Sheep in the Cotswolds E-Book

Derek Hurst

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 398

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2005

Beschreibung

Reconstructing the medieval wool trade economy through contempory documents aswell as architectural and archaelogical evidence.

Das E-Book Sheep in the Cotswolds wird angeboten von The History Press und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

In memoriam

T.J.H. 1924–1999

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Notes for the reader

Acknowledgements

Preface

1 Introduction

2 The Cotswold sheep

3 Early sheep farming in the Cotswolds

4 Cotswold wool in the Middle Ages

5 The eleventh and twelfth centuries

6 The thirteenth century

7 The fourteenth century

8 The fifteenth century

9 The sixteenth century

10 The seventeenth century

11 The eighteenth century and later

12 A hidden past

13 Postscript

Glossary of terms

Appendix: medieval wool merchants and dealers of the Cotswolds

Further reading

Other information

Bibliography

Copyright

No browne, nor sullyed black the face and legs doth streak,

Like those of Morland, Cank, or of the Cambrian hills

That lightly laden are: but Cotswold wisely fills

Her with the whitest kind: whose browes so woolly be,

As men in her faire sheep no emptiness should see.

The staple deepe and thick, through, to the very graine,

Most strongly keepeth out the violentest raine:

A body long and large, the buttocks equall broad;

As fit to under-goe the full and weightie load.

And of the fleecie face, the flanke doth nothing lack,

But every-where is stor’d; the belly, as the back.

The faire and goodly flock, the shepheards onely pride,

As white as winters snowe, when from the rivers side

He drives his new-washt sheepe; …

Extract from Poly-olbion (Song XIV)

by Michael Drayton (1563-1631)

Notes for the reader

Quotations from original sources have generally been transcribed as written, except that in the passages from the Cely letters, which are all from the Early English Text Society edition (Hanham 1975), ‘y’ has been substituted for the Middle English letter ‘yogh’.

Medieval monetary values are difficult to gauge without knowing the average contemporary income at different levels of society, and the values of some basic commodities. The following prices may help to provide a very rough guide to the value of medieval currency in terms of its purchasing power, and so enable the scale of the sums stated in this book, for instance in wool deals, to be better appreciated (daily incomes mainly after Dyer 1989, and 2002b, and prices after Rogers 1866 and 1882):

Century

Daily income

Wheat (per quarter) *

Ale/beer /cider (per gallon (4.5l))

Salt (per bushel)*

Labourer

Craftsman

13th

1d

2½d

5s-6s

½d (cider)

4d

Early 14th

2d

4d

4s

1d (ale)

5d–6d

Later 14th

3d

4d

5s

½d (cider)

6d–8d

Early 15th

3d

5d

5s

2d (beer)

6d

Later 15th

3d/4d

6d

6s

1½d (ale)

6d

Early 16th

4d

6d

8s–12s

2d (ale)

9d

*A quarter weighed about 450lb (204kg), and a bushel 56lb (c.25kg).

References to counties are to the pre-1974 historic counties, unless otherwise stated, and the English places referred to are generally now in Gloucestershire, unless otherwise stated.

ABBREVIATIONS

AgHEW

The Agrarian History of England and Wales

, vols I-IV (Cambridge, 1967-1991)

BL

British Library

Cal LPFD

Calendar of Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic

(published vols)

CPR

Calendar of Patent Rolls

(published vols)

DoE

Department of the Environment (buildings listing, now under Department of Culture, Media and Sport)

EPNS

English Place-Name Society

NA

The National Archives (Kew)

SA

Southampton Archives

VCH

Victoria County History

(Gloucestershire vols II (1907), VI (1965), VII (1981), IX (1976), XI (1965); Oxfordshire vol II (1907))

Acknowledgements

The impetus to address the subject of this book owes much to the enthusiasm and interest of the large group of volunteers who took part in the ‘Sheepwashes in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ Local Heritage Initiative project, which was funded in 2001-3 by the Heritage Lottery Fund and sponsored by the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnership.

In the course of researching the book I have benefited from discussions with many; in particular with Sebastian Payne and Ian Baxter about early sheep from the archaeological viewpoint, and with Lyn Gibbings, John King and Joe Henson (both the latter being of Cotswold Farm Park) about the Cotswold sheep breed. Duncan Brown (Southampton City Museums) guided my appreciation of the fine imported ceramics found during archaeological excavation in Southampton and which constitute a tangible link between this medieval English port and the Italian wool merchants, who came in pursuit of Cotswold wool. I would also especially like to offer my thanks to David and Linda Viner, who first encouraged me to start collecting material; to David Guyatt, who fathomed medieval texts with his customary generosity; and to Carolyn Hunt, who supported my efforts at computer-aided illustration and generously provided artwork. Other colleagues in the Worcestershire Historic Environment and Archaeology Service also provided much-needed encouragement on occasion.

