Winter of Discontent
( Norman Conquest - 2 )
Iain Campbell
Iain Campbell
Winter of Discontent
NORMAN AND ANGLO-SAXON GLOSSARY
Ballista- a siege or field weapon of Roman design, shooting a bolt similar to a small spear.
Barrels- Firkin (ale), 9 gallons. Kilderkin, 18 gallons. Barrel, 36 gallons. Hogshead, 52 gallons. Tun, 256 gallons.
Bot- compensation payable under the West Saxon legal system
Byrnie- a sleeveless waist-length vest of armour, usually chain-mail.
Chain-mail- a series of round links joined together, each riveted to four others, which when made into sections were sewn onto a leather undergarment. This provided good protection against cuts and reasonable protection against thrusts or arrows. A hauberk and coif weighed about 40 pounds.
Charger- a large and strong horse used in battle.
Church Services- Matins midnight; Lauds dawn; Prime 6.00am; Terce 9.00am; Sext 12.00noon; Nones 3.00pm; Vespers 6.00pm; Compline Sunset. Hours varied depending on season (ie the length of the day). Used as a standard statement of a specific time (eg ‘an hour before Vespers’).
Coif- a piece of chain-mail that covered the neck and head, leaving the face clear.
Cog- a smallish single-masted merchant vessel- the standard marine transport of the Middle Ages.
Curia Regis- the Council advising the Norman kings, successor to the Witenagemot.
Destrier- large French-bred trained warhorse.
Ealdor- English word for chief.
Fyrd- English militia comprised of freemen who were not professional fighters.
Gambeson- quilted padded jacket worn under armour, to absorb the force of a blow. Frequently used without over-armour by archers.
Gebur- Generic term for English freeman/freewoman.
Hackney- a medium sized multi-purpose horse, usually a cheaper horse of lesser quality.
Hauberk- a sleeved or partially-sleeved chain-mail garment of mid-thigh to knee length.
Heriot- a fee payable to secure the right of succession to land under English law. Similar charge under Norman law was a Relief.
Hide- an area of measurement of land (similar sized parcels were called carucates in some shires) comprised of 4 virgates. A hide theoretically comprised 120 acres although this was somewhat variable. 100 hides made up the shire division of 100, although again this was not immutable.
Huscarle- professional English warrior.
Landbok/Landboc- the book of ownership that proved ownership of the land.
Laen- a form of land ownership by long-term lease on varying conditions. Usually for life, or ‘for three lives’ (that of the recipient, his widow and heir).
Longbow- a bow of Welsh derivation made of yew wood in a way that made it a naturally composite bow, providing greater power. Depending on the size of the archer, the longbow was usually 5–6 feet long and fired an arrow 39 inches long- a ‘cloth yard’.
Money. English. Pounds, shillings and pence. A gold Mark (not English currency) equaled ?12, or 240 shillings. French. The same system. The denier equaled a penny, 12 deniers to the sou, 20 sous to the livre.
Onager- a simple catapult of Roman design throwing rocks around the size of a man’s head. Used as a siege weapon.
Palfrey- a smallish horse suitable for riding by women.
Pontage- toll fee payable to use a bridge.
Rouncey- an all-round horse, suitable for many uses including general riding and also as light cavalry.
Scale armour- small plates, usually metal, sewn in an overlapping fashion onto a leather jacket. Provided reasonable protection at lower cost than chain-mail, due to the lower labour content.
Seax- English fighting knife, usually large, worn by freemen and freewomen as a sign of their status.
Snekke- Norse word for the normal-sized longship. A fast and maneuverable warship 60 feet long by 9 feet wide with a crew of about fifty, usually with 10 oars a side. Powered by a large square sail or oars.
Tabula- Roman board game similar to backgammon
Taxes amp; Charges. Danegeld, English tax levied to bribe the Danes and Norwegians not to attack- levied at two shillings per hide of land prior to 1051. Corvee- unpaid labour provided in lieu of payment. Banalities, fees charged by a lord for use facilities such as a mill. Estovers (the fee for the right to gather wood). Pannage (fee for the right to have pigs eat the acorns in the local forest).
