Agricultural History Review, Volume 66 Part 1 (2018), p. 152

Rose begins her new volume with a quote from Eileen Power: for England in the Middle Ages, ‘her commerce and her politics alike were built upon wool’ (Power, The wool trade, p. 17). Quite rightly Power remains the guiding spirit for all students of the wool trade. Rose’s book is divided into four sections – ‘Production’, ‘Trade’, ‘The Crown and the Wool Trade’, and ‘Decline’. While agricultural historians may find the opening section of most interest, it is impossible to divorce production, trade and politics. Rose explains how each influenced the others. Graziers often engaged in trade above and beyond the sale of their own wool, although most – like John Heritage of Moreton-in-Marsh – did so on a relatively modest scale and never achieved riches. The greatest among them, such as Cardinal Bishop Henry Beaufort, were powerful figures at court.

Chapter 1 summarizes contemporary writing on pastoral husbandry. Treatises first appeared in the thirteenth century and influential writers included Walter of Henley in England and Jean de Brie in France. They were primarily concerned with the role of the good shepherd and what he needed to do to protect his flocks. Selective breeding probably began earlier than Rose suggests, but its advantages were well known by the sixteenth century. In a case from the 1560s the claimant alleged that the defendant had allowed his rams ‘of a very coarse kind of wool’ to wander into his fields, obliging him ‘to cover the hinder parts of the ewes’ with canvas bags (p. 10). She relies on the work of Ryder to state that, in the Middle Ages, horned sheep were uncommon. Anyone who has admired the magnificent stone beasts that gaze down from the churches of Windrush in the Cotswolds and Kilpeck in Herefordshire might beg to differ.

Several case studies examine wool growing on estates held by both the church and laymen. For a while the Cistercians were dominant, but ultimately many of their houses were brought low by misjudging the wool market. ‘The system of advance payment for wool provided monasteries with the ready cash needed to support ambitious building plans but could easily lead to disaster if bad weather or attacks of disease badly affected the productivity of flocks’ (p. 182). The most poignant remark must be credited to the abbot of Pipewell who, when deposed in 1323, lamented that, ‘it is easier to borrow than to pay back debts’ (p. 182). Successive bishops of Winchester managed their enterprise much more wisely and extant records trace their fortunes from as early as 1208/9. Among gentry estates, those of Adam de Stratton of Sevenhampton in Wiltshire are particularly well documented. Between 1270 and 1279 he increased annual revenue from livestock farming from just over £6 to more than £55, by which time he owned 1,001 sheep. Sheep farming was not, however, the preserve of the great and the good. Peasants kept small flocks and, in this way, acquired an ‘early acquaintance with “commercial” agriculture’ (p. 202). Enterprising attitudes developed and flourished in all ranks of society.

In her overall assessment of medieval wool growing, Rose arguably underestimates the changes that occurred between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. Her view that there were ‘few if any marked differences in farming practice’ (p. 36) between the two centuries is contentious. Although she gives a nod to the work of Slavin and Stone, she does not really get to grips with the consequences of climate change, panzootic, pandemic, demographic collapse and all that ensued for ovine husbandry. She is much more persuasive in analysing the popular reaction against sheep farming in the early sixteenth century, when total animal numbers were almost certainly less than they had been two hundred years earlier and the wool trade was in sharp decline. For her the debate that ‘focused on the size of sheep flocks, [was] little more than a convenient symbol for the far-reaching changes in land-holding and land-use in the countryside and their social effects’ (p. 179).

Rose relies almost entirely on published material, in which she has read widely. Her volume includes an extensive bibliography that serves as a useful point of reference for other scholars. Nevertheless, there are some surprising omissions, in particular Bruce Campbell, whose studies of seigneurial agriculture are well known and highly regarded. Those looking for cutting-edge research will be disappointed by this volume. Those who want a well-structured survey of previous work written in a clear, concise and engaging style will be well satisfied. The book is a good read and nicely illustrated. Hopefully it will reach an audience well beyond the halls of academia.