Through a combination of determination, leadership, tactical imagination, luck and statesmanship, Duke William of Normandy made 1066 one of the pivotal events in English history and transformed the nation that was to develop from this historic moment. Wolverton was at the periphery, being neither directly affected by the invasion nor by William’s foray into Buckinghamshire. No doubt Wolverton’s thanes and some of their men were involved in the fighting of that year and we do not know what happened to them. Nobody could have anticipated, even in those uncertain times, the aftermath of the new Norman rule which would disinherit the ruling thanes and their families and make Wolverton a centre of increased importance. This was solely due to the man who established the seat of his barony there, Manno the Breton.
William attracted quite a large contingent from Brittany to his English enterprises and most were rewarded. Some were quite powerful and were compensated with huge estates. One of them, Ralph, was created Earl of East Anglia shortly after the invasion and I will return to him later. Manno, judging by the fact that we know little about him, was in the second rank of tenants-in-chief.
Of his person and his origins we know nothing. We do not even know very much about his life, but we do, from the Domesday Survey of 1086, know quite a lot about his landholdings. From this we can draw certain inferences about his importance and learn something about the first baron of Wolverton and the founder of a family which was to prosper here for about 300 years.
I am perhaps too extravagant in saying that we learn something. We actually know the scantiest of detail: his name, that he came from Brittany, and that he had an heir. Anything else is a matter for conjecture. There is much more that we do not know. We have no information about his year of birth, where he came from in Brittany, his parentage, nor his wife and family. We can only guess at the year of his death. Yet this man was one of the 150 or so most important men in England after the Norman Conquest and all we know for certain is the list of landholdings he acquired after 1066.
One of Manno’s first acts must have been to build a castle and for this he chose a promontory overlooking the Ouse Valley to the north and west. This first castle was a motte and bailey type. The raised earthwork, the motte, is still visible and the probable outline of the bailey has been determined by an archaeological assessment. I will describe this in Chapter 5. The surrounding moat was filled in during the construction of the new Holy Trinity church in the 19th century. All that remains today is a bushy mound where the keep may have stood. Most of these early castles were wooden fortresses; later, some barons and earls built themselves stone strongholds. We must assume that Manno and his successors never felt under sufficient threat to resort to stronger fortifications.
Outside of Wolverton there were events that threatened the stability of the new monarchy, but Manno seems to have kept his head down, a characteristic he passed on to his descendants who were content to administer their estates and not to risk what they held by contending for an even greater share. Greed does not appear to have been a characteristic of this family.
From the blank page that is Manno’s life it is possible to infer that at the time of the conquest he was in his twenties at least and that he might have been born circa 1040. He must have had some status in Brittany to be able to bring a force of men to support William in his invasion. His rewards would suggest that he was a significant player in the battles to establish William’s supremacy. It is possible too that he was a younger son of a Breton lord, and with no prospect of an inheritance, had the motivation to join the invading force with the future promise of land. He did not, for example, share the privilege of some Breton lords who held land in both countries, and this may explain why he remained loyal to William. He had gained everything through the Conquest and disloyalty could cost him everything.
He was not in the same rank as the magnates close to William who were given huge landholdings. The Domesday Book, which is quite careful about precedence, ranks him 43rd in the Buckinghamshire record of tenants-in-chief. In Leicestershire he ranks 37th , In Hertfordshire 39th and in Northamptonshire 54th. He does not appear as a witness in any of the documents of either William or his sons William Rufus and Henry which would suggest that he was never close to the king and that we are right to place him in the second rank of barons. He could be depended upon for his feudal obligations and since there is no record of any default, he most likely was. William worked closely with a handful of men who were his
trusted advisors and supporters. As for the rest, lesser barons like Manno, he apparently met with them three times a year – at Easter, Michelmas and Christmas, using the Saxon institution of the witan gemot, or great council. Stenton says that there is little evidence that any decisions were made at these meetings but it was an opportunity for William to seek reaffirmation of loyalty and possibly deal with personal grievances.1 It has been written that William was mistrustful of the Bretons, so one suspects that Manno, as an intelligent man, correctly assessed the situation and decided to get on with managing and building his estates. This does not make glittering history but the end result was that he provided a firm foundation for the Wolverton barony. One is tempted to observe that he may have set the tone for 1,000 years of relatively peaceful history on the Wolverton Manor.
William attracted quite a large contingent from Brittany to his English enterprises and most were rewarded. Some were quite powerful and were compensated with huge estates. One of them, Ralph, was created Earl of East Anglia shortly after the invasion and I will return to him later. Manno, judging by the fact that we know little about him, was in the second rank of tenants-in-chief.
Of his person and his origins we know nothing. We do not even know very much about his life, but we do, from the Domesday Survey of 1086, know quite a lot about his landholdings. From this we can draw certain inferences about his importance and learn something about the first baron of Wolverton and the founder of a family which was to prosper here for about 300 years.
I am perhaps too extravagant in saying that we learn something. We actually know the scantiest of detail: his name, that he came from Brittany, and that he had an heir. Anything else is a matter for conjecture. There is much more that we do not know. We have no information about his year of birth, where he came from in Brittany, his parentage, nor his wife and family. We can only guess at the year of his death. Yet this man was one of the 150 or so most important men in England after the Norman Conquest and all we know for certain is the list of landholdings he acquired after 1066.
