In South Lincolnshire, defined as the former county divisions of Holland and Kesteven, there are a large number of earthwork sites of medieval or assumed medieval origin, excluding the more widespread type of feature such as protective earth banks, saltern mounds and field systems. In 1977, a period when the input of the Manpower Services Commission to archaeology was at its height, the then South Lincolnshire Archaeological Unit was fortunate in being able to employ Vic Ancliffe, a surveyor recently redundant from local government service. The Unit had undertaken to assess the archaeology of the whole of the south of the county and was in the process of collecting data on the various classes of upstanding monuments for the Sites and Monuments Record. A list of the more obvious earthworks then known was drawn up with the aim of producing a series of plans of as many sites as possible. In the north of the county, the former Lindsey division, Paul Everson had begun a survey for the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments but it was already understood that there was little likelihood of this survey being continued into the remainder of Lincolnshire.
Out of the preliminary list of 60 sites, only 18 were at the time
scheduled ancient monuments and it was felt that completion of a series of
plans and sections was a matter of some urgency. It was not anticipated that
all the known sites could be dealt with in the time available and this
limitation, together with the inevitable occasional problem over access, meant
that, at the close of the programme, a number of earthworks remained
unrecorded. In this initial scheme there was no brief to investigate additional
potential sites or to consider recorded sites, such as villages or moats, that
were already under plough. A further project was set up in 1981-2 which enabled
the compilation of a gazetteer of fenland and fen edge medieval earthworks, and
included the systematic examination both of air photographs and documentary
references to sites no longer visible.
It is certain that more remains to be
discovered. The old pasture and wooded areas of Kesteven are likely to be
particularly rewarding. The work of Paul Everson in the north of Lincolnshire
and that of the Ropsley Survey Group in the south have demonstrated the
potential of parkland and the wealth of information concealed in one small area
of woodland respectively. On the other hand the Holland division, which is
intensely arable with little tree cover, has already been studied in some
detail, and is unlikely to furnish many new earthwork sites other than field
systems. The only new information here is from documents which occasionally
identify sites no longer visible.
In the last decade since the survey
was carried out, one site, the Manor House moat at Spanby, a scheduled
monument, has been levelled. However, new names have been added to the lists
and a there is now a total of... known earthwork sitesOf these there are still
only 21 scheduled ancient monuments. A gazetteer of all known sites in the
various categories described below has been prepared (Appendix) although not
all of these necessarily remain as earthworks.
Many different types of mediaeval earthwork, from the vestiges of ploughing through moated sites to whole settlements, can be seen in the landscape today. Historians and archaeologists have been aware of the extent of the remains for many years, but, with the general exception of the physical manifestations of field systems and some remarkable local studies, little systematic work has been undertaken on the recording, identification, and interpretation of such sites. This study cannot claim to be a comprehensive gazetteer, nor is it in any meaningful sense a considered sample. Nevertheless, it does aim to illuminate the various types of earthwork that have been surveyed by describing the social and economic trends which they illustrate. A wide range of sources from the public records has been consulted (see bibliography), but only a limited selection of private muniments have been searched. Most sites would merit extensive detailed investigation, but the pressures of time have necessitated a more cursory approach.
In common with the vast majority of
archaeological sites, the initial problem is one of identity. Even major local
institutions like the castle at Wrangle can escape notice, for the material
culture and physical background of society is not the everyday material of
mediaeval records. The acuteness of the problem varies with the type of site
under consideration. Settlements tend to be fairly easy to name since much of
local government was mediated through a network of vills which, in
thirteenth-century Lincolnshire at least, approximates to the structure of
settlements. Difficulties, however, still arise. Ogarth in the vill of Ropsley
appears in fourteenth-century sources, but cannot be located on the ground.