The generosity of many has assisted in the provision of contemporary material to illustrate the book. Accordingly I am grateful to the following: The Council of the Early English Text Society for permission to quote extracts from The Cely letters 1472-1488, as edited by Alison Hanham (1975); Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (11); Joe Stevens (23); the Society for Medieval Archaeology (28); the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp (31); Oxford University Press (33); the British Library (34); Iona Antiques, London (58); Lyn and Shaun Gibbings (59); and the Cotswold Sheep Society (66), who all generously gave permission for reproduction of their material. The Mercers’ Company of London kindly provided a grant in support of arranging for some of this material to be included in the book.

Peter Kemmis Betty, Lyn Gibbings, Bob Tatam and Simon Woodiwiss, amongst others, generously read parts of earlier drafts, with beneficial results for the contents. Of course, any mistakes or omissions that remain are my own.

Preface

The term ‘Cotswolds’ today describes an area of limestone uplands in western England. It takes in a large part of Gloucestershire, as well as parts of Oxfordshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire. This area is still largely rural, and the countryside is now renowned for being especially tranquil and attractive, which is reflected in its official designation as a nationally acclaimed ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’, the largest such area in England. As well as its natural beauty, the Cotswolds can also claim to be well endowed with some of the most attractive of old buildings in its towns, villages and farmsteads. Taken together, these qualities are the principal ingredients of one of the most quintessentially ‘English’ places, today deservedly popular and enjoyed by many thousands of visitors every year.

History has contributed much to the appearance of the modern Cotswold landscape. Activities commonly acknowledged to have been of great significance in the Cotswolds in the past are the farming of sheep for the production of wool and the manufacture of cloth. These made a substantial impact on that landscape and, equally importantly, were the source of considerable wealth. Though the medieval and early post-medieval sheep farmers, wool merchants and clothiers are long gone, some of their works are still evident in that landscape, particularly the fine stone buildings where they invested their profits. But there are also other clues to their activities, not the least being the existence of a distinctive Cotswold sheep breed.

Sheep grazing has been instrumental historically in creating and maintaining the open character of the Cotswold scenery, though the few surviving sheep-walks of today (e.g. Cleeve Hill near Cheltenham and Minchinhampton Common) may now have been turned into amenity areas where alternative users, such as golfers, have taken the place of sheep. In an earlier age these large open spaces of grassland would have been repeated many times over across the length of the Cotswolds as upland pastures. The visual impression of openness would have been even more striking in the past, as any substantial land boundaries may have been entirely absent over large areas of arable in the common fields cultivated communally in medieval times. Today, however, the sheep runs of the past are rarities, and generally they have now been ploughed up for arable farming.

Other local traces of the formidable medieval industry of wool production and woollen cloth manufacture are much more subtle, such as the frequency of the street name Sheep Street in the Cotswold townscape (e.g. Chipping Campden, and Burford), or village (e.g. Charlbury); or of public houses with names such as The Ram or The Golden Fleece. Then there are the occasional funerary brasses commemorating wool merchants (e.g. at Northleach church), or some other arhictectural detail at a local parish church. But, taken together, these mementos from the past still represent a good body of surviving physical evidence for wool production in the Cotswolds, and the eventual emergence of a cloth industry, that initially will have relied on the local wool.

Fortunately the documentary sources are much more eloquent, and these provide both a national and international perspective on the Cotswold wool trade from the medieval period onwards. Archaeology also provides some additional information, but very much performs just a supporting role for the moment. In future, however, as more account is taken of wool production due to its economic and social importance, it is likely that archaeology will play a greater part in revealing its local significance, as more local features are discovered that may be recognised as relating to this major trade.

This book, therefore, brings together diverse sources of information about the Cotswold wool trade, and touches as well on the Cotswold cloth industry, and provides an archaeological viewpoint by linking the historical record with surviving archaeological remains. This viewpoint is intended to relate the documentary evidence back to the people and settings in the Cotswolds where the original wool production took place, as it is often the local sites that get forgotten, even while the trade is being extensively celebrated as an important aspect of our national history through the good services of historians. The early Cotswold cloth industry is also touched on as it benefited from the availability of good-quality local wool in its early days, though later it sourced the wool for its fine woollens from other regions.

A visit to a derelict sheepwash site at Sutton-under-Brailes in south Warwickshire in 2001 was a first introduction to the medieval Cotswold wool trade. This sheepwash was a tangible link with a famous agricultural heritage, which had not only impacted on the enduring appearance of the Cotswolds today, but had also contributed enormously to the national economy in its time, and so been a major force for the betterment of society both in this country and abroad. By carrying out a survey of numerous similar sites across the Cotswolds, under the auspices of the Cotswolds AONB Partnership, it has been possible to gain a real sense also of the local scale and importance of the wool trade at first-hand through this one type of site, the sheepwash. Hopefully this book will also help others to appreciate this aspect of Cotswold history, and provide further impetus towards the conservation of sites associated with this impressive achievement by the sheep farmers and wool merchants of medieval and later Gloucestershire and its adjacent counties.

