconstructing the psychological environment which any given artefact technology inhabited in the past [should not] deter us from recognizing that that environment was an essentially psychological environment’: Contagious Ideas, .
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adopted over the course of our period. Watermills, in particular, seemed to have operated in a very restricted environment. As generally the most prized of milling establishments, especially those for grinding corn, their presence in the medieval landscape was both jealously guarded and frequently attacked. As we have seen in Chapter , the trend was gradually to ensconce these valuable possessions in the demesne sector and to invest them with key priorities in the form of first call on water resources (within the bounds of the manor at least) and to the manor’s tenantry. Part of this was due to the fact that water was a relatively scarce resource, certainly compared to air for windmills, not only for competing mills on streams, but also for other uses, such as fishing, transport, and the cultivation and harvesting of meadows. But much, too, was due to the prevailing legal mentality that had installed very rigid rules regarding the placement of watermills and the rights they enjoyed once they were securely established within the local environment. In other words, the context in which watermills functioned in the later Middle Ages was hardly unrestricted in an entrepreneurial sense. New watermills had to be squeezed—physically and legally— into the pre-existing network of mills (and increasingly in the tenant sector: Sections .. and .) or established in previously underexploited areas, such as the Weald, the North, or the South-West (particularly for industrial purposes: Section ..). In contrast, windmills operated under much freer economic conditions, and their history from their inception in the late twelfth century illustrates this. Their great increase in the thirteenth century responded to the demand of a growing population and especially to their popularity in areas where water power was scarce or problematic, and their decline after the plague was, certainly compared to watermills, a more directly related response to declining numbers of people (see Figure .). A puzzle is why wind power was used so unimaginatively. As shown in Chapter , it was only employed for grinding grain, nor, even in that role, was it employed to release water power for industrial purposes (that is, by erecting windmills to cater for corn-grinding on a manor and converting the water corn-mills to, say, fulling-mills).² One might argue in the case of extending wind power to industrial uses that the technical expertise was not at a level to allow this. But we do know that windmills were being used for drainage in the Netherlands by at least the fifteenth century,³ and certainly the experimentation in, say, tower mills shows something of a knowledge of milling technology outside England. Altogether, compared to the rest of Europe, England’s technological performance seems to have been slower or at least different. England was late in adopting floating mills, brakes for ² See my comments on this in Langdon, ‘Lordship’, .
³ Hills, Power from Wind, –.
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windmills, tower windmills, windmills for other purposes than grinding grain, all of which developments would gradually make their way from the Continent. The same might be said of horizontal watermills, which for other parts of the British Isles and Europe found a niche that might have proved valuable in the English situation. Whatever else it might have been, England’s attitude to technological innovation marched along a very different route from that of the Continent,⁴ or indeed other areas of the British Isles. We should not, however, see this as proceeding out of ignorance, since it would appear that craftspeople in England were only too well aware of what was going on elsewhere technologically, but as a result of a very powerful technical tradition which carefully selected only those elements it considered appropriate. New additions, such as perhaps windmill brakes towards the very end of our period or the further elaboration on water-control systems or post windmill foundations, were simply incremental improvements on basic, well-established designs. Economic attitudes also clearly played a part in maintaining the technical status quo. It has been long been a tradition that low levels of capital investment and faulty concepts of profit had a marked retarding effect upon medieval economic activity.⁵ A particularly notable characteristic among medieval investors was the reluctance to embark upon the bigger economic enterprise: that is, to create the ‘factory’.⁶ Few medieval English lords, merchants, or other investors thought, for instance, to create, say, a bread factory, in which the grinding mill was simply a part, although some facilities—such as those that combined a mill and a common oven—obviously came close.⁷ In other areas the move towards water-powered factories was more obvious, as primarily in the Wealden iron industry, where water power was subsumed into the iron-making process and not treated as a revenue-producing activity in its own right.⁸ On the other hand, the use of water power in the tin industry remained resolutely in the service mode, with tin miners clearly bringing their ore to be crushed and smelted for a fee by tenant bellows-, crazing-, or ‘skoff ’-mills.⁹ Finally, the most frequently observed service mill in English industry would remain the fulling-mill, which ⁴ As I have discussed in a previous publication: ‘was England a Technological Backwater?’ ⁵ Stemming largely from Hilton, ‘Rent and Capital Formation’, and Postan, ‘Investment’. See also Stone, ‘Profit-and-Loss Accountancy’, and Sect. . above. ⁶ A classic discussion of factory production in all its complications is in Marx, Capital, vol. i, pt. . I am here considering the ‘factory’ in the simpler way of combining several processes on one site to produce a single product, into which ‘machines’ powered by wind, water, or even muscle might be subsumed. For a short survey of the concept and significance of the factory, see Crouzet, First Industrialists, esp. –. ⁷ See Sect. ... ⁸ Cleere and Crossley, Iron Industry, esp. –. Note also the subsuming of water power in the Sidney ironworks’ accounts from : Sidney Ironworks, –, , n., n., –, etc. ⁹ Sect. ..; see also the th-century account for the clearly service-oriented stamping mill at Harvenna, Cornwall: Gerrard, ‘Cornish Stamping Mill’, .
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seemingly continued as small commission-based establishments through to the eighteenth century.¹⁰ The roots of this tendency for medieval (and early modern) society to view the use of water and wind power almost solely in terms of service are hard to determine. Much may have come from a limited imagination about the potentialities of economic activity. It would appear that those who controlled water power on manors or the land upon which windmills, horse-mills, or even handmills could operate certainly did not have the vision that, say, merchants in towns had in establishing trading or putting out networks for, say, the cloth industry.This more limited view would seem to hold as true for lessees and tenants as for the lords from whom they took over the primary investment role in milling. All seem to have had a reasonably well-attuned sense of what a oneprocess service enterprise could bear, but in general were not willing to look beyond this. The conservatism reflected in this view was also extended to the uses to which mills were put. Corn-grinding was throughout given a preeminent position. Despite the increasing number of industrial mills, use of water power in this direction was in a sense being increasingly marginalized, relegated either to the tenant sector or to more peripheral regions, such as the South-West and the North, where water resources were more plentiful. CarusWilson, of course, identified much of this as a feature of the thirteenth century, but the tendency was considerably strengthened in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The fact that some watermills were converted from grinding corn to, say, fulling cloth in the aftermath of the Black Death did not mean that such industrial activities were attaining a first priority in the later Middle Ages, but that the preoccupation with corn-grinding temporarily slackened, allowing some peripheral use of water power to intrude. Otherwise, relegation of industrial processes to a secondary position continued to be a feature of the milling industry right through the later Middle Ages, cementing a course for the use of wind and water power which would not change much until the Industrial Revolution several centuries later. This invites more detailed discussion on the nature of capital investment. It is almost a mantra in the literature that a more vital tradition of capital investment began to occur in the later Middle Ages.¹¹ Although there are certainly some areas where this is undoubtedly true—again the burgeoning iron industry in the later Middle Ages would seem to be one¹²—we should be careful in ¹⁰ Crouzet, First Industrialists, . ¹¹ Stemming most obviously from Marxian economics, where a more vital mobilization of capital is a key tenet. Any number of sources could be cited for this, but for the later Middle Ages in particular, see the Dobb-Sweezy and Brenner debates: Hilton (ed.), Transition; Aston and Philpin (eds.), Brenner Debate. ¹² Cleere and Crossley, Iron Industry, chs. –; Crossley, ‘Medieval Iron Smelting’.
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saying that change in the later Middle Ages invariably led to a freeing of capital and a better atmosphere for new technological formulations. Tenants in Cornwall and Devon investing in tin ore crushing and bellows-mills hardly strike us as tycoons or as leading the way to a more productive and efficient tin industry. The situation is no clearer when we consider the grain sector of the milling industry, by far the greatest revenue generator in milling at any time during our period. It seems likely that even for corn-grinding the sources of capital in the early sixteenth century were more finely dispersed than they had been two centuries later, despite the insertion of new investors, both at the lessee and at the tenant level. Another critical issue is how intimately these investors, new or old, were involved in the actual milling operation itself. This brings in the issue of subleasing, about which, as we have seen in Chapter ,¹³ we know very little for certain. But the implications of sub-leasing for the efficiency of capital investment are immense. If, for example, the growing numbers of gentry and other wellconnected people taking up mills as lessees in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were simply interposing themselves as yet another rent-collecting layer between landlords and those actually running the mills, then capital accumulation in the industry would be severely undermined. The situation of Thomas Daventry discussed above (Section ..) shows how precarious the financial situation of sub-lessees was; they were hardly the group to undertake important capital investment in the industry.This has implications not only for milling, but also for late medieval agriculture as a whole.¹⁴ We simply do not know as yet how important an issue this was, although clearly many subtenancies of mills and other properties and possessions must have existed. Until we get a better sense of the prevalence of sub-leasing or of the way that capital investment, in any economic activity in the later Middle Ages, was shared among the various actors (landlord, lessee, sub-lessee) then the picture will remain incomplete and any statement about the nature of capital accumulation largely speculative. What we have seen in the English milling industry from the period of the plague onward is a considerable amount of jockeying, particularly between landlord and lessee, on the issue of maintenance costs and other elements of capital investment, and the same must have happened at the level of lessee and sub-lessee. At the very least, decisions about capital investment must have been less clear-cut from about onwards, involving a more complex series of negotiations among landlord, lessee, or sub-lessee, or even between ¹³ Sect. ... ¹⁴ See e.g. my review of Whittle’s Development of Agrarian Capitalism. Whittle herself (Development, –) comments on the serious lack of information for late medieval sub-tenancies.
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landlord and community, than they were in the early days of our period, when landlord decisions about investment seem to have been more assertive and certainly performed with greater flair (e.g. Henry of Eastry). Part of this ambivalence towards investment, especially on the part of landlords, was due to the establishment (or re-establishment) of a much stronger leasehold economy, not only in England but in other parts of Europe as well.¹⁵ Another notable feature of the milling industry’s investment pattern was its continuance on very traditional lines during the later Middle Ages. There was, for instance, little indication of merchants’ capital in milling,¹⁶ although more may have been involved in the form of loans by merchants to lessees, sublessees, or even tenant mill holders.¹⁷ Instead, the ‘new’ capital entering the milling industry in the later Middle Ages was still strongly oriented towards landed wealth, particularly gentry.¹⁸ Certainly this was reflected in the elaboration of the law, which increasingly emphasized the manor and the subdivisions within it (e.g. demesne versus tenant land) as critical elements determining the outcome of cases concerning milling. As such, it continued to support the locally oriented service aspect of the exploitation of wind and water power (in particular) and pushed more adventurous applications off to the margin. Given these general remarks about some of the key characteristics of the milling industry, what were the main features of its experience during the later Middle Ages? The first is that no industry could swim totally against the tide of demographic forces. This is perhaps obvious to the point of banality, but, as shown in the figures in Chapter , milling did respond to the sudden shrinking of demand by downsizing and rationalizing significantly in the century or so after the advent of the Black Death. Nonetheless, in terms of mill numbers, there was a certain shielding from the absolutely worst effects of the demand crash. Generally speaking, mills were treasured local amenities which both lords and tenants wished to be preserved, pre-eminently because mills were labour-saving devices in an age of acute labour shortage. Many mills seem to have survived remarkably well in very uncertain economic circumstances for considerable lengths of time, with landlords, it appears, being more than willing to put up with arrears and to continue to invest in milling enterprises for at least a half-century after the plague. Yet crises did occur over the course of the fifteenth century, and structural adjustments did have to be made, in particularly by passing on much of the responsibility for investment to lessees and tenants. Some of this represented a new turn for the industry, especially in the building of tenant industrial mills. But much may also have involved the ¹⁵ e.g. van Bavel, ‘Land, Lease and Agriculture’. ¹⁶ See Sect. .. above. ¹⁷ As, again, in the case of the seeming mill sub-lessee Thomas Daventry (Sect. ..).
¹⁸ Sect. ...
