¬XiosMOVE|Chapter 4 Livestock, excluding sheep, on the former Templar estates, 1308–13

Where there was an odd number of ploughmen in the accounts, this was because a head ploughman was employed, as at Willoughton at Michaelmas 1308, Eagle at Michaelmas 1311 and 1312, and Temple Bruer at Michaelmas 1311.7 TNA, E 358/18, 15/1, line 26; 39/1 dorse, line 70; 39/1 dorse, line 62; 38/1 dorse, line 20. In each case, a foreman ploughman was employed by the preceptory, which had the largest number of plough teams on its respective estate. However, Aslackby, the only preceptory without member manors, did not enrol a foreman ploughman in any of its accounts, which suggests that the role of the foreman ploughman was not restricted to the preceptory manor but also included supervisory responsibility for the entire estate of the preceptory that employed him. If the foreman ploughman had managerial responsibility across a bailiwick in the same manner as did a head shepherd, then, although arable farming was organised and accounted on a manorial basis, there was at least a degree of centralised oversight.

Unlike the compact Temple Bruer estate, the Willoughton estate was widespread and embraced the far greater physical diversity of Lindsey, ranging from the chalk and boulder clay of the Wolds to the heavy clay soils of the Trent valley and Isle of Axholme. The physical diversity of the Willoughton estate was reflected in the greater variety of its plough teams, in terms of both size and composition. In the account beginning 10 January 1308, the plough teams were mixed, consisting of both oxen and plough horses on all but four manors. The exceptions were the manors of Gainsborough, Keadby, Temple Belwood and Limber.

Of the manors with mixed plough teams, only Cabourne had a single small team of four beasts, two plough horses and two oxen. Cabourne is situated in a particularly steep-sided east–west Wolds valley where a smaller mixed team of four beasts may have been more manoeuvrable on the steep slopes. Four miles due north of Cabourne is Limber, on the edge of the Wolds, the only other manor with a four-beast plough team made up entirely of plough horses. It could be argued that at the northern edge of the Templars’ estates in Lincolnshire, the manors of Cabourne and, in particular, Limber were being used for progressive experimentation as medieval technology gradually favoured the horse. Campbell points out that the progress towards all-horse farms was more pronounced on the smallest holdings; neither Cabourne nor Limber were large manors with extensive arable acreages.9 B. M. S. Campbell, ‘Towards an agricultural geography of medieval England’, AHR, 36 (1988), p. 91. Langdon argues that horses formed 25 percent of working animals during the high farming period of 1250–1320 and that part of this was due to the ‘greater participation of horses in ploughing’.10 Langdon, Horses, Oxen, pp. 94–5. Le Patourel suggests, on the basis of archaeological evidence from Wharram Percy, that horses may have been particularly suited for ploughing the shallow, chalky soil of the Yorkshire Wolds – a soil type identical to that found in the Lincolnshire Wolds.11 M. E. J. Le Patourel, ‘The use of horses’, in ‘Animal remains from Wharram Percy’, by M. L. Ryder with notes by J. G. Hurst and H. E. J. Patourel, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 46 (1974), pp. 51–2.

Three manors – Gainsborough, Keadby and Temple Belwood – favoured plough teams of eight oxen. The heavy clay soils of the Trent valley and the Isle of Axholme were better suited to oxen, which had greater pulling power than horses. Before drainage by Vermuyden in the seventeenth century, the Isle of Axholme was subject to flooding, which, although enhancing fertility, would not have suited horses.12 J. Thirsk, ‘The Isle of Axholme before Vermuyden’, AHR, 1 (1953), pp. 16–28. Campbell cites oxen as having ‘an advantage on heavy soils, where large teams were unavoidable and speed scarcely an option’.13 B. M. S. Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, 1250–1450 (Cambridge, 2000), p. 132. Adam de Keadby had a strong association with both Keadby and Temple Belwood, and clearly applied the same ploughing approach to both manors.14 TNA, E 358/18, 15/2 dorse, lines 11–12, 14–15.

