Agricultural History Review, Volume 53 Part 2 (2005), p. 252

Trevor Aston, editor of Past and Present from 1960 to 1985, had his own research interests, which are discussed in a memoir by the editor at the outset of this volume. Two of his favourite topics are represented here by hitherto unpublished papers from his own hand. The first examines tenures and military obligation before and after the Norman Conquest, arguing that though dependent tenure was widespread before 1066, especially history review on ecclesiastical estates, it was not generally associated with military obligation, though Anglo-Saxon lords might be responsible for providing armed men if they were lords of hundreds. Aston’s second paper, on the custody of muniments, displays a remarkable knowledge of medieval specifications of satisfactory muniment rooms, and the varying uses of chests, cupboards and chests of drawers for storing different types of record.

All the papers contributed to this collection are studies in social and cultural history of the medieval and early modern periods, and about half are studies in rural social history of direct relevance to readers of the Agri cultural History Review. Rosamund Faith combines the evidence of a charter of 847 with that of Domesday Book to assess development in a district of south Devon in the intervening period, demonstrating the potential both for accumulating property and for establishing new family farms. Her comments contain cautionary observations on the Domesday evidence; the growth of sheep farming after 847 made the hidation of the area a misleading guide to wealth, and the Domesday commissioners’ distinction between manors and other farms was a poor indicator of relative status. P.D.A.Harvey’s paper on the manorial reeve in twelfth-century England examines the recorded occurrence of reeves, their relationship to township and lordship respectively, and the nature of their services. In the light of this evidence, and other recent research, he suggests that in the twelfth century a reeve, rather than a formal leaseholder, was commonly responsible for ensuring that tenants supplied their lord with the annual payments of produce or cash due from his manorial inland. Paul Brand examines the contribution of local lawyers to the early development of the English legal system and estate management, citing especially the career of Hugh Tyrel of Mannington in Norfolk, who flourished between 1286 and 1312. Though lacking formal credentials, and sometimes operating by force and fraud, such men built up considerable legal practices as advisors, attorneys, agents and senior estate officers. Peter Coss explains why he is reluctant to attribute gentry status to landowners from as early as the Anglo-Saxon period, arguing that this downplays important features of later development in codes of conduct and in legal and political institutions. He also warns that too great an emphasis on the continuity of gentry status through the middle ages risks contamination with essentialist notions of England’s national peculiarities. N.E.Stacy’s paper on the twelfth-century estates of Glastonbury Abbey returns to the battle against Sir Michael Postan’s interpretation of the evidence. He suggests that leasehold was a satisfactory method of estate management and, as for twelfth-century ‘recession’, the most he will allow is that civil war under Stephen caused a temporary weakening of the abbot’s control and inflicted some damage to property. Ralph Evans uses the records of Merton College to illustrate both how the college used manor courts to exploit tenants, and also how tenants themselves were able to use the courts for their own purposes, sometimes in their own defence against seigniorial innovation. I.M.W.Harvey analyzes the different objectives and social origins of poachers in thelate middle ages, and explores some connections and analogies between poaching and popular politics, particularly after 1390 when hunting was made illegal for householders with lands under the value of £2. She argues that the bold operations of some illegal hunters implied widespread connivance by their friends and neighbours.

The remaining papers in the volume, however excellent, have less to offer rural historians. T.M.Charles- Edwards suggests that the Anglo-Saxon concept of Englishness was not wholly of ecclesiastical origin, and that secular relationships of patronage, culture and conflict are needed to account for it, as well as for the separate national consciousness of the Britons, Scots and Irish. James Howard-Johnston describes and emphasizes discontinuities in the social institutions of the Byzantine empire under the pressure of invasion and depopulation during the seventh and eighth centuries. Eric John argues that the compiler of the annals of St Neots wrote in the late tenth or early eleventh centuries with ample access to information about events in continental Europe, and that his work is evidence against the idea that English culture was insular in this period. Margaret Aston examines the varied and changing justification for using paintings and sculptures to further education and devotion from the time of Gregory the Great to the Reformation, but also illustrates the misunderstandings that arose when independent teaching was absent or faulty. Jeremy Catto qualifies the view that colleges were competing against halls in later medieval Oxford, showing that some halls were taken over by colleges as units of undergraduate education, and that some larger establishments were achieved by the coming together of halls under a single principal, either by federation or by take-over. Malcolm Underwood complements Aston’s paper on the custody of archives by an examination of practices at St. John’s College, Cambridge, especially under the mastership of John Taylor (1538–47).

The volume has a detailed index.