Winchcombe Abbey and 2,000 Peasants: Documenting a Crisis, 1340-1381.
Wednesday 30th, April 2025.
5:00pm – 6:00pm.
Rewley House,1 Wellington Square,Oxford,OX1 2JA.
FREE.
Join Professor Chris Dyer for the first talk in the new seminar series on ‘Medival Society and Landscape’, convened by Professor Elizabeth Gemmill and Dr Stephen Mileson.
The monks of Winchcombe held an estate of 17 manors, mainly in north Gloucestershire but also at Enstone in Oxfordshire. Their management involved listing hundreds of tenants in a rental, and recording the business of their manor courts. The documents survive patchily, between 1340 and 1362, but they are consistently rich in detailing the lives of the peasant tenants. We have to be cautious in welcoming the mass of information in the records, because there are serious omissions. Nonetheless, these sources can be used to throw light on the crisis of the fourteenth century, or rather on the closely connected and overlapping crises. The kingdom was engaged in unaffordable wars. The monastery faced problems of internal discipline and in matching income to expenditure. And the 2,000 peasants on the estate were challenged by agrarian problems, catastrophic disease, threats to family cohesion, disruption of village communities and frictions with their lord. Their experiences should be understood in their landscape and regional setting. Historians need all of their wits to interpret these troubled times.
This series will be a showcase for the intellectual excitement of the history and archaeology of the medieval period, with a focus on societies, economies and landscapes. It is intended as a venue for friendly and collaborative discussion of research in progress, of sources and methodologies, and of the interface between academic research and local and community history and archaeology. The Middle Ages has sometimes been unfairly dismissed as arcane and unapproachable, yet its sources speak to scholars across academic disciplines who are interested in our rich heritage of documents, material culture, and the landscape. The seminar is aimed at staff and students across the university and interested individuals in the wider community in Oxford, the UK and worldwide.
These talks are open to staff, students, and anyone interested in medieval history and archaeology — locally and globally. Sessions will include a mix of papers by established scholars and practitioners, and shorter presentations and discussions by undergraduate and postgraduate students.
These talks are FREE and accessible either in person at Rewley House or on-line. Please book in advance via Eventbrite.