The Eagle estate was unique in that the number of oxen, in particular, was in excess of that required for the number of plough teams. This suggests that Eagle was a breeding station for livestock, a view supported by its large number of cows and ewes. However, the accounts do not record large-scale movement of stock from Eagle to any other estate; nor do they record significant sales of oxen.

It is notable that of the Willoughton manors the four-beast plough teams of Cabourne (two oxen, two plough horses) and Limber (four plough horses) were able to plough areas of 68.5 acres and 66.8 acres, the highest acreages per plough team on the estate. The success of smaller plough teams, and the use of plough horses at both Cabourne and Limber, proved they had greater speed and manoeuvrability, and each was able to plough a greater area. This further implies the use of lighter ploughs and shallower ploughing. As Langdon suggests, the use of horses relates to the speed of ploughing and so to the number of ploughs needed for a given area of arable land.17 Langdon, Horses, Oxen, p. 169.

Temple Belwood, on the heavy soil of the Isle of Axholme, one of the three manors with plough teams made up of eight oxen, had only 24 acres under the plough. Although Temple Belwood is the most extreme example of isolation determining the maintenance of a plough team for a small arable acreage, on the Willoughton estate this was by no means a singular occurrence. As a result, the average acreage per plough team on the Willoughton estate was considerably less than that on the Temple Bruer estate.

The smallest acreage per plough team was on the manor of South Witham, which averaged 20.4 acres per team. However, it is more than likely that the 122½ acres of wheat handed over to Stephen de Stanham by William de Spanneby on the manor of South Witham was not the entire arable acreage.18 TNA, E 358/18, 14/1 dorse, line 37. In addition, the six plough teams South Witham maintained would have been used on rented land that would not have been handed over to Stephen de Stanham as part of the lease, thus leaving South Witham overstocked with draught animals. The expenses of the account for South Witham beginning Michaelmas 1308 list 3s. 4d. paid to William de Crescy of Claypole for the rental of land and tenancies which the Templars held of him, and a further 3s. 4d. paid to Thomas de St Laund for the same purpose.19 Ibid., lines 14–16. In other words, the 20.4 acres per plough team does not truly represent the situation on the South Witham manor. Nonetheless, were other former Templar manors to have rented additional land, which would increase the average number of acres per plough team, then little is recorded under expenses. The manor of Mere listed only 22½ acres of wheat in the account beginning Michaelmas 1308. In the same account, 181½ quarters of cereals other than wheat and legumes were threshed and winnowed, which implies, as with South Witham, that this was not the total arable acreage and that it would not have kept three plough teams and six ploughmen gainfully employed.20 Ibid., lines 52–3.

Based upon this evidence, we can conclude that not all arable acreage was accounted; certainly rented acreages were not included, which partially explains the low average acreage per plough team. More significant is the varied topography and relatively small arable acreages of many of the manors, particularly on the Willoughton estate, each of which was obliged to maintain a plough team, where greater proximity and more cooperation would have enabled a more efficient solution. Eagle is the only estate where it would seem clear that cooperation between the manors took place, perhaps as a direct result of its compact nature. It would appear that the lack of inter-manorial cooperation meant that a manor needed to maintain a plough team however small the arable acreage, the result of which was a lower arable acreage per plough team than those cited by Campbell and Langdon.21 B. M. S. Campbell, ‘Towards an agricultural geography of medieval England’, AHR, 36 (1988), p. 91; Langdon, Horses, Oxen, pp. 94–5.

The amount of fodder required was determined both by the number of beasts, and by their type. Horses required more and better-quality fodder than did oxen, though the difference was less than might have been expected on the former Templar estates in Lincolnshire. Walter of Henley states unequivocally, with reference to feedstuffs, that ‘the horse costeth more than the oxe’, and both required more fodder if they were being worked hard.22 Oschinsky, Walter, p. 319. The addition of horses is generally held to have increased the speed of ploughing and so reduced the time over which high-quality fodder was required, but plough horses did not have the traction to plough heavy soils, whereas oxen did. Where the soil was heavy, Walter noted that ‘the horse plough shall stand stille wheare the oxe ploughe wille goe thorowe’.23 Ibid.