Likewise, religious houses are usually easy to identify because many of their
muniments tend to survive. Granges, however, have not always left records, and
some like Laughton cannot be assigned to a specific foundation with absolute
confidence. Castles and moated sites in lay hands present more complex
problems. Inquisitions post mortem
and estate surveys often mention the existence of capital messuages, but only
rarely is a detailed description, such as that of the castle at Welbourn,
given. In these circumstances it is the details of estate structure and
exploitation that must provide the clues to identity. Mediaeval South
Lincolnshire is characterised by great tenurial complexity which derives from
the network of pre-Conquest soke relationships. Typically manors consisted of a
demesne in a central vill and the right to services and dues from various
parcels of land in surrounding villages. In the post-Conquest period, then,
most settlements were divided between a number of lords. In some cases several
manors can therefore be found, and the tenurial context of a moat can only be
suggested by its proximity to existing manor houses or known appurtenances of a
fee like the church. More often, however, the out-lying portions of estates
continued to render rents and dues to the eleventh-century manorial caput throughout the mediaeval period -
the Domesday estate structure, although largely invisible in feudal records,
survived with a remarkable degree of integrity for several centuries - and the
number of possible manorial curie is
reduced to one or two. Only rarely is the use of a site explicit in historical
sources, and its function can only be deduced from the location and typology of
the surviving earthworks. Finally, features like fishponds and gardens are
usually unidentifiable except from their form.
Only two of the earthwork complexes in
the present study have been investigated archaeologically, and the dating of
sites is therefore often nebulous and dependent upon analysis of historical
background. The depopulation of settlements can usually be charted when they
constituted vills. The desertion of hamlets like Humby and Boughton, however,
in common with the contraction of villages is often difficult to document in
the absence of manorial court rolls. Religious houses are usually the most
securely dated sites where foundation charters survive, but even an explicit
date must be treated as only approximate since the establishment of communities
was always a protracted process in which the grant of a charter was one in a
number of stages. For moated sites, both ecclesiastical and lay, only date
ranges can usually be provided which are determined by the grant of land or
enfeoffment of a knight and the first notice of the site or a reference that
implies its existence. Other earthworks remain largely undateable.
In the following analysis the sites
have been divided into six categories on the basis of shared characteristics.
Not all, however, are mutually exclusive. Shrunken and deserted settlements
constitute coherent groups, but are not always readily distinguishable one from
the other. Moated granges have been discussed with the two religious houses
surveyed as more readily comprehensible within that historical context. In
form, however, they differ little from moated sites in lay hands. Castles also
overlap with moats, but the category has been defined by mediaeval usage or the
survival of substantial defensible earthworks. The remaining earthworks are miscellaneous
sites about which little is known.
|
CLASS |
TENURE |
CAUSE/DATE |
Boughton |
2 |
d |
?
C14-C16 |
Brauncewell |
2 |
e,r |
granges
C13ff |
Dunsby |
2 |
e,r |
granges
C13ff |
Silkby |
2 |
e |
?
C15-C16 |
CLASS:
MAFF land classification TENURE:
d = demesne, e = enfeoffed, r = grant to religious house(s) |
Four
of the earthworks surveyed relate to deserted mediaeval villages. The type is not
always readily distinguishable from shrunken villages, for the land is always
exploited in one way or another and therefore habitation has usually been found
until the advent of factory farming in the present century. Farms, for example,
significantly representing the mediaeval manor houses, are still found at
Boughton, Brauncewell, and Silkby. But, unlike sites such as the all but
deserted Lenton, all have lost civil, ecclesiastical, or economic functions as
parishes or hamlets and have therefore ceased to be separate communities. In
most cases such major changes can usually be documented, and it is tempting to
look for a single reason at the time of desertion. Decline in population,
exhaustion of marginal land, climatic changes, and seigneurial greed have all
been adduced as causes, and in some cases prove a sufficient argument. The
earthworks at Welbourn, for example, may be the site of the lost village of
Sapperton and appear to represent a contraction of settlement into the parent
vill in the face of a fall in population in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. But many settlements experienced similar pressures and did not
succumb, and simple explanations of this kind are therefore often inadequate.
Rather it is to the interaction of a number of processes and actions which
predisposed settlements to radical changes in fortune that we must look.
Clearly general conclusion cannot be
drawn from the small sample of sites studied. Nevertheless, it is evident that
the history of each conditioned their eventual fate. It is true that all four
are on marginal or relatively marginal land, but this does not imply that they
were necessarily vulnerable to desertion. In the eleventh century both Dunsby
and Brauncewell, for example, were small settlements situated on the barren
heath and appear to be destined to extinction. In fact they were economically
and socially well adapted to the meagre resources of their environment. Much of
the land was held by sokemen who rendered tribute to a lord in Ruskington, and
settlement was probably of a predominantly dispersed pattern. The intensity of
exploitation in this form would have no doubt varied as it underwent climatic
and demographic pressures such as those experienced in the fourteenth century,
but complete desertion would have been unlikely in what was essentially a
simple subsistence economy and society.
