Thorrington February 1068
The winter in the east was deep and bitter. Snow lay deep and icy blizzards blew from the north. In Tendring Hundred the villages were well built, well-provisioned and reasonably affluent. Farmers stayed inside during the short winter days unless the weather was fair, repairing tools and caring for the animals that were mostly housed indoors, often in the same rooms as the human inhabitants. On those days when it was possible to venture outside, the geburs performed minor repairs to fences or hunted for the small wild animals that Alan had given them leave to take- fish, hare, foxes and pigeon. No doubt also the occasional partridge, pheasant and deer were also quietly taken, although Alan was not concerned as long as this was not too blatant a breach of his rights.
Alan, Anne and their household generally stayed snug near the fire in their newly-built, luxuriously-appointed and centrally-heated New Manor Hall at Thorrington. This was a masterpiece of engineering and planning, constructed of a stone-built lower storey, half-timber upper storey with a wood-shingle roof. The floor and walls were heated by a hypocaust furnace located in an adjoining building with the warm air conducted underground and then up the walls through flues, in a manner used in the past by the Romans. The Hall fire, largely only for appearances given the effective heating of the Hall, had a metal canopy which channeled the smoke away up a metal chimney. Light came though eight glazed windows, four on each side of the Hall. Alan had reached into the past for inspiration and had spared no expense in construction. The Hall even had a bathing house located next to the kitchen, where the water in a large tub made from a tun barrel cut in half and big enough to accommodate several people, was heated by the kitchen fires. Probably the biggest innovation was the self-flushing latrines, where water piped from a nearby spring was used to wash away the waste- a common feature of Roman buildings, although now an unheard of luxury, and one which Alan had copied.
Alan conducted regular sword and spear training drills for his men in the covered salle d’arms next to the armoury. Owain the Welsh archer conducted training for men with the longbow on any day when the weather permitted.
As Alan had been away in December when the Hundred Court had been in session, Leofstan, the thegn from Great and Little Holland and the second largest landholder after Alan, had taken that duty. However he had bound over the more serious cases to be heard when Alan and Osmund were present, as Osmund’s understanding of the law and his ability to find the correct sections in the court text-books was the best in the Hundred. This meant that the list for the January sittings starting on Monday 21st, the Saint Day of St Agnes, was very long. Indeed, it appeared that the late autumn and early winter had been a period of considerable petty lawlessness in the Hundred, particularly in the manors held of the Bishop of London at Clacton and St Osyth by his men Normans Roger de Montivilliers, Geoffrey of Rouen and Fleming Albyn of Bruges, and the young French Angevin Gerard de Cholet who was tenant of Sheriff Robert fitzWymarc’s village of Elmstead.
Sitting jointly in the Old Hall with Leofstan and thegn Godwin of Weeley, Alan heard the usual litany of minor crimes. Assaults, petty theft, two counts of illegal possession of animals and illegal intercourse (with women, not animals). There were also serious crimes of theft, rapes and two cases of unlawful killing. Civil cases were also listed for hearing, one of selling a sick cow and two cases of encroachment on the land of another.
West Saxon law required that the person laying the complaint give oath in support of his claim. Each freeman was required to be a member of a frithbogh of ten men, who gave oath as to his truthfulness. They were also the tithing of ten men who would, if he was found guilty, share in the payment of the required bot, the fine or compensation. A freeman could compound his penalty for serious crime by paying an amount equal to his wergild, which was 200 shillings for a cheorl, cottar or sokeman. A thegn’s wergild was 1,200. Such amounts were usually totally beyond the ability to pay of the individual man, and often also of the tithing- although the prospect of being hung from the gallows-tree did tend to make men undertake their best efforts to find the required funds when needed. Many of the theows or slaves in England had become enthralled due to inability to pay the bot or compensation required for breaches of the law.
Cases were not brought lightly. A person making accusation found to be false was heavily fined if the court found that the actions had been brought with malice; those convicted of perjury faced eternal damnation by being forbidden to be shriven or buried in consecrated ground. These were simple country people who believed in the truth and for whom the penalty for perjury was treated with the utmost seriousness and fear. Cases of mis-identification were rare as they lived in small tight-knit communities where all knew each other well, and those from neighboring villages at least by sight. Few of the cases were disputed.
