¬XiosMOVE|Chapter 3 Arable farming on the former Templar estates, 1308–13

Two major components made up the mixed agricultural economy on the former Templar estates in Lincolnshire: arable farming and sheep farming. Of these, sheep farming was centrally accounted by preceptory. Arable farming, on the other hand, was accounted by manor, which allows for the development of a comparative picture of arable practice across the former Templar estates of Lincolnshire. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the nature of the Order’s arable farming practice in Lincolnshire.

The account for Aslackby covering the period from 16 June 1312 until 28 September of the same year lists a total of 155 acres of land in seed, which consisted entirely of wheat, barley, beans and oats. In addition, 80 acres of fallow land are accounted, of which 12 were manured and ploughed for the third time.1 TNA, E 358/18, 55/1, line 32. The relative proportions of arable and fallow land, 2 sown acres to 1 acre of fallow, clearly point to a three-course rotation, which, it would be reasonable to assume, would be practised throughout the ex-Templar estates in Lincolnshire. Roden identifies a similar three-course rotation constituting fallow, winter-sown crops, and spring-sown crops being practised on tenant farms and demesne holdings in the Chiltern Hills by 1300.2 D. Roden, ‘Demesne farming in the Chiltern Hills’, AHR, 16 (1968), p. 23. Further, on the Kensworth demesne in the Chilterns, in 1152, the acreages were strikingly similar to those at Aslackby: 80 acres of fallow and two sown courses of 70 acres each.3 Ibid., pp. 17–18. However, elsewhere, a three-course rotation was not universally practised. While Campbell states that on most Winchester manors ‘between a third and a half of the arable lay fallow each year’, he equally points out that in intensively cultivated parts of Norfolk, cropping was continuous.4 B. M. S. Campbell, ‘Land, labour, livestock, and productivity trends in English seigniorial agriculture, 1208–1450’, in Land, Labour and Livestock: Historical Studies in European Agricultural Productivity, ed. B. M. S. Campbell and M. Overton (Manchester, 1991), p. 172. The evidence would point to a three-course rotation on the former Templar estates in Lincolnshire but it does not allow for the identification of a field system. Hallam acknowledges the three-field system as representative of thirteenth-century Cambridgeshire, but finds the two-field system to predominate in Lincolnshire, and so this was perhaps practised on the former Templar manors.5 H. E. Hallam ‘Farming techniques: eastern England’, in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. 2: 1042–1350, ed. H. E. Hallam (Cambridge, 1988), p. 273.

The first series of accounts of the former Templar preceptories and manors, beginning 10 January 1308 and ending at 28 September 1308, lists the quantities of grain sown and the acreages, itemised variously under barley, dredge (barley with oats), oats, and the leguminous crops of beans and peas, but in no case is either wheat or rye seed recorded. However, the same accounts do record the harvested acreage of wheat and rye, which must have been sown during the winter of 1307–8. In other words, as Campbell asserts, and the former Templar accounts prove for Lincolnshire by their omission, wheat and rye were winter-sown crops.6 B. M. S. Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, 1250–1450 (Cambridge, 2000), p. 230.

At this point it is possible to conclude with certainty that the form of arable farming practised on the ex-Templar estates in Lincolnshire, as illustrated in the Aslackby account ending 28 September 1312, was a three-course rotation. Further, the universal absence of wheat and rye seed in the accounts beginning 10 January 1308 confirms that they were winter-sown, whereas barley, dredge, oats and legumes were sown in spring. The only exception was on the manor of Temple Bruer, in the account of 10 January 1308 to 28 September 1308, where the area of spring-sown barley was 97½ acres. However, the total harvested area of barley was 142½ acres, which signifies that 45 acres were winter-sown. Campbell proposes that the winter-sown wheat, rye and winter barley, as the most demanding crops, would follow fallow and so gain from multiple ploughing, manuring and nitrogen fixation.7 Ibid. The spring-sown crops would have been oats, dredge, barley and legumes, as Roden found in the Chilterns.8 Roden, ‘Demesne farming’, pp. 17–18. The sowing of both winter and spring crops, which matured at different rates, not only extended the periods of ploughing, sowing, manuring and finally harvesting, but in so doing also eased the demand for labour somewhat, particularly at harvest time.9 Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, p. 230.