Boughton and Silkby, along with many
others like Howell and Humby which survive today, shared this character. But
the principal experience which led to their different fate was a process of
manorialisation which concentrated the control of economic resources in the
hands of a lord. Already in the tenth and eleventh centuries lordship was
moving from a tributary relationship to a more directly exploitative nexus as large
multiple estates like Sleaford, Ruskington, and Folkingham began to
disintegrate into a number of discrete manors. In 1086 the process was
incomplete, for the render of customs and food rents were probably still the
main issues of such estates. In the twelfth century, however, more rigorous
services, notably daywork, were often imposed upon the peasantry in the
vicinity of the lord's demesne - outlying sokeland was sometimes enfeoffed and
new demesnes created, but more usually remained a source of assized rents - and
a more exploitative economy and society emerged. Settlement nucleation and a
growth in population probably quickly followed, but at once village communities
became more vulnerable to economic pressures. Twelfth-century grants of land to
religious houses in Burton Pedwardine and Blankney, for example, led to the
creation of intensively cultivated farms which seem to have all but
extinguished the small settlements of Mareham and Cotes by the thirteenth
century. Dunsby and Brauncewell may have contracted at the same time under
similar pressures. More usually communities on marginal land, like Silkby and
Boughton, survived until the late fourteenth century when the population
decline and consequent increase in the price of labour led to the lord turning
over his land to the more profitable business of sheep farming.
The desertion of settlements in
Lincolnshire, then, was not just a simple response to catastrophes like the
Black Death or changing economic forces. Such factors of course played their
part, but the social structure of each settlement was as equally important as
its economic potential and demographic resources.
|
CLASS |
TENURE |
DATE |
Boothby |
2 |
m |
?14th- |
Howell
2 |
2 |
s |
?14th- |
Humby |
2 |
s |
?14th- |
Welbourn |
2 |
m |
14-15th |
CLASS: MAFF land classification TENURE:
m = manorialised, s = socage tenure |
A
further four earthwork complexes attest to the desertion of tofts and crofts within
existing villages. The phenomenon is common in Lincolnshire. It is found in at
least six of the other settlements studied, and superficially it may seem that
the process involved is identical to that of complete desertion. However, it is
probably a mistake to view most of such sites as 'failed DMVs'. Some of the
villages in which they are found, like Howell and Humby, have an identical
physical environment to deserted settlements, but retained the sokage tenure
which was appropriate to the context. Most, however, tend to be on better land
and exhibit a greater degree of manorialisation in the eleventh century when
they first appear in the historical record. All, of course, were subject to the
same types of pressure that the lost settlements experienced. But as more
prosperous communities recovery was quicker and, as at Langtoft, lords could
maximise profitability by leasing land to yeoman farmers rather than
introducing sheep. In general terms, then, such earthworks must be regarded as
evidence of the normal ebb and flow that is characteristic of all settlement in
its response to changing circumstances as opposed to testimony only to
incipient decline.
By the very nature of mediaeval
records such circumstances cannot always be documented adequately. However, a
fall in population in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries
resulting in a contraction of settlement, as at Boothby and Howell, is just one
of a number of possible causes. At Lavington settlement drift may have been
responsible, for the present area of dense occupation, a complex to the east of
the church, may represent a shift of nucleus; while in Scredington the
abandonment of no less than five moated sites, whether by amalgamation of
estates or other means is not clear, seems to have led to desertion within the
village. Elsewhere any number of other factors may have been responsible.
|
LOCATION |
Catley |
fen |
Swineshead |
marsh |
Branston |
heath |
Gosberton
1 |
fen |
Laughton |
|
Linwood |
fen-edge |
Mareham |
upland |
Pinchbeck |
fen |
Only
two of the sites relate to religious houses. Both Catley and Swineshead were
mid twelfth-century foundations of local knights and exemplify a new trend in religious
benefaction. In the first fifty or so years after the Conquest most houses were
founded by tenants-in-chief, often as cells of Norman houses, and were endowed
with large tracts of land, frequently amounting to whole vills. The foundations
were not only family cult centres, but also an integral part of the community
of the honour, and the founder's vassals naturally discharged their religious
obligations by granting land to them. Increasingly in the twelfth century,
however, wealthy and important subtenants, like Simon de Kyme who founded the
priories of Bullington and Kyme, began to found religious houses of their own
in imitation of their social superiors. Catley and Swineshead, established by
Peter de Billinghay and Robert de Gresley respectively, were typical of the new
foundations that emerged. They were communities which adhered to orders which
had been recently formed to accommodate a desire for a more personal and intimate religious life; their endowments,
reflecting the resources of their patrons, were relatively modest; and,
although equally family cult centres and mausoleums, they were immensely
popular locally and attracted grants from all levels of society.
