Manorial organisation in early thirteenth-century Tipperary

Manorial organisation in early thirteenth-century Tipperary

By Mark Hennessy

Irish Geography, Vo.l 29:2 (1996)

Abstract: Research in Ireland on medieval manors has tended to focus on the fourteenth century. This paper examines the evidence for manorial organisation in Tipperary in the early thirteenth century with the aim of outlining the process whereby manors were established in the early years of colonisation. The great lordships, de Burgo, de Worcester, and Butler, are examined and it is shown how their fortunes waxed and waned during this period. Their exercise of lordship was fundamentally compromised by a combination of royal interference, minorities and absenteeism. The reconstruction of manorial organisation for this period suffers from the lack of documentary evidence. Documents newly translated by the author are used to present a discussion of manorial structures and the organisation of agriculture.

Introduction: Studies of manors in medieval Ireland have concentrated on the fourteenth century, partly because of the comparative wealth of manorial records from the first quarter of that century. Early fourteenth-century manorial records, however, give a snapshot of the Anglo-Norman colony in Ireland at or just after its apogee. This paper focuses on the evidence relating to manorial organisation in the early thirteenth century in Tipperary, which was separated as a county from the Honour of Limerick only around 1254, as revealed by an examination of newly translated documentary evidence. The aim is to trace the process of establishing manors in Tipperary in the foundation phase of colonisation.

Following military conquest the creation of a manorial organisation was the single most important objective of the Anglo-Norman aristocratic class in their strategy of colonisation in Ireland. It was within the framework of manors that their military subjugation of Ireland could be made profitable and secure through economic and social transformation. Manors were essential to the creation of a socially and economically stratified colony in Ireland. Without manors the colonising Anglo-Normans would either have remained a conquering elite, insecurely ruling over a culturally hostile native population, or, as happened in the west of Ireland, they would have been culturally absorbed into their Gaelic environment. As colonisers the Anglo- Norman military elite in Ireland were also entrepreneurs and modernisers. They wanted to introduce the most advanced agricultural techniques to their estates in order to maximise their income. Giraldus Cambrensis reveals that the Anglo-Normans regarded the land of Ireland as fertile but under-exploited:

“They use the fields generally as pasture, but pasture in poor condition. Little is cultivated and even less sown. The fields cultivated are so few because of the neglect of those who should cultivate them. But many of them are naturally very fertile and productive.”

Regardless of the truth of this statement it shows that the Anglo-Normans regarded themselves as having superior agricultural methods to those used by the Gaelic Irish. The introduction of these methods and the improvement of agricultural productivity relied upon the introduction of manorial organisation.

Manors had evolved slowly over many centuries in the core areas of western Europe, in England, France and Germany in particular, during the middle ages. The origins of manors are not of concern here: what is significant is that by the late twelfth century they were an essential part of the culture of the Anglo-Norman lords who colonised Tipperary. Although there were regional and structural variations it is possible to identify a number of common characteristics of manors in twelfth and thirteenth-century England.

Firstly they were lordly estates, or units of landholding. As estates they were distinct from other types of estate organisation in that they were divided into two components: the lord’s demesne and the land let out to tenants in return for rents and services.

Secondly, manors were relatively self-contained agricultural units. It was essential to the functioning of a manor that the lord’s demesne was worked using the labour services of the unfree (villein or servile), tenants on the manor. The exploitation of the demesne relied on the presence of a dependant peasantry. The two components of the manor were thus functionally linked. The manorial community also worked land in common. Large open fields with intermixed properties were jointly farmed by the tenants on a manor.

Thirdly, manors defined rural communities, or local social organisation. The manor was a microcosm of the feudal social hierarchy. A tenant’s position in this hierarchy was determined by his or her place in the structure of landholding. Land was power: the manner of landholding and the amount of land held regulated access to power and social freedom. At the top of this hierarchy was the lord of the manor. Below him were the free tenants: they were free in the sense that they could appeal over their lord’s head to the royal courts in order to assert their rights. Unfree tenants were tied to the manor: their social and legal existence was circumscribed by the manor. Finally both free and unfree tenants could lease land ad firmam for a fixed term from the demesne: in that aspect of their landholding they were firmarii.

Finally, linking all three of the above together, manors were jurisdictions. They were regulated by the lord’s manor court. By the late twelfth and certainly the thirteenth century, manors in the regions of origin of the Anglo-Norman colonisers of Tipperary can perhaps be defined as estates, agricultural units and communities regulated by the jurisdiction of a manor court.

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Tags: Agriculture, Economics - Rural, Ireland, Thirteenth century