Goose management and rearing in late medieval Eastern England, c.1250-1400

Agricultural History Review

Volumn 58, Issue PART 1, 2010, Pages 1-29

  Slavin, Philip ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 78049339368     PISSN: 00021490     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (152)

1. M. Stephenson, The role of poultry husbandry in the medieval agrarian economy, 1200-1450', Veterinary Hist. 10 (1977-8), pp. 17-24;
2. id.
3. 'The role of poultry husbandry in the medieval agrarian economy, 1200-1450', Ark 14 (1987), pp. 378-81;
4. J. Witteveen, 'On swans, cranes and herons, I, swans', Petits Propos Culinaires (hereafter PPC) 24 (1986), pp. 22-31;
5. id.
6. 'On swans, cranes and herons, II, cranes', PPC 25 (1987), pp. 50-9;
7. id.
8. , 'On swans, cranes and herons, III, herons', PPC 26 (1987), pp. 65-73;
9. id.,
10. 'The great birds, IV, peacocks in history', PPC 32 (1989), pp. 23-34;
11. id.
12. , 'The great birds: V, preparation of the peacock for the table', PPC 36 (1990), pp. 10-20;
13. A. MacGregor, 'Swan rolls and beak markings: husbandry exploitation and regulation of Cygnus Olor in England, c.1100-1900' Anthropozoologica 22 (1996), pp. 39-69;
14. C. M. Woolgar, The great household in late medieval England (1999), pp. 111-65;
15. P- Freedman, 'Images of the medieval pheasant', unpublished paper delivered at conference on 'The chicken: its biological, social, cultural, and industrial history', New Haven (2002) (I am grateful to Prof. Freedman for letting me read this unpublished paper);
16. E. Schubert, Essen und Trinken im Mittelalter (2006), pp. 120-5;
17. C. E. Jackson, Peacock (2006). For archaeological studies,
18. consult U. Albarella and S. Davis, 'Mammals and birds from Launceston Castle, Cornwall: decline in status and rise in agriculture', Circaea 12 (1996), pp. 1-156;
19. id.,
20. 'They dined on crane: bird consumption, wildfowling and status in medieval England', Acta Zoologica Cracoviensia 45 (2002), pp. 23-38;
21. J. Pine et al., 'The excavation of medieval and post-medieval features at the rear of 42c Bell Street, Henley, Oxfordshire', Oxoniensia 64 (1999), PP- 255-74;
22. I. Barnes and J. P. W. Young, 'DNA-based identification of goose species from two archaeological sites in Lincolnshire', J. Archaeological Science 27 (2000), pp. 91-100;
23. D. Serjeantson, 'Goose husbandry in medieval England and the problem of ageing goose bones', Acta Zoologica Cracoviensia 45 (2002), pp. 39-54;
24. N. Sykes, 'The dynamics of status symbols: wildfowl exploitation in England, AD 410-1550', Archaeological J. 161 (2004), pp. 82-105. For poultry archaeology on Romano-British sites,
25. see S. Appelbaum, 'Agriculture in Roman Britain,' AgHR 6 (1958), p.75 and id., 'Animal husbandry', in J. Wacher (ed.), The Roman world (2 vols, 1987), II, pp. 504-26.
26. B. M. S. Campbell, English seigniorial agriculture, 1250-1450 (2000), pp. 172-83;
27. B. M. S. Campbell and K. Bartley, England on the eve of the Black Death: an atlas of lay lordship, land and wealth, 1300-49 (2006), pp. 209-30;
28. M. Bailey, Medieval Suffolk: an economic and social history, 1200-1500 (2007), pp. 79-86.
29. B. M. S. Campbell, 'Agricultural progress in medieval England: some evidence from eastern Norfolk', EcHR 36 (1983), pp. 26-46;
30. id.,
31. 'Arable productivity in medieval England: some evidence from Norfolk', JEcH 43 (1983), pp. 379-404;
32. M. Bailey, A marginal economy? East Anglian Breckland in the later middle ages (1989), pp. 85-96.
33. B. M. S. Campbell, 'Commercial dairy production on medieval English demesnes: the case of Norfolk', Anthropozoologica 16 (1992), pp. 107-18
34. The accounts used in the database are deposited in various repositories, including The National Archives, Kew; the British Library, London; Norfolk Record Office, Norwich; Cambridge University Library, Cambridge; Northamptonshire Record Office, Northampton; and the University of Chicago Library, Chicago. The Norfolk accounts are catalogued in Campbell, English seigniorial agriculture, App. 2. References to the Peterborough accounts can be found in Janet Martin, The court and account rolls of Peterborough Abbey: a handlist (1980), pp. 31-42.
