A good alternative title for this weeks episode in the story of the Bracewells would be ‘The Curious Consequences of the Black Death’. Anyone caught up in that terrible epidemic would have been hard put to to see anything good about it at all. But good there was and this week we’ll look at what happened and how it affected the people living in the area.
Notice that I haven’t said ‘living in Barnoldswick’. The centre of power in the triangle bounded by Broughton, Colne and Gisburn, what I suppose we now know as West Craven, was Bracewell. This was the seat of the Tempest family and the population of the whole area was well under 500 people. Modern Bracewell is a very good example of what a village looked like in the late Middle Ages, There was a church, a hall for the Lord and a loose collection of farmsteads each with a cottage or two for labourers. There were no shops pubs or services, everyone was self sufficient in everything. It was only as prosperity increased that service trades like shoemakers and retailers started to appear. Apart from the lord, the most important people were the yeoman farmers who rented land and the miller down behind Yarlside Farm.
Some means of differentiating people was needed and the most important members of the community would take patronyms, they were called ‘son of’. The labourers would almost certainly become ‘of Bracewell’. There weren’t many of them so this was quite sufficient. As time went on this was shortened to o’ Bracewell and then simply Bracewell. This is the origin of the name of the Bracewell family.
Another major difference in 1400 was trade and how it flowed. Two things governed this, ease of carriage and what goods you had in surplus that were available for trade. The limit for anything weighty was about 15 miles, the distance a pack horse could travel in a day. The only heavy thing that travelled further was anything that could move under its own steam, people and animals.
A thousand years before the Romans had done a good job. There was a solid road bed running through the area, what we now know as Brogden and Greenberfield Lane between Ilkley to the east and Ribchester in the west. This was Barlick’s outlet to the Ribble Valley and Preston in the west and the east coast with its sea ports in the east. These were the main routes and because West Craven was always good stock rearing country there was a trade in store cattle.
There was another trade that generated transport. Salt was essential to the economy because it was the only way meat and vegetables could be preserved for the winter months. The Salters tended to make their own network of subsidiary routes because they were selling in small quantities to isolated hamlets. This is how Salter’s Ford got its name, now Salterforth.
As we noted earlier, the Black Death shook society to its foundations. In a feudal system the peasants rely totally on the lord for sustenance and he controls how much they get. The trick was to allow your serfs just sufficient to keep them healthy enough to work and breed but not so much as to encourage independence. All this changed as the workers died off and labour itself became a commodity. Women became far more independent because they too were capable of labour. Many historians now recognise that the period from the Black Death to the mid-eighteenth century saw women starting to assert themselves in society. Have you ever wondered how Joan of Arc could be accepted as the titular leader of an army in 1428? The key factor we have to understand about the medieval mind set is that the Chain of Being ruled society. God was at the top followed by the king and his nobles, everything had its place in the hierarchy and animals and stones were at the bottom.
Nobody questioned this until the peasants at the bottom of the heap saw their priests and lords helpless and dying in the face of the pestilence. How could this be? Why couldn’t their power and position protect them? There could only be one explanation, at some levels, all men were equal. This heretical idea took root in society and independent thought spawned Dissent in religion, revolt against authority and most important of all, the belief that humans could improve their position by their own efforts. From this point forwards, the yeoman farmers never looked back.
There is one more crucial fact we have to take note of. If you can rear stock you can keep sheep and the most important thing about sheep is that you don’t have to kill them every winter. They grow their own overcoats so they can survive in the open and in spring you can harvest it. Wool is the key to the next leap forward.
Another advantage of wool is that you can either simply sell the fleece or you can spin and weave it at home with family labour and, as a modern economist would say, add value. Using simple equipment you could convert the family’s work into hard cash. Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth century wool and cloth were the most important products of England and its biggest export. To this day, the Lord Chancellor sits on a Woolsack to remind him of this fact.
Starting in the fifteenth century, the yeoman farmer’s quest for independence led them into looking for ways to make money by trade. The domestic textile industry based on wool gave them the opportunity and they grabbed it with both hands. There was an unexpected consequence from this, (there usually is isn’t there!) Up to this point the age of marriage had been governed by how soon you could take over the family holding. As a general rule, people married late and the birth rate was low. With the rise of the wool textile trade it became possible to gain your independence earlier because you didn’t need land. People married younger, were more fertile and had more children. The population started to rise in the area. With the increase in population came a demand for land and we see the first enclosures of the waste, the common lands, in Barnoldswick in the early sixteenth century.
You’ve been patient but the scene is set, all it needed was just one more trigger…..
The original bridge at Salter’s Ford.
SCG/24 February 2004
1,077 words.