The houses, however, not only satisfied religious aspirations and
conferred status upon their founders. They also played a part in the
exploitation of the lord's manors. Both Catley and Swineshead were situated in
remote wastes on the periphery of their founder's principal estate, and the
improvements that they introduced must have been to the general benefit of the
community and the profit of the lord. This aspect of endowment is most clearly
seen in the foundation of granges. Seven of the sites surveyed are of this
type. All were situated on heath or adjacent to fen and, dating from the mid to
late twelfth century, appear to have taken an active part in the process of
reclamation of the waste. The moats that surround the sites are the most
eloquent surviving testimony to the process. Records from Catley indicate that
the digging of boundary ditches was often specified in charters granting land,
and at Rigbolt, Newhall, Wyberton, and Linwood where drainage of the site was a
prerequisite of exploitation, the construction of a moat must have been the
first activity on the site. The creation of upland and heath granges as at
Mareham, Branston, and Laughton were probably of less immediate economic
advantage to the lord. Moats in this type of environment ensured security and
probably often functioned as pounds for animals as attested in Kirkstead
sources. Wool production did little but remove common pasture from the estate,
but the grant of such rights was a way of endowing religious houses without
alienating resources in short supply. Unfortunately no records have survived to
illustrate the internal organisation and estate management of the granges
studied in any greater detail, but excavation has uncovered the arrangement of
buildings at Laughton.
|
CLASS |
FORM |
TENANCY |
DATE |
Burton
Pedwardine |
- |
m |
t |
?E12th |
Heydour |
cm |
rw/m |
e |
? |
Moulton |
c |
moat |
t/e |
?E12th |
Sleaford |
c |
rw |
t |
E12th |
Stainby |
cm |
m
& b |
?t |
?E12th |
Swineshead |
c |
m
& b |
e |
E12th |
Welbourn |
c |
rw |
t |
M12th |
Wrangle |
- |
m
& b |
t/e |
?E12th |
CLASS: c = castellum,
cm = capitale messuagium FORM: m = motte, b = bailey, rw = ringwork TENANCY:
t = tenant-in-chief, t/e = enfeoffed tenant-in-chief, e = enfeoffed |
Eight
of the earthwork sites surveyed were called 'castles' in the Middle Ages or can
be classified as such on the basis of mottes or ramparts which make them
somewhat more defensible than the ordinary moated site. A further two, Corby
and Wyberton, may have had similar characteristics, but were probably little
more than manor houses. The strength of defences varies. Only Sleaford was a
major castle, and, with its impressive water defences, it was favourably
compared with Newark in the twelfth century. The remaining Kesteven sites were
more modest establishments, but, like Welbourn (unsurveyed) may have had stone
keeps and curtains. The castles in Holland, by contrast, although demonstrably
important, appear to have been rather slight. Moulton, for example, is merely
an oval enclosure, showing no indication of a counterscarp, and it must be
supposed that the fastnesses of the fens were sufficient protection in this
area. Ringworks and motte and baileys are equally represented, and no
significant correlations to form have been observed.
The date of construction is
predominantly the early to mid twelfth century and characteristically all, with
the exception of Heydour and Swineshead, were held by tenants-in-chief.
Sleaford and possibly Welbourn and Stainby were honourial castles where castle
guard was rendered. Moulton and Wrangle, however, were subtenancies, but appear
to have been the major residences of their lords in an area where they wished
to maintain a presence but held no estates in demesne. Which, if any, were
adulterine is not clear.
SITE |
DB |
TENANT |
SERVICE |
Barrowby |
M
d |
e
C12 |
m |
Corby |
M
e |
|
m |
Dowsby |
M
e |
|
m |
Gosberton
2 |
M
d |
d(r) |
s |
Gosberton
3 |
M
d |
d |
alms |
Hacconby |
M
d |
d(r) |
s |
Haceby |
M
e |
|
m |
Haddington |
B
& S |
? |
? |
Heckington |
B
& S |
?d |
f |
Hougham |
M
e |
|
m |
Kyme |
M
d |
e
C12 |
m |
Langtoft |
M
d |
d |
alms |
Newton |
M
|
|
|
Scredington |
|
|
?f |
Spanby |
S |
e
C12 |
m,
but much f |
Swaton |
M
d |
d |
d |
Wyberton |
S |
?f |
?f |
DB: M = manor, d = demesne, e = tenant, B = berewick, S =
sokeland TENANT: d = demesne, e = enfeoffed + date if known, f =
freemen SERVICE:
m = military, s = sergeancy, f = freeholding or socage |
Seventeen
sites are simple moated enclosures which appear to have been in lay hands or
were held by religious houses as part of ordinary estates from the Conquest.
