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Medieval Kent

AD 1066 to AD 1540

 

Introduction

In 1066 Duke William of Normandy invaded England, defeated and killed King Harold at the Battle of Hastings and was crowned King of England. This conquest had dramatic consequences for the English people. The existing elite was largely replaced by a Norman-French nobility, speaking a different language and with very different ways from their Anglo-Saxon predecessors. For the next few hundred years these new ideas merged with established English traditions and culture and gradually a new country emerged. In spite of occasional internal strife and epidemic warfare with continental neighbours the monarchy consolidated itself through the medieval period and England grew in strength to become major power.

 

Power and Ownership
The Norman nobility who had come to power following the Battle of Hastings were very much in a minority in England, being greatly outnumbered by the English population. They therefore needed both to secure themselves and demonstrate their power and control of the country. The main way that they did this was by building castles throughout England.

 

Some of these castles dominated important towns or strategic places and were built by the King. Some of the finest examples of these are in Kent at Dover Castle, guarding England’s most vulnerable port, and the castles at Rochester and Canterbury. Other smaller castles were built by the local nobility such as at Thurnham Castle or Sutton Valence Castle near Maidstone. Even the church could build castles and towers. St Leonard’s Tower in West Malling was probably built in 1080 by Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester who also built the Tower of London. At first these castles were usually built of earth and wood but many were later rebuilt in stone.  

 Sutton Valence Castle

Image: Sutton Valence Castle

 

As time went by and the need for fortified castles receded, rich landowners began to build more imposing undefended houses. These allowed the owner and his family to live more comfortably than was possible in a castle. Some manor houses were surrounded by a moat but this may have been more for show than to provide any real defence. Several examples still survive to day in Kent such as Ightham Mote and Scotney Castle.  A separate web page with much more information on castles is available.

 

The church
The church was an extremely important part of medieval life. Medieval society was deeply religious and the church was involved in all aspects of life. In addition to providing spiritual leadership the church was extremely important in many other ways. It was a major landowner, owning large tracts of land in Kent together with castles, manors, monastic estates and even towns. As a consequence the church was a vital part of the county’s economy controlling markets, large agricultural and industrial resources and wielding great financial power. It was also virtually the only source of education and support for the poor or sick.

 

Canterbury was the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the most important churchman in England and throughout the medieval period a central figure in the life of the country, often holding great political and economic power as well as moral authority. The other bishop in Kent, the bishop of Rochester was less important but still an influential figure. Correspondingly, there were two cathedrals in Kent at Canterbury and Rochester. These are two of the oldest cathedrals in the country reflecting Kent’s importance as the early centre of English Christianity.

 

Below the cathedrals were more than forty ‘primary’ mother churches. Many of them had a number of sub-ordinate churches and the primary church often related to an ancient royal estate. Examples of these include St Helen’s at Cliffe, St Mary’s at Minster in Thanet and St Nicholas in New Romney. Maidstone had 17 daughter churches and Folkestone 10. The majority of the medieval churches of Kent were thus daughter churches, often founded by the local nobility. There were also hundreds of smaller chapels, chantries and preceptories such as the chapel of St Blaise, Offham and St Katherine’s Chapel, Shorne.

 

In addition to its cathedrals, minsters and churches, Kent also possessed a number of monastic houses. Some of these were very ancient, being founded by the Saxon Kings of Kent such as at Canterbury (Christ Church Priory and St Augustine’s Abbey), Dover and Rochester (St Andrew’s Priory). Throughout the medieval period abbeys, priories, friaries and other religious establishments continued to be constructed. Benedictines, Augustinians, Cistercians, Franciscans, Carmelites and Premonstratensians all built religious houses, as did the military orders of the Knights Templars and Knights Hospitallers.  There were also colleges of priests. Examples of these can still be seen in Kent, in particular at St Augustine’s, Canterbury, West Malling Abbey, St Martin’s Priory, Dover and Maidstone's College of All Saints.

 Maidstone Archbishop's Palace and College of All Saints

Image: Maidstone Archbishop's Palace

 

In due course the monastic orders became great landowners and thereby extremely wealthy. This aroused the resentment of the Crown and religious reformers alike and during the religious turmoil of the 16th century and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, most of them were closed, sold and ultimately destroyed.

 

Churches were sometimes built in places that were believed to be connected with saints and as such they often became places of pilgrimage.  The most famous place of pilgrimage in England was the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral but there were others such as the chapel of St Leonard at Saltwood, the burial place of William of Perth in Rochester and the Holy Wells at Kemsing and Otford.

 

Hospitals
During the medieval period there was little help for the sick. Most people relied on help from their family and the local community when they fell ill. There were a small number of hospitals though, mostly founded by the church. Unlike modern hospitals they were not usually created to care for the sick, rather to provide accommodation for the poor, pilgrims and travellers. Some hospitals did provide assistance to lepers. Some of the earliest hospitals built in Kent were created by the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the two largest medieval Kent hospitals of St John (for the poor) and St Nicholas at Harbledown (for lepers). Bishop Gundulf of Rochester soon followed suit by building St Bartholemew’s hospital at Chatham. By the late 13th century each had a population of over 100 residents. During the 12th and 13th centuries more hospitals were built across Kent, mostly in or close to the larger towns such as New Romney, Faversham, Dover or Sandwich. By the end of the medieval period there were numerous hospitals and almshouses in Kent.

 

Town life
Today most people in Kent live in towns. During the medieval period, however, this was not the case. There were a fair number of medieval towns in Kent but they were mostly quite small.

 

A medieval town had a number of functions. It was usually the focus of church and royal organization as at Canterbury or Dover. It was the place where merchants and craftsmen lived and worked and provided a market for the sale of their goods and services and those of the farmers from the surrounding area. The taxes on these sales were lucrative sources of income for the local lord or bishop who might own the town. Those civil institutions that existed in the medieval period also tended to be located in towns such as schools, hospitals, courts and the local gaol.