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perpetuation of already well-established trends, such as the consolidation of watermills on larger rivers, a development which had its roots in the twelfth century if not before.¹⁹ Although there were some signs at the end of our period that this movement was being checked or even reversed, particularly with the tearing-down of the watermills at Bitterne and Twyford, Hampshire, in the late s,²⁰ these larger watermill concerns were an increasingly notable feature on the late medieval English milling landscape. Part of this was due to a spirit of rationalization on the part of lords after , as they focused on the larger, more profitable operations while letting more marginal ones go.²¹ Also, as indicated in the concluding remarks for Chapter , when lords’ interest in milling investment slackened, the more well-to-do element among milling investors in the later Middle Ages sought out just these larger, well-established mills. This certainly might be seen as a reflection of the concentration of capital for bigger enterprises, but, as we have also seen in Chapter , it was rather feeble in its amplitude compared to that investment practised by lords up to the start of our period at least. On the other hand, it is hard to assess the impact of other forces, such as lack of bullion, civil war, or inclement weather.The fall in mill numbers from the late fourteenth to the mid-fifteenth century did coincide with the alleged period of bullion scarcity, a feature perhaps reflected in the increasing incidence of arrears at the time, but never—it would appear—to the extent that the industry was substantially threatened. A shift to rents in kind, which one might have expected in such a circumstance, never happened, nor were repairs and essential pieces of capital investment significantly disrupted for the majority of mills. This last point speaks to the durability of the infrastructure for milling in being able to attract both capital and labour, and—always—a reasonably dependable consumer base. As has been noted by many observers,²² the later Middle Ages should be seen in more positive terms, and the milling industry gives ample evidence for the durability of an economic activity in the face of demographic crisis. The increasingly unsettled political situation in England during the fifteenth century was also a potential source of disruption, but fortunately civil war did not seem to be accompanied by the wholesale destruction of mills (or other resources), as it was with the Scottish raiding particularly notable in the North in the early fourteenth century.²³ Weather obviously played a part at ¹⁹ Langdon, ‘Inland Water Transport—View from the Mills’. ²⁰ Sect. ..; Langdon, ‘Inland Water Transport—View from the Mills’, . ²¹ See Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, , ; id., ‘Inland Water Transport—View from the Mills’, . ²² Bridbury, Economic Growth; Dyer, Standards of Living, esp. ch. ; Hunt and Murray, History of Business. ²³ Or by Welsh raiding in the first decade of the th century: the Town Mill of Whitchurch, Shropshire, was
Condusion
times, as in the period – and again, more seriously it appears, in –,²⁴ but recovery from these weather episodes, although sometimes slow, did occur, as the figures from Chapter bear out. Altogether, the milling industry survived crises of all sorts remarkably well. The later Middle Ages is a period around which strong historical traditions have been created. Concepts such as the rise of capitalism, the decline of serfdom, the rise of an agrarian proletariat, and the decline of the feudal system have commanded the attention of scholars in the area. But the traditional stories of none of these actually fit the experience of the milling industry over the later Middle Ages. Capitalism, or at least capital investment, was seemingly stronger at the beginning of our period than at the end. The presence of a milling workforce working for cash again seems as appropriate for the beginning of our period as at its conclusion.The decline of serfdom is a phenomenon that has almost no meaning in later medieval milling. It is true that the concept of ‘villeinage’ provided some of the rationale behind the development of law concerning suit-of-mill cases in particular, but as the territory of the manor or the manorial category under which mills were held, demesne or tenant, gradually became the key issues for deciding legal cases involving mills, the personal status of the litigants became irrelevant.²⁵ Finally, the issue of the decline of feudalism seems especially inappropriate. Indeed, in terms of the legal framework in which milling functioned, one could argue that the industry remained very ‘feudal’ for several centuries beyond, say, , echoing F. W. Maitland’s famous remark that the feudal system itself could be seen as attaining ‘its most perfect development’ in the middle of the eighteenth century.²⁶ Certainly, it was not any fundamental fissures in the later medieval period driving the milling industry (even arguably the plague), but rather it was a slow fixing of legal attitudes and land- or asset-holding distinctions (especially demesne versus tenant) that were critical in determining the industry’s working environment. The milling industry from to is thus not a great supporter for seeing the later Middle Ages as a critical period for the restructuring of economic activity or social interactions. This does not mean that the period from to was unimportant for the industry, but that it was largely one of the conrecorded in the – account (for Blakemere and Doddington) as having been burned down by the Welsh (Shropshire Records and Research Centre, Shrewsbury, /box ). ²⁴ Sect. ... ²⁵ A process already evident in the th century: e.g. the case of Martin of Feltham and his wife, Agnes (Sect. ..). ²⁶ Maitland, Constitutional History, .
Condusion
solidation of a particular technical, legal, and business philosophy surrounding milling. Thus, the elimination of Hughesian ‘reverse salients’ was more evident than startling technological breakthroughs. The legal environment, founded mostly upon juridical principles and precedents established from the late twelfth to the early fourteenth century, increasingly provided a surer basis for determining the limits and possibilities for the exploitation of water and wind power. Also, the lines for successful business practice were more clearly drawn. The pre-eminent activity for harnessing water, wind, and muscle energy was still for grinding grain and this was only intensified during our period. Although greater use of water power in particular for industrial purposes was certainly evident, in essence it was nonetheless pushed to a more peripheral position or allocated a lower priority, that is, by passing into the tenant sector or to more thinly populated parts of the country. To close, I will cite a quotation by Eleanor Carus-Wilson revealing a somewhat old but nonetheless still reasonably well-regarded view of the later Middle Ages. Speaking of the cloth industry, Carus-Wilson stated: The story of the gradual emancipation of the [cloth] industry from seigneurial control does not concern us here, for it belongs to the later middle ages and is part of the larger story of the disintegration of the manor and the transition from medieval to modern. Indeed the development of the cloth industry mirrors the rise and decline of the manor as it does that of the gild.²⁷
This quotation is full of the language of discontinuity, which still dominates the literature concerning the transition from the medieval to the early modern period.²⁸ A host of great thinkers—Marx and Weber, for instance—have habituated us to thinking in such a fashion, and knowledge of momentous events soon to occur, such as the Reformation, can only reinforce this.²⁹ Yet this study, in most ways, has come to almost the exactly opposite conclusion: that is, the period was far from one of discontinuity but rather one of striking continuity and consolidation. The inexorable tightening of the law around the manor and subdivisions within it imparted an increasing rigidity upon the use of water (especially) and wind power, particularly in helping to maintain the use of wind and water power in a service orientation rather than seeing it subsumed in some larger economic activity. The interactions between the various participants in late medieval milling remained solidly entrenched in patterns that had been in place for centuries, very much conforming to E. P. Thompson’s view of pre²⁷ Carus-Wilson, ‘Industrial Revolution’, . ²⁸ The Brenner debate being a key example: Aston and Philpin (eds.), Brenner Debate. ²⁹ As does, of course, our academic habit of separating the medieval and early modern periods.
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industrial mentalities.³⁰ In short, the late medieval period was simply one stage—very much one of consolidation and reinforcement of traditional economic and social patterns—leading up to the key ‘rupture’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when these patterns began to break down and new ones took their place. As such, it fits in with other recent literature stressing continuous patterns of development from at least the thirteenth to the eighteenth century.³¹ Altogether, we must be more circumspect in our invocations of momentous economic and social change during the later Middle Ages. ³⁰ Esp. ‘Moral Economy’ and ‘Eighteenth-Century English Society’. ³¹ e.g. ‘The whole period from this commercial revolution [of the long th century] to the industrial revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries possessed an economic unity . . .’: Spufford, Power and Profit, . For the same in relation to agricultural production: see Campbell and Overton, ‘New Perspective’. Although the periodization is somewhat different, the same sort of argument is made by Marjorie McIntosh, who sees the transition from medieval to modern, in issues such as social control, as being drawn out over a much longer period than traditional interpretations have allowed: McIntosh, Controlling Misbehaviour, –.
Mill Computer Program A.. Introduction Since the computer program was custom-made by me, some explanation of its aims and logic is in order.The prime objective was to find a way of aggregating the individual mill experiences on the various manors into regional or national figures. For ease of comparison over the full period, the number of mills in the sample in was set at an index of 100. In order to create the figures shown in Chapter , the mill data for the various manors were entered in a form that essentially created individual graphs for the rise and fall of mill numbers for each manor over time, similar to those I have shown in a previous work, where the program was used for the first time.¹ For the various analyses, the program was designed to aggregate these graphs. If the data for all the manors in the sample had spanned the entire period from to , then this would simply have been a case of the computer, starting with the year , ‘reading’ the number of mills for that year on each individual graph and adding them all together to get a total. This process would simply be repeated for every year over the entire period and the resulting yearly totals plotted to yield the graph of the aggregated figures. But with many of the manors only supplying information for part of the period, another method had to devised in order to patch together this more fragmentary material.This involved the index for any particular year being calculated against the previous year’s index, using the formula I(Yr) = I(Yr - 1) ¥ (T1/T2), where I = mill index (set at for the year ); Yr = the year for which the index is being calculated;T1 = the total number of mills for the year concerned as measured from the mill graphs; T2 = the total number of mills for the preceding year as measured from the mill graphs. A critical requirement for this computation was that, in calculating the change in index from the previous year to the next, only those graphs that spanned both years were involved. For example, if the index for the year were being calculated, the graphs for those manorial mill histories which only started in (that is, the first documentary reference was in that year) were excluded from the calculation of that year’s index, as were any graphs that ended in . In effect, then, the computer went year by year through the sample, starting in , only considering those manors whose ‘graphs’ covered the year being measured and the previous year. This procedure of calculating the current year’s index on the basis of the previous year’s works well if the number of mills being counted over the two consecutive years is large. But if the number covering the two years is small—say, for horse-mills or for ¹ Langdon, ‘Water-Mills and Windmills’, esp. .
Appendix
industrial mills other than fulling—then the change noted in the index from one year to the next can be exaggerated. For example, if there are only four horse-mills in the sample and one drops out, say because it became derelict, then the index of horse-mills will drop by a quarter, say from down to . In other words, changes based on shrinking sample sizes will create outsize changes in the indices. As the sample size in general declined towards the end of our period, due in part to such things as conventual estates losing their administrative vigour (thus resulting in the ending of many monastic account series by the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries), the tendency for exaggerating change increased. Thus, for example, the sudden rise of industrial mills at the end of our period, although certainly real enough, is probably exaggerated somewhat by the lower base number of mills in the sample as a whole. Unfortunately it is difficult to do much about this, except to recognize it as a problem and to exercise the proper caution in interpreting the results.
A.. The Computer Program The following is the program as composed in Basic along with the data statements for the first manor (for Wargrave, Berkshire) as an example: 5 REM MILLSUM PROGRAM 10 DIM I(241): DIM S(2): DIM X(2): DIM (T2): DIM Y(2): DIM M(2) 15 LET YR = 1300 20 LET I(YR - 1299) = 100 30 LET S(1) = 0: LET S(2) = 0: LET X(1) = 0: LET X(2) = 0 40 LET T(1) = 0: LET S(1) = 0: LET X(1) = 0 50 READ A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, L, N, O, P, Z 55 IF E = 100 AND YR = 1300 THEN 300 60 IF A = 100 THEN 130 70 IF E > YR THEN 50 80 IF E = YR AND Z = 1 THEN LET T(1) = T(1) + F: GOTO 50 90 IF E = YR AND Z = 2 THEN LET S(1) = S(1) + F: GOTO 50 100 IF E = YR AND Z = 3 THEN LET X(1) = X(1) + F: GOTO 50 110 IF E < YR AND Z = 3 THEN 50 120 IF E < YR AND Z <> 3 THEN GOSUB 500 122 IF E = YR THEN 80 125 GOTO 50 130 LET T(1) = T(1) + X(1) 140 LET T(2) = T(2) + S(2) - X(2) 150 I(YR - 1299) = T(1) / T(2) * I(YR - 1300) 160 LET S(2) = S(1) 170 LET X(2) = X(1) 300 LPRINT YR, INT(I(YR - 1299) + .5), T(1), S(1), X(1) 310 LET T(2) = T(1) 320 LET YR = YR + 1 330 IF YR = 1541 THEN 360
Appendix
340 RESTORE 350 GOTO 40 360 END 500 REM T INTERPOLATION SUBROUTINE 510 LET Y(1) = E: M(1) = F 520 READ A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, L, N, O, P, Z 525 IF E = YR THEN 560 526 IF E < YR AND Z = 3 THEN 560 530 IF E < YR THEN LET Y(1) = E 535 IF E < YR THEN LET M(1) = F: GOTO 520 540 IF E > YR THEN LET Y(2) = E 545 IF E > YR THEN LET M(2) = F 550 LET T(1) = T(1) + M(1) + (M(2) - M(1) ) * (YR - Y(1) ) / (Y(2) - Y(1) ) 560 RETURN 1000 DATA 0201,2,2,2,1300,1,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0201,2,2,2,1415,1,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0, 1,0201,2,2,2, 1416,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0201,2,2,2,1423,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0201,2, 2,2,1424,1,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0201,2,2,2,1430,1,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1 1001 DATA 0201,2,2,2,1432,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0201,2,2,2,1540,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1 The data for other manors followed. Those manors with no mills at any time between and — manors in all—did not have to be entered. A final, fictional data statement with slots A to E set to and slots F to Z set at warned the computer that it had reached the end of the data and would need to restore them for the next iteration.
A.. Other Comments I am not a professional programmer (I learned computer programming as part of a chemical engineering degree many years ago), so this program may be less economical than it might be. But it does work, and was tested against small samples to start with, where I could check the results by hand. Some basic features of the program are as follows.The data statements contained different slots (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, L, N, O, P, Z) for the data for each account on the manor entered into the program. Slot A was reserved for the manor code. In the case of Wargrave, Berkshire, for example, this was 0201. The ‘02’ of the number referred to the second of the counties in medieval England alphabetically, Berkshire (there were no Bedfordshire manors with mills in the sample), while the ‘01’ referred to Wargrave as the first manor in the county sample. The next slot, B, indicated the region for the manor, 1 being East Anglia (comprising Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk), 2 being the Home Counties (Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, Middlesex, and Surrey), 3 being the South (Hampshire, Kent, Sussex, and Wiltshire), 4 being the South-West (Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset), 5 being the East Midlands (Huntingdonshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, and Rutland), 6 being the West Midlands (Cheshire, Derbyshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire), and 7
Appendix
being the North (Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, Westmorland, and Yorkshire).² Slot C indicated whether the manor involved was lay or ecclesiastical, with 1 indicating a lay manor and 2 an ecclesiastical one. Slot D was for indicating whether the manor was in a rural or urban situation, 1 indicating a rural manor and 2 an urban one. Slot E indicated the year of the account or other document employed. Slot F indicated the total number of mills on the manor, whether powered by water, wind, or horse. Slot G indicated the number of tenant mills. Slot H was for the number of water-mills (both for grain-milling and industrial uses). Slot J indicated the number of windmills. Slot K was for the number of horse-mills. Slot L was for the number of fulling-mills. Slot N was for the number of industrial mills other than those for fulling. Slot O was used for a code to indicate what sort of industrial mills were in slot N, while slot P indicated what sort of tenants mills were in slot G. Finally, slot Z was used to indicate whether a manor was entering the sample, leaving the sample, or neither. A number 1 in slot Z indicated that were data for the manor before and after this particular year, or that the year was either or . A number 2 in slot Z indicated that this was the first year of data for that manor in the sample, while 3 indicated that it was the last year of data for the manor. The number of data statements entered into the program was pared down to a minimum. For example, in the data statements shown for Wargrave, eight accounts were sampled from to the – account, when the watermill was shut down for lack of tenants on March .³ All accounts in between showed a single watermill in operation. But, for the purposes of the program, only two statements were used, one showing a single watermill in and another showing a single watermill in , in effect showing a single watermill across the entire interval from to . For , however, the statement shows no mills at all. The mill was inactive until the – account,⁴ when it was resurrected by a tenant. Thus, no mills are shown operating in the computer program for , but one in . This rescue of the mill lasted only a short while, since the mill was shown operating in the – account but was down in the – account.⁵ Thus again a mill is shown in the program as running in but not in . As far could can be seen, no mill operated on the bishop of Winchester’s manor at Wargrave from to , so only one more set of data (for ) was needed to indicate this. As the computer did its calculations year by year, for each year the following information was printed out, as indicated in statement 300. The first was the year itself. The second was the mill index (rounded off to the nearest integer), which resulted from the computer calculation for that particular year. Also printed out were T(1), which gave the total mills counted by the program for that year; S(1), which gave the number of mills on manors first entering the program for that year (that is, those statements where Z = 2); and X(1), which indicated the number of mills leaving the program for that year ² These regional divisions were also used in Langdon, Horses, Oxen: see p. (table ). ³ HRO M B. ⁴ HRO M B/. ⁵ HRO M B/, . In terms of deciding whether the mill should be considered as going down in or , it was decided to use the year in which most of the account fell. Thus, since the account for – ran from Michaelmas ( Sept.) to Michaelmas , the majority of the account lay in , so that year was chosen as the putative year of going down, even though the mill was clearly down for part of as well.
