Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Tuesday 30 April 2024

Farm life near Durham in the later middle ages


The second piece on the Medievalists.net website about gaming life is taken from a 2010 paper by Prof. Richard Britnell which draws on the accounts in the period 1370-1409 of a farm called Houghall just outside Durham. This was not a manor but appears to have been a stock breeding centre owned by the cathedral priory, and one that depended upon hired labour. Their names are often recorded and the fluctuations in employment on short contracts and the flexibility of the labour market p afford a more close-up glimpse of rural life at the time.

 

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