Wergild- The value placed on a life for compensation purposes in England. 200 shillings for a freeman or freewoman, 1,200 shillings for a thegn. No wergild was paid for death of a slave, but compensation of value of the slave was paid.
Witenagemot- Council advising the English king.
Other English words used in this book.
cifes — whore
cifesboren- bastard/ whoreson
galdricge — immodest
grim — fierce
herer?swa — commander
Hlaford — gentlemen
Horsbealdor — Horse-master
nydh?mestre — mistress
scamleast — enchantress
unfrod — inexperienced
unges?lig — accursed
ungleaw — stupid
wealh — foreigner
English social classes. Slaves (theows) at the bottom of the ladder, somewhat less than ten percent of the rural population. Freemen, known collectively as geburs, comprised, in ascending order cottars (who held a cottage from the laenholder or bokholder, in return for 1–2 days a week of labour, and usually worked for pay for the rest of the week). No right of occupation passed on the death of the cottar. Sokemen, held the right to farm collectively-owned village land, and usually also land in his own right, and able to sell or pass this to his family. Cheorls were usually moderately wealthy men with the right to farm a substantial amount of communal land and privately owned land. Owed the lord work-rent or paid cash for the ongoing right to use the privately owned land. Thegn- a man who usually owned his land owed military service for the land he held. Uniquely, a merchant who engaged in foreign trade could be deemed thegn-worthy (ie of equal social status as a thegn). Earl- holder of large parcels of land, usually geographically based, and who administered a geographical area. Equivalent to a French duke.
French Social Classes- The Norman system was based on a hierarchical system with lower members holding (but not owning) land in return for either military or financial obligations to their superiors, as vassals. The lowest level were the villeins, who held no hereditary rights to the land they laboured to farm. A villein was free in that he could abandon his land, but could not sell, gift or will it. Freemen were essentially rent-paying tenant farmer who owed little or no service to the lord, but formed only a small portion of the rural population, usually specialists such as blacksmiths etc. Knight — a man who owed military service for the land he held but usually did not own it. Baron- held land from the king or duke in return for substantial military obligations. Some of his land may be owned by him as a hereditary entitlement, or alod. Townsfolk were generally deemed to be freemen.
CHAPTER ONE
December 1067-January 1068
Sir Alan of Thorrington rode north from Winchester on Thursday the 27th December in the Year of Our Lord 1067, on the Feast of St John the Apostle, having participated in the Christmas Feast overseen by King William of England. With him was a large party; his wife Anne of Wivenhoe and her maid Synne, both riding in a light cart being pulled by a horse; his newly-appointed seneschal Robert de Aumale; Brand, the leader of Alan’s huscarles; Osmund the scribe; Alan’s servant Leof and nine huscarles, the latter professional English warriors. The cart also contained several
chests of belongings and the rolled up chain-mail armour of the warriors, wrapped in oiled leather bags.
Alan was a tall and slim but physically powerful young man of just twenty years with red hair and brown eyes, his hair and a small beard now growing long in accordance with the wishes of his wife. He was originally from Gauville in Normandy, had fought at Hastings with his friend Robert- and he had saved Duke William’s life during the battle. The previous year he’d received as a reward from William six manors in the Tendring Hundred in Essex.
Within the last few days he had received a further four manors on the Welsh border as reward for his largely unsuccessful attempt to assist the English against abuses being perpetuated by those royal officers responsible to administer the Heriot land-tax, or Relief tax, imposed against the land of all those in England who had not supported William at Hastings. This attempt by Alan had earned him the enmity of Bishop William of London, Ralph the Staller, who was the earl of East Anglia, and the influential priest Engelric, together with their minion Robert fitzWymarc, the part-Breton sheriff of Essex who had came to England before the Conquest and had received advancement from first King Edward and then King William. Bishop William and Earl Ralph were appointees of Edward the Confessor from before the Norman invasion, the former a Norman and the latter half English.
