To the uninitiated the title of this volume of the Victoria County History is a little deceptive. Glastonbury Abbey and shoes spring to mind. In fact it covers the Glastonbury Twelve Hides Hundred and a part of Whitley Hundred which had belonged to Glastonbury Abbey until the Dissolution. This is the seventh volume to be produced by the partnership of the County Council and the Institute of Historical Research. Although both the County Editor, Dr Dunning and his deputy, Mary Siraut have worked on the volume, the method of production means that the authorial voice is always an impersonal one, as you might expect in such a long running establishment project.
As befits such an important centre, Glastonbury forms the core of this volume, which starts with the observation that the landscape, men and their resources were organised by the abbey for its support over a period of perhaps nine-hundred years. Central to this control was the Twelve Hides Hundred and the study shows how by 1066 the abbey had built this privileged core based on the Glastonbury island and its six islands in the moors from grants made by the early Anglo-Saxon kings of Wessex. It is notable that after the Norman Conquest the Hundred became a much more variable entity, the boundaries of which slowly expanded, to the abbey's advantage. By the twelfth century, exemption from both secular and ecclesiastical jurisdiction had been obtained, partly by the judicious use of forgeries. The secular exemption had certainly been acknowledged by both King Edmund and King Edgar in the tenth century, suggesting that there was a long running campaign which greatly benefited the abbey over a long period.
At the centre of the Hundred lay the abbey itself, initially perhaps sited on the Tor in the fifth or early sixth century, and associated with ‘the earliest days of monasticism.. . . in England’ (quoting Lesley Abrams, Anglo-Saxon Church and Endowment, Woodbridge, 1996, p1). The editors provide an admirably clear discussion of the physical development of the abbey over its entire life-span and relate this to the community's desire to be a major pilgrimage site, having among other relics the remains of ‘King Arthur and Queen Guinevere’, exhumed in 1197 and surely amongst the strangest to be found in England. They also chart the dilapidations later suffered by the derelict buildings and the antiquarian revival of interest in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, culminating in attempts to conserve, study and interpret the remains in the twentieth century. Excavation first took place in 1904.
Study of the monastery and its community usually ignores the town, but the Victoria History brings it out of the shadow of the abbey, although emphasising the extent to which the town was a creature of the abbey, simply existing as a part of the Hundred and suffering accordingly when the abbey was dissolved. In the late seventeenth century Celia Fiennes thought it very ragged and decayed. The dependence on the abbey in the Middle Ages is illustrated by the existence of seven inns in the town in 1197, catering for the pilgrim trade. After the loss of that trade in the early modern period, the late nineteenth century saw a revival of interest in the site by both the Anglicans and the Roman Catholics, both of whom make extensive use of Glastonbury still, while the later twentieth century saw the New Age movement and the Celtic revival taking Glastonbury as the centre for their inspiration. The early twentieth century also saw a revival of literary and musical interest which resulted in plays and musical productions from Rutland Boughton, George Bernard Shaw and Laurence Housman, younger brother of the more famous A. E Housman, all of whom were ultimately to some extent inspired by William Morris. The modern Glastonbury Festival. held at Pilton, in the former abbey park, seems to carry on something of the same spirit.
The pilgrims and the patronage of the abbey meant that even this small place could boast a hospital dedicated to St John, by ca.1250 and almshouses were also in existence, under the aegis of the abbey by the early sixteenth century. Commercial life was also stimulated by the abbey. There were four annual fairs: on the Nativity of the Virgin, 8th September (the abbey patron), St Michael on 29th September, St Dunstan, between the 18th and 21st May and The Exaltation, on 14th September.
After dealing with Glastonbury the volume moves on to consider a group of estates, all of which belonged to the abbey in the Middle Ages. Baltonsborough, Butleigh, Compton Dundon, Meare, Street and Walton all lie around Glastonbury. Only Podimore away to the south, near Ilchester, was detached. Here the advantages of the methodical approach of the VCH begin to show. Across its manors the abbey gradually defined the day-works owed by its tenants more strictly, probably to its own advantage. It is immediately apparent how closely the agricultural regime of the abbey's estates were tied in to its needs. All seem to have run open-field systems in the Middle Ages, but the conditions peculiar to each estate were carefully exploited. Baltonsborough supplied firing to the abbey kitchens; Meare, with its lake, supplied fish and recreation for the monks. The study shows the abbey improving its lands by enclosure and also the long term movement away from arable towards increased animal husbandry as society as a whole grew wealthier.
Also noticeable is how relatively complicated land-holding often was. There were many small free tenants and ‘cross-border’ holdings were also frequent. It is a reminder that we often have an urge to simplify in order to understand and that the reality of medieval tenure was much messier than we might like.
After the Dissolution all this land passed into private hands and it is noticeable that by and large this did not result in the creation of very large secular estates. There were no great aristocratic landowners in this area. Since the wealth was spread among many smaller landowners this did not become a countryside of great houses, but the VCH documents the architecture of many solidly prosperous houses of smaller landowners and squires who controlled the countryside until the twentieth century. Among them were improving landlords and the study notes how, for example, the Grenvilles at Butleigh borrowed £4000 in 1847 to drain their lands, including Sedgemoor. This same landowner worked 700 ac of his estate himself, employing 73 men. The Grenvilles built farmhouses, and farm buildings, many of which still survive and invested in steam power to plough their lands. The Grenvilles were very much squires, at Meare, on the other hand there was no dominating squire and the land was chiefly used for dairy farming. However, inclosure and improvement was still a noticeable feature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and in the later nineteenth century the chief product, cheese found a ready market. In the twentieth century Meare was evidently a village with much poverty and many houses were described in the 1930s as poor hovels.
In contrast to these purely rural settlements, in the nineteenth century Street became a leather working centre, initially tanning hides and making gloves and then developing a shoe industry – C. and J Clark, which employed several thousand people locally, until manufacture in the town ceased in 1992. Clark's shoes are now manufactured elsewhere in the world and most of the factory site is now a ‘shopping village’.
The volume also provides a succinct history of the parish churches and chapels and of the various later dissenting and non-conformist groups, as well as brief details of the schools. The early histories of the churches which belonged to Glastonbury are often quite obscure and here they are deftly and authoritively reviewed, along with their architectural history. Here we have a volume which provides a solidly useful background study for anyone who needs to study the history of the area. You may not find the answer to all your factual questions, but the clarity and organisation of the volume will provide a solid platform from which to begin your study. The Victoria County History is an inherently conservative institution, but it does not push students towards a particular view point. This vast body of material can and should stimulate students to ask their own questions and formulate their own ideas about the economic and social history of England.