The minor cases usually took little time as the defendants mostly pleaded guilty and paid the small fines of a few shillings for injury to their victims. Injuries such as bruising, loss of teeth, broken bones etc each had a set compensation bot specified in the Dooms which formed the English written law.
They then moved on to the more serious cases. As usual in rape cases they turned on the question of consent. One man was acquitted through lack of certainty on the part of the judges regarding his understanding as to whether the wench was consenting or merely submitting. He was, nevertheless, ordered to pay bot to the girl of twelve shillings. The other man was convicted. Neither he nor his frithbogh could pay his wer, and so he was hung from the gallows-tree to the delight and entertainment of the villagers. One of the unlawful killing cases was found to be justified by self-defence. In the other the case man was convicted and sent to be held at the gaol in Colchester until the wer of 200 shillings was paid, the frithbogh saying it would take time to sell cattle and swine to enable payment.
One man, a Norman of low class from the village of Elmstead and in the employ of Gerard de Cholet, was convicted of theft. Without the option of payment of wer, as Norman law applied to him, his right hand was struck off and he was forced to abjure the Hundred. As there was a blizzard blowing at the time, and weakened by blood loss, it was unlikely that he would have made it as far as Colchester. Most probably a hungry wolf in the forest near Alresford ate well that day.
The cases were now heard in the Old Hall at Thorrington village, instead of the previous use of the tithe-barn. Given the warmth inside and the appalling weather outside, the Hall was packed with people with nothing better to do. Godwin and Leofwine were in no hurry to finish, both being provided with snug quarters at the fortified New Hall, and they decided to deal fully with all pending matters, spending five days to achieve this. They were assisted on several days by thegns Edwald of Alresford, Bondi of Ardleigh, and by special invitation for the first time the Englishman named Leax, formerly of Hertfordshire. He was Engelric’s newly-appointed steward to the lands he held of St Paul’s of London at Birch Hall. With the additional judges two courts were able to be held, one at each end of the Hall, with the second using the services of Brother Wacian as scribe.
Lent had begun exceptionally early, Ash Wednesday being on the 6th February. As usual, Alan and Anne attended Mass on such a festival, together with nearly everybody in the village. As they walked across the small wooden bridge over the Alresford Creek Alan noted that the water of the stream was frozen solid.
Despite the packed humanity it was bitterly cold in the small wooden church. The palm crosses from the previous Palm Sunday were burnt and the ashes mixed with Catechumens oil. Each person present had a cross traced on their forehead, Brother Wacian saying to each. “Remember, O man, that ye are dust, and to dust ye shall return.” The beautiful penitential Psalm 51 was read by the priest, not because he could not remember the words but so that he had the pleasure of handling the beautifully copied and leather-bound English-language bible that Alan had, as an act of contrition for his previous sins, presented the church the previous year. As with all services in the country that were held outside cathedrals or abbeys, the service was conducted in the Anglo-Saxon language and the simple village folk recited from memory the familiar required responses.
Accepted practice for Lent in this part of England was that two smaller than normal meals were permitted each day, but that red meat, fowl, eggs and dairy produce were not permitted except on Sundays- each Sunday being deemed a ‘mini-Easter’ Feast Day. Usually this would not have caused a problem, but Alan was concerned about the severity of the winter. He held Anne back after the service ended and asked Brother Wacian if they could talk. Brother Wacian led them into the rectory, where a warm fire was burning, and invited them to sit.
“Brother, I have concerns about the Lenten requirements this year. Lent is a time of prayer, penitence and self-denial, preparing us for Holy Week and Easter. This year, as Easter Day is very early, so is the commencement of Lent. In fact we celebrated Candlemas only three days ago! One day we are celebrating Christ’s presentation in the temple and nearly the next we are preparing for his death!
