- The Times 1215-1272 -
Baron landholders' semi-fortified stone manor houses were improved and extended. Many had been licensed to be embattled or crenelated [wall indented at top with shooting spaces]. They were usually quadrangular around a central courtyard. The central and largest room was the hall, where people ate and slept. The hall had a hearth for fire in the center of the room if the hall was one story high. Sometimes the lord had a room with a sleeping loft above it. If the hall was more than one story high, it had a fireplace at one end so that the smoke could go up and out the roof. Other rooms each had a fireplace. There were small windows around the top story and on the inside of the courtyard. They were usually covered with oiled paper. Windows of large houses were of opaque glass supplied by a glassmaking craft. The glass was thick, uneven, distorted, and greenish in color. The walls were plastered. The floor was wood with some carpets. Roofs were timbered with horizontal beams. Many roofs had tiles supplied by the tile craft, which baked the tiles in kilns or over an open fire. Because of the hazard of fire, the kitchen was often a separate building, with a covered way connecting it to the hall. It had one or two open fires in fireplaces, and ovens. Sometimes there was a separate room for a dairy.
Furniture included heavy wood armchairs for the lord and lady, stools, benches, trestle tables, chests, and cupboards. Outside was an enclosed garden with cabbages, peas, beans, beetroots, onions, garlic, leeks, lettuce, watercress, hops, herbs, nut trees for oil, some flowers, and a fish pond and well. Bees were kept for their honey.
Nobles, doctors, and attorneys wore tunics to the ankle and an over-tunic almost as long, which was lined with fur and had long sleeves. A hood was attached to it. A man's hair was short and curled, with bangs on the forehead. The tunic of merchants and middle class men reached to the calf. The laborer wore a tunic that reached to the knee, cloth stockings, and shoes of heavy felt, cloth, or perhaps leather. Ladies wore a full-length tunic with moderate fullness in the skirt, and a low belt, and tight sleeves. A lady's hair was concealed by a round hat tied on the top of her head. Over her tunic, she wore a cloak. Monks and nuns wore long black robes with hoods.
The barons now managed and developed their estates to be as productive as possible, often using the successful management techniques of church estates. They kept records of their fields, tenants, and services owed by each tenant, and duties of the manor officers, such as supervision of the ploughing and harrowing. Annually, the manor's profit or loss for the year was calculated. Most manors were self-supporting except that iron for tools and horseshoes and salt for curing usually had to be obtained elsewhere. Wine, tar, canvas and millstones were imports from other countries and bought at fairs, as was fish, furs, spices, and silks. Sheep were kept in such large numbers that they were susceptible to a new disease "scab". Every great household was bound to give alms.
As feudalism became less military and less rough, daughters were permitted to inherit fiefs. It became customary to divide the property of a deceased man without a son equally among his daughters. Lords were receiving homage from all the daughters and thereby acquiring marriage rights over all of them. Also, if a son predeceased his father but left a child, that child would succeed to the father's land in the same way that the deceased would have.
Manors averaged about ten miles distance between each other, the land in between being unused and called "wasteland". Statutes after a period of civil war proscribing the retaking of land discouraged the enclosure of waste land.
Husbandry land held in villeinage was inherited according to the custom of its manor as administered in the lords manorial court. (The royal courts had jurisdiction of land held in socage. i.e. free tenure.) The heir could be the oldest son, the youngest son, a son chosen by the father to succeed him, or divided among the sons. If there were no sons, one of the daughters inherited the land or it was divided among all the daughters. If there were no heirs, the land went back to the lord. Land could not be sold or alienated so that the heir did not inherit, without the consent of the lord. Manorial custom also determined the manner of descent of goods and chattels. A common custom for a villein was that his best beast go to his lord as heriot and his second best beast go to the parish priest as mortuary. Then, after debts and burial expenses had been paid, a number of tools and utensils needed for husbandry and housekeeping went with the land to its heir. These were the heirlooms, loom in old English meaning tool. This usually included, for a holding of more than 5 acres, a coulter, a plowshare, a yoke, a cart, an axe, a cauldron, a pan, a dish, and a cask. Finally, the remaining goods and chattels went one-third to the widow, one-third to his children except for the heir to the land, and one-third according to the deceaseds last will and testament. A son might take his share before the death of his father in order to go out into the world and seek his fortune, for instance in the church or military, upon which event the father had to pay his lord a fine for his son permanently leaving the manor. Many country boys became bound apprentices in nearby boroughs or farm laborers. Others married heiresses of land. By the custom of curtesy of the nation, he held this land for his lifetime, even if his wife predeceased him. If a man remained on the family land, he had no right to marry. Often, there were agreements over land holdings that were recorded in the manor books. For instance, it was common for a father or mother to hand his or her holding over to the heir in exchange for sustenance in old age. An heir usually did not marry until after receiving his land. Manorial custom determined whether a fathers consent was necessary for a son or daughter to marry, the nature of any agreement (trothplight) between the families as to lands and goods brought to the marriage, the amount of her marriage portion, and the sons endowment (her dower) of lands and goods promised to the bride at the church door that would provide for her support after his death. If dower was not specified, it was understood to be one-third of all lands and tenements. At the next hallmote, if manorial custom required it, the son would pay a fine to his lord for entry onto the land and for license to marry. From 1246, priests taught that betrothal and consummation constituted irrevocable marriage.
Some villeins bought out their servitude by paying a substitute to do his service or paying his lord a firm (from hence, the words farm and farmer) sum to hire an agricultural laborer in his place. This made it possible for a farm laborer to till one continuous piece of land instead of scattered strips.
Looms were now mounted with two bars. Women did embroidery. The clothing of most people was made at home, even sandals. The village tanner and bootmaker supplied long pieces of soft leather for more protection than sandals. Tanning mills replaced some hand labor. The professional hunter of wolves, lynx, or otters supplied head coverings. Every village had a smith and possibly a carpenter for construction of ploughs and carts. The smith obtained coal from coal fields for heating the metal he worked. Horse harnesses were homemade from hair and hemp. There were watermills and/or windmills for grinding grain, for malt, and/or for fulling cloth. The position of the sails of the windmills was changed by manual labor when the direction of the wind changed.