Rievaulx Abbey as a wool producer in the late thirteenth century: Cistercians, sheep, and debts

Northern History

Volumn 40, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 197-218

  Jamroziak, Emilia ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 65849486609     PISSN: 0078172X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1179/nhi.2003.40.2.197     Document Type: Article

References (74)

1. R. J. Whitwell, 'English Monasteries and the Wool Trade in the 13th century', Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, II (1904)
2. G. Bingwood, 'Un Marche De Matières Premières: Laines D'Angleterre et Marchands Italiens Vers La Fin Du XIIIe Siècle', Annales D'Histoire Économique et Sociale, II (1930)
3. T. H. Lloyd, The English Wool Trade in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1977)
4. B. Waites, 'Monasteries and the wool trade in north and east Yorkshire during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries', Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, LII (1980), 111-21
5. For an analysis of the formation of the Rievaulx Abbey's economic basis see J. Burton, 'The Estates and Economy of Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire', Cîteaux, XLIX (1998), 29-94
6. Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786, I, ed. J. Canivez I (Louvain, 1933), 14-15
7. J. E. Madden, 'Business, Monks, Banker Monks, Bankrupt Monks: the English Cistercians in the Thirteenth Century', Catholic Historical Review, XLIX (1963), 364
8. For example, D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: a history of its development from the times of St. Dunstan to the fourth Lateran Council, 940-1216 (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 217-45
9. L. J. Lekai, The Cistercians: Ideal and Reality (Kent, OH, 1977), pp. 282-333
10. The elaboration of this hypothesis: L. J. Lekai, 'Ideals and Reality in Early Cistercian Life and Legislation', in Cistercian Ideals and Reality, ed. J. R. Sommerfeldt (Kalamazoo, MI, 1978), pp. 4-29
11. Lekai, in Sommerfeldt, Cistercian Ideals, pp. 23-26
12. For example see the opinion expressed by Graves: 'If any one attribute is laid to the Cistercians, it is that they were unrivalled reclaimers of waste'. C. V. Graves, 'The Economic Activities of the Cistercians in Medieval England (1128-1307)', Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis, XIII (1957), 16
13. The 'frontier thesis' was developed by the German scholars in the nineteenth century in the context of Cistercian houses in the Slavic territories and the expansion of the German population and civilisation eastwards. For a modern criticism of this thesis see for example S. Epperlein, 'Gründungsmythos deutscher Zisterzienserklöster westlich und östlich der Elbe im hohen Mittelalter und der Bericht des Leubuser Mönches im 14. Jahrhundert', Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, III (1967), 303-35
14. G. Duby, Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West, trans. C. Postan (Columbia, 1990), pp. 70-71, 199
15. M. M. Postan, The Medieval Economy and Society (Harmondsworth, 1976), p. 102
16. E. Miller and J. Hatcher, Medieval England: Rural Society and Economic Change 1086-1348 (1990), p. 33
17. R. Roehl, 'Plan and Reality in a Medieval Monastic Economy: the Cistercians' (unpub. Ph.D thesis, Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1968), pp. 17-18
18. Graves, Analecta Cisterciensis, XIII, 54
19. R. Roehl, 'Plan and Reality in a Medieval Monastic Economy: the Cistercians', Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, IX (1972), 112
20. C. B. Bouchard, 'Cistercian Ideals Versus Reality: 1134 Reconsidered', Cîteaux, XXXIX (1988), 217-31
21. I. Alfonso, 'Cistercians and Feudalism', Past and Present, CXXXIII (1991), 3-30
22. C.H. Berman, 'The Development of Cistercian Economic Practice During the Lifetime of Bernard of Clairvaux: the Historical Perspective on Innocent II's 1132 Privilege', in Bernard Magister, ed. J. R. Sommerfeldt (Spencer, MA, 1992), p. 308
23. Lloyd, English Wool, pp. 25-59
24. the first indication that Fountains Abbey, another Yorkshire monastery, sold wool to the merchants of St Omer comes from 1212. Statuta, I, 1212: 44
25. There is no record of such a letter directed to Rievaulx, but another Cistercian house in Yorkshire, Meaux, received a royal letter. Calendar of Close Rolls, 1265-68, p. 84
26. R. W. Kaeuper, Bankers to the Crown: the Riccardi of Lucca and Edward I (Princeton, 1973), p. 35
27. Assize Roll, 8 Edw. I, in Cartularium Abbathiae de Rievalle, ed. J. C. Atkinson, Surtees Society, LXXXIII (1889), 209-11 (merchants of Florence)
28. B. Waites, YAJ, LII, 117
29. Kaeuper, Bankers, p. 32
30. E. S. Hunt, The Medieval Super-Companies: a Study of the Peruzzi Company of Florenze (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 59-60
31. K. Guzikowski, 'Miasto - rywal czy sprzymierzeniec cystersów? Na przykładzie opactwa w Kołbaczu', in Klasztor w społeczeństwie średniowi ecznym i nowożytnym, ed. M. Derwich and A. Pobóg-Lenartowicz (Opole-Wrocław, 1996), pp. 463-66
32. E. Miller, 'Farming in Northern England during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries', Northern History, XI (1976), 2-3
33. R. A. Donkin, 'Cistercian Grange in England in the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries with special reference to Yorkshire', Studio Monastica, VI (1964), 108
