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Dartmoor's alluring uplands : transhumance and pastoral management in the Middle Ages / Harold Fox ; edited and introduced by Matthew Tompkins and Christopher Dyer.

Van Pelt Library SF53 .F69 2011
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Fox, H. S. A.
Contributor:
Tompkins, Matthew.
Dyer, Christopher, 1944-
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Transhumance--England--Dartmoor--History--To 1500.
Transhumance.
Livestock systems--England--Dartmoor--History--To 1500.
Livestock systems.
History.
Dartmoor (England)--Economic conditions--To 1500.
Dartmoor (England).
Dartmoor (England)--Social conditions--To 1500.
England--Dartmoor.
Physical Description:
ix, 291 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 25 cm
Place of Publication:
Exeter : University of Exeter Press, 2011.
Summary:
A striking and famous feature of the English landscape, Dartmoor (in the southwest of the country) is a beautiful place, with a sense of wildness and mystery. But in the Middle Ages intensive practical use was made of its resources: its extensive moorlands provided summer pasture for thousands of cattle from the Devon lowlands, which flowed in a seasonal tide, up in the spring and down in the autumn. This book describes, for the first time, the social organization and farming practices associated with that annual transfer of livestock. It presents evidence for a previously unsuspected Anglo-Saxon period of transhumance, by which the cattle's lowland owners moved with their animals and lived temporarily on the moor every summer.
Contents:
1 Definitions and limitations 7
Defining Dartmoor's resources 7
Dartmoor and its parts 12
Transhumance and its types 27
Limitations of this book 43
2 The red tides: impersonal transhumance and the central moor 46
The central moor: ownership and commoners 47
Distances travelled and middlemen 55
Pastoral management: the herdsman's year 61
Livestock: numbers and types 69
3 The red tides: impersonal transhumance and the outer moors 81
Ownership and commoners 81
Pastoral management: drifts, structures, strays 88
Perambulation and dispute resolution 94
Order and disorder: outer moors and the central moor 99
4 Personal transhumance: distant detachments 108
Cockington and Dewdon 108
Ipplepen, Abbotskerswell and their links in
Detached parts of the hundreds of Exminster, Wonford and Kerswell 114
Kenton with Heatree 117
Paignton and its parts 120
Lifton and Sourton 123
Northlew, Venn and Lettaford 125
Tavistock and Cudlipp 126
Bickleigh and Sheepstor 128
The significance of the detachments 129
5 Personal transhumance: archaeology, topography, place-names and history 139
Archaeology and topography 140
Place-names and history: economy and society 148
6 Domesday Book and beyond: the transition from personal to impersonal transhumance 158
The role of colonists 158
The role of lords 166
The role of the Crown 181
7 Dartmoor and beyond 191
Droveways 191
Pastoral husbandry 210
The implications of transhumance for lowland farming 220.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages [258]-274) and index.
ISBN:
9780859898645
0859898644
0859898652
9780859898652
OCLC:
724662745

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