One of Manno’s first acts must have been to build a castle and for this he chose a promontory overlooking the Ouse Valley to the north and west. This first castle was a motte and bailey type. The raised earthwork, the motte, is still visible and the probable outline of the bailey has been determined by an archaeological assessment. I will describe this in Chapter 5. The surrounding moat was filled in during the construction of the new Holy Trinity church in the 19th century. All that remains today is a bushy mound where the keep may have stood. Most of these early castles were wooden fortresses; later, some barons and earls built themselves stone strongholds. We must assume that Manno and his successors never felt under sufficient threat to resort to stronger fortifications.
Outside of Wolverton there were events that threatened the stability of the new monarchy, but Manno seems to have kept his head down, a characteristic he passed on to his descendants who were content to administer their estates and not to risk what they held by contending for an even greater share. Greed does not appear to have been a characteristic of this family.
From the blank page that is Manno’s life it is possible to infer that at the time of the conquest he was in his twenties at least and that he might have been born circa 1040. He must have had some status in Brittany to be able to bring a force of men to support William in his invasion. His rewards would suggest that he was a significant player in the battles to establish William’s supremacy. It is possible too that he was a younger son of a Breton lord, and with no prospect of an inheritance, had the motivation to join the invading force with the future promise of land. He did not, for example, share the privilege of some Breton lords who held land in both countries, and this may explain why he remained loyal to William. He had gained everything through the Conquest and disloyalty could cost him everything.
He was not in the same rank as the magnates close to William who were given huge landholdings. The Domesday Book, which is quite careful about precedence, ranks him 43rd in the Buckinghamshire record of tenants-in-chief. In Leicestershire he ranks 37th , In Hertfordshire 39th and in Northamptonshire 54th. He does not appear as a witness in any of the documents of either William or his sons William Rufus and Henry which would suggest that he was never close to the king and that we are right to place him in the second rank of barons. He could be depended upon for his feudal obligations and since there is no record of any default, he most likely was. William worked closely with a handful of men who were his
trusted advisors and supporters. As for the rest, lesser barons like Manno, he apparently met with them three times a year – at Easter, Michelmas and Christmas, using the Saxon institution of the witan gemot, or great council. Stenton says that there is little evidence that any decisions were made at these meetings but it was an opportunity for William to seek reaffirmation of loyalty and possibly deal with personal grievances.1 It has been written that William was mistrustful of the Bretons, so one suspects that Manno, as an intelligent man, correctly assessed the situation and decided to get on with managing and building his estates. This does not make glittering history but the end result was that he provided a firm foundation for the Wolverton barony. One is tempted to observe that he may have set the tone for 1,000 years of relatively peaceful history on the Wolverton Manor.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, sapien platea morbi dolor lacus nunc, nunc ullamcorper. Felis aliquet egestas vitae, nibh ante quis quis dolor sed mauris. Erat lectus sem ut lobortis, adipiscing ligula eleifend, sodales fringilla mattis dui nullam. Ac massa aliquet.
After the Conquest he was given quite extensive landholdings in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire – mostly in the last-named County. We do not know precisely when this happened and these transactions may have been spread over several years. When all was settled by 1086 (or perhaps as early as 1075) he held sway altogether over 127 hides and taking as a rough guide a hide to be about 120 acres, this gave him total landholdings of over 15,000 acres. The most valuable portion was the Manor of Wolverton, which was valued at £20 and this high value may have been one the reasons that he chose to settle there. Nor should the roads be ignored as an influence. The Watling Street, even though a green trackway, may still have been one of the fastest routes to move armed horsemen. A good part of his landholdings were also in North Buckinghamshire, so the location may also have been practical for administrative purposes.
Not too far away, he held the manors of Loughton, Stoke Hammond, Wicken, Thornborough and Padbury, which amounted to well over half of this land. Beyond that he held the manor of Ellesborough near Aylesbury some scattered small manors at Aston Sandford, Chalfont St Giles, Drayton Beauchamp, Helsthorpe and Lamport. Neither Helsthorpe nor Lamport are recognised as places today. Helsthorpe preserves its name as a farmhouse near Wingrave and Lamport, probably part of Water Stratford, just outside Buckingham, ceased to exist in name long ago.
Manno also held a sizeable but not overly valuable manor at Lutterworth and two small manors at Misterton and Catthorpe in Leicestershire. The Lutterworth Manor supported 6 villagers and 7 smallholders and 12 of these were Freemen, that is they were able to work the land without any obligation of service. It appears that the lord’s demesne was operated by 2 male slaves and 1 female slave. The value of this manor was £7, some of which was owed to the King, so it may not have been a great source of revenue for Manno. The same could be said for Misterton and Catthorpe which were only valued at 20s each. What is noteworthy is that these manors were first held by Earl Ralph, the Breton lord who was appointed Earl of East Anglia, in 1066. He died a few years after the invasion and his son, also Ralph, became earl, and for reasons which are not clear joined a rebellion against William in 1075. He lost and fled to Brittany, never to return. Needless to add his estates were forfeit, and these manors granted to Manno, who presumably stayed loyal. Thus we might date Manno’s acquisition of these manors to sometime after 1075. These exact connection of these properties with the Wolverton barony is difficult to pin down. There are surviving deeds of land transactions in the Market Harborough area in the first half of the 14th century so it might be fair to assume that the Lutterworth, Misterton and Catthorpe manors had been granted to followers and had passed out of the family by that time.
