[Norman Conquest 01] Wolves in Armour (10 page)

“Firstly, show me the strong-box and give me the key,” Alan ordered Kendrick.

As was usual the strongbox was in the bedchamber, and once he had secured the key Alan was not sufficiently ill-mannered to check what it contained before he spoke to the Hall staff. Alan had Kendrick call the staff together, asked each their names and addressed them together, letting them know that, provided they performed their duties properly, their positions were secure. Alan then asked Kendrick to call a meeting of all the freemen of the village the following day, to be held at the tithe-barn at noon with the church bell to be rung before the meeting, and before that for Alan to meet with both the village head-man Tolland, a wealthy cheorl, and also the village priest.

Next Alan went into the bedchamber and used the key to open the strongbox. There was very little money in the box, less than £1, and no books of account. Most importantly it contained the ownership records for the manor, the landboc, confirming the grant of land to Estan by King Edward. Alan went back out into the Hall and sat on a bench at a scrubbed wooden table near the fire, still with his thick green
woollen
cloak wrapped around him as he ate a bowl of thick vegetable pottage and warmed his hands on a cup of mulled ale.

When he had finished eating he collected the bottle of ink that he had set by the fire to thaw, and a quill and parchment from his bag, before returning to the table and queried Kendrick about the accounts. He was told that there were no books of account, Kendrick using the ‘poor illiterate and ignorant servant’ routine. On being pressed Kendrick agreed that perhaps there were some books that Estan had kept and promised to look for them amongst his former master’s possessions.

Alan then had Kendrick sit and specify the obligations of each cheorl, sokeman, gebur and cottar and the names and details of each slave, while he made notes with quill and ink on parchment for future reference.

That night Alan slept in the bedchamber. His men slept in the solar and took turns to stand guard outside the adjacent doors of the two rooms, while the remainder slept.

At Terce the following morning Tolland arrived. Life in the country was more difficult than life in the city for several reasons; one being the difficulty in arranging and attending meetings. In the absence of abbey bells ringing every three hours, time was largely a matter of mutual consent.

Tolland was a large and strongly built man of middle years with dark hair. He was a wealthy freeman, as was shown by the well-made but not ostentatious brown
woollen
tunic and trews that he wore. He brought with him his deputy, Erian the Taverner, a portly man of medium height.

Alan grasped forearms with both and invited them to sit at the high table and eat and drink as they talked. Alan had Tolland give a general description of the village and its inhabitants and the way that cultivation of the land occurred. “This looks like a prosperous and well-run community. I have two ploughs and teams, and the men of the village have three,” said Alan. “There are four hides of land- that is 480 acres, of which about one third is in my demesne. The king has decreed that geld will again be payable, and the village assessment is 8 shillings a year. One third of that is payable by me. That’s two shillings and seven pence. The rest is payable by the freemen of the village, payable in instalments each Quarter Day. For the freemen of the village to pay the geld each Quarter Day, the first on Lady Day in just under three months, is likely to take food from the mouths and clothes from the backs of your villagers. That is not in the interests of either myself or the villagers, who I see as being my people.”

Toland frowned and nodded his acknowledgement of what Alan had said. “Why the imposition of the geld, after fifteen years? I would have thought with the coming of the Normans we would be safer from attack by the Danes, rather than more vulnerable. Does the king intend to reintroduce the fleet that Edward paid off fifteen years ago, and hire more huscarles?” asked Tolland astutely.

“I doubt it,” replied Alan honestly. “It’s a revenue-raising exercise that we all must pay, Norman and English alike. In addition, I have to provide six mounted and armoured men-at-arms for forty days a year- not just from this village but from all the manors I have been given in this Hundred. At least myself, and the villagers in my honour, do not have to pay the Heriot that many of the thegns and even the Church will have to pay. In the end it is the freemen who suffer, as all the wealth of the land comes from their efforts. What is my problem is also the problem of the village, down to the lowest slave. And vice versa- what is the village’s problem is my problem, as I’m responsible for all that happens here. So we have a problem that affects us all.