At the end of its working life, an ox had far greater residual value than a horse as it could be fattened for beef. Ryder establishes that, of the animal remains found at Kirkstall, the majority of ox bones were from animals between five and ten years old, clearly having been slaughtered at the end of their working lives.24 M. L. Ryder, ‘The animal remains found at Kirkstall Abbey’, AHR, 7 (1959), p. 3. The complete change from oxen to plough horses at the manor of Limber represented a decision of such magnitude that Langdon regards such ‘policy changes as relatively rare’.25 Langdon, Horses, Oxen, p. 89. Upon them, the wellbeing of the entire manor depended. As Campbell states, concerning the integration of horses in plough teams, ‘nor was it a decision which could sensibly be taken without reference to the rest of the husbandry system’.26 Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, p. 129. The greater consumption of grain by horses, as opposed to the grass-grazing oxen, had an impact upon both arable and pasture.27 Ibid.

The former Templar estates in Lincolnshire were at a transitional stage in the early fourteenth century. They were abreast of the technical innovation represented by plough horses but were by no means fully committed to replacing the ox. The rate of replacement was clearly influenced by the varied landscape of Lincolnshire and the responses of the manor bailiffs. On the basis of Wisbech evidence, Stone argues that ‘medieval demesne officials were more flexible and proficient than hitherto thought, but […] the quality of management could vary significantly from one individual to the next’.28 D. Stone, Decision-Making in Medieval Agriculture (Oxford, 2005), p. 190. The range in size and composition of the plough teams reflected the individuality of each manor in its managerial approach to arable farming, in complete contrast to the centralised organisation of sheep farming.

Each of the four Lincolnshire preceptories had a dairy recorded, as had the former preceptory of South Witham. Cheese was certainly produced from ewes’ milk, but the contribution of cows’ milk to cheese-making is less clear in the accounts.29 R. Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700 (1957), p. 119. Thus, at the manor of Tealby no dairy was recorded, and yet there was cheese in the larder, while at Temple Bruer there was a dairy but no cows, suggesting that the 308 cheeses stored therein were made from ewes’ milk.30 TNA, E 358/18, 16/2, line 59. Perhaps on the manors where cattle were raised but no dairy recorded, there was simply no dedicated building as it is inconceivable that cows were not milked when calves had been weaned. Alternatively, milk may have been sold, although no sales were recorded; however, considerable purchases of milk were recorded – 1,180 gallons of milk for 1,148 lambs of the whole Temple Bruer estate (tota Ballia Bruer), in the account beginning 10 January 1308.31 TNA, E 358/18, 19/1, line 38.

For the duration of the period covered by the accounts, 1308–13, no cattle purchases were recorded. However, from an initial total herd of 318 cattle, excluding oxen, in the accounts beginning 10 January 1308, 126 beasts (41 percent of the total) were sold, of which eighty-eight were calves over a year old. This was undoubtedly the initial sale of moveable assets by William de Spanneby, keeper of the Templar lands, as this large-scale stock sale was not repeated. Only sixteen animals were sold in the accounts beginning Michaelmas 1308, none of them adult, which retained 108 breeding cows. The fertility rate was at best 50 percent, in the accounts beginning Michaelmas 1311, and at worst 30 percent, in those beginning Michaelmas 1308. In such circumstances the sale of eighty-eight calves by 28 September 1308 showed little regard for a planned breeding programme such as must have existed under Templar management for the regular replacement of ageing ploughing oxen. The point is emphasised by the sale of eighteen two-year-old bullocks at Temple Bruer, animals which would have been approaching maturity and so able to replace older beasts in the plough teams.