35. J. Kear, Man and wildfowl (1990), p. 26; Appelbaum, Roman Britain', p. 75.
36. Barnes and Young, 'DNA-based identification', pp. 91-100; Serjeantson, 'Goose husbandry', pp. 39-54.
37. Goose husbandry is mentioned, for instance, in King Ine's Laws (F. Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (1903-16), pp. 88-122 and in several charters:
38. see, A. J. Robertson (ed.), Anglo-Saxon charters (sec. edn, 1956), no. 104;
39. S. E. Kelly (ed.), Charters of St Augustine's Abbey Canterbury and Minster-in-Thanet (1995), p. 25;
40. F. E. Harmer (ed.), Select English historical documents of the ninth and tenth centuries (1914), no. 1.
41. H. N. MacCracken (ed.), The minor poems of John Lydgate (Early English Text Society, old ser. 192, 1934), pp. 539-66.
42. Vita Sanctae Wereburgae Virginis, Patrologia Latina 155, col. 103B. I owe this reference to Prof. Joseph Goering, of the University of Toronto.
43. V. Smil, 'Phosphorous in the environment: natural flows and human interferences' Annual Rev. Energy Environment 25 (2000), pp. 67-8.
44. Stephenson, 'Poultry husbandry', p. 22.
45. Chicago UL, Special Collections, Bacon Roll 449.
46. Norfolk RO, Dean and Chapter of Norwich [hereafter NRO, DCN] 60/8/9.
47. Ruralia Commoda, III, p. 131.
48. Chicago UL, Bacon Rolls 419-23.
49. NRO, DCN 60/20/15.
50. NRO, DCN 60/23/18.
51. British Library (hereafter BL), Add. Ms 42130, fo. 169V, reproduced in J. Backhouse, Medieval rural life in the Luttrell Psalter (2000), p. 29, no. 17.
52. D. Oschinsky (ed.), Walter of Henley and other treatises on estate management and accounting (1971), pp. 288, 338, 384, 424 and 473.
53. Campbell, English seigniorial agriculture, pp. 104-6.
54. All poultry prices in this paper are extracted and calculated from manorial accounts.
55. P. Coss, Knighthood, heraldry and social exclusion in Edwardian England', in P. Coss and M. Keen (eds), Heraldry, pageantry and social display in medieval England (2003), pp. 39-68;
56. MacGregor, 'Swan rolls', p. 40.
57. On the cattle plague of 1319-20, see I. Kershaw, 'The Great Famine and agrarian crisis in England, 1315-22', Past and Present 59 (1973), pp. 3-50, at pp. 24-8;
58. W. C. Jordan, The Great Famine: northern Europe in the early fourteenth century (1996), pp. 35-8;
59. P. Slavin, 'Between death and survival: Norfolk cattle, c.1280-1370', Fons luminis 1 (2008), pp. 14-60, here pp. 41-53;
60. st Study Week of the Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Económica F. Datini (2010), pp. 167-81;
61. T. P. Newfield, in his MA dissertation 'A great destruction of cattle: the impact and extent of epizootic disease in early fourteenthcentury north-western Europe' (unpublished MA Thesis, University of Toronto, 2005);
62. id.
63. , 'A cattle panzootic in early fourteenth-century Europe', AgHR 57 (2009), pp. 155-90.
64. Slavin, 'Norfolk cattle', pp. 51-2.
65. Northamptonshire RO (hereafter NoRO), FitzWilliam 233 (tabulated in K. Biddick, The other economy: pastoral husbandry on a medieval estate (1989), p. 127).
66. TNA, SC 6/932/15-26 (Caistor-cum-Markshall); SC 6/933/13-15 (Costessey); SC 6/1002/8, 9, 14 (Layham); SC 6/1003/1-2 (Nayland); NRO, DCN 60/14/3-23, 62/1; Lestr/IC/2-3 (Gnatingdon).