He also held some Northamptonshire properties. There was one hide held from the King at Thenford, near Banbury, 3 virgates at Wicken and something over 4 hides at Maidwell, north of Northampton. Each was valued at £2. Each manor was worked by slaves, a mode of operation which may have become obsolete by the end of the 11th century. Thenford never features in later documents although both Wicken (Wick Hamon) and ()Maidwell play their part in subsequent transactions.The last piece of land, ”the third part of ½ hide in Dunsley”, which is part of Tring, was valued at only 12d and provided sufficient land for 1 ox.
The core of the barony was made up of the Buckinghamshire holdings and here Manno and his successors concentrated their interests.
There was in any case much work to be done in Buckinghamshire. In the immediate aftermath of the battle at Hastings, William and his army moved north to London, but failing to gain a crossing there moved westward to Wallingford where they were able to ford the river. From here the army followed the course of the Icknield Way where there was a lot of harrying and laying waste of the countryside. Some of Manno’s future manors lay directly in this path. The Domesday records record the impact of this devastation in the assessed land values.
• Ellesborough: Total value £6; when acquired £4; before 1066 £10.
• Chalfont: Total value £6 10s; when acquired 100s; before 1066 £6 10s.
• Aston: in total, value 100s; when acquired £4; before 1066, 100s.
• Helsthorpe: Value 40s; when acquired 20s; before 1066 £4.
• Drayton: In total, the value is and was £4; before 1066, 100s.
Ellesborough, Drayton, Aston and Helsthorpe were directly in the path of William’s army, which eventually came to terms with the English at Berkhamstead, but all of these manors suffered some fall in value by the time of Manno’s acquisition, suggesting that there were insufficient people to work the land in the aftermath of the Conquest. The dramatic drop in the value of Helsthorpe and its partial recovery 20 years later, may indicate that not much was done to restore the manor in the ensuing years. The rest of the manors had recovered their value after 20 years, although Ellesborough was apparently struggling to get back to its pre-Conquest valuation.
By comparison the North Buckinghamshire manors either retain or quickly bounce back to their pre-Conquest valuations.
• Lamport: In total, value 30s; when acquired 16s; before 1066, 30s.
• Padbury: Total value £12; when acquired £7; before 1066, £12.
• Stoke: The value is and always was £10.
• Loughton: the total value is and was £3; before 1066 £4.
• Wolverton: Total value £20; when acquired £15; before 1066 £20.
The 1086 survey shows us how Manno managed his dispersed holdings. Some were given over to his knights in a practice later termed subinfeudation. In such cases a manor was given to a knight who would enjoy the revenue in return for military service. In this way Manno was able to fulfil his own obligation to the king. In Chalfont, which must have been largely wooded at the time, he installed two knights, one in the area known as the Vache and another at Isenhampstead, later known as Chenies. The Red Book of the Exchequer of 1186 records the names of those knights in the assessment of Hamon’s 15 knight’s fees. Among them, presumably descendants of Manno’s knights, are Alexander de Ysenhamstede and Warnerus de Vacca. The Vache, which may have acquired its name as a cow pasture, was adopted as a surname by this family and the de la Vache prospered for a few hundred years. Isenhampstead is not mentioned in Domesday, but we can infer from the knight’s fee of 1166 that it was part of the Chalfont Manor. By 1232 the family name was Cheyne, probably through marriage, and this family prospered there for centuries, giving their name to the manor and the parish as Chenies. There were a number of connections between the Chalfont manors and the Wolverton family over the centuries, suggesting a closer relationship than with the other manors of the barony. It has occurred to me (although it is pure fancy on my part) that the apparent importance of the Chalfont manors might be due to Manno granting them to close relatives, possibly even to younger sons who could not inherit the barony. There is no documentary evidence for this; it is only a hunch based on a plausible explanation. The South Buckinghamshire manors were 60 miles from Wolverton and Manno would need knights on those manors whom he could trust. Family ties were the best guarantee of loyalty and there is no reason to suppose that Manno was not conventional in granting key positions to his sons and close relatives or to his sons-in-law. We have no record of Manno’s sons and daughters but it is reasonable to speculate that there may have been more children than a single son and that these children would have to be accommodated somehow. It is just possible that the de Wolverton and Chenies families were cousins.
()
Not too far away, he held the manors of Loughton, Stoke Hammond, Wicken, Thornborough and Padbury, which amounted to well over half of this land. Beyond that he held the manor of Ellesborough near Aylesbury some scattered small manors at Aston Sandford, Chalfont St Giles, Drayton Beauchamp, Helsthorpe and Lamport. Neither Helsthorpe nor Lamport are recognised as places today. Helsthorpe preserves its name as a farmhouse near Wingrave and Lamport, probably part of Water Stratford, just outside Buckingham, ceased to exist in name long ago.