Considerable stock movement took place between 10 January and 28 September 1308 on the Temple Bruer estate. All the cows from the manors of Kirkby and Rowston were transferred to Holme, suggesting a cooperative effort towards cattle farming. In the subsequent account, all the cows at Holme were transferred to either Rowston or Temple Bruer. Clearly this was a half-yearly stratagem to utilise the best pasture. In the final account for Temple Bruer and members, beginning Michaelmas 1311, no cattle were recorded but the form of the accounts is equivocal. Nonetheless, for Temple Bruer and Rowston at least, the evidence points towards a decline in cattle-rearing.

The movement of cattle on the Willoughton estate, as at Temple Bruer, largely involved mature beasts, particularly cows. Of the twenty-one cows at Willoughton on 10 January 1308, nine were moved to Keadby, along with a bull and four calves. This was obviously to furnish Keadby with breeding stock to replace bullocks and calves sold from there before Michaelmas. As with the Temple Bruer estate, the replacement of ageing oxen was being deferred. Cattle-rearing at Tealby underwent a similar change to that at Keadby, as the sale of cows and bullocks meant that the breeding stock had to be augmented by cows from Limber and Willoughton. Again, at Tealby, the replacement of ageing ploughing oxen was being deferred. This undermining of the Templar policy of planned replacement of ploughing oxen was most marked at Willoughton itself, where, of the thirteen bullocks, twelve were sold and only one draughted with oxen. Postan observes that ‘royal commissioners who often administered monastic estates during vacancies [the period between the death of one abbot and the appointment of the next] were “out for quick profits” and apt to make their profit by running down the capital equipment, including the flocks and herds’.32 M. M. Postan, The Medieval Economy and Society: An Economic History of Britain in the Middle Ages (1972), p. 102. The accounts of the ex-Templar estates immediately after the arrest of the Order illustrate this point very clearly. The sale of bullocks, which would otherwise have become replacements for ageing plough oxen destabilised the manors in exactly the same way as the absence of reserve grain in the granges introduced uncertainty into the following harvest. The implication is that, having sold stock between 10 January and 28 September 1308 to maximise income, the approach to the management of the former Templar estates was short-term with minimal re-investment. Equally, by 30 July 1309, all four Lincolnshire preceptories and their associated estates and members were leased, and the plough teams, their maintenance, and the impact upon arable agriculture were no longer the immediate concern of the crown agents. It would have been the responsibility of the lessee to replace stock so as to enable viable arable farming to continue.

Eagle is a singular case. In January 1308, Eagle had thirty cows, the number being reduced to twenty-four by an outbreak of murrain. Nonetheless, there was an issue of sixteen calves, a fertility rate which was only exceeded by South Witham, where there was a 100 percent success rate. Eagle had more cows than any other manor, and was the only manor which had three bulls, but no bullocks were enrolled. One can only suppose that the murrain which had smitten the cows had killed the bullocks in the previous year. As none of Eagle’s member manors were listed as having cattle, then one must assume that Eagle’s large number of breeding stock was to provide the plough teams of Whisby, Woodhouse and Bracebridge besides replacing its own stock. What emerges is that Eagle was a cattle breeding station raising oxen sufficient for the needs of the manors on its own estate and perhaps with a wider market. As will subsequently be revealed, Eagle was a major sheep breeding centre as well.

Eagle is again exceptional in that it was the only estate that escaped the general decline so evident in the accounts after their resumption at Michaelmas 1311. It is clear that the Eagle estate continued to be a well-managed enterprise, a situation which remained unchanged during the short leasehold of Ebulo de Montibus. When the lease of the estate was surrendered to Sir David Graham on 6 June 1313, Eagle manor was fully stocked with cattle. Not only was the cattle breeding programme maintained, so too were the eight plough teams, which meant that there would have been no decline in the arable acreage.