1

Introduction

It is important to start with the landscape itself as this was one of the principal factors in the success of the medieval wool trade. The Cotswolds are a range of limestone hills in the west of England defining a major watershed between the Severn and Thames river valleys, and covering some 800 sq miles (over 2,000km2) (1). They have a distinctive character in various ways. A sharply steep slope marks the western edge of the hills, while, in contrast, to the east there is an almost imperceptible dip slope. They have several notable high points, such as Cleeve Hill at 1,040ft (317m) above sea level, but the general impression is of gently rolling hills, which give settlements in the folds of the hills a high degree of seclusion and protection from the worst of the elements. On the steep scarp slope to the west there are a series of steeply cut valleys associated with rapid streams, which were once important as a source of water power. There are also economically useful outcrops of fuller’s earth and stone building materials, giving rise to other local industries, and providing a diverse economic base. But the chief wealth was in the extensive pasture and, the high ground being very dry, it was primarily suited to sheep rather than cattle. This was the key to the maintenance of large flocks of sheep, and, in addition to their wool, they provided manure to increase the fertility of the thin soils and hence boosted arable cultivation on lower ground.

The name Cotswold, which has been used since at least the twelfth century (Hooke 1998), has sometimes been taken to mean a place associated with cotes or sheepfolds, but the derivation favoured by modern commentators derives the cot element from the personal name Cod. Cod’s wold was a place name originally for a piece of land around Cod’s dene (Cutsdean) and this usage seems to have gradually spread out to include the rest of the region as well (Smith 1976). The term wold would imply that this expanse of higher ground was once characterised by woodland during the Anglo-Saxon period. But wold has also been considered to be country with scattered stands of trees rather than being densely wooded at the time of the English settlement, as ley names are usually common in the latter case (Fox 1989), and place names ending in ley are generally rare in the Cotswolds. Some corroboration of this latter interpretation comes from ley names being much less rare on the western scarp slope (Dyer 2002a), which often remains heavily wooded even in the present day.

1 Map of the Cotswolds showing principal routes and places

The region was notable in Roman times for its degree of Romanisation both at the main town Corinium, now Cirencester, and in the surrounding countryside with its numerous large estate houses (usually referred to as villas). This was eventually reflected in its standing towards the end of the Roman period when Cirencester became the capital of one of the British provinces. The end of central Roman control left individual towns as regional centres and Cirencester remained a force to be reckoned with until AD 577, when it was overcome by the west Saxons at the Battle of Dyrham. Even in the subsequent period Cirencester (where seven hundreds met) remained the main administrative and market centre in the south Cotswolds, though a new administrative and market centre developed at Winchcombe in the north Cotswolds by the ninth century. Around 1016 the county of Gloucestershire itself was created from these units (Finberg 1975).

Wool came to the fore in the Middle Ages to be recognised as a major economic asset and a particularly potent symbol of English power by the fourteenth century. Wool was used for outer garments, in combination with linen (from flax), which was relatively coarse, for underwear, and cotton was not yet imported on a sufficiently large scale to compete. In both the cases of linen and cotton, some specialised centres on the Continent did achieve a high standard in both these alternative textiles, but the importance of wool as an established commodity, on which national economies had been founded, meant that these alternatives to wool made little real headway in the medieval period.

Wool was, therefore, the first choice in the Middle Ages for textiles which were affordable, comfortable and attractive to wear. Apart from the obvious economic value which wool acquired as a result of its popularity, the subject clearly affected some Englishmen in a peculiar way, as they sometimes waxed lyrical in public about the superior quality and value of this English asset. For instance, John Gower (d. 1408) called wool ‘that noble lady, goddess of the merchants … so nice, so white, so soft’ (van Uytven 1983, 177), while John Lydgate (d. c.1450) referred to wool as ‘cheeff tresour in this land growyng’. These sentiments, however, do reflect the situation where large numbers of people were making plenty of money out of the wool trade.

This brings us to the other main factor that brought about the success of the Cotswold wool trade, which was, of course, the sheep itself, which managed to outshine most other sheep in the country in the quality of its wool. This is all the more mysterious as the origins and character of the local sheep are less easy to fathom. The pedigree of the Cotswold sheep, and even its appearance in the Middle Ages, remain controversial. It is uncertain whether it was bred primarily for wool, or whether it had been employed initially for other purposes such as maintaining soil fertility in arable fields by being moved around in pens (folding), and for milk for cheeses, and only later came to be prized for its wool as well. Further archaeological investigation, using the latest techniques such as DNA analysis, eventually will hopefully shed some light on this darkest corner of Cotswold history.

When the interest in English wool brought foreign merchants to our shores, the Cotswold sheep were immediately held in high regard and their wool quality was never in question. But surprisingly the exact attribute of the wool that signified this quality and made the wool so sought-after, remains today somewhat of a mystery. Another principal region for best quality wool was the Welsh Marches around Leominster (north Herefordshire), and here the wool was definitely being celebrated for its fineness, as it was being compared to the ‘silkworm’s thread’ (in Drayton’s Poly-olbion). It is likely, therefore, that it was also the fineness of the Cotswold wool that was its main attraction to the Flemish and Italian, and then later, the English weavers.