Alan had married Anne in the summer of that year. Unusually, it was a love match, she being the young and much-abused widow of Aelfric, the former thegn of Wivenhoe who had died at the battle of Stamford Bridge. The daughter of Orvin, a wealthy merchant from Ipswich, she was now eighteen years of age. Short at just over five feet in height, petite, with long auburn hair and large brown eyes, Anne was an extremely intelligent and astute woman who had taken the proceeds obtained from Alan’s victory over of a large Danish raiding force and in a short time transformed it into a small financial empire. This allowed Alan the finance to do as he wished in the areas that interested him. These were raising, equipping and training a significant force of men-at-arms, scholasticism and tinkering in his workshop building engines of war. For a knight Alan was most unusual, being well educated, erudite and cultured with a fine understanding of the arts. This was all a result of a failed attempt to join a Benedictine monastery in his youth.
Usually Anne rode ahorse and traveled well. It was unusual for her to decide to ride in the cart with her maid, but she was feeling ill.
It was raining and cold with a vicious north wind. The men rode soaked and chilled, while the women sat partially sheltered by a large oiled cloth over the cart.
From Winchester to Gloucester is a journey of 85 miles and they took two days, resting overnight at Chiseldon in Wiltshire. Hereford was a further forty miles beyond Gloucester, with their destination of Staunton a further nine miles again beyond that. As Anne was not feeling well, and with no immediate urgency in their travel, Alan had suggested that they break their journey at Gloucester for several days, partly as none of the party had visited that city before.
They entered through the East Gate, where Alan enquired of the guard captain as to whether he could recommend an inn frequented by wealthy merchants. At his suggestion they proceeded up the aptly named Eastgate Street to the ‘Bear and Bull’ Inn.
With the city’s history back to Roman times, the main thoroughfares were paved with stone, although piles of refuse and excrement littered the roadways. The rain had not been heavy enough to wash the rubbish away and it lay wet and slippery, ready to catch the unwary. It was late afternoon, about an hour before Vespers, and the dull sky presaged an even earlier than usual fall of darkness this wintery day. Most of the hawkers and street vendors had departed to their homes, the shop-keepers were closing their premises, moving display goods inside and closing the wooden shutters of the poky little shops.
A number of houses in the south-west corner of the town had been demolished and the motte of a new castle was being built, with piles of earth, stone and rubble standing in what would become the bailey. The building site was currently deserted due to the poor weather and late hour. Within the confines of the town walls houses, halls, shops, inns, taverns, churches, workshops and factories were crammed together. The large mass of St Peter’s Abbey dominated the northern part of the town, towering over the one and two storey buildings that made up the majority of the buildings in the town.
The air was foul with the stench of excrement, rotting waste, the contents of the vats which the tanners and dyers had emptied onto the street at the end of their working day, the smoke of hundreds of chimneys and the fumes from the iron foundries that were the main industry of the town. On the other side of the town, beyond West Gate, lay the docks and the River Severn, with the wooden bridge over the river barely visible in the failing light and the light drizzle that was falling.
“What is it about towns that makes everybody use the streets as a midden?” asked Osmund rhetorically.
“It’s because nobody’s in charge,” replied Brand. “In a village if you don’t use the common midden and just dump your rubbish anywhere, your neighbours soon let you know they’re unhappy- and the muck makes good fertiliser in the fields! Here nobody cares. Ah! Judging by that hanging sign it looks as if we’ve found our lodging place.”
Once inside the inn Anne checked the quality of the rooms while Alan enquired as to the board of fare that evening. Both were satisfied, and three rooms were taken at two pence a person a night, including food. The huscarles would sleep in the Commons near the fire, at a penny each. As darkness fell the men drank mulled ale in the common room by the light of smoking rush torches and the blazing fire. Alan, Anne, Robert and Osmund sat at a table near the fire sipping warmed wine. Being Saturday there was no restriction on the provender available and after the usual vegetable pottage they ate rabbit and veal stew, pork pies and spiced roast lamb. Alan, something of an aficionado of fine cheese, declined to partake of the lack-luster cheese-board offered, instructing the taverner that he should obtain a more suitable offering for the following night.
