West Midlands Regional Research Framework for Archaeology, Seminar 5: Bryant1

Medieval Worcestershire : priorities and potential
Victoria Bryant
Worcestershire Archaeological Service

This document covers the main points of the paper given at the West Midlands Research Frameworks Seminar on the 24th February 2003. A more detailed paper will be produced in due course. The ideas in this overview have benefited greatly from discussions with my colleagues Darren Millar, Hal Dalwood and Neil Lockett.

  1. Medieval Worcestershire - the nature of the evidence

A general search of recorded sites of medieval date on the Sites and Monuments Record indicates a fairly even coverage across the county but this is deceptive. Such sites include earthworks, excavations and programmes of fieldwalking but also poorly located finds and place-name evidence. The quality of the data is patchy and its distribution is skewed by factors such as the presence of an active local historical society or differing farming regimes. Modern professional data collection is equally patchy, being concentrated in the areas most threatened by development. Whilst small scale PPG 16 driven fieldwork is not the best way to collect evidence of the medieval or any other period it has provided a body of additional data which could be used to start addressing some basic research questions and inform debate. Unfortunately most of it has not.

Important fieldwork and analysis has been undertaken on specific sites such as Bordesley Abbey (Astill 1993; Hirst et al 1983) and on aspects of the landscape (Dyer 1991), but for most of the county the available data is largely unassimilated.

Urban areas have fared rather better. The City of Worcester is at present compiling an urban archaeological database. The 11 small medieval towns of the county were assessed as part of the extensive urban survey of the small towns of Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire in the early 1990s (Dalwood and Buteux 1995). This latter project has had a marked effect on our ability to justify fieldwork in small towns in Worcestershire and to place the findings in an academic context. It only serves to emphasize the need for such synthesis over a much larger area.

  1. TheLandscape: continuation and change

Worcestershire includes champion land with nucleated villages and open arable fields in the centre and south-east of the county and, to the west and north, woodland/wood- pasture with piece-meal enclosure and a more mixed economy including small scale industry.

Roberts and Wrathmell (2000) in their study of rural settlement in England, based largely on 19th century map evidence, divide Worcestershire into three zones. The boundaries of these are debated by many scholars but they provide a useful starting point for discussion.

The Wye –Teme area to the west. This area is one of predominantly dispersed settlement. Nucleated settlements are mainly market towns or small hamlets. The area was densely settled by 1086 but with much woodland still present. Roberts and Wrathmell note that this area is very important and may be the “least damaged set of old landscapes in the country ” (Roberts and Wrathmell 2000, 56)

The West Midlands area to the northeast This area is made up of low plateau and low escarpments. It was still well wooded in 1086. This area has some nucleated settlements but has more dispersed settlement than Warwickshire in the east. The nucleated settlements tend to be small. This area still contains surviving “classic” medieval woodland. The parishes of Pendock and Hanbury have been studied by Chris Dyer (Dyer 1991, Dyer 1994).

The Cotswold scarp and vale area to the south east This is the area of nucleated villages with open fields, although some dispersed settlement does exist.

2.2 Research questions

  • How did this pattern emerge?
  • How much did the earlier Roman and post-Roman settlement patterns affect the development of the medieval landscape?
  • What other factors led to the patterns observed in this area?

These topics are much debated both nationally and regionally. Farming methods must to some extent be determined by topography and soils but it is clear that many other factors are at work. Dyer notes that the woodland areas such as Feckenham Forest did not necessarily have poorer soils than the fields of the nucleated villages in the south-east (Dyer 1994).

The social and economic divisions before the Middle Ages must also have played some part – but how much? There is a suggestion that Roman estate boundaries survive into the Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods in a number of places in the county but does this indicate a continuity of farming regime? Clearly some woodland regeneration did occur, however, and in the north of the county there are examples of lands assarted from wood pasture in the 13th century which were once Roman cornfields (Dyer 1994, 17).

Distinctive nucleated settlement originated in association with the growth of regular field systems but who drove this process? Some scholars suggest that nucleation was driven by lords or by peasants or was a by-product of the pressures on land of a growing population. Evidence for and against these ideas can be found locally and nationally.