Manno also held a sizeable but not overly valuable manor at Lutterworth and two small manors at Misterton and Catthorpe in Leicestershire. The Lutterworth Manor supported 6 villagers and 7 smallholders and 12 of these were Freemen, that is they were able to work the land without any obligation of service. It appears that the lord’s demesne was operated by 2 male slaves and 1 female slave. The value of this manor was £7, some of which was owed to the King, so it may not have been a great source of revenue for Manno. The same could be said for Misterton and Catthorpe which were only valued at 20s each. What is noteworthy is that these manors were first held by Earl Ralph, the Breton lord who was appointed Earl of East Anglia, in 1066. He died a few years after the invasion and his son, also Ralph, became earl, and for reasons which are not clear joined a rebellion against William in 1075. He lost and fled to Brittany, never to return. Needless to add his estates were forfeit, and these manors granted to Manno, who presumably stayed loyal. Thus we might date Manno’s acquisition of these manors to sometime after 1075. These exact connection of these properties with the Wolverton barony is difficult to pin down. There are surviving deeds of land transactions in the Market Harborough area in the first half of the 14th century so it might be fair to assume that the Lutterworth, Misterton and Catthorpe manors had been granted to followers and had passed out of the family by that time.
He also held some Northamptonshire properties. There was one hide held from the King at Thenford, near Banbury, 3 virgates at Wicken and something over 4 hides at Maidwell, north of Northampton. Each was valued at £2. Each manor was worked by slaves, a mode of operation which may have become obsolete by the end of the 11th century. Thenford never features in later documents although both Wicken (Wick Hamon) and ()Maidwell play their part in subsequent transactions.The last piece of land, ”the third part of ½ hide in Dunsley”, which is part of Tring, was valued at only 12d and provided sufficient land for 1 ox.
The core of the barony was made up of the Buckinghamshire holdings and here Manno and his successors concentrated their interests.
There was in any case much work to be done in Buckinghamshire. In the immediate aftermath of the battle at Hastings, William and his army moved north to London, but failing to gain a crossing there moved westward to Wallingford where they were able to ford the river. From here the army followed the course of the Icknield Way where there was a lot of harrying and laying waste of the countryside. Some of Manno’s future manors lay directly in this path. The Domesday records record the impact of this devastation in the assessed land values.
• Ellesborough: Total value £6; when acquired £4; before 1066 £10.
• Chalfont: Total value £6 10s; when acquired 100s; before 1066 £6 10s.
• Aston: in total, value 100s; when acquired £4; before 1066, 100s.
• Helsthorpe: Value 40s; when acquired 20s; before 1066 £4.
• Drayton: In total, the value is and was £4; before 1066, 100s.
Ellesborough, Drayton, Aston and Helsthorpe were directly in the path of William’s army, which eventually came to terms with the English at Berkhamstead, but all of these manors suffered some fall in value by the time of Manno’s acquisition, suggesting that there were insufficient people to work the land in the aftermath of the Conquest. The dramatic drop in the value of Helsthorpe and its partial recovery 20 years later, may indicate that not much was done to restore the manor in the ensuing years. The rest of the manors had recovered their value after 20 years, although Ellesborough was apparently struggling to get back to its pre-Conquest valuation.
By comparison the North Buckinghamshire manors either retain or quickly bounce back to their pre-Conquest valuations.
• Lamport: In total, value 30s; when acquired 16s; before 1066, 30s.
• Padbury: Total value £12; when acquired £7; before 1066, £12.
• Stoke: The value is and always was £10.
• Loughton: the total value is and was £3; before 1066 £4.
• Wolverton: Total value £20; when acquired £15; before 1066 £20.
The 1086 survey shows us how Manno managed his dispersed holdings. Some were given over to his knights in a practice later termed subinfeudation. In such cases a manor was given to a knight who would enjoy the revenue in return for military service. In this way Manno was able to fulfil his own obligation to the king. In Chalfont, which must have been largely wooded at the time, he installed two knights, one in the area known as the Vache and another at Isenhampstead, later known as Chenies. The Red Book of the Exchequer of 1186 records the names of those knights in the assessment of Hamon’s 15 knight’s fees. Among them, presumably descendants of Manno’s knights, are Alexander de Ysenhamstede and Warnerus de Vacca. The Vache, which may have acquired its name as a cow pasture, was adopted as a surname by this family and the de la Vache prospered for a few hundred years. Isenhampstead is not mentioned in Domesday, but we can infer from the knight’s fee of 1166 that it was part of the Chalfont Manor. By 1232 the family name was Cheyne, probably through marriage, and this family prospered there for centuries, giving their name to the manor and the parish as Chenies. There were a number of connections between the Chalfont manors and the Wolverton family over the centuries, suggesting a closer relationship than with the other manors of the barony. It has occurred to me (although it is pure fancy on my part) that the apparent importance of the Chalfont manors might be due to Manno granting them to close relatives, possibly even to younger sons who could not inherit the barony. There is no documentary evidence for this; it is only a hunch based on a plausible explanation. The South Buckinghamshire manors were 60 miles from Wolverton and Manno would need knights on those manors whom he could trust. Family ties were the best guarantee of loyalty and there is no reason to suppose that Manno was not conventional in granting key positions to his sons and close relatives or to his sons-in-law. We have no record of Manno’s sons and daughters but it is reasonable to speculate that there may have been more children than a single son and that these children would have to be accommodated somehow. It is just possible that the de Wolverton and Chenies families were cousins.