The medieval practice of allowing stock to graze on pasture in the daytime, and folding them on arable land at night, was an effective means of transferring nutrients from pasture to arable, and therefore enhancing the fertility of the arable acres.12 Newman and Harvey, ‘Did soil fertility decline?’, p. 122. However, Newman raises the further issue that the productivity of the grazing lands would decline unless there was a natural replacement of the nutrients transferred by stock when folded on arable land.13 E. I. Newman, ‘Medieval sheep-corn farming: how much grain yield could each sheep support?’, AHR, 50, 2 (2002), p. 178. If nutrient loss was an issue on the grazing lands, then it could be addressed in only two ways: either by adopting a pastoral rotation so as to allow regeneration, or by strictly controlling the grazing density. Pretty states that the evidence is for no more than 30 percent of arable land being manured in any given year, in which case the heavy manuring of wheat reflected its pre-eminence as the most valuable commercial crop.14 J. N. Pretty, ‘Sustainable agriculture in the Middle Ages: the English manor’, AHR, 38, 1 (1990), p. 7. Harwood Long stresses the importance of manure in a time without artificial fertilisers, and draws attention to the ratio between the number of livestock producing manure and the arable acreage as a major factor contributing to the level of soil fertility, concurring with Titow.15 W. Harwood Long, ‘The low yields of corn in medieval England’, EHR, 2nd series, 32, 4 (1979), p. 461; Titow, Winchester Yields, 30. Brandon refers to the importance of the sheepfold in maintaining fertility on the manors of the chalk downland and scarp foot of Sussex, a topography not dissimilar to that of the Lincolnshire Wolds, where the agricultural response would have been the same.16 P. F. Brandon, ‘Demesne arable farming in coastal Sussex during the later Middle Ages’, AHR, 19 (1971), p. 130.

The adequacy of manure and the control of its distribution by folding livestock was crucial to successful crop production. Both the quantity and quality of fodder for the livestock, and the location and rotation of the folds, were the result of management decisions made within the parameters set by environmental limitations. Titow refers to decisions made on the Winchester estates as ‘practical expedient[s] dictated by specific conditions obtaining in each case’.17 Titow, Winchester Yields, p. 2. It is hardly surprising that agricultural treatises the likes of Walter of Henley, Husbandry and the Seneschaucy were so influential, offering, as they did, advice on all aspects of agriculture to the fourteenth-century agronomist.18 D. Oschinsky, Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Estate Management and Accounting (Oxford, 1971).

The significance of ploughing to the welfare of the arable enterprise is emphasised by the frequency of expenditure on plough repairs in the accounts.19 TNA, E 358/18, 15/1, line 20; 17/1, line 37. Ploughing took place during three seasons of the year: autumn, spring and summer. The autumn and spring ploughing was associated with the sowing of crops – winter-sown wheat and rye and spring-sown barley, oats and legumes – however, the summer ploughing was aimed at the suppression of weeds. Postles gives the example of the manor of Portswood (Hampshire), on the estates of the bishop of Lincoln, which was ploughed in the weeks after the Feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist (24 June).20 D. Postles, ‘Cleaning the medieval arable’, AHR, 36 (1988), p. 136. He further mentions four demesnes of Peterborough Abbey and manors of Ramsey Abbey as practising ‘summer fallow stirring’.21 Ibid., p. 138. Harwood Long states that the duration of the fallow period must be long enough for the land to be ploughed up to four or more times so as to kill perennial weeds.22 Harwood Long, ‘Low yields’, p. 464. The evidence of fallow ploughing in the Aslackby accounts supports Harwood Long’s assertion.23 TNA, E 358/18, 55/1, line 32.

The proportion of the fallow ploughed at any one time was small because of the need to provide fallow pasture for livestock, particularly sheep.24 Postles, ‘Cleaning’, p. 142. Although weeds needed to be suppressed, stock needed pasture, and so a balance had to be struck between the two demands. Nonetheless, it is abundantly clear that the ploughs were seldom at rest. As the means of maintaining soil fertility were limited, it was crucial that every attempt was made to reduce the impact of thistle, mayweed and sheep’s sorrel upon arable productivity.

Another approach to maintaining arable productivity was marling, the application of a mixture of clay and lime, which was ‘generally […] regarded as a costly undertaking’ and is nowhere listed in the former Templar accounts.25 W. M. Mathew, ‘Marling in British agriculture: a case of partial identity’, AHR, 41, no. 2 (1993), p. 108. Campbell cites the Norfolk example of Hanworth where, in 1284–5, the cost of digging marl was 3s. per acre, and that of spreading it 4d. per acre.26 B. M. S. Campbell ‘Agricultural progress in medieval England: some evidence from eastern Norfolk’, in B. M. S. Campbell, The Medieval Antecedents of English Agricultural Progress (Aldershot, 2007), II, pp. 33–4. He argues that the practice of marling would have been ‘very expensive when undertaken with hired labour’ and, as a consequence, would have been carried out either by the famuli or as part of the customary labour of tenants.27 Ibid. In either case, no financial transaction would have taken place and so no record would be included in the accounts. The absence of marling in the accounts of the former Templar estates, therefore, does not mean that it did not occur.

