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Arable and pastoral land (continued)
(11/15)
The wild outdoors
The threat of bandits and wild beasts near the abbey’s remote grange
of Esklet, in Westerdale, meant that in 1185 the shepherds carried horns
and set traps for wolves.
[Williams, Cistercians in the Early Middle Ages, p. 248.]
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The community also had cows, goats,
horses, oxen for ploughing, pigs, deer and rabbits - Rievaulx had
a rabbit farm at Newlass.(32) To
prevent overgrazing, charters granting pasture rights often stipulate
exactly how many animals
and indeed
which of these, could be pastured on the named piece of land. In
the late twelfth century eight oxen (a plough-team), thirty-two
cows and issue, four hundred sheep, two bulls, six horses and six
sow were allowed to graze at Hasketh grange,(33) and
in 1332 Rievaulx had common pasture for twenty-four oxen (three
plough-teams), four
horses or mares, twenty pigs, twenty cows and a bull, as well as
three hundred sheep at Stainborough grange.(34) The
community might also be granted grazing rights in woodland. This
was particularly
suited to cattle and pigs, which could feed on acorns and nuts
there. Grants of this kind often prohibited or severely restricted
goats since they tended to eat the woody growth and young seedlings,
thereby inhibiting regeneration.
Horse breeding and trading was
evidently a specialism of the Yorkshire Cistercian houses and the
White Monks here were renowned for their quality. The superiority
of their horses was clearly appreciated in royal circles, for in
1236 Henry III requested two palfreys, stipulating that these should
be of northern parts, good and fit – he received one from
Rievaulx and one from Jervaulx. The attraction of owning one of
these quality horses may have encouraged donors to grant land to
the abbey. This was the case at Furness, where a donor requested
an honourable horse in return for his generosity to the community.(35)
Whilst horse-trading was evidently
an accepted part of Cistercian life, twelfth-century Cistercian
legislation stipulated that this
should not be conducted at markets or fairs, but at the abbey granges.
Moreover, horses were to be sold before they had been broken.(36) <back> <next>
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