Appendix
(that is, those contained in statements where Z = 3). Printing T(1), S(1), and X(1) proved very useful in tracking exactly what the program was doing and assisted greatly in the weeding out of errors in the program or in the data statements. Many variations can be performed on the program. For the program as set out above, where the total mills in the sample were being measured, the data from slot F was employed in statements 80, 90, 100, 510, 535, and 545 in the program. If the movement of windmill numbers in the sample were desired, the data from slot J was used instead of that from slot F; if fulling-mills, the data from slot L; and so on.The movement of mills in each region could be measured by excluding all the regions except the one for which the information was desired by simply adding another statement after statement 50 (e.g. for looking at mills in the Home Counties, as in the case of Wargrave in Berkshire, the statement 52 IF B <> 2 GOTO 50—that is, if B is not equal to 2 read the next set of data—was inserted to exclude data from all other regions). Analyses of mills on lay versus ecclesiastical and rural versus urban manors were performed using similar statements (e.g. if the mills on lay manors only were desired, a statement including lay manors but excluding ecclesiastical ones would be added: i.e. 53 IF C <> 1 GOTO 50). For doing the ‘corrected’ version of the figures in Chapter , an extra string of data was added for the year for each manor which replicated the numbers and types of mill found in the next preceding statement. For example, if a manor showed a single watermill for , but none in , a set of data was added which showed that manor as still having one watermill in . It is hoped that those who might wish to use this program or something like it can follow its logic. It is a relatively short program, which mostly revolves around the subroutine given in lines 500 to 560. This subroutine ‘reads’ off values in between sets of data. For example, in the case of a manor with one watermill in and none in employed above, for, say, the year , the subroutine will, in effect, treat the number of mills from to as a straight line starting at 1 and going down to 0; since is at the mid-point it will ‘read’ a value of 0.5 mills for the manor and add it to the total— T(1)—of the mill numbers read from the other manorial mill histories in the sample for . In such a way, this program can create aggregated time series from fragmentary strings of evidence for many manors. I have used it in this study to show the relative movement over time of mills, but theoretically it could be employed for other purposes, such as, say, aggregating numbers of tenants on manors over time from extents and surveys.
Manors Sampled for the Mill Computer Program The following lists the manors sampled for the mill computer program with some indication of their sources.They are arranged by county and give, first, the manor name, followed by the name of the lord of the manor, and then the period of time covered by the documentation for the manor. A letter ‘R’ following the period of time indicates that the manor was categorized as being ‘rural’, while the letter ‘U’ designates the manor as ‘urban’. Finally, the letter ‘Y’ indicates that the manor had mills at some time at least during the period indicated, while the letter ‘N’ indicates that the manor never had any mills. Bedfordshire . Holme and Langford, Westminster Abbey, –, R, N. Berkshire . Wargrave, bishopric of Winchester, –, U, Y. . Brightwell, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Harwell, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Billingbear, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. . Culham, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. . Waltham St Lawrence, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. . Warfield, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. Buckinghamshire . Denham, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Turweston, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Halton, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Monks Risborough, Canterbury Cathedral Prior, –, R, Y. . Ivinghoe, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Morton, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. Cambridgeshire . Great Shelford, bishopric of Ely, –, R, Y. Cheshire . Halton, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Whitley, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Congleton, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Runcorn, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Marbury, Lestrange–Talbot family, –, R, Y.
Appendix
. Moore, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Cornwall . Tintagel, earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, U, Y. . Stoke Climsland, earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, R, Y. . Helston-in-Kerrier, earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, U, Y. . Rillaton (in Linkinhorne parish), earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, R, Y. . Helstone-in-Trigg (in Camelford parish), earldom/duchy of Cornwall, – , R, Y. . Liskeard, earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, U, Y. . ‘Penkneth’ (Penknight, in Lanlivery parish), earldom/duchy of Cornwall, – , R, Y. . Penlyne (in Lanlivery parish), earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, R, Y. . Tywarnhaile (in Perranzabuloe), earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, R, Y. . Trematon (in St Stephen’s by Saltash parish), earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, U, Y. . Restormel (in Lostwithiel parish), earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, R, Y. . Lostwithiel, earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, U, Y. . Calstock, earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, R, Y. . Tewington (in St Austell, St Blazey, and Roche parishes), earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, R, Y. . Launceston, earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, U, Y. . Talskiddy (in St Colomb Major parish), earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, R, N. Cumberland . Penrith, Crown/Queen (in hands of Queen Philippa in –), –, U, Y. . Scotby, Crown/Queen, –, R, Y. . Carleton, Crown/Queen, –, R, Y. . Langwathby, Crown/Queen, –, R. Y. . Great Salkeld, Crown/Queen, –, R. Y. Derbyshire . Southwood, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Bonsall, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Wirksworth, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Matlock, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Idridgehay, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Alderwasley, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Ireton Wood (probably now Ireton Houses, ¼ miles east of Belper), earldom/ duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Hartington, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Melbourne, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Duffield, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Belper, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y.
Appendix . . . . . .
Scropton, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Brassington, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Hulland, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Spondon, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Holbrook, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Heage, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N.
Devon . Bradninch, earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, U, Y. . Lydford, earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, U, Y. . Dartmoor, earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, R, Y. . ‘South-Teign’ (Teigncombe, associated with manor of ‘Wyke’—Greatweek—in Chagford parish), earldom/duchy of Cornwall, –, R, Y. Dorset There were no manors for Dorset in the sample. Durham . Hedworth (in Jarrow parish), Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Westoe (in Jarrow parish), Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Nether Heworth (in Jarrow parish), Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Rainton (in Houghton-le-Spring parish), Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Pittington (and Moorsley), Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Monk Hesleden, Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Ketton (in Aycliffe parish), Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R. Y. . Aycliffe, Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Shelom (in Kirk Merrington parish), Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Ferryhill (in Merrington parish), Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Muggleswick, Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Burdon (in Haughton le Skerne parish), Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Newton Bewley (in Billingham parish), Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Elvet and Old Borough (in Durham), Durham Cathedral Priory, –, U, Y. . Wolviston, Durham Cathedral Priory, Durham Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Essex . Birdbrook, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Feering, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Kelvedon, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Bocking, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Borley, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y.
Appendix
. ‘Lalling’ (manor of Lawling, by Lawling Creek, an inlet on the Broadwater estuary, south of Osea Island), Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . ‘Middleton’ (Milton Hall in Prittlewell parish), Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Gloucestershire . Bibury, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Bishop’s Cleeve, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Blockley, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Henbury and Stoke Bishop, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Withington, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Minchinhampton, Abbey of Caen, –, U, Y. . Todenham, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Hardwick and Deerhurst, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Redmarley D’Abitot, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. Hampshire . Overton, bishopric of Winchester, –, U, Y. . High Clere, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Burghclere, bishopric of Winchester, –, U. Y. . Ecchinswell, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . East Woodhay, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Fareham, bishopric of Winchester, –, U, Y. . Havant and Brockhampton, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Alverstoke (in Gosport), bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Bishop’s Waltham, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Droxford, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Twyford, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Bishopstoke, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . East Meon Manor (and Church), bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Hambledon Manor (and Church), bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Bishops Sutton, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Cheriton, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Old Alresford, bishopric of Winchester, –, U, Y. . Bitterne, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Wolvesey (in Winchester), bishopric of Winchester, –, U, Y. . Burley, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Merdon (near Hursley), bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. . Crawley, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. . North Waltham, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. . Newton, bishopric of Winchester, –, U, N. . Ashmansworth, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. . Bentley, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. . Beauworth, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. . Wield, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N.
Appendix
. Marwell, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. . ‘Eston’ (probably Easton, miles north-east of Winchester), bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. . Henley (c. miles west-north-west of Burghclere), bishopric of Winchester, – , R, N. . Binsted (near Alton), bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. Herefordshire . Blakemere, Lestranges/Talbots, –, R, Y. Hertfordshire . Harpenden and Wheathampstead, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Kingsbourne, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. Huntingdonshire . Glatton and Holme, duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Weston, Ramsey Abbey, –, R, Y. . Wistow, Ramsey Abbey, –, R, Y. . Elton, Ramsey Abbey, –, R, Y. Kent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Westerham, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. Adisham, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Agney with Orgarswick, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Appledore, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Great Chart, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Chartham, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Cliffe (or Westcliffe) and Cooling, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. East Farleigh, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. West Farleigh, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Godmersham, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Hollingbourne, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Loose, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Lydden (on the Isle of Thanet), Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Mersham, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Monkton, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Orpington, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y.
Lancashire . Widnes, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Manor of ‘Ulnes-walton’ (north-east of Croston on both sides of the River Lostock and including the communities of Walton(-le-Dale), Eccleston, Leyland, and Grimsargh); earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Wapentake of Clitheroe, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Forest of Bowland (with communities of Chatburn, Grindleton, and (West) Bradford), duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. These communities straddle the
Appendix
Yorkshire–Lancashire border, with Grindleton and West Bradford being in Yorkshire and Chatburn in Lancashire. Since they are attached to the honour of Clitheroe, however, they are all considered here as being in Lancashire. . Tottington, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. Leicestershire . Earl Shilton, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Desford, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Leicester, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Hinckley, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, U, N. . Sileby, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. . Heathley, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. . Stapleford, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. . Glenfield, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Lincolnshire . Old Bolingbroke, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Steeping, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . South Thoresby, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . ‘Wathall’ (Waithe, just north of Grainsby), earldom/duchy of Lancaster, – , R, Y. . Waddington, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Thorley, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. . Barrow upon Humber, Crown, –, R, N. Middlesex . Ashford, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . ‘Eye’ (Erbury; about a mile west of Westminster), Westminster Abbey, – , R, Y. . Halliford, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Hampstead, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Laleham, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Staines and Yeoveney, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Knightsbridge, Westminster Abbey, –, R, N. . Teddington, Westminster Abbey, –, R, N. Norfolk . Deopham, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Bircham, lands originally of Gilbert de Clare, –, R, Y. . Eaton, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Hindolveston, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Hindringham, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Martham, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Melton, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Plumstead, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Sedgeford, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y.
Appendix . . . . . . .
Thornham, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Brancaster, Ramsey Abbey, –, R, Y. Gateley, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, N. Gnatingdon, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, N. North Elmham, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, N. Scratby, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, N. Taverham, Norwich Cathedral Priory, –, R, N.
Northamptonshire . Raunds, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Higham Ferrers, duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Passenham, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Desborough, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Rushden, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. . Irchester, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Northumberland . Wallsend and Willington (in Jarrow parish), Durham Cathedral Priory, – , R, Y. . Embleton, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Stamford, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Shipley, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Dunstanburgh, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. . Burton, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Nottinghamshire . Gringley on the Hill, Crown/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Wheatley, Crown/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Oxfordshire . Islip, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Launton, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Adderbury, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Witney, bishopric of Winchester, –, U, Y. . Wardington, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Rutland . Oakham, Westminster Abbey, –, U, Y. Shropshire . Doddington, Lestranges/Talbots, –, R, Y. . Whitchurch, Lestranges/Talbots, –, U, Y. . Lyneal, Lestranges/Talbots, –, R, Y. . Boraston, Worcester Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y.
Appendix
Somerset . Taunton (Castle Mills, ‘Poulmill’, and ‘Tobridge Mill’), bishopric of Winchester, –, U, Y. . Communities around Taunton (Langford, Pitminster, Hull, Trull, Kingston, Corfe, Nailbourne), bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. (As the majority of these communities were to the south of Taunton, in Map . I have combined them in a single point just south of Taunton.) . Otriford (and Watley), bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Rimpton, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Walton, Glastonbury Abbey, –, R, Y. . Glastonbury, Glastonbury Abbey, –, U, Y. . Ashcott, Glastonbury Abbey, –, R, N. . Baltonsborough, Glastonbury Abbey, –, R, N. . Greinton, Glastonbury Abbey, –, R, N. . Street, Glastonbury Abbey, –, R, N. Staffordshire . Tutbury, duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Uttoxeter, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Marchington, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Barton-under-Needwood, duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Asgardley, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Suffolk . Monk Eleigh, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Hadleigh, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Chevington, Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, –, R, Y. . Fornham All Saints, Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, –, R, Y. . Fornham St Martin, Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, –, R, Y. Surrey . Battersea, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Morden, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Pyrford, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Merstham, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Farnham, bishopric of Winchester, –, U, Y. . Esher, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Southwark, bishopric of Winchester, –, U, Y. . Claygate, Westminster Abbey, –, R, N. . Charlwood, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, –, R, N. . Snailslinch (now Snailslinch Farm in Farnham parish), bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. Sussex . Beddingham, Waleys family, –, R, Y.