The impact of livestock sales, the result of asset stripping by the king’s agents or, subsequently, by leaseholders, is manifest in the accounts. Once the continuity of the cattle breeding programme was broken by imprudent sales, then ageing draught animals could not be replaced from within the manors. To have maintained the plough teams in such a circumstance would have required investment in new stock. However, no such purchases are evident in the accounts. Neither the king’s agents nor the recipients of short-term leases on the former Templar manors – both of whom were interested in short-term income – had any incentive for more investment than was required for basic maintenance. It was in this reduced condition that the former Templar estates in Lincolnshire, with the exception of Eagle, confronted the Great Famine of 1315. Until the accounts of the former Templar estates for the period 1308–13 outside Lincolnshire are thoroughly researched, it is impossible to be certain that the decline in cattle-rearing evident on the Lincolnshire manors reflects the general picture. It is, however, entirely reasonable to suggest that the decline would have been widespread, which would accord well with the situation Biddick identifies each time there was a vacancy of the See of Winchester during the thirteenth century – that of the acquisitive sale of livestock by the crown.33 K. Biddick (with C. J. H. Bijleveld), ‘Agrarian productivity on the estates of the Bishopric of Winchester in the early thirteenth century: a managerial perspective’, in Land, Labour and Livestock: Historical Studies in European Agricultural Productivity, ed. B. M. S. Campbell and M. Overton (Manchester, 1991), p. 103.

While carthorses were invariably more valuable than plough horses, their actual value varied considerably. Of the four carthorses enrolled for Eagle in the account of Michaelmas 1312 until 6 June 1313, one was valued at 13s. 4d., and the remaining three at 6s. 8d. each. Such wide variation within the stock of one manor could easily be explained by the age and condition of the animals; as strength and stamina declined with age, so did the value of the beast. Thus, the residual sale price at the end of an animal’s working life was considerably less than the purchase price of a young working animal. As Walter of Henley succinctly puts it, ‘when a horse is olde [and worn out] then hathe he nothing but his skynne’.35 Oschinsky, Walter, p. 319. However, the overall trend of carthorse values over the period of the accounts, 1308 to 1313, was to increase.

Ox-drawn wagons (plaustra) were occasionally accounted in the rolls (rotuli), but with nowhere near the same frequency as horse-drawn carts (carrectae). At Willoughton in 1309, a wagon was worth less than a cart, their values being 6s. 8d. and 10s. respectively.36 TNA, E 358/18, 53/1, line 62. The replacement of the more cumbersome ox-drawn wagon by the smaller, faster, horse-drawn cart illustrates the growing emphasis on speed over carrying capacity.37 Langdon, ‘Horse hauling’, p. 48. Earlier arrival at a local market might have ensured more advantageous business.

Langdon established that in the East Midlands, including Lincolnshire, during the period 1250–1320, 98.6 percent of those demesnes assessed had horse-hauled vehicles, whereas only 11.4 percent of demesnes had ox-hauled vehicles.38 Ibid., p. 50. He further points out that the near total replacement of ox-haulage by horse-haulage, as was evident on the former Templar estates by the early fourteenth century, resulted from the relationship between manor and market.39 Ibid., p. 62. The greater speed of the cart halved the journey time to market and, in so doing, doubled the range of the vendor for the sale of his goods.40 Ibid. The economic advantage of horse-haulage was, however, by no means a foregone conclusion. The cost of horse-haulage, which included fodder, cart maintenance, horseshoes and tackle, and carters’ wages, was considerable. To justify both its value and its operating costs – Langdon gives a figure of 23s. 8½d. per year – a carthorse needed to be constantly employed, not dissimilar to today’s juggernaut.41 J. Langdon, ‘The economics of horses and oxen in medieval England’, AHR, 30 (1982), p. 37.

There was little trade in carthorses. Few were sold and only Eagle records the purchase of a carthorse, in the account beginning 10 January 1308. Further, there was little transfer of carthorses between former Templar manors – only two instances were recorded in the accounts. However, the accounts do identify mares, which implies that horses were raised on the manor where they were bred and that working carthorses were rarely bought from outside.