Wilson describes the soil of the chalk Wolds as ‘generally thin and sandy rather than calcareous’ and adds that ‘the grain and roots as are obtained from this poor soil are largely the result of much marling and liberal treatment with artificial fertilisers’.28 V. Wilson, British Regional Geology: East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (London: 1948), p. 13. In the Chilterns, where conditions were not dissimilar to those found in the Wolds, ‘marling was widely practised’.29 Roden, ‘Demesne farming’, p. 16. Templar holdings in the Lincolnshire Wolds were extensive in 1307, and as marling was an established means of soil improvement by the early fourteenth century, it is probable that the practice would have been adopted on the Templar estates. The 21 quarters of lime, valued at 7s., found in a limekiln at Willoughton and recorded in the account beginning 10 January 1308, may well have been for marling.30 TNA, E 358/18, 15/1, line 17.

The planting of legumes enhanced the nitrogenous content of the soil, and so its fertility, besides providing a source of dietary protein.31 Newman and Harvey, ‘Did soil fertility decline?’, p. 130. Campbell is unequivocal, stating with regard to eastern Norfolk that ‘large-scale cultivation of legumes was in fact the most prominent of a number of technological innovations’.32 Campbell, ‘Agricultural progress’, p. 32. Further, Titow mentions the progressively increasing proportion of leguminous crops on the Winchester estates during the first half of the fourteenth century as a factor contributing to increasing arable productivity.33 Titow, Winchester Yields, p. 31. Of the twenty-two manors on the estates of Temple Bruer and Willoughton for which acreages under seed are recorded in the accounts beginning Michaelmas 1308, only the four manors of Holme, South Witham, Temple Belwood and Mere have no record of legume cultivation.

Manuring, marling and the inclusion of legumes among the limited range of crops signified material inputs into the maintenance of soil fertility, whereas ploughing and weeding represented a considerable investment of labour. Indeed, Campbell stresses that output per acre was highest ‘when labour inputs were greatest not when the livestock were most numerous’.34 Campbell, ‘Land, labour, livestock’, p. 177. Weeding was a constant activity so as to ensure maximum crop productivity. The accounts frequently record the hire of labourers for weeding, which both indicates the importance of the task and implies that the famuli alone had not sufficient time to undertake it.35 TNA, E 358/18, 19/1, line 33; 16/1, line 60. However, as Postles succinctly points out, ‘the success or failure of weeding is not illuminated by the accounts’.36 Postles, ‘Cleaning’, p. 137. Similarly, Harwood Long observes that ‘there was nothing to indicate how far these operations achieved their purpose’.37 Harwood Long, ‘Low yields’, p. 469. If, as Titow suggests, manure was in ‘chronic short supply’ then every effort, however ineffective, had to be made to reduce the extent to which weeds consumed soil nutrition.38 Titow, Winchester Yields, p. 30.

Just as frequent ploughing and constant weeding were means of suppressing weeds, so was manipulation of the seeding rate. The more seed used per acre, the greater the density of the resultant crop, and the greater its ability to suppress weeds. Postles notes manors in Norfolk and on the estates of Canterbury Cathedral Priory where heavy sowing of up to 8 bushels per acre for oats was used as a means of suppressing weeds.39 Postles, ‘Cleaning’, p. 142. Thornton observes that on the bishop of Winchester’s manor of Taunton the low sowing rate could have been because of the availability of plentiful unfree labour for large-scale weeding.40 C. C. Thornton, ‘The level of arable productivity on the Bishopric of Winchester’s manor of Taunton’, in The Winchester Pipe Rolls and Medieval English Society, ed. R. Britnell (Woodbridge, 2003), p. 124. Alternatively, it may have been because the nutrient input was recognised as insufficient to support intensive cultivation.41 Ibid.

The output of crop, measured in bushels per acre, was thus dependent on a number of variables within the compass of the bailiff’s managerial control, all of which involved an investment of money, labour or both, the most effective balance of which would produce the maximum yield. As with the sheep farming element of the former Templar estates, the impact of management upon arable farming was crucial in determining productivity. Stone is of the opinion that ‘the behaviour of medieval farm managers […] could be sophisticated, rational, and much more “modern” than historians have previously given them credit for’, implying an understanding of and a considered response to both environmental and economic factors.42 D. Stone, Decision-Making in Medieval Agriculture (Oxford, 2005), p. 195. That is not to say, however, that each manor sergeant responded in a similar way to external factors, or that all were equally successful.