Appendix . . . .
Bosham, Brothertons–Mowbrays–Berkeleys, –, R, Y. Lullington, Battle Abbey, –, R, Y. Chalvington, de Sackvilles, –, R, Y. Apuldram, Battle Abbey, –, R, N.
Warwickshire . Hampton Lucy with Hatton, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Tredington, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Sutton-under-Brailes, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Knowle, Westminster Abbey, –, R, Y. . Alveston, Worcester Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. . Berkswell, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. . Brailes, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. . Sutton Coldfield, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. . Lighthorne, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. . Budbrooke, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. . Claverdon, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. . Erdington, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. . Warwick, earldom of Warwick, –, U, Y. Westmorland . Temple Sowerby, Crown/Queen, –, R, Y. Wiltshire . East Knoyle, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Downton, bishopric of Winchester, –, U, Y. . ‘Ebblesbourne’ (Bishopstone), bishopric of Winchester, –, R, Y. . Longbridge Deverill, Glastonbury Abbey, –, R, Y. . Monkton Deverill, Glastonbury Abbey, –, R, Y. . Hindon, bishopric of Winchester, –, U, N. . Upton Knoyle, bishopric of Winchester, –, R, N. Worcestershire . Alvechurch, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Bredon, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Fladbury (with Throckmorton and Bradley), bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Hanbury, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Hartlebury, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Kempsey, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Northwick and Whitstones, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Ripple, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Wick Episcopi, bishopric of Worcester, –, R, Y. . Pershore (with Bricklehampton, Pensham, Pinvin, and Wick), Westminster Abbey, –, U, Y.
Appendix
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Broadwas, Worcester Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Cleeve Prior, Worcester Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Harvington, Worcester Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Moor (in Lindridge), Worcester Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Newnham, Worcester Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Overbury (and Teddington), Worcester Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Sedgeberrow, Worcester Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Tibberton, Worcester Cathedral Priory, –, R, Y. Shrawley, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. Elmley Castle, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. Elmley Lovett, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. Bushley, earldom of Warwick, –, R, Y. Leopard Grange (in parish of St Martin, Worcester), –, U, N.
Yorkshire . Tickhill, Crown/duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Laughton en le Morthen, Crown/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Bradford, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Cowick (and Snaith), earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Almondbury, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Kippax, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Barwick in Elmet, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Scholes (in Barwick in Elmet), earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Knottingley, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Cridling Stubbs, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Campsall, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Elmsall, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Owston, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Tanshelf (in Pontefract), earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Warmfield, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Ackworth, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Rothwell, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Leeds, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, U, Y. . Marsden (‘Marcheden’), duchy of Lancaster, –, R, Y. . Easington, Crown (or Crown grantees, such as the Staffords in the fifteenth century), –, R, Y. . Keyingham, Crown, –, R, Y. . Owthorne and Withernsea, Crown, –, R, Y. . Lelley and Dyke, Crown, –, R, Y. . Preston (near Marfleet), Crown, –, R, Y. . Burton Pidsea, Crown, –, R, Y. . Skeffling, Crown, –, R, Y. . Burstwick/Bondburstwick, Crown, –, R, Y. . Cleeton (near Skipsea), Crown, –, R, Y.
Appendix . . . . . . . . .
Kilnsea, Crown, –, R, Y. Allerton, earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. ‘Beighall’ (Beal), earldom/duchy of Lancaster, –, R, N. Little Humber (in Paull), Crown, –, R, N. Lambwath, Crown, –, R, N. Paulsfleet, Crown, –, R, N. Elstonwick, Crown, –, R, N. Sproatley, Crown, –, R, N. Skeckling, Crown, –, R, N.
In the above, of the manors had strings of data covering the full years from to ; of the manors had strings in the range of – years; in the range of – years; in the range of – years; and in the range of – years. Space prevents a detailed listing of sources, since an estimated ,–, documents were examined in creating the mill histories for the manors. Some indication is provided through the lord of the manor, as shown below, while references to specific documents are given frequently throughout the book. For particularly detailed examples of manorial mill histories, see Appendix and Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’.
T A.. Main documentary series for the mill computer program Lord of manor
Main document series
Bishopric of Ely Bishopric of Winchester Bishopric of Worcester
PRO SC series, under Great Shelford HRO M B/– (available on microfiche) Red Book of Worcester; various document series as in Dyer, Lords and Peasants, –
Abbey of Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch, E series Charters and Custumals of . . . Holy Trinity Caen; PRO SC , PRO SC series Longleat House MSS (available on microfilm); see Harris, Glastonbury Abbey Records WAM accounts, surveys, extents, etc.: see Harvey, Westminster Abbey, for manor-by-manor lists, esp. –
Abbey of Caen Battle Abbey Glastonbury Abbey Westminster Abbey
Norwich Cathedral Priory Worcester Cathedral Priory
CCA DCc Registers J, K; MA , MA, MA , MA; various account series, listed by manor Durham Cathedral Priory Rentals, Bursar’s Rentals; DCD Bursar’s Books A, D, J, L; DCD Bursar’s Accounts NRO DCN series WCL C series
Crown/Queen
PRO SC series
Canterbury Cathedral Priory Durham Cathedral Priory
Appendix
T A.. Continued Lord of manor
Main document series
Earldom/duchy of Lancaster Earldom/duchy of Cornwall
PRO DL series Ministers’ Accounts of the Earldom of Cornwall; PRO SC series PRO SC series; BRL; SBT; WaRO; WoRO; Ministers’ Accounts of . . . the Duke of Clarence; Inquisitions Post Mortem for the County of Worcester WSRO Acc. IIA/–; Acc. III/– ESRO SAS CH –A, – Shropshire Records and Research Centre , boxes –, , – ESRO Glynde MSS , A–
Earldom of Warwick
Brothertons/Mowbrays/Berkeleys De Sackville family Lestranges/Talbots Waleys family
Note: I am particularly grateful to Christopher Dyer for kindly lending and allowing me to cite his voluminous notes, particularly for the bishopric of Worcester, Worcester Cathedral Priory, and the earldom of Warwick material.
Mills and Their Revenues on a Medieval Manor: Birdbrook, Essex, – The following provides a narrative of the milling experience on the Westminster Abbey manor of Birdbrook in Essex, indicating complexities involved in operating mills and how their revenue experience could fluctuate considerably over the period. When the account series for Birdbrook starts in –, there appears to have been a demesne windmill and a tenant watermill on the demesne. The tenant watermill, like most mills of this type, had a shadowy existence on the manor, only appearing in , when the mill was reclaimed by the abbey,¹ at the same time as a fulling-mill was constructed on the demesne. The demesne windmill, however, was prominent in the records from the start. In the s it was being leased for a rent in kind of quarters of grain. Initially the grain was rye, as indicated in the – and – accounts,² but by the early fourteenth century it was described as quarter of wheat and quarters of unspecified grains, perhaps equivalent to the mixtura or ‘mixed grains’ described for many other mills.³ This quantity of multure grains was supplied until the famine years starting in . The – account, for example, recorded that quarter of wheat was received but only quarters of other grains ‘because of the deficiency of corn in the countryside’.⁴ By the windmill was operated directly and only brought in quarters and bushel of multure grains for that year, although quarters bushels may already have been paid as livery, or wages in kind, to the miller.⁵ The abbey quickly leased the mill again once the crisis had passed, but only at a reduced rent of quarters of grain per year, which situation lasted until at least the early s.⁶ By the late s, however, the rent had risen to ½ quarters per year.⁷ This heralded an optimistic time for milling on the manor, because the abbey soon added the reclaimed tenant watermill and the fulling-mill mentioned above. In –, on the eve of the Black Death, the abbey was receiving quarters of grain from the windmill plus s. cash rent from the water grain mill and s. d. from the fulling-mill.⁸ Setting the value of the grain at a notional value ¹ The account, covering Feb. to Sept. , refers to the watermill as being de nouo perquisitio, which could mean being purchased (the more narrow interpretation) or simply acquired (for example, through lack of heirs or by grant): WAM . ² WAM –. ³ e.g. Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, . ⁴ . . . pro defectu bladi in patria: WAM . ⁵ This is suggested in the account by a crossed-out entry of quarters and bushels of grain paid to the miller in the ‘Liveries of the Famulorum’ section: WAM . ⁶ As indicated in the – and – accounts: WAM , . ⁷ As in the – account: WAM . ⁸ WAM .
Appendix
of s. per quarter, the average price of rye during the period –,⁹ the total revenues came to s. d. The plague brought a sharp reduction to milling revenues on the manor. For the first three-quarters of the plague year of – itself, only ½ quarters of grain was received from the windmill, while the rent from the corn-mill was cut in half to s. and that for the fulling-mill reduced to s. ¼d.¹⁰ In the summer of lessees could be found for neither the windmill nor the fulling-mill, the previous lessees presumably having died in the plague.¹¹ In the first full year after the advent of the plague for which an undamaged account survives, –, the operation of the mills was still very erratic.The fulling-mill only brought in s. from an expected s. d., ‘because it stood idle for a quarter-year’, while both the water corn-mill and windmill did not operate at all for the entire year because of the lack of tenants.¹² Stability in the revenue production of the mills did not occur until the middle of the decade, where in – the water corn-mill was leased at s., the windmill at s. d, and the fulling-mill at s.¹³ The water cornmill was clearly doing better at the expense of the windmill, but altogether revenues must be taken as being sharply down, only . per cent of those in –.¹⁴ Even this level of revenues was transitory. By – the fulling-mill stood idle because no one wished to lease it; the revenues for the water corn-mill had similarly dropped to s., although that for the windmill rose to s.¹⁵ Altogether, at s. the milling revenues for the manor now stood at . per cent of what they had been in –. The milling revenues bumped along at this level throughout the s, seeing a slight rise early in the next decade, where by – milling revenues for the windmill and watermill had risen to s. d. (or . per cent of the – levels).¹⁶ This signalled a steady rise in revenues over the next fifteen to twenty years. By – revenues had risen to £ s. d. (or . per cent of – levels). In the following year (–) the derelict fulling-mill was refurbished at a cost of £ s. d.,¹⁷ and by – the water corn-mill, windmill, and fulling-mill brought in a total of £ s. d. in rent per year (or . per cent of the – levels),¹⁸ a level of rents that continued virtually to the end of the century.¹⁹ This remarkable recovery in revenue levels did not last long, however. The windmill blew down in –, never to be rebuilt (in the medieval period at least) and the rent levels claimed by the water corn-mill and fulling-mill both declined sharply; by – rents levels for the corn- and fulling-mill were at s. d. (or . per cent of – levels).²⁰ By – this was down to s. d. (or . per cent of – levels).²¹ Things continued to get worse. By – the fulling-mill was down for good,²² and rents for the ⁹ AHEW ii. . ¹⁰ i.e. from September to June : WAM . ¹¹ WAM . ¹² WAM . ¹³ WAM . ¹⁴ The revenues for – equalled s. (for the water corn-mill) + s. (for the fulling-mill) + s. d. (for the windmill) = s. d. or ,d. For – they were s. d. or ,d. The mill revenues for – as a percentage of those for – were thus (/) ¥ = . per cent. The process is the same for the other calculations below. ¹⁵ WAM . ¹⁶ WAM . ¹⁷ WAM . ¹⁸ WAM . The fulling-mill had a small amount of meadow attached to it, which a later account (–: WAM ) valued at s. For convenience, this has been ignored in the computations. ¹⁹ Rents levels for the mills were the same in – (WAM ) as in –. ²⁰ WAM , . ²¹ WAM . ²² WAM .
Appendix
water corn-mill were declining, partly because of water shortages.²³ There seems to have been a short period of dereliction for the watermill until it was rebuilt in –, possibly as a result of flooding in that year.²⁴ After the rebuilding, annual rents for the water corn-mill stabilized at £ (or . per cent of – levels),²⁵ an approximate level it held until at least the late s. By now, however, the mill was in trouble. Although the yearly rent was still nominally at £ s. in –,²⁶ the lessee, John Wright at this time, was clearly having difficulties. In –, it was recorded that he was now a ‘fugitive’, owing £ s. d. arrears for the farm of the mill from six years before. John’s successor as lessee, Thomas Wright (a relative?), now held the mill for a reduced rent of s. d. (or . per cent of – levels).²⁷ Thomas and his lessee successors maintained this rent level right through to the end of the account series in –.²⁸ ²³ As recorded in –, where rents for the water corn-mill stood at s. d., ‘and no more because it stood vacant . . . because of lack of water’: WAM . ²⁴ WAM . ²⁵ As in –: WAM . ²⁶ WAM . ²⁷ WAM . ²⁸ For example, Thomas Wright still held the mill in –, a John Dyk held it in –, and John Dyker (presumably the John Dyk of –) and John Meryell together held it in –: WAM , , .