2.2 How do we move forward?

One thing is clear – the situation is complex and cannot be understood by using individual sources of evidence. The study of landscape as Dyer and others have shown is best pursued by employing the disciplines of archaeology, history and historical geography. Truly interdisciplinary projects are the best way forward. They need to be undertaken at first with a rather broad brush to provide a framework into which small scale projects such as field-walking, survey, air photographic survey and excavation can be slotted. Particular attention needs to be paid to

  • Settlements in woodland areas
  • Dispersed settlement generally (the work of Chris Dyer has shown the value of such studies).
  • The landscape as one unit (including towns)
  • Environmental work to determine where regeneration of woodland or expansion or arable cultivation has occurred. Unfortunately ideal sites are still not always routinely sampled in PPG16 led work.

3. Settlement: growth and decay

Whilst dispersed settlement seems to have been the norm in the prehistoric and Roman periods in Worcestershire the village as a distinctive nucleated settlement originated in an evolutionary process, probably in the 7th to 11th centuries in association with the growth of regular field systems (Dyer 1994, 11). The bulk of planned villages in Worcestershire probably date to the 11th or 12th centuries. New dispersed settlements including moats were also created in this period.

The majority of the medieval towns of Worcestershire (Worcester, Pershore, Evesham, Droitwich, Kidderminster, Bromsgrove, Clifton and possibly Tenbury) had their origins in settlements next to Late Saxon ecclesiastical centres although only Worcester, Droitwich, Pershore and possibly Evesham were urban prior to the Conquest. Upton, Redditch, Alvechurch and Bewdley were medieval foundations.

Both rural and urban settlements flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. Dyer has suggested that the town dwelling population was possibly about 10% in 11th century and grew to c 20% by 1300 and remained at this level throughout the medieval period (Dyer 1994, xv). The archaeological evidence for expansion comes, however, largely from urban areas and reflects both previous research agendas and the distribution of PPG 16 led archaeological fieldwork. Very little archaeological work has been undertaken on rural settlement in Worcestershire.

One research topic which has provoked heated debate and which I believe archaeology can provide a significant contribution to is the effects of the famines and plagues of the 14th century on the rural and urban landscapes of Worcestershire.

Desertion is not a late medieval phenomenon. It is clear, however, that from the 14th and 15th centuries there was a shrinking of settlement both in the countryside and towns and in some cases complete desertion. Dyer has made a convincing argument that in Worcestershire this was not a retreat from marginal land (Dyer 1994, 14-16) but he suggests that the bulk of desertion occurred in the champion landscapes in SE (Dyer 1994, 19-22).

In fact what evidence we have suggests that deserted settlements occur over the whole county. The loss of hamlets in the north is not so well documented as the desertion of villages and the lower numbers in that area may be more a reflection of lack of fieldwork rather than reality

Desertion of towns started in the early 14th century and continued into the 15th century. The towns of Redditch and Clifton upon Teme were no longer urban by the post-medieval period but the chronology of their decline is not clear. The rest of Worcestershire’s towns continued to have urban functions but what evidence there is indicates a reduction in size.

For example, in both Pershore and Evesham we have evidence of tenement plots becoming gardens in the late 14th century. In Pershore the excavated area does not go back to domestic/commercial usage until the 19th century. In Worcester, excavations close to the city centre at Deansway reveal areas which have intensive occupation before the later 14th century but which become gardens and industrial areas at that period. These areas revert to domestic/commercial buildings in one area by the late 15th century and in the other by the later 16th century (Dalwood and Edwards forthcoming).

The apparent difference in recovery rates between the small towns and the county town possibly reflects the broader commercial basis of Worcester. This may have been exacerbated by migration to Worcester from the country side or from the smaller towns themselves. If this is the case it would explain why Worcester appears to recover faster than Pershore from the disasters of the 14th century.

3.1 Research questions?

  • What was the effect of the events of the 14th century on urban and rural settlements in Worcestershire?
  • How does this compare with other areas in the region or nationally?
  • Which types of settlements were most affected?
  • How long did the process of abandonment take?
  • How long did the period of recovery take?

3.2 How do we move forward?

To answer questions such as these location and chronology become very important.

Location In towns we need to pay particular attention to excavations/evaluations in the suburbs where we know that fluctuations in population are more noticeable. In the countryside we need to start by acquiring some data. In Worcestershire we have very little excavated evidence from rural settlement and almost none from the “successful” medieval villages. What very little we have from surviving villages such as Sedgberrow suggests a shrinkage during or after the medieval period with expansion not occurring again until the 18th or 19th centuries - but this really is very tentative.

Chronology Absolute dates are important, of course, but in most cases the dating of pottery fabrics and forms is advanced enough to provide the information needed . Unfortunately small finds assemblages are often not considered important enough to be assessed by a specialist and vital dating and other evidence is overlooked. Both the curator and the contractor need to be aware of the necessity for as much accuracy as possible in dating the sequences of even the smallest evaluation trenches.