As on the bishop of Winchester’s estate at Taunton, wheat was favoured because of the high price it could command, despite its need for more nutrients than other cereals.45 Thornton, ‘The level of arable productivity’, p. 121. Wheat is recorded on each of the twenty-eight former Templar manors in at least one account. It was generally the most extensive crop throughout the former Templar estates, never falling below 32 percent of the arable acreage on any manor, with the highest proportion being 43.2 percent in the Aslackby account beginning Michaelmas 1311, though this is still rather lower than the ‘half the arable’ recorded at the manor of Cuxham, Oxfordshire.46 P. D. A. Harvey, A Medieval Oxfordshire Village: Cuxham, 1240 to 1400 (Oxford, 1965), p. 46. The value of an acre sown with wheat varied from 6s. at Aslackby and Carlton to 2s. 6d. at Brauncewell, but the more general value was 4s. per acre. The value of a quarter of wheat, which ranged from 3s. 6d. to 8s. during 1308, did not compare favourably with the average of 7s. ¼d. per quarter which Farmer calculates for the same year.47 D. L. Farmer, ‘Some grain price movements in thirteenth-century England’, EHR, new series, 10, 2 (1957), p. 212. The reason for wheat’s pre-eminence was, as Hammond states, that ‘wheat was the most commercially valuable crop since wheaten bread was more desirable than any other kind’.48 P. W. Hammond, Food and Feast in Medieval England (Stroud, 1993), p. 2.

While wheat was universal, rye, the other winter-sown grain, was much less popular. It was sown on fewer manors – twelve of the twenty-four manors constituting the estates of Temple Bruer and Willoughton in the accounts beginning Michaelmas 1308. In addition, the rye acreage made up only 5.3 percent of the total arable acreage, ‘the modest share of the sown acreage’ referred to by Campbell.49 Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, p. 220. The manor of Eagle was the exception: in the account beginning Michaelmas 1312 rye comprised 18.9 percent of the total arable acreage. Rye straw was favoured for both fodder and bedding, a factor which could have influenced the 78½ acres at Eagle. As a breeding station (see Chapter 4), Eagle needed to provide fodder and bedding for large numbers of stock, and rye would have served that purpose. In some cases, such as the manor of Wellingore during the winter sowing of 1308, rye was mixed with wheat and sown as maslin, which produced better bread than rye on its own, but still did not match the quality of pure wheaten bread. Aslackby never included rye in its grain acreage.50 Where reference was made to a crop of maslin, it invariably meant a mixture of wheat and barley. Only in the grange inventories was the term maslin used more broadly.

Rye was not grown as a commercial crop. There is only one instance, in the entirety of the accounts, where rye was sold: the 3½ quarters of rye listed in the Claxby account beginning Michaelmas 1308. Otherwise, the whole of the rye crop was used for bread-making or the direct payment of famuli in the form of either seed or maslin.51 TNA, E 358/18, 15/2, line 40. Despite its insignificance as a commercial crop, the value of a standing acre of rye was surprisingly consistent with that of both wheat and barley on the Temple Bruer estate, generally 4s. per acre, but was much more variable on the Willoughton estate, ranging from 4s. per acre at both Gainsborough and Keadby to 1s. 3d. per acre at Cabourne. Gainsborough, in the Trent valley, and Keadby, on the Isle of Axholme, both enjoyed fertile, clay soil and low relief. Cabourne is in a steep-sided Wolds valley where arable farming in the early fourteenth century would have presented something of a challenge. The greater variety of topography and soil type of the Willoughton estate compared with that of Temple Bruer was clearly reflected in the range of standing crop values. As with wheat, the value of rye was below the average calculated by Farmer, which was 6s. 9½d. for 1309.52 Farmer, ‘Some grain price movements’, p. 212. However, rye was hardier than wheat and less demanding in nitrogen. Thus, overall, rye was not without advantages. It was therefore to be considered, certainly as an insurance crop, on less fertile soils where harsh winter frosts might nip the emerging wheat.

With the exception of a crop sown during the winter of 1307 at Temple Bruer, all barley was spring-sown. Although barley was the premier brewing grain, the acreage devoted to the cereal was by no means consistent across the former Templar estates. Whereas Campbell claims nearly half the arable land in Norfolk was devoted to barley before 1350, on the combined estates of Temple Bruer and Willoughton, beginning Michaelmas 1308, the barley acreage was 12.2 percent of the arable total.53 Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, p. 223. Only at Aslackby, in the account beginning at Michaelmas 1311, did the barley acreage exceed 20 percent of the total and this was on the manor with the most restricted range of crops.

Barley was second only to wheat in value, an acre of standing crop having a mean value of 3s. 5½d. compared with the 3s. 7½d. of wheat, again well below the 5s. ½d. calculated by Farmer.54 Farmer, ‘Grain price movements’, p. 212. Overall, it seems that barley was best suited to the Temple Bruer manors, as, with the exception of Welbourn, an acre of barley was uniformly worth 4s. On the Willoughton estate, as with both wheat and rye, there was far less uniformity in price. Willoughton, Gainsborough and Keadby, all on clay soils, had a crop valuation of 4s. per acre. The Wolds manors of Limber and Claxby had a crop valuation of 2s. 6d. per acre, and that of Cabourne was the lowest of all at 2s.

Mixed cropping was a common practice in the early fourteenth century, the most widespread mixtures being barley with oats (dredge) and wheat with rye (maslin).55 Pretty, ‘Sustainable agriculture’, p. 5. There were two reasons for growing mixed crops: it reduced the chance of complete crop failure, and competition between the two grains increased the suppression of weeds.56 Ibid. The argument in favour of mixed crops was one of sustainability rather than productivity.