67. TNA, SC 6/836/7-12; DCN 60/13/22, DCN 60/20/22-23, 60/13/22-26, DCN 62/1-2; Chicago UL, Bacon Rolls 449 and 452.
68. TNA, SC 6/874/2-9; SC 6/885/17-8; BL, Add. Rolls, 39801-3, 39805, 39808, 39809.
69. Chicago UL, Bacon Rolls 435-50.
70. TNA, SC 6/1132/14-1133/2; NRO, DCN 60/18/11-31; DCN 60/33/9-28, Lest IB/16-21; DCN 62/2; BL, Add. Rolls, 63512-528; Chicago UL, Bacon Rolls 325-36; BL, Add. Rolls, 63372-5; Chicago UL, Bacon Rolls, 325-36. Unfortunately, the earliest surviving account from Redgrave is from 1323-4, so we know nothing about its goose population before that year.
71. These included Great Shelford (Cambridgeshire) and Calthorpe (Norfolk), once prominent goose demesnes, TNA, SC 6/1133/2-4; NRO, Case 24, Shelf C.
72. Acton, Redgrave and Rickinghall (Suffolk), Upwood (Hunts.), Great Cressingham, Worstead (Norfolk) are such examples. TNA, SC 6/989/1-8; Chicago UL, Bacon Rolls 359-75 and 382-96.
73. H. C. Darby, The medieval Fenland (1940), p. 21;
74. Stephen Rippon, The transformation of coastal wetlands (2000), pp. 39-42.
75. Darby, Medieval Fenland, pp. 61-85.
76. Campbell, English seigniorial agriculture, pp. 73-5;
77. Campbell and Bartley, Eve of the Black Death, pp. 137-49.
78. A. R. Bridbury, 'The Black Death', EcHR 26 (1973), p. 584; id.,
79. The English economy from Bede to the Reformation (1992), pp. 208-9;
80. Stone, Decision-making, pp. 81-120.
81. Kear, Man and wildfowl, p. 35;
82. Serjeantson, 'Goose husbandry', p. 41.
83. J. Kear (ed.), Ducks, geese and swans (2 vols, 2005), I, pp. 276-80.
84. Serjeantson, 'Goose husbandry', pp. 40-2.
85. Ibid..
86. Chicago UL, Bacon Rolls, 330-5; BL, Add. Rolls, 63372-5.
87. NRO, DCN 60/8/24.
88. BL, Add. Ms 42130, fol. 169V, reproduced in Backhouse, Medieval rural life, p. 29, no. 17.
89. Chicago UL, Bacon Roll 336.
90. NRO, DCN 60/35/27.
91. NRO, DCN 60/29/14.
92. NRO, DCN 60/39/4; DCN 60/35/27; DCN 60/8/28; DCN 60/18/34.
93. NRO, DCN 60/39/4.
94. NRO, Case 24, Shelf C.
95. NRO, DCN 60/29/153.
96. Chicago UL, Bacon Roll 434.
97. NRO, DCN 60/33/9-13; Lest IB/16; DCN 60/35/11-13.
98. NRO, DCN 60/18/21.
99. Fox attacks on domestic birds, geese in particular, continue to be a serious concern for British farmers today. See, for example, R. L. Moberly, P. C. White and S. Harris, 'Mortality due to fox predation in free-range poultry flocks in Britain', Veterinary Rec. 155 (2004), pp. 48-52.
100. D. Pearsall (ed.), The nun's priest's tale (1983), pp. 244-60.
101. NRO, DCN 60/20/18, 60/18/27, 60/23/23, 60/8/5.
102. For general, yet comprehensive, introductions to poultry diseases, consult Y. M. Saif, Diseases of poultry (11th edn, 2003);
103. F. Jordan et al. (eds.), Poultry diseases (fifth edn, 2001).
104. Ruralia commoda, pp. 130-1.
105. NRO, DCN 60/28/1
106. Chicago UL, Bacon Rolls 427-8.
107. Chicago UL, Bacon Roll 441.
108. NRO, DCN 60/29/19.
109. BL, Add. Roll 39669; TNA, SC 6/843/16-7, SC 6/992/11; NRO, Case 24 Shelf F.
110. NRO, DCN 60/33/14-5; Lest IB/16.
111. NRO, Case 24, Shelf C.
112. This is mentioned in D. W. Routt, 'Economy and society in the fourteenth century: the estate of the Abbot of St. Edmund's, 1335-88' (Unpublished PhD thesis, Ohio State University, 1998), p. 488.
