SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



abbey of Furness, in the far wilds of Lancashire is of the highest import- 

 ance because not merely were the monks the preservers of learning and 

 dispensers of hospitality and shelter, but monasticism was one of the greatest 

 economic forces of the Middle Ages." As no less an authority than Pro- 

 fessor Thorold Rogers avers, ' modern agriculture had its first beginning 

 under the shelter of conventual discipline.' " In a rude age, when the feudal 

 baronage disdained even the management of their own estates and despised 

 every exertion other than that of arms, the Mediaeval Church threw the 

 whole weight of her cosmopolitan influence into the scale of manorial 

 economy. In Lancashire as elsewhere the chief monastic occupation was 

 agriculture. The monks were cultivators of grain, breeders of oxen, and in 

 particular large farmers of sheep. In an entry for the sixth year of Richard I 

 we find the abbot of Furness prosecuting a neighbouring baron, Gilbert son of 

 Roger Fitz-Reinfred, for the recovery of ' looo sheep with the wool, and 88 

 lambs ' which the said Gilbert had carried off by force from the folds of the 

 monastery." Among the items of a grant by Warine Bussel to the abbot of 

 Evesham of lands in Lancashire are mentioned ' the half of his stock ' at a 

 place called Martin, which consisted of four cows, four oxen, and sixty 

 sheep." 



In these wild northern parts cattle appear to have been regarded as the 

 most convenient and easily transferable form of wealth, just as cattle-lifting 

 was the commonest form of robbery. In earlier times taxes were paid in 

 cattle,^* and forfeitures were still apparently so claimed by the crown." Oxen 

 were required not merely for ploughing and other agricultural works, but 

 for transport service. There were large cattle-breeding establishments on 

 the demesne lands of the honour, and when King Richard resumed them 

 after his brother's rebellion he ordered the sheriff to see to their re-stocking." 

 There were many other large vaccaries throughout the county, particularly 

 those of the honour of Clitheroe, and of the barony of Manchester, of 

 which later. Enough has been said to show what a grievance the forest laws 

 must have been in Norman and Angevin times to the landowners whose herds 

 were pastured in the vicinity of the forest, and for whose trespass they were 

 so heavily amerced. Success at length rewarded their alternate policy of 

 trespass and of composition, when, somewhere between the years 1189 and 

 1 194, John, count of Mortain, granted them a charter of liberties in return 

 for the enormous sum of 500 pounds of silver. By this charter they were 

 acquitted of any further regard of the forest, and might take, give, or improve 



" Prof. Thorold Rogers, -ifgrie. and Prices, i, 58. ' Nor is it just to the monastic orders to ignore their 

 great merit as industrial bodies . . . many parts of England once waste and uninhabitable owed their first 

 settlement to monks who obtained grants of uncultivated land.' 



" Ibid. " Mag. Rot. Pip. 6 Ric. I (i 193-4), R. 40, m. 9 ; and Farrer, op. cit. 86. 



" Farrer, op. cit. quoted, 320. (Evesham Chart. Harl. MS. 3763, fol. 89.) 



" See Prof. Maitland, ' Northumbrian Tenures,' Engl. Hist. Rev. v. May not this ' cornage ' or ' neat 

 geld ' have survived as the ' cow-male ' we find exacted as a custom on the demesne lands of Lancaster, at 

 Skerton and Overton ? See L.T.R. Enrolled Accts. Misc. Accts. and Receipts of John de Lancaster, 

 17 Edw. II (m. 72 d. first skin) ; also Rentals of Overton, m. I, 17 Edw. II (1323-4). These rentals 

 covering the years 1322-6, and frequently quoted in this article have been printed as regards the year 1323-4 

 in Lanes. Inq. (Rec. Soc. liv). 



■' Cf. Mag. Rot. Pip. 5 John (1202-3), R- 99> ">• '8, et d. ' Amerciamenta,' &c. 



" Mag. Rot. Pip. 6 Ric. I (l 193-4), R. 40, m. 9 ; also Farrer, Lanes. PifeR. 95. A list of the vaccaries 

 of Wyresdale and Bleasdale {temp. Edw. II) is given in L.T.R. Accts. and Receipts of the forest of Blackburn- 

 shire, m. 72 d. (first skin). 



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