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Arable and pastoral land: Rievaulx
Abbey
The community also had cows, goats,
horses, oxen for ploughing, pigs, deer and rabbits - Rievaulx had
a rabbit farm at Newlass.(76) To prevent
overgrazing, charters granting pasture rights often stipulate exactly
how many animals and indeed which of these, could be pastured on
the named piece of land. In the late twelfth century eight oxen
(a plough-team), thirty-two cows and issue, four hundred sheep,
two bulls, six horses and six sow were allowed to graze at Hasketh
grange,(77) and in 1332 Rievaulx had
common pasture for twenty-four oxen (three plough-teams), four horses
or mares, twenty pigs, twenty cows and a bull, as well as three
hundred sheep at Stainborough grange.(78)
The community might also be granted grazing rights in woodland.
This was particularly suited to cattle and pigs, which could feed
on acorns and nuts there. Grants of this kind often prohibited or
severely restricted the number of goats permitted to graze on the
land, for goats tended to eat the woody growth and young seedlings,
thereby inhibiting regeneration.
Horse breeding and trading was
evidently a specialism of the Yorkshire Cistercian houses and the
White Monks here were renowned for their quality. The superiority
of their horses was clearly appreciated in royal circles, for in
1236 Henry III requested two palfreys, stipulating that these should
be of northern parts, good and fit - he received one from Rievaulx
and one from Jervaulx. The attraction of owning one of these quality
horses may have encouraged donors to grant land to the abbey. This
was the case at Furness, where a donor requested an honourable horse
in return for his generosity to the community.(79)
Whilst horse-trading was evidently
an accepted part of Cistercian life, twelfth-century Cistercian
legislation stipulated that this should not be conducted at markets
or fairs, but at the abbey granges. Moreover, horses were to be
sold before they had been broken. (80)
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