Their nature and function are rarely explicit in the sources consulted. Some sites
like Langtoft 2 are related to livestock and the two moats at Newhall Grange in
Pinchbeck were used as fisheries in the early sixteenth century. Most, however,
like Barrowby, Heckington Winkhill, and Hougham, where mediaeval structures
survive or are known to have existed, must have enclosed manorial residences.
As such, it is possible to perceive some of their general characteristics from
the nature of the estate structure with which they are associated. Only
Langtoft, Gosberton 3, and possibly Swaton belonged to demesne estates of
tenants-in-chief, and of the remainder nine were held by military service, two
by sergeancy, and three by freemen or in socage.
Moated sites, then, were
predominantly, if not exclusively, associated with residences of tenants
holding by knight's service, and would appear to be analogous to more
aristocratic establishments. Indeed, many had similar functions within their
more circumscribed context, for they were estate centres, and some, like Corby,
may have even been defensible at a pinch. Castles, however, where not related
to regional politics, usually represent institutional continuity from the
eleventh century. Sleaford, Heydour, and Stainby, for example, were built on
manors which were held in demesne in 1086 and had belonged to king's thanes
holding by book in 1066. Moated sites, by contrast, mark a radical departure,
for the phenomenon is evidently related to the manorialisation of society. This
process was characterised not so much by an extension of existing seigneurial
power as the creation of a new class with a novel power base. In 1066 most of
the manor studied were already held by tenants, and, although only four of the
seventeen holdings record the fact, many were probably held by subordinates
from tenants-in-chief in 1086. Thus, at Laughton two TRE lords appear to be
represented by an equal number of subtenancies in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. However, despite the undoubted existence of halls, whether as
physical structures or legal fictions, such tenants were probably predominantly
ministerial, that is, were essentially bailiffs, and therefore had no
hereditary claim to their lands or indeed full control of their issues - many
DB tenants merely had a few bovates of demesne. It was only in the first half
of the twelfth century with the territorialisation of military obligations that
tenants were generally enfeoffed in hereditary fee. It is in this context that
knights became resident within estates that were subject to their direct
control and exploitation. None of the sites studied has been securely dated,
but elsewhere it would seem that they begin to occur from the mid twelfth
century onwards, and such a date would chime well with the emergence of the
knight's fee.
The moat, then, the distinctive surviving
feature of many such sites, is probably as much symbolic as functional. As at
Lavington, it was not a universal feature, but where physical conditions were
suitable, it is often found and marks the social differentiation of the lord
from the peasants who rendered services to his estate. This phenomenon was most
pronounced in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with the genesis of military
tenures, but it may also be associated with later developments which signalled
similar social differentiations. A characteristic of fourteenth-century society
is the emergence of large manors, like Heckington Winkhill, Wyberton, and
possibly Scredington, which did not owe knight's service. Typically they were
composed of many small parcels of land which were held by money rents and often
belonged to new upwardly-mobile freeman families (nuffies). The Astys, for
example, built up an extensive estate based upon a socage tenement in
Heckington Winkhill, and the Wells manor in Wyberton seems to have had a
similar origin. In neither case can the moat surrounding the manor house be
definitely related to the new estate, but the association seems likely, and it
can be supposed that it symbolises the aspirations of the respective landlords
to social standing.
|
TYPE |
Burton
Coggles |
?garden |
Frieston |
?field
boundary |
Howell
1 |
?garden |
Langtoft
2 |
rabbit
warren |
Lavington |
manorial
complex |
Osbournby |
fishpond |
Ropsley |
dam
and fishpond |
Somerby |
road |
The
eight remaining earthworks form a miscellaneous group of garden and field
related features and an apparently unmoated manorial centre. By necessity,
most have been identified on
typological grounds alone since no references have been found to them in extant
historical sources. However, the identity of a few, such as Langtoft 2, has
been suggested by field names. It has not proved possible to date any of them.