Cotswold wool, together with other English wool, shares a less reputable place in English history. It was in the medieval wool trade that the English government first developed an interest (subsequently undiminished) in raising money from trade by taxation, and thereby discovered a whole new way in which to interfere in, and exploit, to its own advantage, the conduct of business, whether conducted by its own subjects or by foreigners. This may be symbolised by the Lord Chancellor still sitting on the woolsack in the House of Lords today. In 1938 the stuffing was found, contrary to tradition, to be horse hair and so it was restuffed with wool from the United Kingdom and all the Commonwealth countries.

The Cotswold wool industry, therefore, sheds light on both the workings of local communities and of national governments, whilst, for about 300 years, being the source of some of the greatest wealth, which both bolstered the aspiring middle classes and helped make practical realities of the aggrandising schemes of English kings.

2

The Cotswold sheep

… but Cotswold wisely fills

Her with the whitest kind: whose browes so woolly be

(Extract from the poem Poly-Olbion by Michael Drayton dated 1612)

The origin of the Cotswold breed is difficult to establish with any certainty. Some have claimed that these sheep were simply Spanish stock brought over by Eleanor of Castile, the wife of Edward I, or, alternatively, Flemish stock brought over by Philippa of Hainault, the wife of Edward III (Brill 1973). But these seem to be just romantic ideas which have no firm historical basis.

The earliest sheep in England are generally regarded as being akin to Soay sheep (2), an ancient breed that survived into the twentieth century on the remote island of St Kilda off the north-west coast of Scotland. These are small, predominantly dark-woolled sheep which look more goat-like than conventional modern sheep. They are also more like goats in their behaviour for they are capable of jumping over high obstacles. Their wool is black, brown, or blonde and both sexes are horned. They are now kept in order to demonstrate the appearance of earlier sheep, for instance at the Cotswold Farm Park in Gloucestershire. The fleece of the Soay is relatively short at 2in (50mm), and is moulted annually (Ryder 1964, 3) so that it can be plucked rather than requiring shearing. It averages annually some 2lb (0.9kg) of wool. Some of the best evidence for the early wool type has come from Bronze Age burials where waterlogging has preserved traces of textiles. Here the wool has included the coarse, bristly fibres typical of the outer coat of the fleece of wild sheep and was mainly brown in colour just like the Soay (Ryder 1964, 4). The ancestry of the Cotswold sheep, therefore, certainly begins in this way, but the intervening progression to the medieval Cotswold sheep, and through to the Cotswold breed of today, is much more problematical.

2 Soay sheep. Ram to left, ewe to right, the latter showing the tendency to shed wool naturally by late spring

Sheep tend to be hairy rather than woolly, so that the fleece naturally remains undeveloped (Ryder 1984a). The development of woolly sheep appears be part of a long trend beginning in the Middle East after c.1000 BC, with the eventual emergence of fine fleeces in the Mediterranean area from the Classical period onwards. Selective breeding had other effects resulting in the continual growth of the outer coat rather than moulting, a whiter appearance, loss of horns, and a longer tail, while some have seen the proportionally shorter neck as another such indication. These are all signs of improvement through selective breeding.

There is some archaeological evidence that the Soay-type sheep underwent development before the Roman period with a greater tendency towards woolliness and towards white wool, presumably through selective breeding. Ryder (1981a, 18) has demonstrated from the archaeological evidence of contemporary wool remains that white, shorter and longer woolled sheep were present in Britain by the end of the Roman period and some commentators (e.g. Trow-Smith 1957 and Whitlock 1965, 133) have placed the origins of the Cotswold breed with sheep introduced to the region in the Roman period, particularly in the area of Cirencester. Indeed some excavated sheep bone from archaeological sites in eastern England does support the idea of a larger and polled sheep being introduced by the Romans (Armitage 1983), and there is also now some evidence for this in the Cotswolds (Maltby 1998).

In the medieval period there is much more evidence, though this does not necessarily add up to a clearer picture. One early medieval source (twelfth century) makes reference to curly woolled sheep being more valuable than coarse woolled sheep and there is plenty of evidence of sheep being deliberately traded for breeding purposes. All of this suggests that at least two different breeds of sheep had been brought into existence by about the beginning of the medieval period at the latest. The presence of hornless rams, as demonstrated from archaeological evidence, has also been taken to show that there were definitely differing types of sheep in medieval England (Ryder 1981a, 23).