In the accounts beginning Michaelmas 1308, dredge was sown in spring on seventeen manors of the total of twenty-eight, of which eight were on the Temple Bruer estate and nine on the Willoughton estate. The proportion of arable land sown with dredge was consistent across the two major ex-Templar estates in the accounts beginning Michaelmas 1308: 17.9 percent of the arable acreage on the Temple Bruer estate, and 17 percent on the Willoughton estate. No dredge was sown on the estate of Eagle and members or at Aslackby.

The value of dredge was significantly lower than all single-sown grains except oats, which were consistently of the lowest value. At Temple Bruer wheat, rye and barley were each valued at 4s. per acre whereas dredge was valued at 3s. The lowest value by far for an acre of dredge was that of 1s. 2d. at Cabourne. The value of the standing dredge crop was not always consistent throughout its acreage on a specific manor. During the growing season of 1309, 62 acres were sown with dredge on the manor of Tealby, at the foot of the west-facing scarp of the Lincolnshire Wolds. Of those, 46 acres of the standing crop were valued at 2s. 6d. per acre, and 16 acres at 3s. 6d. The absence of barley and oats at Tealby further points to a soil type which was not ideal for grain, but in the mixed farming economy of the period no alternative was available. At Claxby manor, 3 miles north-west of Tealby, also a scarp-foot location, neither dredge nor oats were sown and the only spring-sown grain was barley, valued at 2s. 6d. per acre, which was 28.6 percent lower than the mean value of 3s. 6d. for the former Templar estates.

Oats were widespread in the accounts beginning Michaelmas 1308, being grown on sixteen of the twenty-eight ex-Templar manors. Of the 16.2 percent of the arable land devoted to oats on the Temple Bruer estate (285½ acres total), 216 acres were sown on the manor of Temple Bruer itself. No other manor on the former Templar estates approached the Temple Bruer oats acreage, the highest acreage elsewhere being the 140 acres at Eagle recorded in the account beginning Michaelmas 1312. At both Temple Bruer and Eagle the acreage of oats exceeded that of wheat – 133 and 169 acres respectively. This was despite the lower value per acre of standing oats. Both preceptories, however, needed considerable amounts of fodder for their numerous livestock. Clearly there was a distinction between the low commercial value of oats and their domestic value, which was not reflected in monetary terms.

Willoughton manor had a much smaller acreage devoted to oats than had Temple Bruer, but the percentage of each estate devoted to oats – 13.6 percent and 16.2 percent respectively – was not as dissimilar as the distribution over the estates. On the Willoughton estate, the accounts beginning at Michaelmas 1308 reveal a substantial variation in the value of the standing crop from manor to manor. As with dredge, Cabourne was the poorest performer with oats valued at 1s. 2d. per acre. The other two wold manors performed little better, with values of 1s. 4d. at Goulceby and 1s. 6d. at Limber. Cabourne had consistently the lowest value per acre, by a considerable margin, for each and every crop, on any of the former Templar manors. The manor of Keadby had an unusually high value of 3s. for a standing acre of oats; as with other grains, the manor on the Isle of Axholme performed particularly well. The accounts give no prices for a quarter of oats and so no comparison with Farmer can be made.

Shiel considers the thirteenth century a period of ‘general increase in the importance of legumes as a field crop’, stating that by the end of the century peas and beans were widely cultivated but ‘rarely on a scale sufficient to have raised [arable] productivity’.57 R. S. Shiel, ‘Improving soil productivity in the pre-fertiliser era’, in Land, Labour and Livestock, ed. Campbell and Overton, p. 54. On the former Templar estates in Lincolnshire the growing of legumes – peas, beans and pulmentum (a mixture of grain and legumes) – was second only to wheat in popularity, since they were grown on twenty-three of the twenty-eight manors.58 Pulmentum appears in the marginal subheadings of accounts following peas and beans and before oats – see TNA, E 358/18, 19/2, line 28. Campbell describes pulmentum as being a mixture of either rye and peas or oats and vetch – see Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, p. 227. From the accounts it is not possible to be more precise than to say that it was a mixture of legumes and grain. Throughout the former Templar estates, the proportion of legumes grown was variable. However, pulmentum was restricted to the heathland, south of the city of Lincoln, where it was grown only on seven manors of the Temple Bruer estate and on the neighbouring manor of Mere, which was a member of the Willoughton estate.