Construction of a New Windmill at Burstwick, Yorkshire ¹ Mill Costs (Custus Molendini) The same [official] accounts in wood for post and other wood felled in the park [?; specific location not given] and sawn (secando) for making the mill of Burstwick from new, and in the said mill ‘carpentered and set down’ (carpentando & assidendo), s. In boards bought for the walls of the same [mill], s. In boards² bought for roofing the said mill, s. In , nails bought for the same [mill], s. d. In diverse men hired for lifting the wood of the mill, s. In sailyards (virgis) bought for the ‘arms’ [that is, the sails] of the mill, s. In small [pieces of ] alder wood ‘for dressing the same [sails?]’ (pro eisdem vestiendis), d. In pieces of iron bought for the spindle(s) (ad fusill’) of the mill and other necessaries of the same [mill], s. d. In fabricating large spindle and another small spindle with the old spindle from Danthorp³ mill, namely from pieces of iron, s. d.⁴ In fabricating collars [presumably of iron] between the great post and the schertres,⁵ d. In fabricating plate ‘in the head (or extremity) of the post (in capite postis)’ from pieces of iron, collar under the axle from pieces of iron,⁶ ‘cods’⁷ in the head of the axle from pieces of iron, collar ‘in the external extremity of the axle (in forinseco capite axis)’⁸ from pieces [of iron] and mill iron⁹ from pieces of iron, s. ¹ Translated from Latin: PRO SC /, m. v. ² Given the obviously lesser price per board for these roofing ‘boards’ than those for the walls, it seems likely that they were were probably more like wooden shingles. ³ In Humbleton parish. ⁴ i.e. the new spindles were made from the iron from the old Danthorp spindle plus some new iron. ⁵ Sheer-trees: two horizontal beams running across the bottom of the mill-house and enclosing the central post: see Sect. ... ⁶ I suspect that this is an iron collar or circle around the axle at the front or ‘neck’ bearing nearest to the windmill sails (see e.g. Brown, Windmills of England, ), which took the brunt of the weight. ⁷ From coddus: a metal bolster or ‘pillow’ (Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-List, ), upon which the axle would rest. Here the two ‘cods’ are probably for the front bearing. ⁸ It is difficult to be certain about this, but I suspect this ‘external’ (or ‘further’?) end of the axle was the one towards the back of the mill and that the four pieces of iron created a hoop over this end of the axle to prevent it from lifting upwards owing to the weight of the sails on the other end. ⁹ ?; this is probably a ‘mill bill’, that is, a pick for cleaning out the grooves in the millstones.
Appendix
In expenses of diverse men for building up (literally ‘fattening’; pingando) and enlarging the foundation (fundo) of the mill and again replenishing [it], s. In ells¹⁰ ‘of great cloth’ (grossae telae) for the sails of the windmill (ad vela molendini) with the expenses of one man going to Barton¹¹ [to fetch the cloth], s. ½d. In clothing the same sails, d. In soap and grease for the same mill because it has been newly built, d. In lock with key for the door of the same [mill], ½d. In buying small basket (In j parvo corbello . . . empto) for putting the multure [grains], ½d. In millstones bought at Beverley with the carriage of the same, s. d.¹² In the same [millstones] ‘repaired’ (reparandis; probably ‘prepared’ meant) and laid down ‘upon’ (super; ‘in’ meant) the mill, ½d. Sum [total] £ d. ¹⁰ An ell of cloth was normally one between a yard and a quarter and a yard and a half in length: Select Tracts and Table Books, , , ; see also Langdon, ‘Birth and Demise’, n. . ¹¹ Probably Barton upon Humber (Lincolnshire). ¹² From the low price these are clearly local Yorkshire stones, probably from Pennine quarries such as at Idle or Rawdon: see Sect. ...
Survey of the Lawling, Essex, Windmill ¹ Lallyng The State of the Wyndemell there Vewed and delyv[er]ed to the seid accomptaunt at Michellmas anno xviij r[egni] r[egis] Henrici octavi ( September ) The howse newe borded and Well Tymbered of iiij yerez Were It[e]m the Sayleyerde newe It[e]m the Extre [axle] newe It[e]m the Sherrez [presumably sheer-trees] competent goode It[e]m the Cogwhele goode of x yerez Weryng It[e]m the Fang² goode and newe It[e]m Trendell headd[es] resonable goode It[e]m the upper Spyndell goode & the nethe [nether] Spyndell weke It[e]m the Stonys [millstones] goode Whereof the renne [rynd] newe It[e]m the Wynche [presumably for hoisting the millstones] goode It[e]m the bynys and hoppe [hopper] goode It[e]m iij Flowres [floors] Well borded It[e]m a Crowe [crowbar] and a mattok in the Stone It[e]m ij brassez [brass bearings] newe and goode It[e]m the Cablerope to hyse [hoist] the Stone Weke and Feble It[e]m the stayris and Swepe goode and able It[e]m on the Dore a goode lock With a key ¹ CCA DCc Lalling . This mill was on the manor of Lawling, presumably by Lawling Creek, an inlet on the Broadwater estuary, just south of Osea Island. ² The ‘g’ here has an odd double tail, perhaps meant as an abbreviation.
Construction of a New Horse-Mill at Ivinghoe, Oxfordshire, –¹ New Building of a Horse-Mill (Novum Edificium Molendini Equini) In one carpenter and three men hired to pull down and lay down [deponendum; something like ‘dismantle’ possibly meant] the watermill for saving the timber therefrom, having for three days, at d. per day among them [that is, d. each per day], s. In one carpenter hired to erect (engendum; literally ‘to contrive’) from new the house of the horse-mill by piecework (ad tascham), s. In one man hired to prepare the r’und’ [rotunditas?; presumably the circuit followed by the mill-horses] of the said horse-mill, s. In expenses made for the carriage of wood from the watermill to the said horse-mill, d. In one man hired to ‘lath’ [lathandum; to cover the mill with ‘laths’—thin strips of wood as a base for the daub] the said house for two days, d. In , lathnails bought for the same, s. d. [at] d. per thousand. In two cartloads of withies [virgae; twigs for weaving through the lathes] ‘to wattle’ [ad Watillandum] the wall of the said horse-mill, s. In five cartloads of straw bought for the roof (tectura) of the house of the said horse-mill, s. In one man hired to thatch [the roof ] of the said mill through days, taking d. per day, s. d. In two men hired to daub the wall of the said mill for days, taking between them d. per day, s. In wood bought for the cogwheel, cogs, and trundles, s. In one carpenter hired to make the millwork (le mulnework) of the horse-mill by piecework, s. In spikenails bought for the said mill, d. In iron bought for making the spindles, bars, rynds (reynes), and other [pieces], along with the manufacture of the same, s. d. In one millstone bought, s. d. In pounds of brass bought, s. d. In one brazier hired to make ‘brasses’ [i.e. brass bearings] weighing pounds, s. In one millstone bought, s. d. [i.e. the same price as the other millstone]. In payment to a certain miller for setting up the mill and doing other necessaries for the mill by piecework, s. d. In two sawyers hired to saw wood for ‘tables’, trundles, and other necessaries made for the said mill by piecework, s. Sum [total] s. d. ¹ Translated from Latin: HRO M B/.
Multure Rates T A.. The far North: Cumberland, Durham, Northumberland, and Westmorland Place of mill
Year
Multure rate
Category of person(s) owing suit of mill (when given)
Cumberland Ousby Penrith Rockcliffe
–
/ / /
Free tenant
– –
/ / / / / / / / /
Free tenants Free fee-holder of Woodham ‘Whole village of Woodham’ Burgesses Free fee-holder Free fee-holder
Midmerrington Norton Silksworth
c. c.
South Pittington Southwick
/ / / / for wheat, / for barley / /
c. c.
/ / / /
c.
/ /
Durham Aycliffe
Elvet Gateshead Hedworth Hett Mill Jarrow
Northumberland Allerwash Calverdon Dalton (nr. Ponteland) Hexham Morpeth
Foreign (i.e. from outside the manor)
Tenants From grain grown on husbandlands Lessee of township
Tenants
Tenants of ‘Cheseburgh’ (Cheeseburn) for grain grown on their lands Tenants Burgesses
Appendix
T A.. Continued Place of mill
Year
Multure rate
Category of person(s) owing suit of mill (when given)
Nesbit
c.
/
Tenants for grain grown on their lands
Stannington Tynemouth
/ /
Walker, Killingworth and Stannington Wallsend
/
/
(Great) Whittington
/
–
/ ( cases)
/ or / /
Durham and Northumberland feet of fine Westmorland Crosby Ravensworth King’s Meaburn
Free tenement and ‘men’ of Whitley
Grain grown on presbyter’s land Free tenement and villeins
Sources: Cumberland: Register of the Priory of Wetherhal, (Ousby); Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, ii. (Penrith); Year Books, Edw II, (Rockcliffe); Durham: Halmota Prioratus Dunelmensis, (Aycliffe, –); Lomas, ‘Durham Cathedral Priory’, , (Aycliffe, ); Lomas, ‘Durham Cathedral Priory’, (Elvet); Calendar of Charter Rolls, iii. (Gateshead); DCD HR, Spring, (Hedworth); Lomas, ‘Durham Cathedral Priory’, (Hett Mill); DCD HR, Spring, ( Jarrow); DCD HR, Summer, (Midmerrington); Holt, Mills, (Norton); Priory of Hexham, ii. (Silksworth); DCD HR, Summer (South Pittington); Lomas,‘Durham Cathedral Priory’, (Southwick); Northumberland: Priory of Hexham, ii. (Allerwash); Holt, Mills, – (Calverdon); Priory of Hexham, ii. (Dalton); ibid., ii. (Hexham); Sixth Report, (Morpeth); Priory of Hexham, ii. (Nesbit); Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, i. (Stannington); CRR, xiii. (Tynemouth); PRO C /, m. (Walker, Killingworth, and Stannington); Halmota Prioratus Dunelmensis, (Wallsend); CRR, xi. (Great Whittington); Holt, Mills, (Durham and Northumberland feet of fine); Westmorland: Year Books, Edw II, – (Crosby Ravensworth); Calendar of Close Rolls, xi. (King’s Meaburn).
T A.. Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire Place of mill Cheshire Altrincham Congleton, Knutsford, and Macclesfield Dee Mills, Chester
Year
Multure rate
Category of person(s) owing suit of mill (when given)
c. ?
/ /
Burgesses
, ,
/
Burgesses
Appendix
T A.. Continued Place of mill
Year
Multure rate
Category of person(s) owing suit of mill (when given)
– c.
/ / / /
Burgesses Burgesses Burgesses Burgesses
Derbyshire Ashover Wirksworth
mid-th c.
c./ /–/
Freeman
Lancashire Ashton under Lyne
/ (for grown corn) or / (for bought corn) / / / /
/
Early th c. Early th c. Late th c.
/ / / /
c. Early th c.
/ / / /
Villeins For husbandlands
/ ( Aug. to Christmas) / (Christmas to Aug.) /
Sokemen
Knutsford Macclesfield Salford Stockport
Gorton Ince Lowick Manchester
Yorkshire Birdsall Hackness ‘Kaldecotes’ (Cargo Fleet in Middlesbrough) and Ormesby Kirkburn Little Broughton Lockington Middlesborough and Sleights (‘Slectes’) Pocklington
Silpho, Suffield, Burniston, etc.
Early th c.
Tenants
Burgesses and tenants of Manchester; tenants of Ardwick, Openshaw, Cursall, Moston, Nuthurst, Gotherswick, and Ancoats Lord of Moston
For cottagers of Hackness For the ‘bishop’s men’
Bond tenants
Tenants
Appendix
Year
Multure rate
Category of person(s) owing suit of mill (when given)
c.?
/ / /
T A.. Continued Place of mill Skerne (‘Skyren’) Wakefield Warley and Soyland
Sources: Cheshire: Bennett and Elton, History, iii. (Altrincham); Holt, Mills, (Congleton, Knutsford, and Macclesfield); Bennett and Elton, History, iv. , , (Dee Mills, Chester); ibid. iii. (Knutsford); ibid. iii. (Macclesfield); ibid. iii. (Salford); ibid. iii. (Stockport); Derbyshire: Langley Cartulary, (Ashover); Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, i. – (Wirksworth); Bennett and Elton, iii. – (Ashton under Lyne); Mamecestre, ii. – (Gorton); Bennett and Elton, History, ii. – (Ince); Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, iii. (Lowick); Mamecestre, ii. (Manchester); Yorkshire: Calendar of Charter Rolls, i. (Birdsall); Cartularium . . . de Whiteby, ii. (Hackness); Cartularium . . . de Gyseburne, i. (Kaldecotes and Ormesby); Year Books, Edw III, , (Kirkburn); Priory of Hexham, ii. (Little Broughton); Calendar of Charter Rolls, i. (Lockington); Cartularium . . . de Whiteby, ii. (Middlesborough and Sleights); Yorkshire Inquisitions, i. (Pocklington); Cartularium . . . de Whiteby, ii. (Silpho, Suffield, Burniston, etc.); Year Books, and Edw III, , (Skerne); Court Rolls . . . of Wakefield, v. (Wakefield); Holt, Mills, (Warley and Soyland).
T A.. Other counties and places Place of mill
Year
Multure rate
Jersey and Guernsey
/ (for mills of king)
Cornwall: Launceston? ‘Trenodaburgh’ (Treworgy?) ‘Tresagu’ Devon: Plympton Essex: Colchester Hertfordshire: Holiwell Huntingdonshire: Wistow
/ / /
Late th c.
/ / / (but should be /) / (when milling Ramsey Abbey grain) /
Early th c.
/
Lincolnshire: Normandby Staffordshire: ‘Thorp’ (Thorpe Constantine?)
Category of person(s) owing suit of mill (when given)
Villeins
Villeins
Sources: Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, i. ( Jersey and Guernsey); Year Books, Edw I, , , (Launceston, ‘Trenodaburgh’, and ‘Tresagu’); Holt, Mills, (Plympton); Britnell, Growth and Decline, (Colchester); Holt, Mills, – (Holiwell, Wistow, and Normandby); Burton Chartulary, , (‘Thorp’).
Appendix
T A.. Places of unidentified or uncertain counties Place of mill
Year
Multure rate
Category of person(s) owing suit of mill (when given)
‘Assheton’ (Lancashire?)
Unnamed
–
/ (wheat, rye), / (barley, oats) /
Sources: Year Books, Edw II, – (‘Assheton’); Year Books, and Edw III, (unnamed).