It is not yet possible to equate archaeological evidence with particular regional types of sheep, though this may eventually come about with the closer study of the skeletal remains of breeds in existence today and the concomitant use of DNA analysis of excavated bones where there is good preservation (Sebastian Payne pers comm). In the meantime, archaeological observations remain broad-brush, though none the less useful for that. This current evidence may be best interpreted as indicating variability in sheep, and the local development of different types aided by the relative difficulty of transporting large numbers of animals over long distances. For instance, there is evidence from sheep bones from archaeological sites for an improved (larger) breed of sheep in parts of the Midlands from at least the Saxon period (Albarella and Davis 1994). However, direct evidence from the Cotswolds suggests that the medieval sheep here were not much bigger than later prehistoric examples (for instance based on a sample of 452 sheep bones from the deserted medieval village of Upton; Yealland and Higgs 1966), and there is even some evidence from Bishop’s Cleeve that the medieval sheep were slightly smaller than their Romano-British predecessors (Maltby 2002). These sheep were usually at least three or four years old when culled, and so had clearly been kept for their wool. Given their location, these sheep are likely to have been the source of some of the ‘Cotswold wool’, in which the bishop of Worcester is documented as being a major trader.

The character of medieval wool is obviously of great interest given that this determined the varying levels of success in economic terms of sheep from different parts of the country. However, there have been no archaeological finds of wool from the Cotswold region, as there have from elsewhere. Generally no wool finds have yet been recognisable as coming from long-woolled sheep as defined today (i.e. longer than about 6in (160mm), which suggests that medieval fine wool was of the largely shorter stapled type (Bowden 1956-7) by modern standards. As far as the fifteenth-century merchant was concerned Cotswold wool came in four grades: ‘good’, ‘middle’, ‘good young’, and ‘middle young’. ‘Young cottys’ was shorter in the staple than wool from fully-grown sheep, and of less value for cloth making. There was £3 difference in price per sack between this and ‘good’ (i.e. finest) Cotswold wool (Hanham 1985, 268), with the ‘middle’ wool being of intermediate quality and price.

Even parchments have been pressed into service in pursuit of an understanding of the evolution of sheep. Their study, based on microscopic recording of surviving wool fibres, does suggest that the medium diameter wools, likely to have been longwools judging by today’s longwools, first appeared in the fourteenth century. The actual size of some parchment has also indicated that some medieval sheep were definitely bigger than Soay sheep. This is the first tentative proof of a larger and longer-woolled medieval sheep. Longer wool has been claimed by some historians (notably Eileen Power, e.g. 1941) to explain the popularity and high value of Cotswold wool, and to suggest that it was used to make worsted rather than the more common woollens. But this interest in size and length ignores the, albeit sparse, documentary evidence that it was simply fineness of woollen fibres that attracted the buyers to the highly prized wools such as from the Cotswolds. For instance, in 1480 Richard Cely the elder passed comment that some Cotswold wool he had just had packed was ‘much finer than the year before’ (Hanham 1985, 77).

Where the written historical record is found so wanting, images become of great significance. Though these are useful for the general study of medieval sheep, few are specific to the Cotswolds. Most are English and Flemish illuminated illustrations in manuscripts, and are of sheep in religious or general scenes, showing the prevalent type of sheep to be a white-faced animal, with the ewes being polled, or hornless (34). Other images of sheep also occur occasionally in funerary monuments, and these are potentially much more significant sources of information about the Cotswold breed, as there are examples from the Cotswolds. Some are flat images in the form of the important series of monumental brasses in Cotswold parish churches, in particular at Northleach (3), and others are sculptured, such as on top of a corner buttress of the fifteenth-century tower of Compton Abdale church (4). It may be particularly significant that in some respects the brasses, in particular, show a different type of sheep from those in the painted illustrations.

There has been much debate about the sheep depicted on the Northleach memorial brasses of the eminent late medieval wool merchants. These brasses have been taken to have been made in a style not imitating an earlier conventional design, and, therefore, potentially much more likely to reflect real sheep (Armitage and Goodall 1977). However, the brasses have been attributed to London workshops and, therefore, it is considered unlikely that the designer would be familiar with Cotswold sheep. Certainly the long-necked and fine-limbed character of the medieval sheep on these brasses is reminiscent of the primitive Soay sheep, and so deviates markedly from the style of sheep representation usual in illuminated manuscripts of the period (34). The longer tail (e.g. on the brass of John Taylour who died in 1490) at the same time betrays a definite move away from the ancient breed (3). Limited archaeological evidence also supports this appearance of the medieval sheep as the general type (Armitage and Goodall 1977). That there is on the Northleach memorial brasses a conscious depiction of the medieval sheep is encouraged by other details in the design, such as the closely observed woolpack, while it may be assumed that the wool merchants themselves are also accurately reproduced to some degree. Such details suggest that the pattern-maker may have been faithfully reproducing contemporary medieval sheep, though whether this reflected the sheep of the Cotswolds is uncertain.