“This year is a very severe and hard winter. Our people are well-fed and usually well-provisioned. My concern this year is that when we are not having blizzards we are having strong winds. These are communities that rely on fresh fish, which are always abundant in the sea nearby, and we have little store of dried or salted fish. Our fishermen have hardly been able to get their boats in the water for two weeks. If this continues until Easter, our people are likely to be so weakened that they may have difficulty in performing the ploughing and manure-spreading the following month. Those who are pregnant such as Anne, or who are ill, would also weaken. May I ask that you grant a dispensation on each Sunday for the following week on those occasions the weather has prevented fishing for the preceding three days, permitting fowl to be eaten that week, in moderation and perhaps only once in the day?”
Brother Wacian frowned. He was quite strict in his religious observations and his requirements of others to do the same. This idea was distasteful and offensive to him, but he did recognise that his congregation had both spiritual and physical needs. He also recognised that the person making the request had the ability to dismiss him at any time, although he allowed that to have little bearing on his decision, and also that Alan himself had obligations to his people. After a few moments reflection he replied, “Let us see how things progress over the next week or so. A week without meat will not hurt anybody- they can fill their bellies on vegetable pottage and bread, and those who planned in advance also with dried or pickled fruit or vegetables. If the weather stays inclement, I may agree to your request and grant a partial dispensation on a week-to-week basis, for the good welfare of the people. Obviously I would not myself so partake.”
“Thank you, Brother Wacian. Hopefully, it will not be necessary and the Good Lord will grant us fair weather- but if he does not it behooves us to care for our people as best we can.
“Also, as you know, Anne attends the three Masses said here at Thorrington each week. She would like, when possible, for you to provide her with the Eucharist each day. Again, given the weather and her condition, may I request that you do this and perform a shortened service at the New Hall?” Brother Wacian agreed easily enough, after all it was only a few minutes walk and would take little of his time. He could perform the service in the late evening and no doubt would often then be invited to stay for the evening meal, which was no small consideration for a man who was single and did his own cooking most of the time. The women of the parish did provide him with the occasional crockpot of cooked stew or baked pies- outside the Lenten period. Brother Wacian wasn’t a good cook and that was one of the things that he missed after leaving the abbey, not that the food provided in the abbey refectory was anywhere near the quality of the provender on offer at Alan’s high-table. He also missed lively intellectual conversation, which wasn’t something that could be offered by the villagers but which certainly occurred at the table of the highly-educated lord and his lady.
On the way back to the New Hall, Alan and Anne passed arm-in-arm over the wooden draw-bridge crossing the defensive trench and through the gate in the wooden palisade between the towers that contained the ballistae which Alan had built partly from plans dating back to Roman times and partly from his own tinkering. Anne commented, “Of course, the fact that you hate fish didn’t have anything to do with that request, did it?” asked Anne. Alan laughed and patted her bottom without replying.
The next day dawned cold but windless. Alan took horse with his steward Faran and two men to ride the thirteen miles to his manor at Ramsey in the north of the Hundred. Ramsey was a neat village located about a mile inland with some 55 cottages, a mill and a salt-house, being administered for Alan by the steward Durand. The steward was under close supervision as he was a hang-over from the previous tenants Aelfhare and Bertholf Kemp, who had attacked Alan after he had taken possession, with Alan’s archers killing them in his protection. Ramsey also had Alan’s horse breeding stable, run by studmaster Roweson, an elderly thickset white-haired cheorl who had been in charge for twelve years under both Alan and before him the Kemps.
The journey to Ramsey was difficult with the horses walking through thick snow and Alan and his men were more than happy to receive a hot bowl of vegetable pottage from Arlene, Durand’s wife and housekeeper. The stew had a surprisingly strong flavour of bacon, on which Alan didn’t comment. After all Ash Wednesday had been only the day before and presumably the pottage had been on the make for several days. The meal was accompanied by ale and fresh bread, although made of rye and without butter due to the Lenten restrictions..
The stud was a short distance from the village and Alan rode out in the early afternoon. Roweson greeted them as the knight and his men dismounted. The yard was surrounded on two sides by horse stalls and on the third by several cottages used by the staff, and a large barn where hay, oats and carrots were stored.
“God Hael, Ealdor!” Roweson called as he limped forward, seemingly to have significantly aged in the months since Alan had seen him last. Presumably the cold was making his joints stiff.