T A.. Actual cases of toll taken Place of mill Bedfordshire: ‘Holmilne’ (Holme Mills in Southill) Buckinghamshire: (High) Wycombe
Year
Multure rate
c./ c./ c./
Note: See Sect. ... Sources: PRO E// (Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire); E/, m. v (Bedfordshire).
Bibliography There are too many manuscript sources to list in detail here, but for the documents employed for creating the computer sample, mostly accounts from the PRO and other record offices, see Appendix . The manorial court roll series examined are listed in Tables . and .. The details for the purveyance campaigns were drawn from miscellaneous sheriffs’ accounts (PRO class E, boxes to ) and from the summarized enrolled accounts of the same (PRO E/–). Extents-for-debt data were drawn from PRO C class, while some sixteenth-century Exchequer Equity court material was sampled from PRO class E. The inquisitions post mortem data for the reign of Edward II making up Maps . and . in particular were drawn from PRO class C. Other miscellaneous material, especially from surveys, extents, and rentals, derived from various repositories, such as PRO classes SC and DL, and CCA DCc MA and DCc Registers J and K. For more specific references, see the various footnote citations and sources given in the tables and appendices throughout this study.
The Account-Book of Beaulieu Abbey, ed. S. F. Hockey (Camden Fourth Series, , ). Accounts of the Constable of Bristol Castle in the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries, ed. Margaret Sharp (Bristol Record Society, , ). Annales Monastici, ed. Henry Richards Luard, vols. (Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, London, –). Beverley Town Documents, ed. Arthur F. Leach (Selden Society, , ). The Book of Margery Kempe, vol. i, ed. S. B. Meech and H. E. Allen (London: Early English Text Society, , ). Bracton on the Laws and Customs of England, ed. George E. Woodbine, trans. Samuel E. Thorne, vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, –). Brevia Placitata, ed. G. J. Turner (Selden Society, , ). Britton, ed. Francis Morgan Nichols, vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ). The Burton Chartulary, ed. G. Wrottesley (William Salt Archaeological Society, , ). Calendar of Charter Rolls, vols. (London: HMSO, –). Calendar of Close Rolls (–), vols. (London: HMSO, –). Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, vols. (London: HMSO, –). Cartularium Abbathiae de Whiteby, ed. J. C. Atkinson, vols. (Surtees Society, and , and ). Cartularium Monasterii de Rameseia, ed. William Henry Hart and Ponsonby A. Lyons, vols. (Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, , –).
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Index Abingdon Abbey: abbot of watermills of Abington, Northants. Adam the miller Agnes, wife of Martin of Feltham Albemarle, earl of alder Alderwasley, Derbys. Alle, John, miller Almondbury, Yorks. , Alsop en le Dale, Derbys. Alstonfield, Staffs. Altofts, Yorks. Alverstoke, Hants. Alveston, Warwicks. Ames Foundation Amyas, John de , Ancoats, Lancs. Andernach, Germany Andover, Hants. Andrew, Nicholas, miller Appleton, Thomas apprentices, learning from masters Ardwick, Lancs. Armthorpe, Yorks. arrears, of mills rents – Articles for the Clergy of Edward II ash, for ‘splints’ or laths Ashford, Middlesex , ashlar stone Ashmansworth, Hants. , Ashton under Lyne, Lancs. Ashwell, Herts. ‘Assheton’ (Lancs.?) ‘Assised Rents’ sections (in manorial accounts) Astill, G. Aston, John Aston next to Birmingham, Warwicks. ‘awes’ – Bacon, Francis Bacon, Thomas bags, for flour bakers – as mill lessees
bound by suit of mill forbidden to hire mills Ball, John Banbury, Oxon. Barbegal, France: Roman milling complex at barley, as ‘profit’ from mill Barton, Staffs. , Barwick in Elmet, Yorks. , Basalla, George Battramsley, Hants. Baynard, Roger ‘bays’, of watermills , Beaulieu Abbey, Hants. Beddingham, Sussex Bedford, Beds. beetles, for fulling-mills , Belewe, John bellows (or ‘blowing’) mills , , small plots of land for Bennett, R. –, , Berie, John , Bermondsey, priory of Bertram, Adam Beverley, Yorks. Biddle, M. bills, for cleaning millstones , n. Bimere, John birch Bircham, Norfolk , Birdbrook, Essex , mill revenues on , – Bishop, John Bishops Sutton, Hants. , Bishopstoke, Hants. Bitterne, Hants. , Bloch, M. , , , Blount, Walter Bocking, Essex Bodmin Moor, Cornwall , Bois, G. , – Boraston, Salop – Bordesley Abbey, Warwicks. –, , , , , borough corporations, milling investment in borough mill sector, entrepreneurs in – Bosham, Sussex , , , Bowland, Forest of, Lancs.
Index
Boxherse, Kent Brackley, Northants. Bradbourne, Derbys. Bradford, Yorks. , , , Bradninch, Devon brakes, for windmills –, bran: proportion of from milling – proportion of in medieval bread Brancaster, Norfolk brass: for bearings , , , , in mill maintenance work for tower mill gutters and wheels bread yields, from wheat Brenner debate Bretville, Henry de Brevia Placitata – breweries, and horse-mills bridges, maintained at mills bridge-trees: for watermills for windmills , Brightwell, Berks. Bristol, Glos. , , King’s Mills at – Britnell, R. , Bruggeman, William Buckby, Northants. buckets, for overshot waterwheels , – Buckland, S. buckthorn Budbrooke, Warwicks. bullion shortage , , effect on numbers of mills , effect on the tenant mill sector – burgesses: covered by suit of mill and the establishment of industrial mills Burgh, Elizabeth de Burghclere, Hants. Burgogne, John Burgogne, Richard Burne, Juliana ate Burne, Richard ate Burstwick, Yorks. , construction of new windmill for –, – Burton, Agnes Burton Dassett, Warwicks. Burton Lazars, Leics. – Burwell, Cambs. Bushell, Peter bushels, ‘razed’, ‘heaped’, or ‘mounded’ Butler, John
Cade’s Rebellion Calf, Henry , Campbell, B. M. S. Canterbury, archbishop of The Canterbury Tales , – canvas , especially made in East Anglia in mill maintenance work – workforce needed to produce , capital: fixed versus working gentry-oriented nature of in later Middle Ages non-monetary capital fragmentation as befitting a conservative seigneurial class in milling investment , – capital investment: nature of in the later Middle Ages – Carlin, M. Carlisle, Cumb. –, carpenters: bad workmanship of n. as chief experts in milling knowledge – as creating paradigms , doing le mulnework on a horse-mill as engineers given pensions hegemony of and horse-mills –, inspecting horse-mill journeymen for making ‘hebeltrees’ making and repairing waterwheels – in mill construction and maintenance work – as mill lessees , as millwrights , – promoting new milling ideas rebuilding watermill at Downton, Wilts. as supervisory personnel repairing fulling-mills – carters: as mill lessees in mill maintenance work – carts, broken carrying millstones Carus-Wilson, E. –, , , , case-law concerning medieval milling: in the Curia Regis rolls – in the year books – Castle Donington, Leics. , , Castleford, Yorks. Ceriton, William de chandeliers
Index Chartham, Kent Chatteris, Cambs. Chaucer, Geoffrey , –, chests, for flour and multure grains , Chimhams (in Farningham), Kent Chingley, Sussex Christmas bonus, for millers Cistercians Claret, Essex class tensions without class clay, for mending breaks in weirs and millponds –, – Clay, P. Clement, John , clergymen: as mill lessees as tenant mill holders ‘cloaked usury’ clothiers, as mill lessees cog-and-lantern gearing, see lantern-pinion (or trundle) gearing ‘cognitive gates’, for spreading innovations cogs –, lubrication for cogwheels , construction of , in Roman times Coke, Edward – Colchester, Essex , –, Colles, Agnes Colles, John Colles, William Cologne, Germany Commission for Sewers, tearing down watermills communities: impact of suit of mill upon – negotiating over mills – without mills – competition: elimination of , as an insufficient argument against neighbouring mills – computer program, see mill computer program Congleton, Cheshire , , , , , , Congleton Wood, Cheshire – Constant, E. – construction workers, bad workmanship of consumer response to milling, heavily debated cooks cooperative mill leasing – according to mill type – according to rent level by community , –
by family by partnership by region ‘silent partners’ in similarity to demesne leasing , – coopers, as mill lessees Coppenis, William Corbridge, Northumb. Corfe, Somerset corn-dealers coroners’ rolls ‘Cost of Mill(s)’ sections (in manorial accounts) –, Cottel, Edward Coupar, Henry Court of Common Pleas Coutant, Y. crabapple wood Craske, Walter, miller crazing-mills , Cridling, Yorks. crown-trees ‘Cullen’ millstones Curia Regis rolls , cases involving mill status cases involving nuisance caused by mills – cases involving suit of mill – cases of procedural error in Cursall, Lancs. customers: carrying grain to mills in milling industry – Cuxham, Oxon. dams, see weirs Darby, H. C. Dartmoor, Devon ‘daubing’, for walls of mill-houses Daventry, Thomas – David, P. , , – Darwinian models of technology –, Dee Mills, Chester, Cheshire demesne mills: entrepreneurs for – largely taken over by gentry – leasing of lessees for – resilience of in the later Middle Ages slipping into hereditary tenure water rights and suit of mill for , demesne versus tenant sector demesnes, gross investment rates for n. Denys, William Devereux, Walter, knight
Index
Diss, Norfolk Dodgeson, John Dogsthorpe, Peterborough, Northants. Domesday Book –, domestic mill sector: entrepreneurs in – following cyclical pattern? – proportion of grain ground in – Dorchester, Dorset – Dover Castle, Kent – Downton, Wilts. , –, Dowson, Thomas, smith dry-wall construction n. Duby, G. Duffield, Derbys. Duffield, Henry Duffield, William – Dunstable Abbey, Beds. Dunster, Somerset Durforde, John Durham, bishop of Durham Cathedral Priory , bursar’s mills of , , Durwood, John Dyer, C. , , dyer, ‘office of ’ n. early societies, as technologically underdeveloped earth and clay, in maintenance agreements for mill leases Easington, Yorks. East Knoyle, Wilts. , , , East Midlands, curious mill performance of East Rainton, Durham – East Woodhay, Hants. , ecclesiastical versus lay mills – Edward I Edward II , Edward, Henry , , elder elm Elmley Castle, Worcs. Elmsall, Yorks. Elton, J. –, , Elvet, Durham Elys, Henry ‘engineers’, trained in the crafts entrepreneurial activity: legal framework for – theories concerning entrepreneurs: in borough mill sector – in demesne mill sector –
in domestic mill sector – in tenant mill sector – varying types of ‘vision’ of entrepreneurship, most evident in the tenant mill sector – entry fines, for mill leases Erbury, Middlesex ‘estrich boards’, for waterproofing , European ‘West’, as uniquely technological Euxton, Thurstan, master carpenter , –, – de Evesham, John, bailiff Exchequer of Pleas Exeter, Devon , Duryard mills in , Fabian of Ness factory – reluctance of medieval investors to create Faith, R. ‘fall-troughs’ famuli millers considered as part of , Fanacourt, Bartholomew de Fanacourt, Lucy de ‘fang’ (brake?) Farleigh Hungerford, Somerset ‘Farm of Mill(s)’ sections (in manorial accounts) Farmer, D. –, , Farnham, Surrey Farningham, Kent ‘featherboards’, for undershot watermills Feering, Essex –, , , , –, Ferryhill, Durham La Fertè-sous-Jouarre, France feudalism, lack of relevance for later medieval milling Fisher, Richard Fisher, Thomas fishermen, as mill lessees Fitzherbert, John –, , n. ‘flashes’ Fleta, , floating mills floodgates , , , flooding of land, as nuisance from mills floods damaging or destroying watermills: in –, in –, , flour: extraction rates for improved by foreign millstones? –
Index proportion of from milling – screening of – foot fullers, imitated by fulling-mills foot fulling Forest of Dean, Glos. Forest of Rossendale, Lancs. forestalling and regrating, involving a mill forging mills Fornham, Suffolk , Fornham All Saints, Suffolk , Fornham St. Genevieve, Suffolk , ‘forweres’ Foune, Thomas Foune, William Frankyssh, Alice Frankyssh, Robert, walker Frechet, John ‘Frenchweir’ – Fuller, John Fuller, John, miller Fuller, Peter le fullers: image of as mill lessees paid in cash as tenant mill holders ‘fuller’s block’ fuller’s earth fulling-mills –, – added to corn-mill anthropomorphic aspects of , beetles for , capital and labour sharing partnerships for at Colchester, Essex constructed by fullers construction of converted from grain mills , – ‘dagshoe’ for at Exeter, Devon family involvement in fees paid for? ‘feet’ and ‘shanks’ for –, fluctuation in numbers of – hinges for – imitating foot fullers ‘office of ’ n. perrour for – pond for refurbished relatively high degree of cooperative leasing for replaced by corn-mills road connecting to tentor – set at long leases
as small, commission-based establishments – small plots of land for suit of n. technology of – tentores for – ‘trunks’ for at Westerham, Kent at Winchester, Hants. fulling-stocks – Galloway, J. Gardyner, John Gate, Simon ate, miller Gauldie, E. gear ratios, see lantern-pinion (or trundle) gearing gentry: as demesne mill lessees , as tenant mill holders Gerberd, John gig mills n. Gigli, Giovanni Paolo de, of Lucca, Italy n. Gill, John Gill, Matilda Gimpel, J. – ‘Glanvill’ – Glastonbury, abbot of , Godeshelf, John Godmersham, Kent ‘going gear’, in maintenance agreements for mill leases Good, Hugh Gotherswick, Lancs. grain liveries – grain mills: capital and labour-sharing partnerships for converted to fulling-mills , – family involvement in versus industrial mills – grain-milling, efficiency of – granite (for millstones): in Dartmoor in Wales grease (for lubrication) , of pork Great Shelford, Cambs. , , , Great Waltham, Essex Great Whittington, Northumb. grindstone mills (for sharpening tools) , –, detailed location of not allowed to be converted to grain or fullingmills Gringley on the Hill, Notts. ,
Index