()
Manno had granted the Drayton and Helsthorpe manors to Helgot and there may have been the expectation of more than one knight coming out of this arrangement. The 1186 list records Peverel de Bello Campo for two knights and Stephanus de Bello Campo for one knight. They may have been descendants of Helgot and had adopted the name Bello Campo – Beauchamp, which later attached itself to the manor and parish of Drayton.
The now non-existent Lamport, near Stowe, was also subinfeudated to Gerard and another follower, Berner, was given the quite large manor of Thornborough as well as Maidwell in Northamptonshire2. Two men at arms were given Loughton which may be the origin of two manors within the whole of Loughton. The de Loughton family emerges from one of these.
Mannou’s knightly obligations could thus be met by two from Chalfont, two from Drayton, one from Helesthorpe, one from Lamport, two from Loughton, two from Thornborough, which possibly included Maidwell with the rest made up from Stoke, Wicken, Thenford, the Leicestershire holdings and Wolverton itself.
Knights were expensive. The armour might cost £10 and a good war horse might cost up to £40. On top of this the knight would need to support himself and his family in suitable style so it would require the labour of a large number of peasants to support a single knight, let alone esquires, who were in a sense apprentice knights. Knighthood did not have the high social standing that it acquired in the later middle ages, during the age of chivalry. There could be quite a range in wealth and social standing between a knight who enjoyed the proceeds of a whole manor and household knights who directly served Manno and lived off a small part of the Wolverton Manor.
All of this cost and the responsibility for delivery was borne by the feudal tenant, so the land grants had to be of a size to make the bargain feasible for both parties. The tenants-in-chief then made similar arrangements down the chain in the practice known as subinfeudation, described earlier, whereby the tenant-in-chief would hand over a manor to a knight in return for his required service. This, for instance, is exactly what happened in Manno’s Manor of Aston, valued, as we have seen, at 4 ½ hides worth £5. In 1086 Odo held it from Manno in lieu of service and it appears that his descendants adopted the name of Sandford. In time, as these feudal practices changed, first by excusing themselves from military service by a fine and by the 14th century seeking and expecting payment for military service, these small manors became customary holdings for the men whose ancestors once held them in lieu of service.
The vast territories awarded to William’s followers, which would generate enormous wealth today, illustrated two realities: William’s policy of securing his throne through an army that could be raised by a small number of barons that he could depend upon, and the low population (estimated at 1.5 million) and economic yield of the land.
The records of the reign of Henry II are slightly more informative and 100 years after the Conquest we have a snapshot of Hamon’s feudal commitments.
In 1165 Hamon’s knights and military commitments are spelled out in detail:3
Bertram de Verdone 2 knights
Peverel de Bello Campo 2 knights
William son of Galfridi 2 knights
Stephanus de Bello Campo 1 knight
Alexander de Isenhamstede 1 knight
Warnerus de Vacca 1 knight
William son of Alan 1 knight
Bartholemew de Loughton 1 knight
Hamo Niger ½ knight
Radulfus Macer 1/5 knight
Owen de Stokes ¼ knight
Roger Vis de Lou 1/5 knight
Henry de Freine ½ knight
Bernerus son of Azur 1/5 knight
Azur Rufus 1/10 knight
Simon son of Berner 1/10 knight
The list was drawn up as part of a new assessment and here amounts to 13 knights and “three parts of 1 knight”, an attempt by Henry II to formalize a system which had become open to dispute after a century of use. At this distance 100 years does not seem like a lot but we need to remind ourselves that this was three generations and England was under the reign of its fifth king since the Conquest. Societies are always more complex than they appear on the surface and plainly, from this evidence, a system which started with a straightforward agreement of the exchange of land for military service had become subject to variation. Some idea of the varying arrangements can be divined from this list. Alexander de Isenhamstede and Warnerus de Vacca and Bartholemew de Loughton are each assessed for one knight on the basis of a manor, each one in the region of 5 hides, in other words little different from the Anglo Saxon relationship of a 5 hide manor to a thane. Henry de Fresne, who held the larger manor of Thornborough apparently has an arrangement whereby his military service (owed to the castle of Northampton) is assessed at only ¼ but we learn from a record of 1254 about a payment of 15s 10d per annum for the manor. Thus the baron was able to meet some of his own military obligations from Henry de Fresne and secure some income from the manor. On the other hand Owen de Stoke, we learn from other sources, has only one hide on the manor itself, which is appropriately assessed at ¼ fee. There are other records in this reign where scutage, a payment in lieu of service, was assessed on two occasions against Hamon, one for £10 and another for £20. The customary provision of knights for military service had much changed over the century. Unlike their Saxon counterparts, who were mostly lightly armed foot soldiers, the 12th and 13th century knight needed an expensive war horse and costly weaponry. The customary recruitment was often difficult to arrange and over time fell into disuse as payment became normal.
Life on the Manor
When Manno le Breton settled his barony on Wolverton he brought a fundamental change in status to the manor. Peasants perhaps accustomed to direct dealing with a local lord, now had a baron with much wider interests who now employed a steward to administer the manor. And, as I suggest later, having a resident lord of some importance may have had an impact on the prosperity of the manor.
So far we have described what we know about the top end of this post-Conquest society, and even there with difficulty because the records are sparse. It does appear, that apart from making the change at the top most of the rights and customs of the native inhabitants were initially respected. Manno most likely employed a steward, who might have been one of his household knights, to manage the Wolverton Manor, but most of the customary uses of the land continued as before.