“God Hael, Horsbealdor!” replied Alan warmly, clapping the old man on the shoulder. “How progress things?”
“Well enough, Ealdor! Well enough! We now have 76 breeding mares. The 34 from last year plus 16 of the fillies who were yearlings last year- we lost one in the summer to snake bite; we also have the 6 you bought at Ipswich and those others bought at London and Colchester. We still have the 3 stallions, and your stallion Odin in season. The 14 geldings are now about 18 months old and ready to start training, but of course not ready for heavy use. Of the 76 mares, 68 are in foal- some arrived too late to be bred for the season. Two ‘slipped’.
“Our problem is going to come in spring. All the horses are in stalls to protect them from the weather. They’re crammed in two or three per stall, except the stallions of course. We have 25 stalls. When the mares foal we won’t have stalls for them all. We also won’t have enough meadow or fenced fields- we’ll be up to our eyes in horses! I suggest you use some of your land at Great Bentley, which has good meadow and pasture land. Build stalls, say another 25 or 30 there and 10 more here. If you build a stud at Great Bentley it will also need cottages and a barn. That’ll take care of this year. My assistant Brunloc can run Great Bentley under my instruction. When is this master horse-trainer you promised going to arrive? We can train the horses to be ridden as usual, but you want them to be trained for war, which is a different thing altogether.”
“Sorry, I’d forgotten about that,” admitted Alan. “I’ve had too much to think about. We need him here… when?”
“As soon as you want the horses to be trained to fight! That beast Odin is like nothing I’ve ever seen! A vicious beast, but intelligent and tractable- when he wants to be. If you have 50 men on horses like him, you’d be damn hard to beat,” replied Roweson. “I used to think that what you were saying was crap, but I’ve seen him out on the training-field and any competent man-at-arms on a horse like that… I’m not surprised you Normans beat Harold.”
“I’ll attend to it and send a letter to my father and ask him to get the best man available.” Alan paused and then asked, “So what do you expect from the breeding program?”
“That depends,” said Roweson with a shrug. “I think you chose good animals last year. We should get a good batch of foals from the mares we bred to the big stallions. If we keep doing that for a few years the resulting horses will be nearly as large as your destrier Odin. Big, strong, plenty of endurance, reasonably fast- although not very quick to change direction. The main problem will be temperament, which is why I want this person you have promised to work magic with them. The best horse in the world is useless if you can’t get it to do what you want. One thing’s for sure, in four or five years we’ll have bred all the warhorses you could reasonably want. You’ll probably need four or five stallions at stud by then.”
Alan inspected the horses and stables. Each horse had a blanket buckled on to keep them warm. The stalls were clean, obviously mucked out daily, and with fresh straw. Chaff and oats were available for the horses to eat. The horses looked rough in their winter coats but were clearly well fed and comfortable. The mares looked at him placidly and accepted the carrots he offered. As Roweson had said, the only real problem was overcrowding with two or three mares, nearly all in foal, in most stalls.
After taking his leave Alan and his men returned to Ramsey for the night. They wouldn’t have been able to return to Thorrington before nightfall, and trying to travel through the deep snow in the darkness was not a viable option. Durand and Arlene vacated the master’s bedroom to sleep by the fire in the Hall. Alan spent an uncomfortable night in a bed that smelled strongly of its former occupants, scratching at the bites of the fleas that swarmed off the skins that formed part of the bedding.
They departed next morning after a breakfast of porridge sweetened with honey. Ramsey had eight taxed beehives and at least two dozen that didn’t ‘appear on the books’ and which disappeared each time the tax collectors were in the area. It was hard to hide a forest, a salt-house or a mill, but beehives were supposed to be moveable-and were valuable. Alan had a reasonable suspicion that there were more hives than even he knew about, but as long as Durand kept his cheating within reasonable limits he wasn’t too concerned. Osmund had ‘passed’ the accounts for the mill and salt-house when he’d inspected them in the autumn, so Durand wasn’t being as blatant in his larceny as Kendrick, the previous steward of Thorrington.