The next day was Sunday. Sunrise wasn’t until shortly before half past eight and the weary travelers slept late before breaking their fast on pottage and day-old bread. Anne missed breakfast, being ill in her room and attended by her maid Synne, the only one of her four maids to accompany her on this journey. Eventually Anne appeared downstairs and spoke for a while to the wife of the taverner. The drizzle had turned to heavy rain, but despite this Anne asked for the services of one of the huscarles as an escort when she ventured outside. She declined both of Alan’s suggestions that she either stay warm inside or that he walk with her. Well rugged up against the weather she left together with Synne and the huscarle, returning damp and bedraggled an hour or so later. Alan and Robert were playing a game of ‘Fox and Geese’ with a wooden playing board and pegs. Robert’s Fox had cornered nearly all of Alan’s Geese. Anne bullied them, together with Osmund and Leof, into changing their clothes to attend the noon Mass at Sext at the nearby abbey, only a few hundred paces away.
The vast stone nave of the abbey, with its huge columns and high vaulted ceiling, was chillingly cold. The Benedictine monks sitting in the massive wooden Choir had their breath freeze before them as they sang and they hid their hands inside the sleeves of their black woolen habits. Despite the weather several hundred of the town’s 2,000 residents were in attendance, including those sufficiently well-dressed as to clearly be the leading burgesses of the town. The singing and chanting of the monks was a thing of beauty. However the abbot, who was a tall man of spare build wearing rich vestments, was the only person in the church with a chair or a cushion on which to kneel. The hour and a half taken to cleanse their souls, alternately standing or kneeling on the cold stone, were a trial to the congregation. “By St Peter’s toenails, it’s as cold as a witch’s teat in here. What have we done to deserve having to pay such a strong penance for our sins?” Alan whispered to Anne. She replied with an elbow in his ribs.
After the parting benediction they hurried back t
hrough the heavy rain to the ‘Bear and Bull’, quickly quaffing a warming drink on their arrival and gathered close to the fire, rubbing their hands by the flames while their cloaks were dried in the kitchen. Washed clean of sin, either by attending Mass or by the rain, they felt uplifted and comfortable.
The huscarles passed the time by either sitting near the fire and playing knucklebones for small wagers or outside in the stables tossing horseshoes at a stake driven into the ground. Alan was about to resume his interrupted game of ‘Fox and Geese’ with Robert when Anne asked him to come upstairs to their bedroom. The room was not large, little bigger than the bed with its down mattress and quilted counterpane, and had a small brazier in one corner to take the winter chill from the room. Anne sat on the bed and indicated with a pat for Alan to do the same.
“I have good news, my husband,” she said. “You’ve probably guessed by now, but after seeing a midwife of this town this morning I can confirm I’m with child,” she continued quietly but proudly.
“Praise be to God!” replied Alan fervently, his face suffused with emotion as he hugged her to him. “We’ll get this business dealt with in Herefordshire and get off back home to Thorrington. Are you able to travel?”
Anne laughed delightedly and said, “I’m pregnant, not sick. Pregnant women travel all the time. I’ll just take it easy and travel in the cart instead of riding. The child isn’t due until early August, so it’ll be May before I’m much restricted.”
After another hug and kiss they went downstairs, Alan keen to share the good news with his friends. It was nearly dark outside, the abbey bells having just tolled for the None service at three in the afternoon. The men who had been outside had come into the warmth cast by the roaring fire in the inn’s Commons. The fire, smoking rush torches, the usual smells of stale ale and stale rushes that identified any inn, together with the sour smell of unwashed bodies, made the air thick and noisome.
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