Part of the work we’re doing on the project involves trying to find out when the first cowhouses were built out in the fields. We managed to find one of the earliest written documents for the area this week – the Rievaulx Cartuliarium – transcribed and published in 1899 and now available in facsimile online. We found the original grant of the ‘whole grazing lands of Swaledale’ to the Abbey by Gilbert de Gaunt in the thirteenth century
Our medieval Latin isn’t great but we’ve attempted a translation of the relevant part as follows:
“To the Abbot of Rievaulx.
A donation by Gilbert de Gaunt of the whole pasturage/grazing ground of Swaledale divided (set out?) below and measured on paper (mapped?) by the same Gilbert, from whom the same monk henceforth holds having been named, with the folds and lodges [faldis et logiis] of their animals and houses [domibus] of the brothers, servants and their animals, gardens [ortis], closes [clausaris] and all necessary/requisite to houses, fences, hearths, folds, lodges, and also their easement (access to) the forest of Swaledale. ”
This is fascinating because it seems to imply that there is housing – folds and lodges – of some sort – for animals, separate to the housing [domibus] for the lay brothers, servants and other animals.
We then had a look at the confirmation of the grant of lands in Swaledale which was issued during the reign of Edward III (1327-1377)
This is even more interesting because here the term ‘animalis‘ is replaced with the term ‘pecoribus‘ which our research tells us usually meant larger herd animals but not beasts of burden like horses or oxen so we are possibly looking at cattle, ‘faldas et logias pecoribus‘ may therefore mean ‘folds and houses for cattle’ rather than (or as well as) sheep which is what has been assumed up to now. There is also again the distinction between these, and the housing for the lay bothers, servants and their animals which we might assume are the nucleated farmsteads we still see today often with animal housing under the same roof as the farmhouse itself.
We’re now hunting for a Latin scholar who can check what we think we’ve discovered!