Meadow is poorly recorded in the accounts of the former Templar estates beginning at Michaelmas 1308. No meadowland is recorded for Aslackby in 1308, but 51 acres of meadowland are recorded during the accounting year of 1312–13. In the accounts covering the period from Easter 1309 until 30 July 1309, five of the Willoughton manors record meadow acreages, they being Willoughton, Tealby, Claxby, Limber and Gainsborough. The Willoughton estate had 141 acres of meadow, which meant that the ratio of meadow acreage to arable acreage was one to eight, much lower than the fens and reflecting Campbell’s observation that by no means all demesnes in the Wolds had meadow.61 Ibid.

The sum of £9. 16s. 4d. is itemised in the accounts beginning Michaelmas 1308 for the mowing of meadow and haymaking on the manors of Temple Bruer, Carlton, Welbourn, Cranwell and Leadenham, but no acreage is given.62 TNA, E 358/18, 16/1, lines 60–1. This sum also included the purchase of eighteen carts of hay for sheep. Neither Cranwell nor Leadenham were member manors of the Temple Bruer estate; the Templars had held land there, but not the entire manors. In the accounts for Willoughton beginning at the same time, £1 was spent on four cartloads of hay for ewes in Lent, when lambing and subsequent feeding would occur.63 TNA, E 358/18, 15/1, line 24. While it was deemed worthwhile to buy additional hay for sheep during lambing, there is no evidence of additional hay, grain or legumes being bought specifically to provide fodder for livestock during winter.

The accounts are woefully wanting in itemising grange stores used for fodder, and only record the purchase of grains and legumes for either seed or payment of the famuli. However, domestic production of fodder crops must have been adequate to sustain livestock through the winter, as the fact remains that there was no mass slaughter of stock in the autumn precipitated by the impending lack of fodder.

The choice of cultivated crops, their relative acreage and the purpose for which they were grown were not accidental; they were all based on managerial decisions. A sergeant would have considered which commercial crops were likely to be most successful on his manor, given the limitations set by topography, soil type and drainage, and ensured that the maximum viable crop acreage was devoted to commercial crops. This approach, to ensure the greatest productivity and profitability, would have determined both the wheat and barley acreages. The domestic need for food and livery for the famuli and contracted workers, and fodder for draught animals, was a further determinant of arable acreage.

Where purchases were made, they may have been because of a shortfall in production due, perhaps, to a poor harvest, which left little option but to make unplanned purchases of grain or legumes. Alternatively, it may have made more financial sense to buy relatively cheap grain or legumes so as to free additional acreage for the more commercial crops of wheat and barley. On the Temple Bruer estate, wheat and barley, the two most important commercial grains, were each grown on six of the eight constituent manors. In addition, wheat was bought in at Brauncewell for livery payment, and barley was bought for seed at Wellingore. With the exception of Wellingore, the sum of the wheat and barley stores was greater than that of any other crop. Although wheat and barley were the main commercial crops, the produce was by no means all for sale. Both grains were also used for livery payment.

It was clearly thought good economic sense to buy a significant proportion of the rye required for the domestic demands of the Templar manors – 37 percent of the rye store on the Temple Bruer estate – thus allowing a greater proportion of the winter-sown arable land to be used for wheat. On the few manors where rye was grown, it was not sown in a sufficient quantity to meet domestic demand and so more had to be bought in. Therefore there was a commercial trade in rye, albeit more limited than that in wheat. Thornton identifies the replacement of the consumption-orientated rye by the much more commercial wheat in the thirteenth century on the Rimpton manor of the Winchester demesne.65 Thornton ‘Determinants of land productivity’, p. 189. Wheat was not only the most important commercial crop but was also, as Campbell points out, gradually supplanting rye in payments to the famuli.66 Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, p. 219.

Dredge was a commercial crop and as such was grown on each manor where it was recorded in the granary. The only exceptions were the manors of Holme and Wellingore, on the Temple Bruer estate, where dredge was bought for seed. The manor of Temple Bruer itself also had a sizeable store of dredge malt, 60 percent of which was sold.

Oats were not grown as a commercial crop. Only 8.1 percent of the oat store was sold on the Temple Bruer estate and at Aslackby in the accounts beginning 10 January 1308, and the amount bought was negligible. However, the domestic importance of oats upon the manors where they were grown, in particular Temple Bruer, was such that the total oat store was greater than that of any other crop.

Overall, considerably more beans and peas were needed than were produced on the Templar manors, and the shortfall necessitated the purchase of additional supplies. Legumes are to be found in the grange inventory of each of the Temple Bruer manors and that of Aslackby in the accounts beginning 10 January 1308. Temple Bruer had only beans in store, and at South Witham beans and peas were accounted together; everywhere else, only peas are recorded in the grange inventories. Aslackby had 82 quarters 2 bushels of peas, by far the largest store of legumes, and the grange inventory shows a much greater degree of integration of legumes into the arable economy than elsewhere. At Aslackby the store of peas was sufficient for the manor’s usage, unlike at Temple Bruer, where 66.9 percent of the bean store was purchased. The recording of pulmentum is widespread across the granaries of the Temple Bruer estate, all used domestically and with the exception, again, of Wellingore, all grown on the manor.