4. Industry, marketing and trade

Worcestershire’s main industry was agriculture or manufacture linked to agricultural products. With the exception of industries such as salt making at Droitwich most industrial production during this period occurred in a small scale domestic context and there is little evidence of zoning of industrial production in the towns in Worcestershire until the post-medieval period.

Many industries which are known, from historical sources, to have been very important in Worcestershire, such as cloth manufacture, are hard to define through excavation and we have little information from small towns generally. In other cases archaeological evidence has provided a vital insight into the workings of an industry. For example salt production at Droitwich was an industry of national importance in the medieval period and very well documented. Excavations at the brine well, however, have recovered well preserved remains of the machinery and processes themselves (Hurst 1997)

The importance of towns such as Bewdley and Worcester in marketing and trade is well known but little archaeological attention has been paid to the importance of market villages and fairs in the distribution of goods. Sites of fairs have been identified by metal detector finds of coins in fields adjacent to a number of villages but more work on identifying these sites needs to be done.

Much of the work on medieval industry, marketing and trade has been undertaken by historians. Archaeology does contribute, of course, but is particularly useful in illuminating industries so humble that that there is little documentation – for example the production of pottery. Large pottery assemblages from consumer sites such as Worcester provide direct information on the rise and fall of the domestic-scale pottery producers around the city and their response to market pressures. These can provide very local examples of wider regional and national economic trends (Bryant forthcoming).

3.1 What are the research questions?

Where were the rural markets?

  • How did production and marketing work on a local level?

3.2 How do we move forward?

It is clear that such a topic cannot be understood by using individual sources of evidence. It is necessary for archaeologists to address the large corpus of historical work on the subject in tandem with the archaeological evidence to enable us to define the most achievable and productive goals for future research. Whilst this has not yet been done for Worcestershire it is clear that the potential of environmental archaeology has not been realised. It is not acceptable to overlook the traces of industries which leave little structural or artefactual evidence when they may be identified by other means.

4. Monasticism and the church

In this section I do not want to discuss how Worcestershire might contribute to an understanding of the spread of religious orders or details of architecture although these are of course important topics.

I intend only to focus briefly on the effect of the church and its institutions on the landscape.

A very large percentage of Worcestershire was owned by the church and about half the medieval towns were religious foundations. In other counties the towns founded by bishops seem to have been more resilient to the social and economic disasters of the 14th century than those founded by secular lords - perhaps due to the greater financial reserves of the church. This does not seem to be the case in Worcestershire.

In the countryside the growth of church building, often pushed by secular lords, and the development of the parish system was occurring from the 10th into the 12th century. The urban and rural landscape was also changing at this time and the two cannot be seen separately. The church had a profound effect on the landscape of Worcestershire and the lives of the medieval inhabitants of the county.

4.1 Research questions?

  • What was the chronology of urban and rural church foundation in Worcestershire?
  • What was the effect of monasteries on the towns and countryside around them and vice versa?
  • What was the difference between ecclesiastical and secular landlords?

4.2 How do we move forward?

In Worcestershire we have a good record of the location of parish churches and surviving architectural detail. We do not, however, have a dynamic model which encompasses when and by whom the church was founded or what changes have occurred to the status of the church or the shape of the graveyard/precinct. The answers to such questions can have a profound effect on our understanding of the place of the church within the community and could be investigated using a combination of fieldwork and historical research.

With the exception of the work at Bordesley Abbey (Astill 1993) most of the work on monastic sites within the county has been focused on the religious buildings. Much more archaeological work needs to be undertaken on how both monastic and secular sites operated within local market economies.

5. Castles

Worcestershire does not have large numbers of castles, in part because so much of the land was owned by the church. Most of the castles in the county were short lived, probably timber structures of which we know almost nothing. The only modern excavations to have taken place at castle sites were small scale evaluations on the totally demolished sites of Evesham and Worcester castles.

5.1 Research questions?

For Worcestershire the research questions are very basic. We need to know a great deal more about all aspects of the castles in the county.

5.2 How do we move forward?

Such sites are not generally threatened by development and so to advance understanding research excavations are needed.

6.The implications of pursuing these priorities and wider research agendas in a developer related context.

I have approached this topic with a particular agenda and that is the need to define landscape-based research questions. There are, of course, many other, equally valid, ways of addressing the priorities and potential of this period but I see this as a way in which we can effectively use the data we have to move forward. The implications of a landscape based approach are