It is tempting to think that the pattern-maker had some knowledge of Cotswold sheep, as the mid-fifteenth-century sheep on the John Fortey brass (5) resembles a more slender version of the modern breed. Here the sheep is hornless and the fleece hangs loose under the belly suggesting that it was approaching a longwool. This may, therefore, be the most authentic medieval depiction of a Cotswold sheep to survive. The sheep shown on the William Midwinter brass of the very beginning of the sixteenth century also look similar (67). This is in contrast with the sheep shown on the Bushe brass of 1525 (6), where both sexes are horned, the more curled example being the ram. Here the sheep look more like the more ancient breed seen in the Soay sheep, though their long tails and shorter necks do mark them out as more developed. Horned sheep, probably rams, are also depicted in the fifteenth-century sculptured representations at Compton Abdale (4) and Fairford churches, again suggesting that horned sheep were also to be found in the medieval Cotswolds. The earliest surviving sheep carving in the Cotswolds also shows a horned head and this dates to c.1200 (Windrush church; 7). The basic character of the medieval Cotswold sheep, whether they were usually horned or not, should be capable of being determined by archaeological means.

3 Detail of the John Taylour brass in Northleach church showing a sheep and a woolpack. Dated about 1490

4 Figure of a sheep with horns surmounting the south-east buttress of the fifteenth-century tower of Compton Abdale church

5 Detail of the John Fortey brass dated 1458 in Northleach church, showing a sheep

6 Detail of the Thomas Bushe brass dated 1525 in Northleach church, showing sheep

7 Sheep’s head corbel of about 1200 in the nave of Windrush church

Another argument against the medieval development of the long-woolled sheep, in the modern sense, is the weight of fleeces, as a medieval Cotswold fleece normally only weighed about 1.85lb, as when 48 fleeces of coarser grade ‘middle’ Cotswold wool in the later fifteenth century weighed in at c.89lb (40.4kg; Hanham 1985, 112). Though the average weight on this occasion should not, however, be taken to be necessarily entirely typical of a Cotswold medieval fleece, as it has been demonstrated that fleece weights varied over time and were dropping, for instance, in the mid-fifteenth century, while bad winters could cause temporary declines to under half normal fleece weight (Stephenson 1988). Moreover, heavier fleeces of around 4lb (2kg) were associated with some enclosed pastures by the early 1600s, and in some areas 6-7lb fleeces were already being obtained (AgHEW IV, 666), though there is no detailed information on this from the Cotswolds. However, this suggests that sheep responded positively to their change to richer pastures. The modern Cotswold fleece is far heavier, weighing about 22lb (10kg) and 13lb (6kg) for the ram and ewe respectively (National Sheep Association 1998) indicating a gross increase in size. Such figures are also quite in keeping with contemporary commentators who also observed the increasing size of the fleece in the eighteenth century. Although part of this increase may be from better nutrition, it must mainly be accounted for as the extreme outcome of selective breeding.

There does, therefore, seem to be ample evidence that the Cotswold sheep was a distinct medieval type. The demands of farming in this region are the most likely way in which a local type evolved. The soils were very thin and the pasture sparse, which was known from distant antiquity to favour the development of a particularly fine woolled fleece. There was also a distinctive Gloucestershire custom of farming (known as hitching) which shortened the fallow, either by sowing part of it, or by not having any fallow at all (Tate 1943, 19). This intensive arable production would have required some method for rapidly replenishing soil fertility at the end of each growing season and folding with sheep would have supplied this need. This sheep-corn husbandry was very much a feature of the Oxfordshire Cotswolds in the medieval period (AgHEW IV, 249). Demanding local conditions will, therefore, have favoured the development of a local sheep type. Specialist flock management, most obviously by the monastic houses, as elsewhere in medieval England, realised the potential for high-quality wool production offered by the local sheep, as the monks sought to make profits from their large estates with a minimum of labour. Their contacts with the Continent and, in particular, with papal agents will have also been an incentive to widening markets and winning greater opportunities for trade. In the Cotswolds there is some evidence of selective breeding being actively pursued, as Kingswood Abbey, for instance, imported Lindsey rams all the way from Lincolnshire in the mid-thirteenth century. This district was at the heart of longwool territory in later periods, and close study of medieval fleece weights has demonstrated that heavier fleeces were also reared here in that period, at over 2lb (Bischoff 1983, 156) suggesting that the genetic disposition to long wool growth in some sheep was already recognised.

The earliest surviving written accounts of Cotswold sheep date from the sixteenth century. William Camden in the later sixteenth century described the Cotswold sheep as having ‘the whitest wool, having long necks and square bodies’. Michael Drayton, who was born in Warwickshire and certainly had some first-hand knowledge of the Cotswolds, in his popular poem Poly-olbionof 1612 also similarly described the Cotswold sheep as being the whitest sheep, ‘with no black or brown on the legs or face’, with woolly brows, and the staple deep and thick on a large body. The sheer size of the Cotswold sheep and its fleece seems to be expressed by Drayton by reference to ‘the buttocks equall broad; as fit to under-goe the full and weightie load’. This description equates well with the larger size of the Cotswold breed today, as does the reference to a woolly brow, which suggests the forelock, a characteristic of the breed today.