Inevitably the picture is more complicated even in a small peasant society. Wool was spun into thread, cloth woven and fulled, leather was tanned, iron implements forged, trees felled and sawn, masonry chiselled. Were these specialist and skilled tasks undertaken full time by people who were paid for their work or, more likely perhaps, accomplished by specialists working part time in a forge, say, and part time on the land, possibly tilling a smaller acreage.
The most significant change over these two centuries was the gradual loss of status of the peasant, who was more-or-less free before 1066 and almost completely tied to the land by 1266. The Normans brought with them a more Roman conception of land management, where a central authority tied the peasants to land and service. They were not slaves in the Roman sense but at the end of this period they were more serf-like than they had been under English rule. There is an irony here. The Roman villa system of farming, from which this model was taken, had been abandoned after the Romans left in 400AD. The Celtic and Germanic model, while it may not have been as efficient, at least offered a peasant some notional freedom. Most, obviously, would stay with their customary plots, but it was possible for a young man to start out in another village, if the land were available. Under Norman rule this right was taken away and peasants were only allowed to move on the payment of a heavy penalty. At the end of the 14th century this oppressive arrangement broke down after the plague years.
But this social change was 300 years in the future. The revolution that was taking place in the first twenty years after the Conquest was to create a more centralised society. We have a record of the situation in 1066 and another in 1086. How these intervening years unfolded is not known in any detail that we could ascribe to Wolverton. It does appear that William initially left most landholders in place. He was able to appropriate King Edward’s estates without objection and church lands likely stayed untouched, other than a change of bishop. The estates of Harold Godwinson were obviously forfeit and this may have extended to men of Harold, such as Godwin on the Wolverton manor. William began to change his mind after rebellions against his rule. There were smaller uprisings in 1067 and once these were put down the lands of the unlucky losers were appropriated. Marriages to daughters of some of the Saxon nobility also secured land for the invaders, but it was not until after the rebellion of 1069, involving the powerful Earl Waltheof and Danish invaders in the name of Edward the Atheling who had a more legitimate claim to the throne than William, that the new king changed his policy. He could only secure the realm by ensuring that his own followers held the land in service to the king. The only North Buckinghamshire Saxons to survive with their landholdings intact after 1086, were Leofwin of Nuneham, who held large estates in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, Leofwin Oara who held small parcels of land in Simpson and Wavendon, and in Lavendon, on the edge of the forest, a man called Ketil held ½ hide from the King and appears to have been left alone twenty years later.
We shall never know what did happen to the local thanes, Godwin, Thori and Aelfric. Even if they had not lost their lives fighting against the invasions of 1066 their military allegiances probably made them easy to displace. They must have had families and brothers and sisters and cousins and one can only conclude that they were absorbed into the great mass of peasantry. It is probably not too far fetched to speculate that their genes survive in the Wolverton area today.
There is a timeless quality to the agricultural life. The seasons rotate, seed is planted and harvested. Food is stored for the winter and the cycle repeats itself. A new generation replaces the previous one and life and work continues much as before. Along the way small improvements are made - a new plough board perhaps, more refined milling of grain, grain is stored in houses that are raised off the ground to keep out rats. But these technological improvements are spaced over centuries and appear to the historian as slow-developing and unexciting. In the meantime human affairs are more volatile and change in this area can be rapid, sometimes for the good, and often for the worse.
Sir Frank Stenton has observed that apart from the imposition of forestry laws and the restriction on transferring their allegiance to another lord there was remarkable continuity between Anglo Saxon England and Norman England in all other laws and customs.
In these ancient institutions the Anglo-Saxon tradition was never broken. The virtue of the Old English state had lain in the local courts. Their strength had been due to the association of thegns and peasants in the work of justice, administration, and finance, under the direction of officers responsible to the king. The memory of this association survived all the changes of the Conqueror’s reign. To all appearance, his barons and their men had accepted as a consequence of their position the share in local business which had fallen to their predecessors.4
One of the great "what if" questions of English history relates to the Norman Conquest of 1066. The outcome of Harold's engagement with William hung by little more than a Bayeux tapestry thread and could have gone either way. In the end William was the lucky one and with Harold dead the English lacked the leadership to withstand William's eventual triumph. Would English history have turned out differently? I suspect it would and this is apparent in the microcosm of the Wolverton Manor.
Anglo Saxon England was in many ways a more equal society. I don't want to use the word democratic because it does not apply in any modern sense, but people then did have more of a voice in community affairs. The chief reason for this was that it was a smaller, more manageable society. 98% of all people’s affairs could be managed locally. Larger issues, usually those affecting the lords were addressed by the hundred court, which in Wolverton’s case was held at Seckloe Hill. The king’s justice was required only in a few cases and the usually in disputes between the magnates and the church. The council, (witan), was a feature at all levels of society, and, as can be seen in this Wolverton example, the presence of three thanes within the manor meant that neither one of them could become too powerful. The Norman centralisation of power was the significant revolution of 1066 and has had its long-term impact to this day. Even if there was intermarriage the Normans held themselves a class apart from the natives they had subjugated, even maintaining linguistic differences for 300 years.
