Sheep in the Cotswolds: The Medieval Wool Trade

by Derek Hurst

Overview

The wool trade was the mainstay of the medieval English economy, and no wool was more highly prized than that of the Cotswold sheep: weavers in Flanders and Italy went to endless lengths to secure their supply.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780750962216
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	08/01/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	11 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

Read an Excerpt

Sheep in the Cotswolds

The Medieval Wool Trade

---

By Derek Hurst

The History Press

Copyright © 2014 Derek Hurst
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-6221-6

---

CHAPTER 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.

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.

CHAPTER 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.

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.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Sheep in the Cotswolds by Derek Hurst. Copyright © 2014 Derek Hurst. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

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,