Surviving
leases show that the tenants and keepers of Fountains were often
bound by strict guidelines, and that the community sought to engage
suitable leasees; several of the leases state that the keepers
or tenants should be ‘of good demeanour, by word and deed.’ (55) Specific
targets were fixed, and the tenant was liable for compensating
the community if and when these could not be me, or, indeed, if
any animals were lost through negligence.(56) The
precision with which these documents were drawn up is clearly shown
in a fifty-year
lease drafted for a widow and her son in 1512, for the keepership
of Bouthwaite grange. This also reveals the nature of farming at
Bouthwaite and the number of livestock associated with the grange.
By the terms of the lease, the keepers agreed to maintain Fountains’ stock
of sixty cows, twenty-seven young cattle and two bulls, and to
deliver to Fountains each year thirty stirks, eighty stones of
cheese and forty of butter. They had also to keep two mares and
their foals during the winter. The keepers might pasture their
own cattle on the grange here but were obliged to pay £3
6s 8d for the privilege. According to the lease, the widow and
her son might retain any profits but were liable for compensating
the community should they fail to meet the set targets. Thus, four
shillings was charged in lieu of each stirk, eight-pence for every
stone of cheese missing and one shilling for each stone of butter.
These amounts seem to have been standard, for the keepers of Haddockstones
grange were also obliged to provide forty pounds of butter and
eighty of cheese butter and cheese, and to pay the same sums in
default.(57)
In addition to these yearly renders, the keepers
of Bouthwaite, like the rest of the abbey’s tenants, had
duties at Whitsuntide and Michaelmas. At Whitsuntide, the young
cattle (stirks) were
brought to the abbey where they were assigned summer pastures,
and nine of the oldest cows [crochions] to be fattened on pastures
near the abbey, in preparation for slaughtering in the autumn.
At Michaelmas, the tenants were obliged to replace these nine old
cows with nine heifers.(58)