----
1 Sir Frank Stenton. Anglo Saxon England. OUP 1970.
2 There may have been two men named Berner.
3 Red Book of the Exchequer. (Rolls Series) p. 314-5.
4 Stenton. op.cit. p. 684
The now non-existent Lamport, near Stowe, was also subinfeudated to Gerard and another follower, Berner, was given the quite large manor of Thornborough as well as Maidwell in Northamptonshire2. Two men at arms were given Loughton which may be the origin of two manors within the whole of Loughton. The de Loughton family emerges from one of these.
Mannou’s knightly obligations could thus be met by two from Chalfont, two from Drayton, one from Helesthorpe, one from Lamport, two from Loughton, two from Thornborough, which possibly included Maidwell with the rest made up from Stoke, Wicken, Thenford, the Leicestershire holdings and Wolverton itself.
Knights were expensive. The armour might cost £10 and a good war horse might cost up to £40. On top of this the knight would need to support himself and his family in suitable style so it would require the labour of a large number of peasants to support a single knight, let alone esquires, who were in a sense apprentice knights. Knighthood did not have the high social standing that it acquired in the later middle ages, during the age of chivalry. There could be quite a range in wealth and social standing between a knight who enjoyed the proceeds of a whole manor and household knights who directly served Manno and lived off a small part of the Wolverton Manor.
All of this cost and the responsibility for delivery was borne by the feudal tenant, so the land grants had to be of a size to make the bargain feasible for both parties. The tenants-in-chief then made similar arrangements down the chain in the practice known as subinfeudation, described earlier, whereby the tenant-in-chief would hand over a manor to a knight in return for his required service. This, for instance, is exactly what happened in Manno’s Manor of Aston, valued, as we have seen, at 4 ½ hides worth £5. In 1086 Odo held it from Manno in lieu of service and it appears that his descendants adopted the name of Sandford. In time, as these feudal practices changed, first by excusing themselves from military service by a fine and by the 14th century seeking and expecting payment for military service, these small manors became customary holdings for the men whose ancestors once held them in lieu of service.
The vast territories awarded to William’s followers, which would generate enormous wealth today, illustrated two realities: William’s policy of securing his throne through an army that could be raised by a small number of barons that he could depend upon, and the low population (estimated at 1.5 million) and economic yield of the land.
The records of the reign of Henry II are slightly more informative and 100 years after the Conquest we have a snapshot of Hamon’s feudal commitments.
In 1165 Hamon’s knights and military commitments are spelled out in detail:3
Bertram de Verdone 2 knights
Peverel de Bello Campo 2 knights
William son of Galfridi 2 knights
Stephanus de Bello Campo 1 knight
Alexander de Isenhamstede 1 knight
Warnerus de Vacca 1 knight
William son of Alan 1 knight
Bartholemew de Loughton 1 knight
Hamo Niger ½ knight
Radulfus Macer 1/5 knight
Owen de Stokes ¼ knight
Roger Vis de Lou 1/5 knight
Henry de Freine ½ knight
Bernerus son of Azur 1/5 knight
Azur Rufus 1/10 knight
Simon son of Berner 1/10 knight
The list was drawn up as part of a new assessment and here amounts to 13 knights and “three parts of 1 knight”, an attempt by Henry II to formalize a system which had become open to dispute after a century of use. At this distance 100 years does not seem like a lot but we need to remind ourselves that this was three generations and England was under the reign of its fifth king since the Conquest. Societies are always more complex than they appear on the surface and plainly, from this evidence, a system which started with a straightforward agreement of the exchange of land for military service had become subject to variation. Some idea of the varying arrangements can be divined from this list. Alexander de Isenhamstede and Warnerus de Vacca and Bartholemew de Loughton are each assessed for one knight on the basis of a manor, each one in the region of 5 hides, in other words little different from the Anglo Saxon relationship of a 5 hide manor to a thane. Henry de Fresne, who held the larger manor of Thornborough apparently has an arrangement whereby his military service (owed to the castle of Northampton) is assessed at only ¼ but we learn from a record of 1254 about a payment of 15s 10d per annum for the manor. Thus the baron was able to meet some of his own military obligations from Henry de Fresne and secure some income from the manor. On the other hand Owen de Stoke, we learn from other sources, has only one hide on the manor itself, which is appropriately assessed at ¼ fee. There are other records in this reign where scutage, a payment in lieu of service, was assessed on two occasions against Hamon, one for £10 and another for £20. The customary provision of knights for military service had much changed over the century. Unlike their Saxon counterparts, who were mostly lightly armed foot soldiers, the 12th and 13th century knight needed an expensive war horse and costly weaponry. The customary recruitment was often difficult to arrange and over time fell into disuse as payment became normal.
Life on the Manor
When Manno le Breton settled his barony on Wolverton he brought a fundamental change in status to the manor. Peasants perhaps accustomed to direct dealing with a local lord, now had a baron with much wider interests who now employed a steward to administer the manor. And, as I suggest later, having a resident lord of some importance may have had an impact on the prosperity of the manor.
So far we have described what we know about the top end of this post-Conquest society, and even there with difficulty because the records are sparse. It does appear, that apart from making the change at the top most of the rights and customs of the native inhabitants were initially respected. Manno most likely employed a steward, who might have been one of his household knights, to manage the Wolverton Manor, but most of the customary uses of the land continued as before.