113. NRO, DCN 60/8/14 and 17.
114. NRO, DCN 62/2 (mentioned in the Martham portion of the grouped account).
115. B. A. Hanawalt, 'Economic influences on the pattern of crime in England, 1300-48,' American J. Legal Hist. 18 (1974), pp. 281-97;
116. ead., Crime and conflict in English communities, 1300-48 (1979), pp. 238-60;
117. T. R. Gurr, 'Historical trends in violent crime: a critical review of the evidence', Crime and Justice. An Annual Rev. of Research 3 (1981), pp. 295-353.
118. Hanawalt, Crime and conflict, pp. 70-3.
119. For instance, E. B. DeWindt (ed.), The court rolls of Ramsey, Hepmangrove and Bury, 1286-1600 (1990), Microfiche 1, 1280 (89), 1294 (116), 1305 (20), (22), (23), 1311 (22), 1312 (8), and 1341 I (9).
120. Isidori Hispalensis episcopi etymologiarum sive originum libri XX / recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit W. M. Lindsay (1911) Book XII, vii. 52.
121. Chicago UL, Bacon Roll 424.
122. Chicago UL, Bacon Roll 435.
123. Routt, 'Estate of the Abbot of St. Edmund's', p. 491.
124. NRO, DCN 60/8/4; 60/10/4.
125. NRO, DCN 60/10/4; 60/23/23.
126. B. Harvey, Living and dying in England, 1100-1540. The monastic experience (1993), p. 54.
127. Calculated from C. M. Woolgar (ed.) Household accounts from medieval England (2 vols, British Academy Records of Social and Economic History, 17-18, 1992-93). I. pp. 259-63.
128. P. Slavin, 'Feeding the brethren: grain provisioning of Norwich Cathedral Priory, c.1280-1370' (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Toronto, 2008), pp. 328-33.
129. C. Dyer, 'Changes in diet in the late middle ages: the case of harvest workers', AgHR 36 (1988), pp. 21-37.
130. Calculated from Woolgar (ed.) Household accounts, I, pp. 179-227. This is also discussed in
131. D. J. Stone, 'The consumption and supply of birds', in C. M. Woolgar, D. Serjeantson and T. Waldron (eds.), Food in medieval England (2006), p. 154.
132. Calculated from E. Searle, The cellarers' rolls of Battle Abbey, 1275-1513 (Sussex Record Soc. 65, 1967), pp. 47 and 56; the conversion into the financial equivalent is made allowing 4d. per goose for 1307 and 4.25a. per goose for 1352.
133. NRO, DCN 1/2/16 and 1/2/20.
134. Calculated from Woolgar (ed.) Household accounts, I, pp. 259-63.
135. NRO, DCN 60/23/8.
136. M. Mate, 'Pastoral farming in south-east England in the fifteenth-century', EcHR 40 (1987), pp. 523-36;
137. C. Dyer, [Farming practice and techniques in] 'West Midlands', in E. Miller (ed.) The agrarian history of England and Wales, III, 1348-1500 (1991), pp. 235-7;
138. Campbell, 'Commercial dairy production', pp. 107-18;
139. D. Stern, A Hertfordshire demesne of Westminster Abbey: profits, productivity and weather (2000), pp. 217-22;
140. D. Stone, 'Productivity and management of sheep in late medieval England', AgHR 51 (2002), pp. 1-2;
141. id.
142. , Decision-making in medieval agriculture (2005), p. 214.
143. M. Bailey, 'The rabbit and the medieval East Anglian economy', AgHR 36 (1988), pp. 1-20.
144. Dyer, 'West Midlands', pp. 236-7.
145. Slavin, 'Norfolk cattle', pp. 53-7.
146. Chicago UL, Bacon Rolls 449 and 452; NRO, DCN 60/13/22; DCN 60/20/22.
147. NRO, DCN 60/13/22-26; 62/1-2.
148. NRO, DCN 60/13/20-1.
149. NRO, DCN 60/20/21-2. There were 47 swine in 1324, as compared to 26 in the previous year. Similarly, relatively high prices of swine prevailed on Hinderclay and this encouraged the local official to intensify swine husbandry there.
150. See, David Stone, 'Medieval farm management and technological mentalities: Hinderclay before the Black Death', EcHR 54 (2001), p. 631.
151. NRO, DCN 60/13/22-23; 62/1; 60/13/24, 26; 62/2.
152. Schubert, Essen und Trinken, pp. 120-5.