Michael Drayton in his Poly-olbion (Song VII) also made reference to Herefordshire wool (‘Lemster ore’), and drew special attention to its fineness since ‘with the silke-wormes thread for smalness’ it ‘doth compare’. So fineness was presumably also the outstanding feature of the best medieval Cotswold wool, though it fell short of the Leominster wool in this respect, ‘yet quite he puts her downe for his abundant store’ suggesting that the sheer abundance of Cotswold wool was in its favour. Throughout the later medieval period these two wool producing regions had vied for the top position in the wool stakes, Leominster usually winning out with the highest prices, though its short supply meant a ready market for Cotswold wool as well.

These descriptions of the Cotswold sheep give a definite impression that it was a large animal which had a thick heavy fleece, and this is in keeping with its nick-name of the ‘Cotswold lion’, as well as with the appearance of the modern-day Cotswold. The allusion to a lion presumably came about because of the shaggy headed appearance of the Cotswold sheep and the earliest such reference was in the mid-sixteenth century (L. Gibbings pers comm), when it was common parlance, as in ‘she is as fierce as a Lion of Cotsolde’ (John Heywood (?1497-1580), Proverbs, part 1, chapter XI). This is a particularly telling confirmation of the comparative size and woolly appearance of the Cotswold sheep, presumably reflecting its characteristics in the later medieval period as well.

By modern standards the medieval Cotswold wool may have been of medium length and fineness, which would be in keeping with the needs of the Flanders and Italian weavers, who, it is generally assumed, were working with shortish stapled wool and would have been manufacturing woollens. The key to its success may have been inherent in the wool (e.g. its fineness, its whiteness, or its ability to take up dye), but it may also have had something to do with the organisation on the ground that made its purchase easier for the export market. Here its bulk export via Southampton on private licences granted as favours by the Crown, and its availability in large quantities from bulk suppliers may have been additional advantages. The financial ties and political allegiances of the English Crown, where the main markets were concerned, may, therefore, have also been powerful incentives in favour of Cotswold wool, as it established its worth in the medieval period. This wool must have had inherently desirable qualities and today this is characterised by the lustre and the clarity with which it accepts dye, but it is uncertain whether these would be some of the same qualities recognised in the Middle Ages.

Movements gathering pace in English agriculture were to affect the character of the Cotswold wool and it seems likely that the true long-woolled Cotswold sheep was only developed in earnest from the sixteenth century onwards, when enclosure and breeding favoured the growth of a much heavier fleece. The effect of better pasture on the wool was well understood in the sixteenth century when Welsh sheep were being brought into the Midlands to produce useful wool so that ‘ther corse wolle chaungith to staple wolle’ (Tawney and Power 1924a, 101). Adam Speed, writing in the early seventeenth century, regarded both the Herefordshire and the Cotswold as being fine wools, suggesting that this desirable quality was maintained into that century (Armitage 1983).

In the early eighteenth century, the Cotswold was described as still unimproved, and ‘a small light carcassed polled animal, bearing … a fleece of fine wool of about 3lb weight, but lighter and finer before that period’. The same commentator recalled that they were previously cotted but that this practice had since ceased (Turner 1794). Defoe (1725), when he reached the Cotswold Hills, proclaimed that they were ‘eminent for the best of sheep, and finest wool in England’, but that now fine wool had to be imported from Spain. In the course of the eighteenth century, therefore, the Cotswold sheep must have been transformed into a much heavier animal. Where once about ten sheep had to be shorn to produce a tod (28lb or 12.7kg) of wool, now only four were needed (Bowden 1956-7, 47). The size of the sheep and of its fleece had increased enormously, with the latter being useful for the new textiles which required longer and tougher fibres. In this case, the change in the character of the Cotswold wool was entirely in keeping with the demands of the contemporary textile industry and served to keep the breed in demand at home, suggesting that breeding was being directed according to the market.

In 1749 William Ellis said that the good wools still came from the Leominster area of Herefordshire and from the Cotswolds and that it was still the fineness that attracted comment ‘for from it a thread may be drawn as fine as silk’. The Herefordshire sheep also increased their wool yield after the sixteenth century from about 1lb to 2lb (0.9kg) in the nineteenth century. Changing methods of farming had clearly increased their wool yield as well, but they are not thought to have changed their character significantly as a breed. If so, it shows that the local environment and sheep management regime do have an impact on the quality of the wool, but only to a lesser degree than if selective breeding is undertaken.

With an animal that begins breeding at one- to two-years old its characteristics could change very quickly through selective breeding, and it seems likely that the Cotswold was transformed so that its wool was more suitable for the new English cloth industry, and its meat could be sent to the rapidly growing towns. Generally this pattern of sheep development is confirmed by the archaeological evidence as there is little skeletal change in sheep from the later prehistoric period until the seventeenth/eighteenth century (Ryder 1981a). In this most recent period, therefore, both historical and archaeological evidence converge to tell the same story.