The purpose of the Templars’ Lincolnshire manors was to raise money for the Order, and subsequently for Edward II, which meant involvement in the developing market economy of the early fourteenth century. The sale of grain would have been facilitated by the more rapid transport to market that horse-haulage provided, enabling the best sale price to be gained.

The nature of the accounts renders the contribution made by pig-rearing to the total commercial enterprise of the former Templar estates in Lincolnshire inconclusive. There were probably far more pigs on the former Templar manors than were recorded. However incomplete the data, it is clear that pigs did contribute both to the finances and to the food supply of the preceptories, which under the Templars would have been obliged to provide hospitality to visitors besides needing to feed their regular and seasonal workforce. The output of saleable porkers and piglets, bacon for the larder, and dung for the land was a good return on an investment of pannage and the wages of a full-time or part-time swineherd. Nonetheless, overall, the keeping of pigs was a small cog in the great wheel of the mixed farming enterprise practised by the Templars and thereafter on their estates.

The accounts illustrate, above all, the individuality of approach of the different manors to the changing circumstances which challenged them. This was reflected in the size and composition of the plough teams, the choice and acreage of crops, and the uses to which the grange stores were put. While market forces determined that wheat was the most commercial crop, it was relief and soil type that influenced its sown acreage, and the ultimate decision was that of the sergeant. Similarly, while the long-term trend was towards horse-drawn ploughs, the variety of plough-team size and composition on the former Templar estates shows how each manor responded to the relationship between the quality of the land and the attributes of the beast.

The impact of decision-making is manifest throughout the accounts, precisely as Stone has argued. New ideas such as the horse-drawn plough were tried, and, if successful, were adopted elsewhere. While it was formerly widely held that medieval agriculture stagnated, more recent views suggest that developments did take place, not least among them the wider use of the horse for ploughing and haulage, as argued convincingly by Langdon.46 Langdon, Horses, Oxen. The interaction of livestock, fallow and arable land created the characteristic mixed farming of the medieval period which depended for its evolution not only on the use of more efficient draught animals, but also on advances in crops. Up to the point of the arrest of the Order, the Templar estates in Lincolnshire were exercising the best agricultural practice for the period.

The evidence is conclusive that agriculture was developmental, evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and that decisions were made based upon knowledge and the need to improve and progress. This approach was not peculiar to the Templar estates in Lincolnshire. Harrison refers to the picture of ‘adaptive and innovative strategies on a few manors within the complex of estates’ of St Swithun’s Priory, Wiltshire, as does Biddick on some of the demesnes of the bishop of Winchester.47 B. Harrison, ‘Field systems and demesne farming on the Wiltshire estates of Saint Swithun’s Priory, Wichester, 1248–1340’, AHR, 43, 1 (1995), p. 18. Biddick (with Bijleveld), ‘Agrarian productivity’, pp. 95–123. Stone is succinct: ‘there was no lack of commercial acumen in the medieval countryside’.48 Stone, Decision-Making, p. 234.

In any instance where property fell into the hands of a medieval king then the income derived from the property was at the king’s disposal. Following the arrest of the Templars on 10 January 1308, their estates fell into the hands of Edward II. The policy of the king’s agents was based upon short-term liquidation of moveable assets, as their custodianship in the long term was uncertain. Thus, as a result of asset stripping by the king’s agents and subsequent leasing, the legacy of the Templars on their former estates was rapidly obscured after the Order’s arrest. The evidence of the accounts would indicate that, although sustainability may have been the Templars’ approach, it was by no means the prime concern of the officers of Edward II. However, the initial accounts, beginning 10 January 1308, are fully representative of Templar agricultural practice and give a clear impression that the Templar estates had embraced contemporary agricultural developments, selectively, within the context of Lincolnshire’s varied landscape.