“As you know, I’ve called a village meeting for later today. I would suggest that you seek the counsel of the other senior cheorls in the village. My suggestion is that what we should do is to increase production so that we have more to sell and can pay the taxes. I see three ways we can do this.

“Firstly, there is waste land outside the area that the village now cultivates, which can relatively easily be brought into cultivation. It is further away and less fertile than the land currently used, but at least we won’t have to clear it of trees as this Hundred is largely open land.

“Secondly, we can increase the number of saltpans we have in operation. Currently I have one on the estuary, one on Alresford Creek and two on Barfleet Creek. Over the next few weeks I’ll be using the labour owed to me to build another salt-pan for my demesne in each location. Salt is a high-value item that we can all sell easily. I suggest that the village also increases its salt pans. I understand it has two pans on the estuary, one on Alresford Creek and three on Barfleet Creek. Unless we have a particularly wet summer the salt pans bring in a good and regular income with minimal work.” Alan didn’t mention that all of the salt would be processed through his salt house, with him retaining ten percent of the salt processed for other producers.

“Thirdly, I’ll be changing my demesne land over from the two-field cultivation system to the three-field system that is becoming common on the continent. Instead of two fields, one in cultivation and one lying fallow, there are three. One is planted for winter wheat and barley, one is planted with spring crops such as wheat, oats, barley, or rye and the third is either left fallow or preferably planted with legumes- beans and alfalfa. This increases the land under cultivation by one third. The planting rate is also to be increased on my land from two bushels of seed per acre to three. With proper fertilizing and marling of the land I can get six times the seed return for wheat, or more, instead of the usual four. I’ll have just over 100 acres of land under cultivation each year instead of 70 and I’ll more than double the number bushels I harvest, with little impact of labour because the ploughings and plantings take place twice a year, but each occupies less time.”

Tolland was an intelligent man who could read and write. Moreover, like all farmers he could count and could calculate bushels per acre in his head. However, again like all farmers, he was also very conservative. What had been good enough for his grandfather on the same land should be good enough for him. However, he did appreciate the need to increase village income to pay the new tax, or suffer reduced living standards in good years and starvation in bad years. He promised to discuss the ideas with the other village elders and raise the matter at the folkmoot called by him at Alan’s request later that day.

Next Alan met with the parish priest, Brother Godwine. Brother Godwine attended in his own good time, coming late- perhaps in the hope of an invitation to the mid-day meal. In this he was disappointed as Alan was less than impressed with the man whose parish took in the villages of Thorrington, Brightlingsea, Frating, Frowick Hall and another of Alan’s manors at Great Bentley, which was laenland leased by a thegn called Swein.

Brother Godwine was fat, which Alan could accept. However, he couldn’t accept the priest’s unctuous and falsely servile manner, and his lack of personal hygiene with his cassock dirty from accumulated food-stains and
odiferous
from both the garment and its owner being unwashed. The lack of learning of the priest and his simple stupidity were also not acceptable to Alan. He had also gathered from comments made by Kendrick that the priest kept a mistress at Frating. The priest was also lazy, in that with Tendring as a central location, Brightlingsea at three and a half miles was the greatest distance he had to travel and the other villages were only two miles away- yet Brother Godwine performed Sunday Mass in only one village each week.

Alan informed him in no uncertain terms that this was not acceptable and that Mass would be said in Thorrington each Sunday morning at Terce at midmorning, Great Bentley at Sext at noon and in one other village at None at mid-afternoon. The remaining village would have Mass said on one other day of the week, or in summer on Sunday at Vespers in the evening.