In around 1780 Rudder also commented on the coarseness of Cotswold wool by saying that ‘the Cotswold wool … never fine within the memory of any man I have converswed with … is now become still coarser’. But a local farmer from Dowdeswell in the late eighteenth century reckoned that the Cotswold sheep had improved greatly in carcase weight and quantity of wool with the use of enclosures in the last 200 years (Tate 1943, 33). Clearly such comment suggests that the fine quality of the wool was no longer paramount and that quantity was preferred instead. In the eighteenth century when it is first possible to reconstruct well-defined zones of types of sheep based on good breed descriptions, longwools stretch along the Jurassic ridge from the Cotswolds in the south across the Midlands and into Lincolnshire. Complete uniformity of flocks, however, should not be taken for granted for earlier periods (Ryder 1984b, 17), and there was great variation in grades of wool produced within each flock.

This was now the era of the pasture sheep (e.g. the Leicester) with their long wool replacing the folding sheep, and some of the former had huge fleeces of long semi-lustrous wool of reasonable quality. These produced wool on the English grasslands, especially in the Midlands, which was ideal for the new cloth-making practice (worsteds), and by c.1700, worsted production exceeded the broadcloths in value and importance. It is generally considered that the new Cotswold sheep came about crossed with these pasture sheep, and that, fed on the new feed of turnips and clover, they ended up giving the very large fleeces of long wool suitable for combing wool, and worsted textile production.

In the early nineteenth century the size of the Cotswold sheep and its fleece at 9-10lb (4.5kg) were favourably commented on (Gloucestershire VCH II, 256). A later description (Bravender 1850) also reflects the breed as it is now (cf 8, 58 and 66). But the Cotswold Hills had mostly by then become the domain of the Oxford Downs, which originated as a cross between a Cotswold ram and the Hampshire Down ewe in around 1835. These seem to have inherited some of the qualities of the old Cotswold (i.e. the ability to fold well and to fatten quickly on less food than the improved Cotswold; Gloucestershire VCH II, 256), though intended mainly as meat.

The Cotswold sheep was already becoming rare as early as c.1800. Fed on turnips, its meat was poor and its wool coarsened. The Cotswold Sheep Society started in 1891 (-1922 and re-established in 1966), but decline in breed numbers continued and there were only 476 Cotswold sheep left in 1902. One of these flocks could be traced to the early 1600s and another to the early 1700s. The Garnes played a leading role in saving the breed for posterity and it is interesting to note that a Margaret Garne had sold Richard Cely woolfells at Chipping Norton in the late fifteenth century (Hanham 1985, 151), giving a direct link between this family and the medieval heyday of Cotswold wool sales.

8 Cotswold ewes with lambs on a hot spring day at the Cotswold Farm Park near Guiting Power

9 Wool shorn from a Cotswold ram (first shearing) showing the characteristic crimp (staple length 200mm)

Detailed descriptions of breeds did not generally occur until late on. Such a description of the Cotswold breed was first produced in 1892, and is still used today as the show standard of the Cotswold Sheep Society, with one of the distinguishing marks being the fine tuft of wool on the forehead (Harmer 1892). Cotswold sheep can still be seen today at the Cotswold Farm Park at Guiting Power near Stow-on-the-Wold in Gloucestershire (8). These sheep are longwools and have a lustrous fleece of generally up to about 16lb (7kg) from the ewes (L. Gibbings pers comm) with a staple length of up to 10in (250mm) (9 and 66).

3

Early sheep farming in the Cotswolds

Sheep had been domesticated in the Middle East by at least the beginning of the sixth millennium BC, and in Britain by the fourth millennium BC. It is uncertain when sheep started to be a common sight in the Cotswolds, but they were ideally suited to the limestone uplands and it was probably in the Iron Age or Roman period when they appeared in numbers. They would have benefited from the early eradication of the wolf in most of England, though it was only finally eradicated from the wilder areas in the later medieval period.

BRONZE AGE

Archaeology provides a crude picture of the development of domesticated sheep in Britain c.3500 BC, and then charts their rise in agricultural significance during the Bronze Age (c.2000-800 BC), as the prominence of pigs declined. This may reflect changes in the landscape, as the pig would have been more useful in a woodland environment, whereas the sheep is more suited to grazing on open grassland (Clark 1947), signifying that by the Bronze Age, large areas had been cleared of trees and shrubs. Sheep may, therefore, have quickly become part of a more cleared landscape, which they would have helped to maintain, and where, by providing manure, arable production could also have been more quickly intensified as a result of their presence. This is also the period that woollen textiles first appeared in this country whereas earlier textiles were based on plant materials (Clark 1947, 134), and the development of textiles continues today with wool still playing a major role. Sheep have, therefore, been the source of an essential commodity for the last 4,000 years.

Archaeological evidence for the earlier prehistoric Cotswolds is sparse and suggests that it was an area of small Bronze Age settlements and some larger