The party, now including the head-groom Brunloc, paused at Great Bentley for several hours while Alan and Brunloc discussed the requirements for the new horse-stud with the young steward Tamar and the head-cheorl Alstan. Horse paddocks and sites for buildings were marked out and orders given to commence construction as soon as possible, weather permitting.
Back at Thorrington Alan reported to Anne the outcome of his journey. Brother Wacian arrived just before darkness fell, at about four in the afternoon. He conducted a simple and abbreviated service for Anne. Alan and most of the household, including the soldiers from the barracks, also attended, kneeling on the fresh rushes spread on the floor of the main Hall. Cutting the service to the ‘bare bones’ with no gospel readings, no homily, only one Psalm was read (actually recited from memory, like the rest of the service, as the priest hadn’t brought the Bible or Missal) and two hymns which were sung mainly because the congregation expected it, the service including the presentation of the Eucharist took a little over twenty minutes. Bother Wacian was hungry and the smells emanating from the kitchen did not encourage him to delay.
Like most lords of the manor, Alan and Anne usually ate with most of the household, although the common soldiers usually ate in the barracks. The high-table was placed close to the fire, with Brother Wacian again marveling at the construction of the metal hood and metal chimney which drew the smoke out of the Hall while admitting neither wind nor rain. Alan’s design problems had been overcome with the suggestions and assistance of a London metal-smith several months previously. At the same time the windows had been sealed against draughts by the installation of broad-sheet blown glass of a slightly greenish tinge- the colour due to the soda content which allowed lower working temperatures and longer working periods, which made it much cheaper than clear glass- although still ruinously expensive.
Because the weather had been reasonably clear that day Anne had arranged for several fishermen to be on special missions. Alan hated fish and Anne was not fond of it day after day. For the previous few days she had arranged for shrimp to be caught in baited traps in the freshwaters or tidal waters of Alresford Creek and Barfleet Creek near Thorrington and the Colne River.
The previous night the boat fisherman had been able to go out and lay baited traps offshore for lobster, which had been retrieved and the lobsters were sitting in holding tanks of seawater and being purged of their waste, which took several days. Scallops and mussels had been gathered, again mainly sitting in the salt-water holding tanks awaiting future use. Today flounder and other flatfish had been caught in the shallows. She had plaiced orders (*pun intended) for flatfish, catfish, cod and haddock, but not the oily herring. Live fish were preferred, and dolphin if caught. Small holding-pens for live fish had been established on the tidal section of Alresford Creek.
Anne hadn’t been entrusted with the operation of her previous husband’s household and, this being the first Lent period since her marriage, she intended to fully extend her intellect to the problem of catering for forty days to a husband who hated fish. The non-availability for six days of the week, for religious reasons, of eggs and dairy products did not help as this reduced the available range of sauces and other dishes.
Frankly, Alan, although in other ways quite devout, was not particularly concerned about complying with dietary restrictions. The previous year had been the first in which he’d had any control over what appeared at table and he was sure that the Good Lord appreciated his other qualities. He was to some extent a servant of his stomach, even at risk to his immortal sole (*pun also intended). But Anne was in charge- and each Sunday he would be free to eat his fill of red meat, swine, eggs and dairy produce. ‘If you eat enough of something in one day maybe you wouldn’t miss it for the next six,’ he mused.
In fact Anne had arranged for Otha the cook to have more than enough to work with. Tonight’s meal was mussels and scallops braised in white wine and with garlic and onions, with Lenten foyles of cabbage, spinach, turnip greens, collard greens, almond milk, currents, salt and pepper. Tomorrow would be flounder with ginger sauce, fried gourd and cress with almond milk. Whether an interesting menu could be maintained with limited ingredients for forty days would be a challenge.
Unfortunately, food which should have been lightly braised was cooked to death, the mussels and scallops being as tough as old boots and the foyles burnt. Alan and Brother Wacian had eaten worse and chewed away without complaint, although also without much enjoyment. Fortunately there were no local restrictions on wine, and Alan broached a flagon of fine Bordeaux red to make up for the poor food. Alan suggested that Brother Wacian and Anne play a game of Tabula while he wrote a letter to his father. The need for a top-quality horse trainer was the immediate cause, but had made Alan recognise that it was many months since he had written to Normandy. He mentally reassured himself that the reason for this was the difficulty in having messages delivered overseas, but he wasn’t entirely convinced by his own argument.