It is clear that the availability of seed was totally dependent upon the previous harvest. It is particularly noticeable that in the case of both wheat and rye, which would have been sown before 10 January 1308, no reserve was stored in the granary to be sown during the winter of 1309, were the intervening harvest to fail. All the grain was either used or sold, and as a result the harvest of 1309 was completely dependent for its seed upon the harvest of 1308. A scrutiny of other crops in the granaries reveals the same pattern. No reserve was retained; the sum of the contents of the granaries equalled the sum of crop usage. A change which is noticeable, however, on four of the Temple Bruer manors, was a shift in emphasis. In each case, the entirety of the pea store was consumed whereas over 94 percent of the store of pulmentum was used for seed. This could suggest a change in cropping pattern.

The absence of a continuous run of accounts over a significant period means that no conclusive pattern of seed policy is evident. As a result, it is not possible to say whether the purchase of new seed was on a regular cyclical basis, implying a budgetary mechanism, or whether, when it occurred, it was merely a response to the vagaries of fortune.

The grange inventories for oats are not entirely reliable, so a full statistical analysis cannot be attempted. However, it is clear that oats were used as a fodder crop, particularly for oxen. In the accounts beginning 10 January 1308, 28 quarters 3 bushels and 1 peck of oats were used to feed fifty oxen at South Witham, and 30 quarters 5 bushels were used at Temple Bruer (11.4 percent of Temple Bruer’s sum total), where there were forty-two oxen.69 TNA, E 358/18, 18/2, lines 13–14; 19/2, line 32. The amount of fodder issued per animal was variable. On the manor of Kirkby 2 quarters were used for feeding twelve oxen, a much less generous allocation than at South Witham.70 TNA, E 358/18, 19/1 dorse, line 48. Even allowing for considerable variation in the issue of fodder between periods of high activity (such as ploughing time) and periods of maintenance, there must have been sources of provender at Kirkby which are not evident in the accounts.

As elsewhere, oats were used for horse fodder. At Temple Bruer, which had thirty plough horses, 8.8 percent of the total grange store was used for horse fodder.71 TNA, E 358/18, 19/2, line 32. The expectation was that the issue of oats per plough horse would be far greater than that per ox – one of the reasons for horses being regarded as more expensive than oxen. On the manor of Temple Bruer, 6.2 bushels were allocated for each plough horse and 5.8 bushels per ox. On the South Witham estate the rate was 4.5 bushels per ox, and only at the manor of Kirkby did the feeding rate fall to 1.3 bushels of oats per ox. No issue of oats to plough horses was listed for South Witham, which seems improbable as the manor had six mixed plough teams in 1308 with sixteen plough horses.72 TNA, E 358/18, 18/2, line 23.

Campbell says that the use of dredge as a fodder crop was ‘decidedly limited’, citing a proportion of less than 1 percent on manors of Adderbury (Oxfordshire), Hyde (Middlesex) and Wargrave (Berkshire).73 Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, p. 226. In each account, the quantity of grain threshed and winnowed is recorded under expenses, but there is only one record of the use to which chaff was put. The account for Temple Bruer beginning 10 January 1308 itemises 23 quarters 4 bushels of dredge chaff (double entered under oats) as being used as fodder for plough horses.74 TNA, E 358/18, 19/2, line 25. The grain having been used for bread or brewing, the remaining chaff can have had little nutritional value.

Aslackby and Rowston were the only two manors which used peas as a fodder crop for carthorses and plough horses, 13.4 percent and 16.4 percent respectively of the total grange pea store. The Rowston inventory specifies that the peas were used to feed two carthorses and eight plough horses during sowing, a boost to fodder intake during a busy period.75 TNA, E 358/18, 19/1 dorse, lines 19–20. This corresponds to the replacement of oats by vetch at Cuxham when plough horses were being worked hard.76 J. Langdon, ‘The economics of horses and oxen in medieval England’, AHR, 30 (1982), p. 39. Aslackby was alone in using peas to feed oxen, 14 quarters 6 bushels to feed twenty-four beasts.77 TNA, E 358/18, 18/1 dorse, line 8. It is notable that at Aslackby the oats not used for seed were used for the livery of famuli, or were sold, but were not used for fodder. No oats were grown on the manor of Rowston. However, pulmentum was, of which 7 quarters 7 bushels were fed to twenty-four oxen.78 TNA, E 358/18, 19/1 dorse, lines 21–2.