 

Towns were therefore important places and valuable possessions and they were tempting targets during times of conflict. As a consequence, towns might be defended by walls or ramparts. In Kent, Rochester, Dover and Canterbury had town walls while Sandwich and Tonbridge were defended by earthworks. The largest town in medieval Kent was Canterbury. It was particularly important because of its role as the most important centre of English Christianity and the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury. There were other sizeable towns at Dover, Rochester, Sandwich and Tonbridge and numerous smaller towns. More detailed information on Kent’s towns can be found in our towns survey reports.

 Canterbury City Walls

Image: Canterbury City Walls

 

Markets
During the medieval period the main places for buying and selling goods were the markets that were held in towns and villages. At the time of the Norman Conquest there were about 14 markets in Kent and throughout the medieval period the number rose, particularly during the 13th and 14th centuries, until more than 70 places were given the right to hold a market. Most trade was carried out by market stalls which over the centuries gradually became shops. The existence of many of these markets can still be traced today in the street patterns of the towns where they were held. In many places the market place was kept relatively free from buildings and often widened to form a cigar shape. A good example of this can be seen at Wingham. Sometimes, though, the stalls in the middle of the market became permanent buildings so that they form an island in the middle of the market place. An example of this can be seen at Middle Row, Maidstone.

 

Rural life
Most people in Kent lived in small villages and hamlets during the medieval period. Many of these settlements remain occupied today and most of our modern villages have a medieval core. In some places, however, medieval settlements were later abandoned allowing us discover them through archaeological excavations. A good example of this is at the Thanet Earth site near Monkton in Thanet where an extensive dispersed medieval settlement was found.

 

Farming
In contrast to today, the vast majority of medieval people were farmers who spent their lives working the land. The feudal system (by which farmers held land from the landowner in return for rents or services), meant that people were generally tied to the land. Although the feudal system gradually declined in effect, families often farmed the same land for generations. A certain amount of their produce would be paid to the landowner as rent, a tenth to the church as a ‘tithe’ and the remainder consumed by the family or taken to the market for sale. Medieval farming tended to be a much more communal activity than it is today. There are, however, elements in today's landscape that go back to medieval times, as in the Weald where field boundaries and hedgerows have often survived Parliamentary Inclosure of the post-medieval period intact. In any case Parliamentary Inclosure was very limited in Kent and, even outside the Weald, many of the land boundaries are of at least medieval origin and can often be traced by the analysis of old maps.

 

The main crops grown in medieval Kent were wheat (on the better soils), oats, barley and rye. The most common animals kept by farmers in Kent were pigs though most families would own an ox or two. Sheep grew in importance throughout the medieval period. Depending on the local ownership rights, fish or eels could often be caught in the local rivers.

 

There are still many medieval farmhouses in Kent today. Most have been substantially modified over the centuries and are private property but they are nevertheless a vital part of our rural landscape.

 

Mills
Medieval agriculture depended on mills to turn corn into flour and there were numerous corn mills in Kent. Most were watermills, depending on rivers or streams to drive water wheels, but others were tide mills using the incoming tide to fill mill-ponds and then using this water to drive the water wheel. For most mills the waterwheel was vertical but for some it was placed horizontally. For some the water passed beneath the waterwheel (‘undershot’) whereas for others it passed over the top of the wheel (‘overshot’). Milling is a very old technology and there were hundreds of mills by the time of the Domesday Book (AD 1086). Many of these continued until relatively recently but there are surprisingly few remains from medieval mills, most mill buildings today deriving from the post-medieval period.

 

Trade and Industry
Trade was an increasingly important element within the medieval Kent economy and a range of manufactured goods and farm produce was sold and bartered both within the county and to the rest of England and even Europe.

 

Pottery and tile production
Pottery was an essential component of medieval life being used for storage, transportation and cooking as well as for making eating and drinking vessels. A number of medieval pottery kilns have been found throughout Kent, serving the local area and also exporting their wares. Many of the kilns also produced tiles, used for the roofs and floors of buildings. The most important pottery production site in Kent was at Tyler Hill, Canterbury which in its heyday in c. 1275 – 1350 produced much of the pottery found in east Kent. The area was also famous for its tiles, particularly its decorated floor tiles which have been found in religious houses in Kent. Other kilns have been found wherever there was a supply of clay and wood and nearby transportation links.

 

Iron production
Iron had been produced in the Weald since Roman times and the area continued to be important in the medieval period. The area contains the three key ingredients for iron production – water, wood and iron ore. There are numerous iron producing sites in the Weald, often indicated by their names such as Furnace Mill. Accounts survive of one of the medieval iron producing sites at Tudeley near Tonbridge.

 

Quarrying
Although most buildings in the medieval period continued to be constructed from timber, there was still a need for stone for castles and other higher status buildings such as manor houses, cathedrals and churches. Stone quarrying thus became an important element in the medieval economy. Kent is the source of one of the hardest building stones in southern England and Kentish ragstone was widely used in important buildings including Rochester Castle and the Tower of London. Ragstone was quarried from many sites in Kent but particularly from the area around Maidstone.

 

Cloth
Cloth-making was a very important industry carried out in the Weald on a large-scale. The industry was based on wool from nearby Romney Marsh together with water and timber obtained locally and it rapidly became a major employer in the region. In the 14th century immigrants from Flanders brought new ideas that further boosted the industry. The weaving took place in workshops called Clothier’s Halls after which it was ‘fulled’ using fuller’s earth from the Maidstone area. At least nine cloth-halls survive in Cranbrook alone such as the building now occupied by the George Hotel