The letter was dispatched to Aaron the Jew in Colchester, with a request that he have it forwarded to the Jewry of Amiens and hence to Alan’s father at Gauville. The delivery method would be relatively expensive, but quick and certain.
February passed slowly. Winter’s hard grip remained on the land and the days when the peasants could work the fields, the fishermen ply their boats and nets or the soldiers train outside were rare. Manure and marl were supposed to be carted to the fields and spread, but this was behind schedule. Alan was again going to use the three-field system on his land. This, together with other innovations such as increased sowing rates and selection of seedstock, had the previous year provided him with nearly double the crops grown in the more traditional two-field system still used by the villagers. The extra grain had also allowed him to keep additional livestock over the winter, instead of slaughtering all but the breeding stock in the autumn, which in turn would allow an increase in the size of his herds in the coming year.
The salthouse owned by Alan on Barfleet Creek was one of the few areas of activity. The salt that had been harvested from the salt-pans at the end of the summer had been cleaned and stored in sacks stacked on racks above the ground to avoid moisture, and was now being milled and placed in barrels ready for sale when the roads re-opened. A little less than half the salt in storage belonged to Alan, the remainder belonged to the villagers who were charged ten percent of the harvest for the use of the storage and milling facilities. Alan owned similar salthouses at his manors of Bradfield, Ramsey and Great Bentley, and two each at Beaumont and Great Oakley. Many of the other manors in the Hundred had similar salthouses and these formed an important part of the local economy, being the main cash-earner for most villages. Alan and his villages had increased the number of saltpans the previous spring to allow extra funds to pay the geld tax that King William had re-introduced the previous year.
At least three mornings a week Alan conducted training for his warriors in the covered salle d’armes, keeping his own edge and improving the skills of the recruits. His deputy Hugh did the same at the manor he was supervising for Alan, albeit in his case outdoors when weather permitted, due to lack of indoor facilities. There was no training ahorse for the men-at-arms as the deep snow on the training field precluded this.
Alan spent most afternoons tinkering in his workshop, with the occasional assistance of the village carpenter, building the eight ballistae and two onagers he intended to dispatch to Staunton in the spring. Life settled into a boring rustic existence while the people, animals and land waited for spring.
The holding pens by the Alresford creek for the live fish worked quite well, allowing fresh fish and shellfish to be kept, although the tanks for the crabs and lobsters were not as successful due to their cannibalistic nature. They were placed in the tanks to be purged, which made them hungry- so they tried to eat each other.
The shellfish, lobsters and crabs were reserved for the high-table. The Hall servants and soldiers ate fresh fish when available, and salted when it was not. There was only one week when because of protracted storms Brother Wacian granted a dispensation to the villagers to eat the meat of fowl, which Alan took advantage of despite the Hall having ample supplies of salt fish, having some of the chickens, peafowl, pheasants and quail which were usually kept in pens killed to provide variety to the diet.
By assiduous effort a varied and interesting menu featuring seafood, albeit with usually just one main course, was maintained. After the first disaster Anne had made it clear to Otha the cook that, at least at high-table, they expected well cooked and well presented meals. Being bored and cooped up inside was bad enough without having to eat poor food. A good meal, with fine wine, gave the day a lift. While the dietary restrictions of Lent caused some problems it didn’t mean that they had to eat fish stew every night.
Each Sunday, as permitted by custom, cows, calves, pigs, chickens and sheep were slaughtered and cooked for the eighty or so occupants of the Hall and barracks; dishes featuring eggs were prepared and cheese eaten. The hoi polloi as usual ate food of a basic but filling nature, while Otha was required to use every drop of her talent to produce high-quality meals for the high-table. Brother Wacian was a frequent guest at table. To his chagrin and embarrassment he began to put on weight, which he was not supposed to do while suffering the privations of Lent.
In the middle of March the weather improved and the frozen earth softened enough to allow ploughing to commence and the spreading of manure to be completed. The mares and cows were due to drop their young in another month or so and the sows were farrowing.