Winter of Discontent

cottage from the laenholder or bokholder, in return for 1–2 days a week of labour, and usually worked for pay for the rest of the week). No right of occupation passed on the death of the cottar. Sokemen, held the right to farm collectively-owned village land, and usually also land in his own right, and able to sell or pass this to his family. Cheorls were usually moderately wealthy men with the right to farm a substantial amount of communal land and privately owned land. Owed the lord work-rent or paid cash for the ongoing right to use the privately owned land. Thegn- a man who usually owned his land owed military service for the land he held. Uniquely, a merchant who engaged in foreign trade could be deemed thegn-worthy (ie of equal social status as a thegn). Earl- holder of large parcels of land, usually geographically based, and who administered a geographical area. Equivalent to a French duke.

French Social Classes- The Norman system was based on a hierarchical system with lower members holding (but not owning) land in return for either military or financial obligations to their superiors, as vassals. The lowest level were the villeins, who held no hereditary rights to the land they laboured to farm. A villein was free in that he could abandon his land, but could not sell, gift or will it. Freemen were essentially rent-paying tenant farmer who owed little or no service to the lord, but formed only a small portion of the rural population, usually specialists such as blacksmiths etc. Knight — a man who owed military service for the land he held but usually did not own it. Baron- held land from the king or duke in return for substantial military obligations. Some of his land may be owned by him as a hereditary entitlement, or alod. Townsfolk were generally deemed to be freemen.

CHAPTER ONE

December 1067-January 1068

Sir Alan of Thorrington rode north from Winchester on Thursday the 27th December in the Year of Our Lord 1067, on the Feast of St John the Apostle, having participated in the Christmas Feast overseen by King William of England. With him was a large party; his wife Anne of Wivenhoe and her maid Synne, both riding in a light cart being pulled by a horse; his newly-appointed seneschal Robert de Aumale; Brand, the leader of Alan’s huscarles; Osmund the scribe; Alan’s servant Leof and nine huscarles, the latter professional English warriors. The cart also contained several chests of belongings and the rolled up chain-mail armour of the warriors, wrapped in oiled leather bags.

Alan was a tall and slim but physically powerful young man of just twenty years with red hair and brown eyes, his hair and a small beard now growing long in accordance with the wishes of his wife. He was originally from Gauville in Normandy, had fought at Hastings with his friend Robert- and he had saved Duke William’s life during the battle. The previous year he’d received as a reward from William six manors in the Tendring Hundred in Essex.

Within the last few days he had received a further four manors on the Welsh border as reward for his largely unsuccessful attempt to assist the English against abuses being perpetuated by those royal officers responsible to administer the Heriot land-tax, or Relief tax, imposed against the land of all those in England who had not supported William at Hastings. This attempt by Alan had earned him the enmity of Bishop William of London, Ralph the Staller, who was the earl of East Anglia, and the influential priest Engelric, together with their minion Robert fitzWymarc, the part-Breton sheriff of Essex who had came to England before the Conquest and had received advancement from first King Edward and then King William. Bishop William and Earl Ralph were appointees of Edward the Confessor from before the Norman invasion, the former a Norman and the latter half English.

Alan had married Anne in the summer of that year. Unusually, it was a love match, she being the young and much-abused widow of Aelfric, the former thegn of Wivenhoe who had died at the battle of Stamford Bridge. The daughter of Orvin, a wealthy merchant from Ipswich, she was now eighteen years of age. Short at just over five feet in height, petite, with long auburn hair and large brown eyes, Anne was an extremely intelligent and astute woman who had taken the proceeds obtained from Alan’s victory over of a large Danish raiding force and in a short time transformed it into a small financial empire. This allowed Alan the finance to do as he wished in the areas that interested him. These were raising, equipping and training a significant force of men-at- arms, scholasticism and tinkering in his workshop building engines of war. For a knight Alan was most unusual, being well educated, erudite and cultured with a fine understanding of the arts. This was all a result of a failed attempt to join a Benedictine monastery in his youth.

Usually Anne rode ahorse and traveled well. It was unusual for her to decide to ride in the cart with her maid, but she was feeling ill.

It was raining and cold with a vicious north wind. The men rode soaked and chilled, while the women sat partially sheltered by a large oiled cloth over the cart.

From Winchester to Gloucester is a journey of 85 miles and they took two days, resting overnight at Chiseldon in Wiltshire. Hereford was a further forty miles beyond Gloucester, with their destination of Staunton a further nine miles again beyond that. As Anne was not feeling well, and with no immediate urgency in their travel, Alan had suggested that they break their journey at Gloucester for several days, partly as none of the party had visited that city before.

They entered through the East Gate, where Alan enquired of the guard captain as to whether he could recommend an inn frequented by wealthy merchants. At his suggestion they proceeded up the aptly named Eastgate Street to the ‘Bear and Bull’ Inn.

With the city’s history back to Roman times, the main thoroughfares were paved with stone, although piles of refuse and excrement littered the roadways. The rain had not been heavy enough to wash the rubbish away and it lay wet and slippery, ready to catch the unwary. It was late afternoon, about an hour before Vespers, and the dull sky presaged an even earlier than usual fall of darkness this wintery day. Most of the hawkers and street vendors had departed to their homes, the shop-keepers were closing their premises, moving display goods inside and closing the wooden shutters of the poky little shops.

A number of houses in the south-west corner of the town had been demolished and the motte of a new castle was being built, with piles of earth, stone and rubble standing in what would become the bailey. The building site was currently deserted due to the poor weather and late hour. Within the confines of the town walls houses, halls, shops, inns, taverns, churches, workshops and factories were crammed together. The large mass of St Peter’s Abbey dominated the northern part of the town, towering over the one and two storey buildings that made up the majority of the buildings in the town.

The air was foul with the stench of excrement, rotting waste, the contents of the vats which the tanners and dyers had emptied onto the street at the end of their working day, the smoke of hundreds of chimneys and the fumes from the iron foundries that were the main industry of the town. On the other side of the town, beyond West Gate, lay the docks and the River Severn, with the wooden bridge over the river barely visible in the failing light and the light drizzle that was falling.

“What is it about towns that makes everybody use the streets as a midden?” asked Osmund rhetorically.

“It’s because nobody’s in charge,” replied Brand. “In a village if you don’t use the common midden and just dump your rubbish anywhere, your neighbours soon let you know they’re unhappy- and the muck makes good fertiliser in the fields! Here nobody cares. Ah! Judging by that hanging sign it looks as if we’ve found our lodging place.”

Once inside the inn Anne checked the quality of the rooms while Alan enquired as to the board of fare that evening. Both were satisfied, and three rooms were taken at two pence a person a night, including food. The huscarles would sleep in the Commons near the fire, at a penny each. As darkness fell the men drank mulled ale in the common room by the light of smoking rush torches and the blazing fire. Alan, Anne, Robert and Osmund sat at a table near the fire sipping warmed wine. Being Saturday there was no restriction on the provender available and after the usual vegetable pottage they ate rabbit and veal stew, pork pies and spiced roast lamb. Alan, something of an aficionado of fine cheese, declined to partake of the lack-luster cheese-board offered, instructing the taverner that he should obtain a more suitable offering for the following night.

The next day was Sunday. Sunrise wasn’t until shortly before half past eight and the weary travelers slept