Late-Medieval Weather in Sussex and Its Agricultural Significance

The references to weather afforded by the compotus rolls of the manors of the Abbey of Battle and other ecclesiastical and lay manors in coastal Sussex between 1340 and 1444 are summarized and the evidence of floods during the same period is considered. The departures of the weather regime from that experienced during this century appear to be small, but significant climatic fluctuations are identifiable. Particularly favourable and adverse seasons and runs of these are enumerated; their agricultural effects are examined in the light of the yield ratios of the principal cereals. The implications of the fluctuations in regions closer to the climatic margins for cereals, particularly in the case of the adverse periods in the early fifteenth century, are noted. J. E. THOROLD ROGERS, in the course of his pioneer studies into the history of English agriculture and prices, drew attention as long ago as i866 to the utility of the medieval accounts, rendered annually for audit by officials of the larger manors, in reconstructing past climatic fluctuations. With remarkable prescience Rogers also perceived at this early date the prognostic value of detailed studies of the history of weather changes, a concept which, after a period of neglect, is again attracting more general interest.1 Although economic historians have made intensive studies of manorial accounts since A. E. Levett stressed their unique objectivity in the examination of the dynamic aspects of agrarian questions,2 the information on weather recorded in these documents has attracted little attention. The only exhaustive work in this field is J. Z. Titow's thorough study of the evidence to be derived from the compotus rolls of the Bishops of Winchester between I209 and I350.3 The weather information in this great collection of medieval data remains unextracted beyond the mid-fourteenth century4 and the many smaller but still voluminous series of accounts, in which England is singularly rich, still await detailed study in this connection. Since these documents also supply data enabling the yield ratios (that is, the ratio between the amount of seed sown and the quantity harvested) to be calculated, it is possible to establish certain correlations between weather and the quality of the harvest. This in turn permits some tentative conclusions to be drawn as to the relative importance of weather as an economic and social factor. The records of the single manor examined in isolation, however comprehensive, are obviously of limited value, and can positively mislead enquirers into general trends. A more satisfactory basis for regional weather studies exists for certain parts of the country where the large manor was a leading element in the agrarian organization and functioned as a 'federated grain-factory' within an honour or lordship of associated manors, the accounts of each being normally preserved at some central archive. The documents from this source provide 'weather stations' yielding data which throw valuable light on climatic fluctuations during the late middle ages, a period for which This content downloaded from 157.55.39.235 on Fri, 07 Oct 2016 06:20:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms meteorological information is very deficient,5 and allow us to amplify and to check the authenticity of the sporadic information supplied by the medieval chroniclers. The present paper considers the evidence afforded by the compotus rolls of estates owned by the Abbey of Battle, a wealthy Benedictine foundation which acquired a wide scatter of estates in southern and eastern England, of which four properties in coastal Sussex (Alciston, the principal food-farm, Apuldram, Barnhorne, and Lullington) were directly farmed on a decreasing but still substantial scale, long after a rentier economy became normal.6 The extant records of the Abbey estates are much less voluminous than those for Winchester and few accounts earlier than I340 have survived, but the unusually copious and consecutive records for the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries render them a major source of weather and yield data for the late middle ages and place them among the most comprehensive half-dozen collections of English monastic material.7 These Battle Abbey documents are supplemented with evidence from lay sources. The runs of documents from lay sources are briefer and do not extend far beyond the opening years of the fifteenth century. In all, some 500 account rolls, mostly forming long and almost complete sequences, have been utilized.8 An important secondary source proved to be extents attached to Inquisitions post mortem which provide, in particular, evidence of sea and river floods and allow this theme to be examined more comprehensively than would otherwise have been possible. The data relate to a tract of coastal Sussex some I30 km in extent. THE LIMITATIONS OF THE SOURCE MATERIAL The weather information provided by the compotus rolls is most ample and complete between 1340 and I4449 during which period the reporting is similar, in both fullness and style, to that adopted in the compoti of the Bishops of Winchester for the first half of the fourteenth century.10 As examples of the information to be derived from these sources the weather references relating to certain years are given in Table I. After I444 the practice of invoking the weather becomes spasmodic and finally ceases but for reports of exceptional adversity. This study of medieval weather is thus confined to the period 1340-I444. Since Titow has already discussed the limitations of compoti in the study of climatic fluctuations1 it is only necessary to summarize his findings here. Briefly, their testimony can be regarded as trustworthy when entries for several manors are in agreement, but weather information is invariably given only in connection with the farming operations most critically dependent on weather, such as the autumn and lenten sowings, mowing and the harvest; the weather experienced during periods of lesser activity, notably winter, generally passes unmentioned. Since references normally explain extra expenditure or reduced income the omission of such explanations may be taken as a sign of equable weather. It follows from the nature of the data available that the precipitation regime of the growing season is, on the whole, more easily reconstructed than that of temperature. The accounts do not, unfortunately, provide information on the dates of sowings and harvests. A SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER EXPERIENCED, I340-1444 In order to convey an adequate impression of weather experienced in coastal Sussex a summary of the weather fluctuations from year to year is desirable, in so far as this is possible in the light of the deficiencies mentioned in the data at our disposal.12 The year 2 P. F. BRANDON This content downloaded from 157.55.39.235 on Fri, 07 Oct 2016 06:20:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Late-medieval weather in Sussex 3