34. The Cistercian practice of careful, in-house packaging of the wool added to the value of the wool produced on the monastic estates. T. H. Lloyd, The Movement of Wool Prices in Medieval England, Economic History Review Supplements, VI (1973), 10
35. J. A. Raftis, 'Western Monasticism and Economic Organization', Comparative Studies in Society and History, XXXI (1960-61), 465
36. B. M. S. Campbell, 'Measuring the commercialisation of seigneurial agriculture c. 1300', in A Commercializing Economy: England 1086 to c. 1300, ed R. H. Britnell and B. M. S. Campbell (Manchester, 1995), p. 133
37. R. A. Donkin, 'The Disposal of Cistercian Wool in England and Wales during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries', Cîteaux in der Nederlanden, VIII (1954), 109
38. For the analysis of the lay networks around Rievaulx Abbey see E. Jamroziak, 'Rievaulx Abbey and its Social Environment, 1132-1300' (unpub. Ph.D thesis, Leeds Univ. 2001)
39. idem, 'Rievaulx Abbey and its Patrons: Between Cooperation and Conflict', Citeaux: Commentarii Cistercienses, LIII (2002), 51-72
40. On the religious patronage of the Italian merchant families, see, for example, Hunt, The Medieval Super-Companies, pp. 31-33
41. Raftis, Society and History, XXXI, 459
42. For an excellent analysis of Rievaulx architecture in terms of its development and usage, see P. Fergusson and S. Harrison, Rievaulx Abbey: community, architecture, memory (New Haven, CT, 2000), pp. 45-174
43. The notion of the 'pockets of capitalism' was created by Eileen Power to describe areas which existed in pre-industrial Europe, but displayed characteristics of the later stages of economic development. The cloth manufacturing areas, as well as other centres of large-scale manufactures, were pockets of capitalism in a pre-capitalistic world'. Eileen Power, The Wool Trade in English Medieval History (Oxford, 1941), p. 4
44. E. S. Hunt and J. M. Murray, A History of Business in Medieval Europe 1200-1550 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 103
45. Power, Wool Trade, p. 43
46. M. M. Postan, 'Credit in Medieval Trade', in idem, Medieval Trade and Finance (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 7-11
47. The conversion of Trinity and Michaelmas dates into historical years is on the basis of entry location in the roll and the Handbook of Dates for Students of British history, ed. C. R. Cheney, new edn, ed. M. Jones (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 105-06
48. The location of Rievaulx, Byland and Fountains Abbeys close to the routes leading to Scotland meant that the royal court or its individual members were likely to use their facilities during the journeys north. L. A. Desmond, The Appropriation of Churches by the Cistercians in England to 1400', Analecta Cisterciensia, XXXI (1975), 258
49. G. Coppack, English Heritage Book of Abbeys and Priories (1990), p. 107
50. D. H. Williams, 'Layfolk Within Cistercian Precincts', in Monastic Studies: the continuity of tradition, ed. J. Loades (Bangor, 1991), II, 95
51. Statuta, III, 1291: 61
52. Fergusson and Harrison, Rievaulx Abbey, p. 172
53. Excerpta e rotulis finium in turri londinensi asservatis Henrico regis A.D. 1216-1272, ed. C. Roberts, Record Commission (1835), I, 169
54. J. Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain 1000-1300 (Cambridge, 1994), p. 260
55. Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1225-32, p. 40
56. J. R. Maddicott, The English Peasantry and the Demands of the Crown 1294-1341 (Oxford, 1975), pp. 1-3
57. CCR, 1296-1302, p. 216
58. Statuta, I, 1182:9
59. J. Burton, The origins and development of the religious orders in Yorkshire, c. 1069 to c. 1200' (unpub. Ph.D thesis, York Univ. 1977), p. 428
60. F. Pegolotti, La Practica Della Mercatura, ed. A. Evans (Cambridge, MA, 1936), p. 260
61. Pegolotti, La Practica Della Mercatura, p. xiv
62. E. M. Carus-Wilson, England's Export Trade 1275-1547 (Oxford, 1963), pp. 122-37
63. It has to be stressed that the recorded fluctuation of the yearly amounts was heavily dependent on the ports' account system. M. J. Stephenson, 'Wool Yields in the Medieval Economy', Economic History Review, XLI (1988), 381
64. Lanercost Chronicle, trans. H. Maxwell (Glasgow, 1913), p. 10
65. 'Hoc anno invaluit generalis scabies ovium, per universam regionem Anglie, quae a vulgo dicebatur Clausite, per quam infectae sunt omnes oves terrae.' 'Annales Monasterii de Waverleia', ed. R. H. Luard, in Annales Monastici, part 2, Rolls Series (1865), p. 388
66. 'Anno regis Edwardi quinto erat communis morula bidentium per totam Angliam'. 'Barlings Chronicon', in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed. W. Stubbs, II, Rolls Series (1883), cxvii
67. 'Mortales ovium hoc anno incepit in Lindeseia, et per plures durans annos, per totam fere Angliam dispergebatur.' Chronicon Abbatie de Parco Lude, ed. E. Venables, Lincoln Record Society, I (1891), 18
68. R. Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700 (1957), pp. 155-56
69. CPR, 1272-81, p. 152
70. Assize Rolls, 8 Edward I, in Cartularium, pp. 409-11
71. Records of Antony Bek Bishop and Patriarch 1283-1311, ed. C. M. Fraser, SS, CLXII (1953), 10-14
72. The summary of these documents (a series of single documents collected under a modern name, Accounts Various) in tabular form was published in Lloyd, Movement of Wool Prices, pp. 52-61
73. Hunt Murray, History of Business, p. 69
74. R. Ekelund, Sacred Trust: the medieval church as an economic firm (New York, 1996), p. 169