Inevitably the picture is more complicated even in a small peasant society. Wool was spun into thread, cloth woven and fulled, leather was tanned, iron implements forged, trees felled and sawn, masonry chiselled. Were these specialist and skilled tasks undertaken full time by people who were paid for their work or, more likely perhaps, accomplished by specialists working part time in a forge, say, and part time on the land, possibly tilling a smaller acreage.
The most significant change over these two centuries was the gradual loss of status of the peasant, who was more-or-less free before 1066 and almost completely tied to the land by 1266. The Normans brought with them a more Roman conception of land management, where a central authority tied the peasants to land and service. They were not slaves in the Roman sense but at the end of this period they were more serf-like than they had been under English rule. There is an irony here. The Roman villa system of farming, from which this model was taken, had been abandoned after the Romans left in 400AD. The Celtic and Germanic model, while it may not have been as efficient, at least offered a peasant some notional freedom. Most, obviously, would stay with their customary plots, but it was possible for a young man to start out in another village, if the land were available. Under Norman rule this right was taken away and peasants were only allowed to move on the payment of a heavy penalty. At the end of the 14th century this oppressive arrangement broke down after the plague years.
But this social change was 300 years in the future. The revolution that was taking place in the first twenty years after the Conquest was to create a more centralised society. We have a record of the situation in 1066 and another in 1086. How these intervening years unfolded is not known in any detail that we could ascribe to Wolverton. It does appear that William initially left most landholders in place. He was able to appropriate King Edward’s estates without objection and church lands likely stayed untouched, other than a change of bishop. The estates of Harold Godwinson were obviously forfeit and this may have extended to men of Harold, such as Godwin on the Wolverton manor. William began to change his mind after rebellions against his rule. There were smaller uprisings in 1067 and once these were put down the lands of the unlucky losers were appropriated. Marriages to daughters of some of the Saxon nobility also secured land for the invaders, but it was not until after the rebellion of 1069, involving the powerful Earl Waltheof and Danish invaders in the name of Edward the Atheling who had a more legitimate claim to the throne than William, that the new king changed his policy. He could only secure the realm by ensuring that his own followers held the land in service to the king. The only North Buckinghamshire Saxons to survive with their landholdings intact after 1086, were Leofwin of Nuneham, who held large estates in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, Leofwin Oara who held small parcels of land in Simpson and Wavendon, and in Lavendon, on the edge of the forest, a man called Ketil held ½ hide from the King and appears to have been left alone twenty years later.
We shall never know what did happen to the local thanes, Godwin, Thori and Aelfric. Even if they had not lost their lives fighting against the invasions of 1066 their military allegiances probably made them easy to displace. They must have had families and brothers and sisters and cousins and one can only conclude that they were absorbed into the great mass of peasantry. It is probably not too far fetched to speculate that their genes survive in the Wolverton area today.
There is a timeless quality to the agricultural life. The seasons rotate, seed is planted and harvested. Food is stored for the winter and the cycle repeats itself. A new generation replaces the previous one and life and work continues much as before. Along the way small improvements are made - a new plough board perhaps, more refined milling of grain, grain is stored in houses that are raised off the ground to keep out rats. But these technological improvements are spaced over centuries and appear to the historian as slow-developing and unexciting. In the meantime human affairs are more volatile and change in this area can be rapid, sometimes for the good, and often for the worse.
Sir Frank Stenton has observed that apart from the imposition of forestry laws and the restriction on transferring their allegiance to another lord there was remarkable continuity between Anglo Saxon England and Norman England in all other laws and customs.
In these ancient institutions the Anglo-Saxon tradition was never broken. The virtue of the Old English state had lain in the local courts. Their strength had been due to the association of thegns and peasants in the work of justice, administration, and finance, under the direction of officers responsible to the king. The memory of this association survived all the changes of the Conqueror’s reign. To all appearance, his barons and their men had accepted as a consequence of their position the share in local business which had fallen to their predecessors.4
One of the great "what if" questions of English history relates to the Norman Conquest of 1066. The outcome of Harold's engagement with William hung by little more than a Bayeux tapestry thread and could have gone either way. In the end William was the lucky one and with Harold dead the English lacked the leadership to withstand William's eventual triumph. Would English history have turned out differently? I suspect it would and this is apparent in the microcosm of the Wolverton Manor.
Anglo Saxon England was in many ways a more equal society. I don't want to use the word democratic because it does not apply in any modern sense, but people then did have more of a voice in community affairs. The chief reason for this was that it was a smaller, more manageable society. 98% of all people’s affairs could be managed locally. Larger issues, usually those affecting the lords were addressed by the hundred court, which in Wolverton’s case was held at Seckloe Hill. The king’s justice was required only in a few cases and the usually in disputes between the magnates and the church. The council, (witan), was a feature at all levels of society, and, as can be seen in this Wolverton example, the presence of three thanes within the manor meant that neither one of them could become too powerful. The Norman centralisation of power was the significant revolution of 1066 and has had its long-term impact to this day. Even if there was intermarriage the Normans held themselves a class apart from the natives they had subjugated, even maintaining linguistic differences for 300 years.
----
1 Sir Frank Stenton. Anglo Saxon England. OUP 1970.
2 There may have been two men named Berner.
3 Red Book of the Exchequer. (Rolls Series) p. 314-5.
4 Stenton. op.cit. p. 684