| What was life in Maxey like in AD1000? |
Not that different it seems...
No, Maxey AD 1000 is not the title of a new sit-com, but a chance to go back in time and try and get a flavour of what living in Maxey might have been like about 1000 years ago.
Archaeological evidence shows that the area around Maxey has been occupied, more or less continuously, for over 4,000 years – from early bronze age (2000 BC) to the present.
So how do we know what happened 1000 years ago? The best source is probably the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which was already about 100 years old by the turn of the first millennium, and was maintained by monks in monasteries as far apart as Canterbury, Winchester & Peterborough.
Created by Alfred the Great, the Chronicle was the first history of England in the English language and charts the gradual retaking of England from Norse invaders - pushing them back to the north and east of England (called Danelaw) along a line drawn roughly between London & Chester. This places Maxey outside ‘Engla-lond’, confirmed by the numerous Nordic place name references such as ‘thorpe’ and ‘toft’ (meaning spot of land). It is thought that the established settlement at Fox Covert Farm gradually migrated to the present day site of Maxey village during the 8th & 9th Centuries, with the first mention of Makesey appearing in around AD 1013.
1000 years ago, the whole population of England probably wasn’t much over a million people and communities were small with maybe 20-30 homes surrounding a village green or extending up and down a single pathway or winding street. To a native of Makesey, the village represented the whole world as he knew it. He probably knew the name of his King from the rough image on the coins of the day, but he would be much more familiar with his local church.
We know that many English natives stayed living in the Danelaw, and slowly they created the first ‘pidgin’ English, a hybrid of Norse and Englisc which was roughly understood in all parts of the country. But while they could talk to each other, very few could read or write. Learning, news or history was memorised, their folklore learned by heart. By 1000 AD only poetry and sagas were being written down by religious scholars and scribes.
Ordinary people were not free to pursue their lives in the way we take for granted today. Most were beholden to someone. This concept of ‘indenture’ originated when German invaders struck east and captured Slavs (slaves) to work the land. They weren’t slaves in the modern sense – manacled and imprisoned – they were more like ‘bondsmen’, usually living in tied accommodation in a village with their families and raising their own livestock. Interestingly, the Anglo-Saxons were as adept at slave taking as their Germanic cousins. Weallas, or Welshman, was one of the Old English words for slave. People also surrendered themselves into bondage at times of famine or distress.
These retained workers tilled the land and raised sheep, cattle and pigs. They worked for their overlord or master and probably lived in a thatched building based on a framework of powerful beams stuck into post holes in the ground and fastened together with wooden pegs - click here for the archive page showing evidence of this at Mill Road.
By the 12th Century England had become the principle exporter of wool to the Continent and it appears reasonable to assume that the trade began early in the last millennium in areas like the Cotswolds, the South Downs and East Anglia. This is reflected in place names like – Isle of Sheppey, Shipton & Shipley – all derivations of the word sheep. Support for this theory also stems from the findings at the archaeological dig in Maxey where the dig team concluded that the excavation evidence strongly suggested an organised shearing and fleece production area.
But it wasn’t all hard labour working for the big house. There were many feast days, especially after harvest time when the Lord and Lady of the Manor would invite their retained workers to eat and drink in great wooden halls. The epic poem Beowulf talks of such banquets having “a hum of contentment”. Mead was the reveller’s drink of choice, a very sweet alcoholic beverage with a powerful kick, brewed from crushed honeycombs. To drink it, the men would sit side by side on the medu-benc – the mead bench. It’s modern equivalent, of course, to the Blue Bell Pub regulars sitting on the wooden benches supping a pint of Pedigree!
|
| The 'Mead Benchers' from the Julius Work Calendar |
Medical science as we know it allows us a complacency towards our health only matched by the ignorance of our Maxey forbearers. Faith was the antiseptic of 1000 years ago. If some food fell off your plate onto the beaten earth floor of your dwelling, the advice of one contemporary document was to pick it up, make the sign of the cross over it, season it well – and then eat it.
A 10th century document from Winchester called ‘Bald’s Leechbook’ lists many remedies for everyday ailments. It says that a headache could be cured by binding the stalk of the herb crosswort to the head with a red bandana. Chilblains could be treated with a mixture of eggs, wine and fennel root. There is even a remedy for ‘problems of the groin’ a handy euphemism for the Viagra of the day – the yellow flowered herb agrimony. Boiled in milk, agrimony was guaranteed to excite the man who was ‘insufficiently virile’ – and if boiled in Welsh ale, to have the opposite effect.
Lastly, on our journey to Maxey AD 1000 we learn that our ancestors were as obsessed with the weather as we are. “If the sky reddens at night,” wrote the Venerable Bede, “[it foretells] a clear day; if in the morning, it means bad weather…”. One 9th century manuscript talks exclusively about thunder and what it might mean: “In May, thunder predicts a hungry year…In the month of July, thunder signifies crops turning out well…”.
So, 1000 years of history. Everything changes and nothing changes. Roll on the next Millennium.
Ian Duncan
Reprinted from the Maxey Village Newsletter Millennium Edition
| Source Material: |
- Lacey & Danzinger - The Year 1000 – Little, Brown & Co. 1999
- Illustration – Julius Works Calendar c AD1020, Canterbury Cathedral – British Library Records
- Heaney, Seamus (Translator) - Beowulf – Faber & Faber 1999
- Fitton, Brian – Abbey House, Maxey
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