As livery of the famuli, wheat is enumerated either as a payment in its own right or as a constituent of maslin. At each of the most important wheat producing manors – Temple Bruer, South Witham, Rowston and Aslackby – the quantity of wheat involved in labour payment far exceeded that of any other crop, the implication being that there was growing social pressure from the labouring classes to be paid in high-quality grain. This suggests that the trend which Campbell identifies in the second half of the fourteenth century, of ‘workers […] increasingly demanding and receiving liveries of wheat rather than rye’, was apparent on the Templar estates of Temple Bruer and Aslackby at least as early as 1308.81 Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, p. 219. By 1312, Aslackby recorded the purchase of fish, meat, cheese and milk for consumption by the autumn harvesters. This suggests a significantly enhanced diet for the contracted workers, who may have been in a stronger negotiating position than the famuli.82 TNA, E358/18, 55/1, line 44. Conversely, at the manor of Rimpton (Somerset), on the bishop of Winchester’s estate, not only were wage rises to the famuli denied during the fourteenth century, but in addition, the policy was to include the least valuable crops in food liveries.83 Thornton, ‘Determinants of land productivity’, p. 207.

As barley was the prime brewing grain, it would be expected that a substantial proportion would have been retained for malting and subsequent brewing, but this is not evident in the accounts beginning 10 January 1308. It is only in the grange inventories of Aslackby beginning 16 June 1312, and subsequently, that barley malt is itemised. In the first instance, the malt was received from William de Spanneby and was for ‘the use of reapers and others in autumn’.84 TNA, E 358/18, 55/1, line 20. One must assume that the barley issued as livery at Temple Bruer was brewed by ale wives, and that elsewhere barley for brewing was sold.

Although not itemised in the accounts, dredge made an important contribution to the medieval diet both as a brewing grain (second to barley) and as a constituent of pottage – the staple food of the famuli. It therefore justified its arable acreage. The use of dredge as livery for labourers at Temple Bruer was most unusual given its high value as a brewing grain, exemplified by the sale of 24 quarters of dredge malt from the granary at Temple Bruer.85 TNA, E 358/18, 19/2, line 35. However, 16 quarters of dredge malt were retained for autumn use, most probably for brewing ale during harvest time.86 Ibid.

On Lammas Day (1 August) 1308, less than eight months after the sequestration of the Templar estates, a more radical approach was adopted towards crop sales on the Willoughton estate. On seven manors – Cabourne, Limber, Goulceby, Cawkwell, Gainsborough, Keadby and Temple Belwood – all the standing crops were sold. The assured income from crop sales before harvest, although rarely paid immediately, ensured that the risk of the harvest lay with the purchaser. The same policy was not adopted on the estates of Temple Bruer, Eagle and Aslackby, perhaps because they were situated in Kesteven, where there was less topographical variety and the estates were more compact than was the case with Willoughton in Lindsey.

It is apparent that the differences in topography and soil type across the Templar estates had a profound effect upon productivity. The greater uniformity of production across the Templar manors in Kesteven corresponded with that of the heathland where the Temple Bruer estate was located. The greater variation across the Willoughton estate in Lindsey reflected that the estate was more widespread than the relatively compact estate of Temple Bruer and that it embraced a greater variety of both landscape and soil type. This is particularly manifest in the differences between the Wolds manors, like Cabourne, and those located on the Isle of Axholme and the Trent valley, such as Keadby and Gainsborough.

Within the parameters set by physical limitations, the hand of man is apparent. The consistency of low crop returns at Cabourne may not have been due entirely to its Wolds location, as other Wolds manors managed better. Most markedly, the need to purchase both barley and dredge at Wellingore, while selling 43.8 percent of the oats store, points to much less effective decision-making than was found at the preceptory of Temple Bruer.

The consistent sale of the entirety of the surplus of each crop on every manor, while it maximised short-term income, meant no reserve was retained and there was therefore a complete dependence on either seed purchased or prospective seed allocation from the anticipated harvest for the subsequent year. The sale of all crop surpluses as evident in the accounts beginning 10 January 1308 resulted in a high degree of uncertainty given the vagaries of the climate in the early fourteenth century, the resultant unreliability of the harvests, and the impact that had upon grain prices.87 M. Mate, ‘High prices in early fourteenth-century England: causes and consequences’, EHR, new series, 28, 1 (1975), p. 8. The correlation between short-term price fluctuations and the quality of the harvest has previously been established by Titow on the Winchester manors.88 J. Z. Titow, ‘Evidence of weather in the account rolls of the Bishopric of Winchester 1209–1350’, EHR, new series, 12, 3 (1960), p. 362. The sale of standing crops on the Willoughton estate as early as Lammas Day 1308 was a means of realising saleable assets while passing on the risk of an uncertain harvest to the crop purchaser.

The acquisition of the Templar estates by Edward II, and his need to raise finance to pay inherited debts, necessitated the implementation of a very short-term approach to estate management, involving the sale of crops beyond the normal limit dictated by prudence. The maximisation of income was of more immediate concern than ensuring the availability of seed corn. It is probable that the Templars would have shown far greater circumspection in their sales of grain and legumes so as to ensure the long-term security of their farming enterprises, a consideration which would not have exercised the king’s agents.