Groen, P. groundsills n. ‘ground-troughs’ gudgeons Guist, Norfolk , gurges: as dam or water-channel? , at Taunton, Somerset –, Halesowen, Worcs. – Halton, Cheshire Ham Hill, Somerset , Hampton Lucy, Warwicks. Hanawalt, B. hand-mills – archaeological remains of , baskets underneath bridge-trees for? cost of n., , n. in Curia Regis rolls in domestic mill sector – in extents for debt n., for grinding malt importation of imported millstones for operated by pole attached to ceiling – operated by women , n. operated commercially –, proportion of English grain milled by –, rynds for similarity to other types of mills Hanham, Glos. Hardy, John Hare, J. –, – Harington, James, knight Harington, Thomas, knight Harman, John Harpenden and Wheathampstead, Herts. , , ‘harrying of the North’ Harton (in Jarrow), Durham , Haverholme, prior of Hawford, Helen Hawford, John Hawford, Worcs. hazel ‘hebeltrees’, for lifting millstones Helston-in-Kerrier, Cornwall , , , Hemingford, Hunts. Henbury-in-Salt-Marsh, Glos. , Henry II Henry III ,
Henry of Bracton , categorization of ‘wrongful’ and ‘rightful’ damages milling matters in Henry, son of Peter of Thrussington High Clere, Hants. Higham Ferrers and Dichford, Northants. Hillam (in Monk Fryston), Yorks. – Hindolveston, Norfolk hinges, for fulling-mills historiography, of English milling – Hollingbourne, Kent , , , , holly ‘Holmilne’, Beds. Holt, R. –, –, , –, , –, –, , , , , , , –, , , , Holy Trinity, Canterbury, prior of – Honnecourt, Villard de Hook Norton, Oxon. hoops ‘hopper-free’ , hoppers , , horizontal versus vertical watermills, and the nature of lordship – horizontal watermills in Anglo-Saxon England in Domesday Book? origins of – presence of determined by carpenters presence of determined by lordship versus vertical watermills – horse-mills –, badly constructed in breweries , carpenters sharing construction of – circuit (rotunditas?) of , construction cost of , , in domestic mill sector failed experiments with fluctuation in numbers of – making ‘mulnework’ for of Margery Kempe for milling malt millstones for new one at Ivinghoe, Bucks. –, , –, and ovens replacing tide mills? rynds for set at long leases similarity to other types of mills technology of – thatching roof for , of wattle-and-daub construction ,
Index
Hospital of Holy Trinity, Kingsthorpe, Northants. – Houghton, Hunts. Hounslowe, Peter, beerbrewer Hughes, T. , , ‘hursts’ –
Knight, John Knottingley, Yorks. , , , Koblenz, Germany Kowaleski, M. Kuhn, T. –, Kyng, Thomas
Idle, Yorks. ‘independent’ mills , industrial mills: for other than fulling fluctuation in numbers of – as a new technological formulation on rural and urban manors – small plots of land for in the tenant sector , –, versus grain mills – Industrial Revolution , ‘industrial revolution of the Middle Ages’ –, –, inquisitions post mortem , , n., , inventions, radical versus conservative investment: following a cyclical pattern initiation of and forms of Inworth, Essex iron , for gudgeons, hoops, rynds, and spindles – Spanish iron-mills: at Bordesley Abbey , , , at Chingley, Sussex Islip, Oxon. , Ivinghoe, Bucks. –, , –,
labourers, in mill maintenance work Ladbrooke, Warwicks. Lamarckism Lamport, Northants. , Lancaster, duke of Langford, Somerset lantern-pinion (or trundle) gearing , –, , , –, durability of basic design gear ratios for –, for grindstone (or tool-grinding) mills for horse-mill – ‘lantows’ later Middle Ages: strong historical traditions of – as a time of change? , – as ultra-conservative Launceston, prior of – Launton, Oxon. , , Laurence, Robert , Lawling, Essex –, lay versus ecclesiastical mills – leased mills, empires of ? leats: at Abingdon Abbey at Norton, Durham at Westerham, Kent – Lechlade, Glos. , Leeds, Yorks. , , , , Lefebvre des Noëttes, R. Leges Henrici Primi Legh, Gilbert Legh, Nicholas legumes, milled Leighton Buzzard, Beds. Lelley and Dyke, Yorks. lessee-proprietors , Leuric the miller – lime, for making mortar local economy, versus national economy – locks and keys, for multure chests Lomas, R. A. London, –, , , , Longbridge Deverill, Wilts. Longford, Mabel de Loose, Kent , , , Lopham, Norfolk
Janson, William Jespersen, Anders John of the Mills John the Carpenter ‘John the Miller’, in the Peasants’ Revolt Johnson, William, walker Kailly, Adam de Kaplan, S. Kealey, E. – Keene, D. , , Kelveden, Essex , Kempe, Margery King’s Lynn, Norfolk , Kingsthorpe, Northants. Kingston upon Hull, Yorks. –, Kippax, Yorks. Kirkburn, Yorks. Kirk Sandall, Yorks.
lords: paternalistic attitude to tenants relaxing their hold over milling – social responsibility of Lostwithiel, Cornwall , ‘louchers’ –, lubrication, for mills , , – Lucretius Luffincott, Devon Luttrel, George Luttrell Psalter , , , – Lydden (in Thanet), Kent , , Lydford, Devon Lydgate, John , Lyllywhyte, Henry maintenance agreements, for peasant households Maitland, F. W. Malkynson, Robert malt-kilns Manchester, Lancs. , manorial accounts, providing evidence for milling capacity – manorial court rolls – manorial officials, as mill lessees Manusell, Agnes Marchington, Staffs. Marks Tey (‘Tey Mandeville’), Essex Martin of Feltham Martock, Somerset Marx, Karl , –, –, masons for building a mill-wall n. constructing a new gurges for mending a water-wall in mill maintenance work for work on ‘bay’ Master Richard, carpenter , Matham, John de Maurice, son of Robert Mayen, Germany measuring rods (for multure chests) n. Meaux, Yorks. , mental constructs, in milling merchants, as mill lessees merchants’ capital, lack of in medieval milling ‘mill bitch’ mill computer program –, – documentary sources for – geographical distribution of manors in – list of manors in – mill inventories ,
Index mill leases: allowances in case of repairs, etc. capital and labour sharing in – cooperative leasing in – cum soca et secta entry fines for family involvement in – forced upon communities length of – length of in multiples of customary term lessees fleeing –, , lessees for – for life or lives maintenance costs agreements in – physical condition of mill clauses in pledges and securities for – recorded in indentures recorded in manorial accounts – recorded in manorial court rolls rent default clauses in sample of – ‘special favour’ , sub-leasing , , –, – mill lessees: bakers carpenters and wrights carters clergymen clothiers coopers fishermen fullers gentry Italians n. Londoners manorial officials – merchants millers – ‘others’ smiths widows women mill machinery, as ‘black box’ mill maintenance agreements: connected to lease lengths connected to rents – mill maintenance costs: lords taking on more in mid-fifteenth century , mill maintenance workers: as a wage-earning proletariat mill management: effect on determining revenues
Index mill numbers –, – regionally corrected – regional variations in – mill rents, in grain n., , – mill revenues – mill status, cases in Curia Regis rolls mill throughputs, for measuring population – mill values, as a proportion of manorial values – mill-boats Miller, Jordan Miller, Thomas miller-proprietors – millers acting in defence of neighbours animosity with bakers or brewers associated with pillory in The Canterbury Tales , – chastized for not sending out mill-boat for custom Christmas bonus for consequences of being paid in kind control of stipulated in Statute of Bakers – as controlling a bottleneck for grain creditor–debtor ratio of criminal activities of – distrust of , , as famuli , as general troublemakers guilty of gross negligence having upwardly mobile expectations helpers (garciones) of – hired , – image of , – later the object of rioters lecherous predilections of liveries of grain for – as manipulating the food supply , methods used by for stealing grain as mill lessees – in the milling industry – mistrustful attitude of customers towards modest assets of originally taking handfuls of grain for multure – as outside the occupational mainstream physical stereotyping of productivity-related wages for providing home delivery – sayings and riddles about – screening flour for customers? – sub-leasing taking excessive tolls – as tenant mill holders
using toll dishes of incorrect size violence against each other – work spread through families of mill-houses (for watermills): built of stone – built of wattle-and-daub construction of – height of wall surrounding? locks for roofing of – ‘water-walls’ for milling: in Anglo-Saxon law bread versus drink grains – in Brevia Placitata – ‘coarse’ versus ‘economic’ constrained by lordship or operating freely? in Curia Regis rolls – in Edward Coke – in Fleta in ‘Glanvill’ – gross investment rates for – in Henry of Bracton importance of demesne status in – lack of scientific influence upon as a large technological system – legal writs for – in Leges Henrici Primi in Normandy , – nuisance cases in –, –, – paying its workers well as a service industry , –, , , – in statute law – suit-of-mill cases in , –, – volume expansion of grain products – in the year books – milling ban or banalité, see suit of mill milling industry: customers for – fullers, smiths, and others in impact of decline of serfdom upon maintenance personnel in – millers in – millwrights and master carpenters in – number of personnel in , operating personnel in – as operating within ‘manorial cells’ response to bullion shortage , response to demographic forces –, – response to war , , , –, response to weather , , , , – seen in corporate terms separated from the industry of agriculture
Index
milling investment: as allowing a larger share of production – encouraged by profit for small pieces of land intensity of , – milling sectors – milling ‘soke’ millponds: ‘bays’ for – breaks in built in parson’s garden , disputes over levels of mills: bridges at capacity of – and castles and churches daily throughputs – in a ‘factory’? –, – grouped together for accounting purposes as haunts of prostitutes in illuminated manuscripts ‘independent’ , operating versus maintenance costs of and ovens , roads or paths to , as prisons , as ‘service’ enterprises subsumed in larger workshops , – as symbols of feudal authority tithes for types of grains processed in – valuations of – millstone grit, in Peak District millstone quarries: in England – post-plague shortage of labour in – millstones , archaeological remains of – bottom stones , –, carriers of , carts broken while carrying casings or ‘louchers’ for –, cleaning of ‘concaving’ (hollowing out) top stone ‘Cullen’ daily throughput per set of – domestic – domestic stones preferred when mills leased dressed ‘flat’ from Eifel district in Germany , from La Ferté-sous-Jouarre in France foreign stones for improving quality or extraction rates? – for hand-mills –, for horse-mills ,
French –, German –, –, – ‘hursts’ for in maintenance agreements for mill leases ‘monolithic’ versus ‘composite’ pieces of sold pitting of prices for – repairing with plaster of Paris size of in ‘hands’ spacing and depth of furrows specialist workers for installing speed of top millstone standardization in size steel-tipped ‘bills’ for straight furrows on top stones –, – total number needed annually for milling industry tolls on – used – for watermills – for watermills versus windmills wearing down – Welsh , , – for windmills , –, Millward, Richard millwrights – building contracts involving – places of origin relationship with employers wages or fees for Milner, John Milner, William Milton Hall (in Prittlewell), Essex , , , Minchinhampton, Glos. Minchinton, W. – ‘mixed grains’ (mixtura) –, Mokyr, J. money chest, for mill n. Monks Eleigh, Suffolk Monkton, Kent , Monkton Deverill, Wilts. Moon family –, , , – Moon, John , Moreton, William de, mayor of Congleton Moritz, L. A. , – Morland, Roger Morpeth, Northumb. Moston, Lancs. , Muleward, William ‘multiple mills’
Index multure: chests for definition of payment in cash n. multure grains low because of ‘dearness of corn’ low because of ‘deficiency of men’ received by watermills at Feering, Essex – received by windmill at Oakham, Rutland multure rates , , –, – according to the strength of the water-course declining after –? for calculating daily mill throughputs – for ‘foreigners’ – heaviest from the start of the harvest to Christmas influence in estimating population – prominent in year books range of countrywide as recommended by the Statute of Bakers –, unknown to jurors varying according to tenant status Muriel, William Murphy, M. national economy, versus local economy – Ness, in Burwell, Cambs. ‘New Rents’ sections (in manorial accounts) Newnham (Bridge), Worcs. – Nicholas of Trenoda – Norris, Anne , Norris, Honell North Sea, for transmitting technology and consumer preferences Northampton, Northants. Norton, Durham Norwich Cathedral Priory Novae Narrationes novel disseisin –, , nuisance: cases of in the Curia Regis rolls involving mills – cases of in the year books involving mills – early cases of in milling – Nuthurst, Lancs. oak: for for for for
mill-dams water-control systems – windmill posts windmill sails
Oakham, Rutland , , Old Alresford, Hants. , , Old Bolingbroke, Lincs. Old Windsor, Berks. Olmested, John , Olmested, Robert Openshaw, Lancs. ore crushing mills , , , Orpington, Kent conversion of grain mill to fulling-mill n. Osmond, John, gentleman ovens , suit of n. ‘overshettmyll’ overshot waterwheels, see waterwheels Overton, Thomas – Owston, Yorks. , Oyly, Henry de packhorse loads: of flour confiscated normal amount taken to mill Palmer, Geoffrey le Palmer, R. paltrok , – Panninges, Margery de paper mills n. paradigms – for consumer preferences? and horizontal watermills Lamarckian tendencies within selected in Darwinian fashion – timber-based Parker, Christopher Parwich, Derbys. Parys, Philip path-dependency Peak District, Derbys. , men from selling millstones Peasants’ Revolt , – Pegsdon, Beds. Pelham, R. A. – penstock perrour, as fulling basin? – Peter, son of Herbert Peterborough Abbey Pickeridge Hill, Somerset pigs piles (of timber) pillory, associated with millers and bakers Pinchene, John Pitminster, Somerset plague: declining tenant mill rents after –
