drained from one pan to the next to facilitate harvesting at the end of summer, when most of the salt would then be in the final one or two pans. With these modifications the pans were soon completed and Alan arranged for the loan of the levelling board- and for Toland to visit in turn Great Oakley, Beaumont, Bradfield and Great Bentley to advise their head-cheorls on the new construction method they had devised.
Alan also gave Kendrick and Toland the bad news that after completion and filling of the saltpans that he wanted the construction of a barracks for sixty men and a stable for thirty horses, together with a barn and armoury. These were to be built on the north side of the village close to Alresford Creek, and within the grounds of the fortification that he intended to build.
After marking out the land Alan specified that the cottars would work their two days a week, the cheorls and sokeman their three days a week and his six slaves full time on digging a ditch, rampart and palisade after the barracks and stables had been completed. He also specified that the barracks was to be of two storeys and that all the buildings within the bailey were to be roofed with wooden shingles, not thatch, to reduce the risk of fire.
Work would proceed as and when labour was available, with agricultural duties taking precedence- but each peasant and slave was expected to work their full labour allocations each week- and to work hard and for the full day. The intervention of bad weather was to be deducted from their own time, not his.
This wasn’t as drastic a demand as it may appear, as a sokeman or cheorl usually had several adult members of the family available to provide labour. A cottar, who owed a corvee of two days a week labour for rent of his house and a small parcel of land, usually worked the remaining four days a week for pay. These were usually ‘in kind’ or the provision of food or the waiving of the banality fee charged by the lord for use of facilities such as a mill, the estover right to gather wood or the pannage right to have pigs eat acorns in the lord’s forest.
All the gebur freemen had an ancient obligation under Anglo-Saxon law to undertake to create, improve or maintain local fortifications, called the burgh-bot. While they were not happy at the work that would be required, they acknowledged Alan’s right as lord to demand it.
Alan also went to visit the miller Acwel to discuss whether he would be able to handle the additional tonnage of grain if Alan’s plans for the three-field system worked as he hoped. The mill was owned by Alan, who took ten percent of the flour milled as the fee for the service provided. This was a traditional landowner’s fee common to both Anglo-Saxons and Normans, which was charged to the villagers- much objected to by the villagers as they could grind their grain by hand, but were traditionally required to use the mill. It was simply yet another form of taxation. The miller received three tenths of the flour from Alan’s share as his income for operation of the mill.
When at the mill Alan noticed a particularly attractive young woman of about sixteen years working at handing the sacks down to the worker below the millstones. She was using a pulley system to pull up the full flour bags and tip them over for a large and heavily-built teenager to move over onto a pile of sacks by the open side- door of the mill, ready to be collected by cart.
The lass gave him a bold look in return to his own scrutiny of her. The grain currently being ground was of course from the previous summer. Alan mentioned that he had some wheat still needing milling and perhaps the young woman, who Acwel mentioned was his daughter Edyth, could resolve delivery arrangements. Acwel gave Alan a calculating look and agreed.
Edyth attended the next morning at the Manor Hall, with ten bags of wheat flour, clean and dressed in her best clothes. Alan chatted with her and found her to be a typical country girl, uneducated, illiterate and with a knowledge only of her local area- but also typically open, honest and sincere. She was not without experience and Alan found her a willing and enthusiastic partner in bed that night. She joined his household in an undefined capacity the next day. Acwel was happy to have his percentage from the mill increased from three to five parts, to allow for the loss of her labour. Edyth was happy to be freed from the need to work ten-hour days, the improved food and accommodation in the Manor Hall and the somewhat qualified respect she was given within the Hall as the lord’s bed mate.
Edyth quickly proved a suitable choice. While her conversation was vapid and concerned local gossip, lacking the intellectual ‘cut and thrust’ that Alan would have preferred, she had a placid temperament and fitted in well with the staff at Thorrington, causing no problems. She was confused, rather than conceited, in her interaction with the staff, not knowing quite what to ask her maid to do as she was used to doing everything herself, both for herself and her family. She made no demands- and obviously as a miller’s daughter would not be offered marriage by Alan. And she was an absolute tigress in bed.
Alan had chosen to make Thorrington his home, hence the directions for building the fortification. Whilst it was the southernmost of his manors and some miles away from the bulk of his estates in the north-east of the Hundred, he had a liking for the pretty village and its people. In return the villagers seemed to have a genuine affection for him, unlike the villagers and servants at Ramsey and Bradfield who could barely conceal their antipathy. Ramsey may have been a more logical choice but Alan wanted to live where he was comfortable. Anyway, the northern villages were only an hour or so away by horse, and Thorrington was closer to the pleasures of the town of Colchester.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THORRINGTON FEBRUARY 1067
It was midday on a clear crisp winter day in late February when Alan was out with four local thegns, Edward, Alric, Edwold and Ketel who he had invited hawking for a ‘get to know you day’. Together with half a dozen servants they were in a forest near Alresford in the north of Alan’s demesne. All of his companions were Saxons and like them he wore a padded jerkin and thick breeches against the cold, leather gloves on his hands and a close fitting knitted cap on his head. As usual he was dressed in black and dark brown and wore no armour- having decided on his first day in the manor that if he had to wear armour to protect him from his own people he might as well give up and go home. Respect, not fear, was what he strove for in both man and beast.
Alan enjoyed falconry. This was a quiet morning’s ride with a small group of friends seeking their quarry in the forest clearings and open spaces where the birds which falcons and hawks usually sought as prey could be found and the occasional hare could be started, although most falcons and hawks would rarely chase ground-based prey.
Alan disliked the larger and more formal hunts for boar and deer, as he enjoyed pitting his wits against his foe. A well-shot arrow in a stalk through the forest was worth a dozen deer driven to the bowmen by beaters, and Alan had to admit he was at best an indifferent hand with the bow. Boar-hunting was more… exciting, with an angry 200 pound beast with sharp tusks charging at short-range in the semi-darkness of deep forest. Alan had in the past used stout boar-spears to kill what he felt was his fair share of boar in hunts arranged by his father in the woodlands near his ancestral home and felt no need to test his courage and fortitude on a regular basis. He adamantly refused to hunt animals that couldn’t be eaten, such as bear and wolves, unless they were causing undue depredation amongst the local livestock.
Benoic, Alan’s Falconer, rode behind him and carried the long-wing female peregrine falcon that was the excuse for today’s outing. She was a beautifully marked bird of white with brown speckles and dark-brown head currently covered by a soft leather hood. Alan been content to watch those two of his companions with hawks flying them against quarry, as they were riding through a stand of dense forest and the long-winged birds wouldn’t be able to be flown until they came to a large open area.
In reality, after a week of bad weather and judicial duties keeping him indoors, Alan was simply out for some exercise and fresh air. He was riding Odin, to also give him some exercise, although the large and bad-tempered destrier was hardly the most suitable horse for a hunting expedition. In stables or gentle riding the horse was difficult. He bit and kicked in the stables, and fidgeted and pranced in riding. Alan was prepared to put up with that behaviour as the French-trained war-horse responded to him in battle or practice as if they shared a single mind.
The path through the forest was a narrow and winding dirt track, the canopy of leafless oak and elm overhead letting light into the under-storey of bushes and shrubs that crowded the sides of the pathway. There had been no snow for over a week but the dirt path remained frozen solid.
Hearing a faint cry up ahead Alan cocked his head and used a gloved hand to move the knitted wool cap and
