GCSE Coursework: History Around Us - eRiding

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History Around Us – The deserted medieval village of Wharram PercyHypothesis 1: The village was abandoned because of the Black Death (bubonic plague) in 1349.Evidence forThe population of the village fell.The Lord of the Manor, William de Heslerton, diedof the plague in 1349.The village priest died of the plague in 1349.The water mill was no longer being used (thismight be a precaution against infection).Evidence againstBy 1368 the number of houses in the village hadincreased to 30.By 1368 a corn barn, common oven and kiln werein use.Historical evidence about the effects of the Black Death on BritainChronicle of Louth Park Abbey, written in 14 th centuryIn the year of our Lord, 1349, the hand of God struck the human race a deadly blow. This scourge inmany places left less than one fifth of the population surviving. It struck terror into the hearts of the wholeworld. So great a pestilence had never been seen or heard or written of before this time. So huge anumber was not even swept away by the flood that happened in the days of Noah.Court Roll of the Manor of Sladen, Buckinghamshire, 1349A jury in August 1349 declared under oath that the mill was of no value, for not only was the miller dead,but there were no tenants who wanted to grind any corn. The total rents of the freemen and serfs in theprevious year (1348) amounted to £12. In this year (1349) nothing had been collected and the land wasnot being farmed.Other evidence--Put your own examples of evidence in this box--18© eRiding 2004
History Around Us – The deserted medieval village of Wharram PercyHypothesis 2: The village was abandoned in the 16 th century because sheep farming becamemore profitable than arable farming.Evidence forThe Hilton family became owners of the village in 1403 andbegan to convert the land from arable to sheep farms.In 1500 four families were evicted from Wharram Percy andtheir houses were pulled down.Many of the objects found at Wharram Percy byarchaeologists are made from sheep and cattle bones.By 1500 England’s most important export was woollencloth. This is symbolised by the fact that the LordChancellor continues to sit on a woolsack in the House ofLords.Evidence againstA farm remained in the valley in 1573.The church and graveyard continued to beused.In the late 1700s a new farmhouse andoutbuildings were built and new farmingmethods introduced.Evidence about the importance of sheep farming in late medieval and early modern BritainA school history textbook published in 1992More of the land in the village was used for animal farming. Sheep farming became very popular in manyareas. Fields that had once grown wheat or barley were often turned into grazing for sheep.From Cardinal Wolsey’s Commission of Inquiry, 1517He held this land on 2 nd March 1489 when those messages were laid waste and thrown down, and landsformerly used for arable he turned over to pasture for animals, so three ploughs are now out of use there,and 18 people who used to work on that land and earn their living there and who dwelled in the houseshave gone away to take to the roads in their misery, and seek their bread elsewhere and so are led intoidleness.An Act of 1489 made it an offence to convert open fields in to pasture if it involved the removal ofsmallholdings over 20 acres.Great inconveniences daily do increase by desolation and pulling down and wilful waste of houses andtowns within the King’s laying to pasture lands which have been customarily used in tillage. Idleness, thecause and beginning of all mischiefs, daily increases where in some towns 200 persons were occupiedand lived by their lawful labours, now they are occupied by 2 or 3 herdsmen.From Sir Thomas More’s book ‘Utopia’ written in 1516There are noblemen, gentlemen, and even some abbots, though otherwise holy men, who are notsatisfied with the annual revenues and profits that their predecessors used to derive from their estates.They are not content to do no good to their country; they must do it positive harm. They leave no groundto be tilled; they enclose every bit of land for pasture; they pull down houses and destroy towns, leavingonly a church to pen the sheep in. And, as if enough English land were not wasted on ranges andpreserves of game, those good fellows turn all human habitations and all cultivated land into awilderness… A single shepherd or herdsman is sufficient for grazing livestock on that land for whosecultivation many hands once required to make it raise crops.19© eRiding 2004
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GCSE Coursework: History Around Us - eRiding

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