impact on mill numbers –, plaster of Paris: for composite millstones for repairing millstones pledges: for construction of watermills n. for mill leases and sub-leases – Pluckley, Kent Pocklington, Yorks. political crises, effect on number of mills Pontefract, honour of Pontefract, Yorks. , , Pontefract Castle poplar boards: for ‘water-walls’ for windmill brakes? n. population, estimated using mill throughputs – post-mills: axles (or windshaft) for , , – brakes for? –, brass bearings for bridge-trees for , cableropes to hoist stones canvas for , , –, cogs for cogwheels for – construction of , – ‘cross-tree’ foundations for , – doors with locks for floors of , foundations of –, , gear ratios for hoppers for , housing of –, iconographic representations of inner workings of , – as an invention – lantern-pinion (or trundle) gearing for , –, ‘louchers’ for ‘mill-beams’ of millstones for , , – multure baskets or chests for , origins of – plates on the extremity of the posts , portae for posts or ‘standards’ of , related to paltrok? – roofs of rynds of , , , sack hoists of sails and sailyards for –, , ‘sheers’ or ‘sheer-trees’ of , ,
Index soap and grease for , spindles of , , , spouts for stairs for on stone blocks or walls – stone paths around – tailtrees or ‘sweeps’ for –, weight of winches (for lifting millstone?) for ‘pound-panels’ (sluice-gates?) – Powick, Worcs. ‘pragmatic literacy’ prisons, mills as , proletariat, in milling? , prostitutes, and mills purveyance, and ‘skimming’ purveyance accounts: for measuring efficiency of grain-milling – providing evidence for milling capacity – quarries, see millstone quarries ‘quarry’ versus ‘timber’ trail of windmills – querns, see hand-mills Ragnall, Notts. Ramsey Abbey Ramsey, abbot of Rawdon, Yorks., millstone quarry at? Reformation, the relationships in milling: between customers and workers – between entrepreneurs and customers – between entrepreneurs and workers relief channels, for watermills Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores revenues: of Birdbrook, Essex, mills of bursar’s mills of Durham Cathedral Priory – and maintenance costs ‘reverse salients’ –, , , Reynolds, S. Reynolds, T. , Richard, son of Hawise Rillaton (in Linkinhorne), Cornwall ‘rimboards’, see waterwheels Ringwood, Hants. Rivere, Denise de la Rivere, John de la roads and paths: connecting fulling-mill and tentor – to watermills to windmills Robert the carpenter –
Index Roche Abbey roofing for mills: shingles , n. slate and moss n. thatch tile Roundell, Joan Roundell, John Rothwell, Yorks. , , , ‘Rowcliffe’ (Row Hill in Coton in the Clay?), Staffs. rungs: ‘gangs’ of lubrication for rural versus urban mills – Russell, John rye, as multure rynds for hand-mills for horse-mills for watermills – for windmills , , , Saffron Walden, Essex sailyards – St Albans, Herts. St Paul, Christopher Salisbury, C. Salzman, L. F. Sandal Magna, Yorks. , Sandford, Oxon. sandstone (for millstones), in West Midlands saquiyah as the origin of the vertical watermill sawmill Saxton, Yorks. , ‘Sea Mill’, at Bosham, Sussex Scargill, Joan Scargill, Robert Schipalbothom, James Scholes, Yorks. – Scots: danger posed by for mills in Carlisle raiding in the North , Segrim Mill, Winchester –, Selden Society ‘self-help’ actions serfdom, lack of relevance for medieval milling , service orientation of milling industry , –, , , – ‘sheers’ or ‘sheer-trees’ , , Shercroft, John , – Shercroft, Richard n.,
Shercroft, Robert Shercroft, William , Shercroft family –, Sherwood Forest ‘shotboards’ , ‘shovelboards’, see waterwheels ‘shroudboards’, see waterwheels ‘shuttles’, as sluice-gates? Sibforde, Richard, miller Simkin the miller, in The Canterbury Tales – ‘skoff-mills’ , , sluice-gates – Smallman, John Smith, N. A. F. Smith, Richard Smithfield Decretals smiths co-supervising with carpenters image of as mill lessees in mill maintenance work smithy, the village Smyth, Robert Snaringes, Philip de soap , ‘sole-troughs’ South Thoresby, Lincs. , Southampton Southwark, Surrey , , , , , –, , South-West: growth of tenant industrial mills in , – increase of industrial mills in – Spencer, James, citizen and alderman of London , Spicer, John spindles length of thickness of n., for watermills – for windmills , , , , wooden Spofforth, Yorks. spout, for taking flour to bag or chest , – ‘standards’ , Stanley, Edward, knight Staines, Middlesex , Star Chamber statute law, for milling – Statute of Bakers: ‘razed’, ‘heaped’, and ‘mounded’ bushels in recommended multure rates in –, recommending control of millers Statute of Westminster II Statutum Mareschaucie
Index
Staverton, Suffolk steel Steeping, Lincs. Stoke Climsland, Cornwall stone dressed loose for mill maintenance , –, , –, –, stone bolsters, for axles , ‘stone windmills’ or ‘windmills of stone’ –, Stonehewer, Thomas le stone-layers Stony Stratford, Bucks. Stront, John Sturminster Newton, Dorset sub-industries, for millstones and canvas sub-leasing , , – impact upon capital investment – Sudleye, John de suit of mill affected by changing type of mill? – affected by moving mill? – as ban or banalitè , as becoming less personal and more territorial? , belonging to tenant mill binding only villeins? of bought grain ‘out of love for the lord’ cases in’ the Curia Regis rolls – cases in the year books – connected with demesne milling customer reaction to – definition of , in demesne mill leases discussed by Edward Coke – eliminating competition , , as following ‘the usage of the country’ for fulling mills n. of grain grown on the manor – impact upon communities – impact upon tenants – including burgesses mills without it described as ‘debilitated’ not enforced by miller over all tenants over nativi and cotarii regional variation in strength of –, – revolving around status of holdings not persons tenants avoiding – twin concepts of soca and secta suit-of-mill cases:
concerning custom of doing suit of mill , – concerning status of suitors – concerning suit-of-mill contracts –, – suit of oven n. supply of materials: reliability of in medieval milling industry – Sutton, Hants. Swaton, Lincs. tail races – tailtrees – tallow , tanning mills converted to fulling-mills as service mills n. as subsumed in larger operations n., Tanshelf (in Pontefract) Yorks. , –, , , , Taunton, Somerset , , , –, , , , , , , , Tavistock, Devon Tavistock Abbey teasels , n. technical traditions, creation of technological change: incremental change of in early societies , memory of in Middle Ages – narrow focus on pace pace of in Middle Ages similar to biological evolution slower in medieval England than on the Continent? – technology: connection with economy – Darwinian selection of Tempes (or Tempest?), George Tempest family , , Tempest, John, esquire Tempest, Richard, esquire/knight tenant industrial mills, vulnerability of , tenant fulling-mills, in south-western England tenant mill sector, origins of , tenant mills: allowed access to water almost always watermills – cash elements in rents for – characterized as ‘independent’ mills , dispute over status of – n. entrepreneurs for – gradually becoming mostly industrial mills , , –, –, –, , –, having suit of mill held by clergymen
Index held by fullers held by gentry held by millers held by women managing to survive without suit of mill? numbers in computer sample –, often ‘overshot’ watermills reclaimed into demesne , , , , , rents for stripping of land away from for tin industry , tenants: avoiding suit of mill – impact of suit of mill upon – sometimes allowed to mill elsewhere , tentores – construction costs for – ‘thakboards’ Thames estuary, tide mills on – Thompson, E. P. , , Thorley, Herts. Thornham, Norfolk Thorpe Arnold, Leics. Thorpe Satchville, Leics. Thrussington, Leics. , Thurstanland (in Kirkburton), Yorks. , Tibthorpe, Yorks. – Tickhill, Yorks. , tide mills: ‘awes’ for – called ‘Sea Mills’ constructions costs of n., in Europe as large-scale milling projects locations of in medieval England – replaced by windmills stone mill-houses for on Thames estuary – waterwheels for – timber: drawn from estate reserves in maintenance agreements for mill leases , – in mill maintenance work supply of – see also ash; alder; buckthorn; crabapple wood; elder; elm; hazel; holly; oak; poplar boards; willow ‘timber’ versus ‘quarry’ trail of windmills – tin industry , , , , , , Tissington, Derbys. tithes, on new mills Tivetshall, Norfolk Todenham, Glos.
toll dishes n., tool-grinding mills, see grindstone mills Tottington, Lancs. Towcester, Northants. tower mills , brass and wooden wheels for brass gutter for construction of – frequent financial failure of height of known as ‘windmills of stone’ – in medieval illustrations , ‘quarry trail’ of stone towers for – traditionalism Tredington, Warwicks. Trehambell, Nicholas Trematon, Cornwall ‘Trenodaburgh’, Cornwall – Trivel Mills (in Bristol), Glos. troughs Trumpington, Cambs. – trundles, see lantern-pinion (or trundle) gearing turbo-jet engines Turweston, Bucks. , , , , , , –, Twyford, Hants. , Tybbai, Robert of Tywarnhaile (in Perranzabuloe), Cornwall Umfre, Roger undershot waterwheels, see waterwheels urban versus rural mills – vertical watermills: after in England ‘exterior’ and ‘interior’ wheels for origins of – Vinci, Leonardo da virga (sailyard) , Vitruvius , Waithe, Lincs. Wakefield, Yorks. , , ‘walk-stocks’ Walsham le Willows, Suffolk , Walter of Henley Waltham, abbot of Walton, Somerset , Walton, Suffolk Wapenbyri, Thomas de war, impact on mills , , , –, Warbleton, Sussex , –, Warmfield, Yorks.
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Wars of the Roses water, rents for access to water power: use of in China use of for industrial mill increasingly marginalized use of in Roman times used almost solely in terms of service versus wind power water rights: accruing mostly to demesne mills , , , case of in Carlisle water supply: limited in towns shortage of water-channels for , water-control systems: intensified investment in permission to establish willingness to experiment with – watermills: about – axles for – and boat transporters , , – ‘bays’ of , bridge-trees for built on major rivers , , , capacity versus windmills – in China cogwheels for , conflict with merchants and transporters – construction costs of , damaged or destroyed by floods , danger of building erosion on water side danger of wood rot in axle in Domesday Book during the Roman period n., – excavated – ‘flashes’ for floating floodgates removed by neighbours , fluctuation in numbers for grinding grain from to fluctuation in numbers from to – gear ratios for – geographical distribution of – gudgeons for gurges for –, , horizontal versus vertical –, ‘hebeltrees’ for ‘hursts’ for – as indicative of conspicuous consumption for industrial purposes , n., , –, –,
–, –, –, –, lantern-pinion (or trundle) gearing for – ‘lantows’ for leat type length of leases for ‘louchers’ for – millpond type – millstones for – multure grains received by – as operating in a restricted physical and legal environment , ‘pillow’ and ‘foot’ brasses for , pledges for construction of n. relief channels for replaced by windmills before – rynds for – sluice-gates for – spindles for – as symbols of feudal authority tail races for – technology of – water control systems for – waterwheels for, see waterwheels weir-and-leat type –, waterwheels: breast-shot and pitchback , clasp arm construction compass arm construction construction costs of ‘featherboards’ for ladles for – overshot –, –, renewing of – ‘rimboards’ for ‘shovelboards’ for ‘shroudboards’ for troughs to undershot –, –, Watts, M. Weald, the , – weather, effect on milling industry , , , , – Weber, Max , weir-and-leat systems –, weirs: called ‘hydropower dams’ construction of – contracts to maintain – floodgates or water-gates in , – ‘forweres’ for ‘Frenchweir’ – materials for caulking – and the precise control of water flows – rebuilding of
Index technology of unlawful construction of – Welle, John atte , West Bradenham, Norfolk , Westerham, Kent , – Westminster , abbot of Westminster Abbey, millers working for – Westoe (in Jarrow), Durham Weston, Herts. , Wetherby, Yorks. Whiston, Worcs. Whitchurch, Salop White, Lynn Jr – Whittaker, Richard, miller wholegrain bread widows, as mill lessees Widnes, Lancs. William of Halton William, son of Reginald William the miller willow , , Wilsford, Lincs. Wilsford, prior of Winchester, Hants. , – wind, strength of windmills: about – advantages over watermills – as affected by the legal environment building traditions for – burned down capacity versus watermills – construction costs of , – construction time for damaged by strong winds decline in numbers after – erected solely for use of household – geographical distribution of – horizontal , imprint on landscape – as isolated – length of leases of as operating under freer conditions mounds of –, –
multure grains received by not used for industrial purposes pulled down set on fire by woman specialists for setting sails of as supplementing rather than supplanting watermills? – as symbols of feudal authority see also post-mills; tower mills Wisbech, Cambs. de Witef ’ (Watefield?) Eva de Witef ’ (Watefield?) Walter Witney, Oxon. , , , Woddye, John, millwright Wode, William de – Wodecot, Millicent de Wodecot, Robert de Wodelowe, Alice, nurse , Wodesum, Adam de Wolvesey (in Winchester), Hants. , –, women: as mill lessees operating hand-mills , n. setting fire to windmill as tenant mill holders Worcester, Worcs. Wormhill, Derbys. Wright, John , , , Wright, Thomas writs: concerning mills – in Novae Narrationes quod permittat villanos facere sectam ad molendinum secta ad molendinum Wyberton, Lincs. ‘Wycombe’, Bucks. year books cases involving nuisance caused by mills – cases involving suit of mill – ‘yeoman’ class Yorkshire Wolds Zonca, Vittorio