Alan also instructed Brother Godwine that he would attend each of the villages for one day a week to visit the ill and infirm, give them the sacraments individually, hear confessions and tend to the poor and wealthy alike. Brother Godwine was horrified to hear that he was apparently expected to work for the benefice that was within Alan’s power to maintain or withdraw, together with the income the priest received from both the tithes that all in the area paid into his tithe-barn and the produce from the strips in the village fields allocated to him but worked on his behalf by the villagers. He had an easy life with virtually all the work required to maintain him in comfort being performed by others.

Brother Godwine bleated about the time taken to travel from place to place and the very onerous nature of his duties. Alan’s reply was unsympathetic and cold. “You are not owed a living, and a rich living, by this parish. You earn it, just as every other man in the parish earns what he receives. As regards travel, buy a hackney or a mule. That’ll get you from one village to the next in less than half an hour. God knows that you can afford it just from the tithes you receive just from my estate. If you prefer, I can give you one as my next month’s tithe payment. Your onerous duties? Try spending more time tending to your flock and less time tending to your mistress in Frating- more time in church hearing confessions and performing Mass and less time in bed fornicating and sinning. You can either modify your ways or find another position. This is my first and final warning to you.”

The folkmoot was held on the village green, as not just the freemen of the village wanted to attend, but also their womenfolk and children of all ages. Even the few slaves were there, and Alan allowed them to remain rather than chasing them off to work. Fortunately the weather remained clear, but cold.

Alan stood on a couple of wooden boxes which had been put together under the Old Oak tree, now bare for the winter, in the middle of the green. “Welcome to the free-folk of Thorrington, men and women both! Cheorls, geburs, sokemen and cottars! Thank you for spending your time to come to listen to the important information that I have to give you.

“Firstly I’ll say the obvious. Last year the Normans, and others, came to this land in war. Earlier in the year there were battles in the north. Then the Normans fought against Harold Godwinson and his army at Hastings, where they prevailed. Some see this as being as a result of Pope Alexander’s blessing of William of Normandy’s claim and the fact that William’s army fought under the papal banner at Hastings. For whatever reason, the Normans won a victory.

“Harold and his brothers lie dead and buried. William has been anointed king of England by Ealdred, the same Archbishop of York who crowned Harold, with the acclamation of all there present, including many English nobles.” There was a dead and clearly unhappy silence when Alan paused. “England has been invaded many times over the years by several nations, and each has appointed its own king and had its own nobility take control of the country. That is the same this time. I’ve been appointed by King William as owner of this village, and much of Tendring Hundred. At least I do speak some English! Had the Norwegians prevailed your Norse lord may not have done so. My men Hugh, Baldwin, Warren and Roger are learning the language, so please bear with their ignorance as they learn.

“Your status has not changed. Those nobles who were thegns before remain thegns. Those who were cheorls remain cheorls, and so on. Your freedom and your rights have not altered. All but the slaves remain geburs, freemen. The laws of Edward and his predecessors still apply to you. The frithbogh system of pledges for each other’s good behaviour remains, as do the fines and wergild of Edward. Indeed, King William is reinforcing the frithbogh tithing by having lords and royal officials ensure that all men belong to a frithbogh.” There was a growing murmur of discussion and general relief at this point. “Let me make it clear that the Normans are not subject to English laws. They are subject to Norman laws, which in many cases are much more harsh. If an Englishman kills unlawfully, he and his frithbogh pay wergild of 200 shillings. If a Norman is convicted of
 
killing unlawfully, including killing an Englishman, the penalty is hanging- with no option of wergild or bot.

“Now to the bad news. You’ll have to deal with the fact that Normans control this land, under God and the Law. Most Normans are arrogant, ruthless and care little or nothing for those of a lesser social level. I hope that that’s not true of me and my men, but is a general fact that you will have to deal with. And for the worst news of all. The geld tax has been reintroduced, the first instalment is due on Lady Day on 25th March. The assessment for this village is 3 shillings. One third of that will be paid by me, as I own one third of the land. The rest will be payable by the freemen of the village.