19th century shepheards and cowheards

[Rosie Knees]

I have read the fascinating book by Ralph Whitlock called A Victorian Village. In it he mentions that all the sheep and all the cows would be watched over during the day by the village shepheard or cowheard.

I did make me wonder how did people identify their own animals before the days of multi-coloured dyes:conf:

not sure if this is actually research. Feel free to move to general if more appropriate.

[Janet in Yorkshire]

In the village where I live, apportioned "common" grazing rights were sectioned off into 97 gaits. On each gait, you could pasture 1 horse, OR 1 cow OR 8 sheep. (The number of gaits allocated to an individual varied from one to twenty.)

Jay

[Mary from Italy]

Wouldn't sheep have been branded in those days?

[keldon]

Page 225 and 226
The book of the farm - Google Books

[Olde Crone Holden]

I am struggling through a worthy tome about early medieval architecture and the social conditions which led to various types of building etc.

There's a bit in there about pre-Norman (Anglo Saxon in other words!) grazing rights and common pasture. Someone from the village would be appointed to look after the sheep and cattle while they were grazing.

Once a year the sheep would be gathered up and the shepherd would be responsible for any losses in the flock, in as much as he then lost his share, or part of his share, of the kill.

Any lambs born were shared out on a strict basis - each person in the village had carefully worked out shares in the common flock. The Lord of the Manor got the lion's share, naturally, but the rest was shared out fairly.

The Author makes the point that this system, rough and ready though it was, took account of ALL members of the community, and the system worked well for nearly 1500 years!

OC

[Rosie Knees]

The Author makes the point that this system, rough and ready though it was, took account of ALL members of the community, and the system worked well for nearly 1500 years!

OC

Absolutely! Whitlock makes a similar remark that before Enclosures each family was, in the most part, self sufficient.

I would recommend the book to anyone. It is a fascinating insight into the kind of ancestors most of us had. I had thought it might be a bit 'deep' and thought it might send me to sleep, it being my bedtime read, but it is very amusing in places and I had to make myself put the book down most nights.

The Lord of the Manor allowed the pigheard to put the village pigs to forraging in his woods. In return he took a certain proportion of the pigs after slaughter depending on how thick the fat was. It was his acorns they had eaten after all lol.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Ooooh, yes, I read about the thickness of the fat bit! There were all sorts of jealously guarded "pig privileges" lol - the village midwife got the caul fat, some other person got the liver and so on.

Yes, the families - or perhaps the community - were self sufficient and the Manor Lords, far from being the grasping uncaring gentry, clearly recognised the value of a co-operative effort, and knew they were just as dependent on the peasants as the peasants were dependent on their Lord.

I was also intrigued to read that sheep were not sheared in this country until after the advent of the Normans. Before that, you chased your sheep round the field and combed it every time you wanted to knit a pair of socks.

OC

[Little Nell]

We have an open space in the centre of Hitchin called Butts Close, which still offers grazing to the local people. Last animal seen grazing was a goat, brought down every day in the summer by a local Italian man, about 6 years ago.

Aren't sheep marked with dye? Or their ears nicked in a particular way? I'm sure the locals would know whose was which.

[kiki1982]

I think they were branded, yes. Or otherwise marked with cutting a piece out of the ear or so. Not with dye, I don't think. Dyes were not that permanent in those days and they would have washed off.

Also, according to Hardy (Far from the Madding Crowd) every 23 minutes a sheep shorn was a record. In fact less than half an hour was amazing.

Makes you think about those scenss in The Thornbirds where they do one sheep every 1 minute and a half...

What a progress!

[Olde Crone Holden]

kiki

Yes, I was very taken with the idea of the faces of the peasants when they were introduced to sheep shearing by the Normans.

How annoyed they must have been to think about the centuries they had all spent combing sheep when they could have had the whole lot off in half an hour!!!!

I think your own cow would be easy to identify, and if it wasn't, you could hang something round its neck. But sheep - they all look the same to me!

It really is worth reading all these books because you get a very different picture of what life was like in medieval times and even before that, from the one we were all taught in school - the poor downtrodden starving peasant and the wicked landowner. It wasn't like that at all, generally.

My overall impression is of great practicality, resourcefulness and a kind of timeless quality to farming which overrides political change - a continuity which has lasted for nearly two thousand years.

In the book I'm reading, the author points out that it was those who were peasants before the Black Death, who rose to become the Yeoman and County families afterwards, because of the centuries-long training they had had in managing their own affairs and making their own decisions against a background of mutual support.

OC

[modem]

"who were peasants before the Black Death," etc

Because of the shortage of labour, wages rose and most were able to pick and choose their employers and working conditions. So markets forces ensured improvements for the labouring classes and was the death knell for serfdom!

[Macbev]

I have been setting down the memories of an elderly migrant to Australia who was born in Poland...she mentioned that before WW2, the cows in her little village were taken out to pasture (common land) each day by a man in the village who looked after them and brought them back home again in the evening. He had no land of his own and this was his source of income.

Families with land were too busy ploughing, sowing and harvesting in due season to take on the chore themselves. The cattle were all collected up on the village common, then driven to an outlying pasture.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Modem

No, not all the peasants rose to land ownership, and not all the peasants left serfdom behind after the Black Death.

The Author was making the point that those who had centuries of experience and survived the Black Death AND spotted an opportunity, rose quickly through the ranks to become Yeoman farmers.

Some land rents remained ridiculously high after the Black Death and remained untenanted for many years, due to the refusal of the owner to understand what had happened economically. This was the death knell of many small Manors (particularly those held by religious houses).

Those serfs who had no ambition or who lacked farming skills sufficient to ensure their success, stayed where they were in society.

OC