0304A

In the year 1200 Britain was in the middle of a spell of warm weather that had begun c AD 900 and lasted to c 1300. This made possible the cultivation of land on higher ground, beyond the margins of previous habitation. Mixed farming was usual in lower-lying lands, though in much of Scotland, Wales and the north of England a pastoral economy predominated. Large areas of Britain were still covered by forest, and summer pollen counts were higher than they are today. Air quality was good, since industrial processes were minimal.
Throughout Britain, as over much of the European mainland, the population was steadily rising. This rise had been evident from the early 11th century, and was to continue until around 1300, so that England's population doubled between c1086 and c1300, after which a decline set in. In AD 1200, the population was still below the peak of' 3 million (or more) which historians have suggested for 1300. The populations of Wales and Scotland in 1200 were sparse, probably well under half a million in each case.
Increased demand for corn-bread was a major part of the diet even for the better-off - led to the ever-greater urgency for land clearances to bring new land under the plough. In eastern England, extensive drainage projects were undertaken in the Fenlands, and land along the Lincolnshire coast was slowly but steadily reclaimed. Such activity can be approximately dated by the first mention of new place names in charters or other records, which indicates that drainage and reclamation were well under way in these areas by AD 1200. Drainage was also in progress in the Romney Marsh, and in the marshes of the south-west around Glastonbury. Large tracts of woodland were also being cleared. The Norman kings had appropriated great swathes of woodland, heathland and cultivated land to create royal forests, which were initially hunting reserves. The total area afforested was still increasing in the earlier part of the reign of Henry II (r.1154-89), but in his later years he permitted a limited amount of disafforestation (reducing the legal status of forest to that of ordinary land). Petitioners were now allowed to make assarts (clearances), at a price determined by the crown. Henry's sons, Richard I (r 1189-99) and John (r 1199-1216), both permitted extensive disafforestation, sometimes making grants to an association of knights arid freemen of a particular area who clubbed together to raise the 'fine' demanded by the king in return. Disafforested land was usually cleared for corn production, although lords were also soon petitioning the king for licences for deer-parks of their own. Wolves and foxes were hunted under licence, and pheasants were preserved. Clearances of moorland were also under way in the north arid the far south-west, with settlements steadily rising to higher contours. Land clearance here was initiated both by manorial lords and by peasants on their own initiative.
Population growth also led to the foundation of new settlements. Hamlets, often started by squatters, were established as marginal lands came into agricultural use. New towns, on the other hand, were founded by kings, nobles or bishops on sites that had potential as seaports or river ports, or which were at the intersection of major land routes and waterways. They were usually set out on a grid-plan, with provision for a market place and for the town's defences.
Not all aspiring towns were viable. Although many lords attempted to develop one of their manors as a market-town to profit from local tolls and stall-rents, competition was strong and many markets had only a small catchment radius. The viability of a settlement might depend on its situation on good lines of communication, such as a Roman road or a ford on a river capable of taking shallow-draught boats. The lines of old roads were still followed, although their surfaces fell far below the standards of the Roman era, often turning into quagmires in winter. To evade the muddiest stretches travellers continually widened the lines of the roads. Goods were often carried by packhorses, which were less likely to be bogged down than wheeled vehicles, although really heavy loads were conveyed by covered waggon or by water. The better-off travellers rode, while the majority walked.
Major movements of people into the islands ceased after the Norman Conquest and settlement of England. After Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, there was some small-scale immigration from her lands of Poitou and Gascony in southern France. In addition, the English kings often recruited mercenaries from Flanders on campaigns on the Continent, and Flemish troops were sometimes employed on campaigns in England and were then permitted to settle as frontiersmen along the Welsh and Scottish borders. The twelfth-century kings of Scots also recognised their potential as colonists, and encouraged immigration, so that Fleming became a common Scottish surname. Flemish settlement was also welcomed by the Norman colonisers of south Wales, especially in Pembrokeshire. Some Englishmen, too, migrated to Scotland, or to the Welsh borders, often when their feudal lords acquired land in these regions.
In England, towns were growing in size and number, due both to the rising population and the more favourable conditions for trade, which led to migration to towns from rural districts and also attracted immigrant traders from overseas, chiefly from northern France and the Rhineland. Raw wool was England's major export, and was usually bought by Flemish or Italian merchants. Good-quality cloth was generally imported from one or other of these regions.
Villeins, or nativi, peasant natives of their vill or settlement, formed the bulk of the population of England at this time. There were fewer cottars or smallholders, who were often the village craftsmen such as blacksmiths, and an even smaller percentage of free peasants. In late Anglo-Saxon England, there had been several degrees of personal status from freeman down to slave, but by the late 12th century the peasantry had been reduced to just two categories: freemen, who had direct access to the royal courts; and villeins, who were technically confined to local courts dominated by their manorial lord. In practice, though, since the crown was always in need of ready money, itinerant royal justices were prepared to hear pleas from anyone who could afford to initiate a legal action.
Some peasants, regardless of their legal status, were comparatively well off, but younger sons of peasant families had no inheritance rights in their family's landholding. It was these men who were most likely to flee from their native villages. Indeed, so many fled that the royal Chancery had for several generations issued writs of naifty, entitling manorial lords to reclaim their runaway naifs (Anglo-Norman for nativi), if they could be tracked down. Many fled to estates in frontier areas, where lords were glad of potential colonists, granting land to the fugitives and tacitly accepting them as freemen.
Despite the squalid and unhealthy living conditions in the towns and the precariousness of attempting to earn a living as a wage-labourer, many landless peasants fled to the towns. The author of the late 12th century Treatise on the Laws and Customs of England, commonly known as Glanvill, stated that a runaway villein, though legally obliged to stay in his native settlement, could earn his personal freedom if he remained unchallenged for a year and a day in a privileged town (one which held a royal charter) and was admitted as a citizen into the townsmen's commune or gild. This last qualification was very difficult to achieve since the gild was dominated by the better-off merchants and master-craftsmen.

In his Chronicle, which caricatures English towns at the end of the 12th century, Richard of Devizes wrote that London swarmed with dubious low life. He thought little of Canterbury; described Chichester and Rochester as mere hamlets; criticised the food offered to travellers in Exeter and Oxford, and the sulphurous vapours engulfing Bath from its hot springs. The towns of the Marches - Chester, Hereford and Worcester - were always at risk from Welsh incursions; York was full of Scotsman; Ely stank from the Fens; Durham, Lincoln and Norwich contained few French-speakers (and by implication were provincial backwaters), while Bristol was inhabited by soap-makers. Only his home town of Winchester met his standards. More in Part B....