Talk:Red Book of Worcester

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 21:12, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

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• ... that the high number of free tenants recorded in the 1299 Red Book of Worcester may be a result of manumissions granted by Bishop Godfrey Giffard? Source: "Four manors were considered in detail – Kempsey, Bredon, Northwick and Wick. While all of these had free tenants in their thirteenth-century populations (forming, on average, fortyone percent of their populations) only Northwick had recorded radmen in 1086. It is unlikely that this particular example is evidence of under-recording in Domesday. Bishop Godfrey Giffard, who had commissioned the survey, had been accused of granting too many manumissions and of leasing out land on too easy terms, a practice adopted because of a surplus of labour. It is for this reason that there were so many free tenants on the lands of Worcester in the thirteenth century and this may not be representative of the situation at the time of Domesday" from: Day, Emma (12 January 2011). "Sokemen and Freemen in Late Anglo-Saxon East Anglia in Comparative Context". PhD dissertation. Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. p. 259. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Alaska marmot

Moved to mainspace by Dumelow (talk). Self-nominated at 11:06, 3 March 2022 (UTC).

• Dumelow, I will review this shortly. TSventon (talk) 09:23, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
• Dumelow, the article is newly created, well written, long enough, neutral, with no BLP problems, contains appropriate citations, does not contain overly close paraphrasing. The hook is interesting and short enough. A QPQ has been done and looks fine. TSventon (talk) 10:31, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

To T:DYK/P6

Questions

Dumelow, this seems quite obscure, can I query some details

• Date of survey: reference 2 says around 1299, which I think is safer than 1299
• Manuscript does not survive: "it survives as a faulty eighteenth-century transcription of a lost manuscript which was loosely edited and published by Marjory Hollings in two volumes in 1934."
• Language: this seems to be Latin based on reference 5 "Transcript, Latin, of copy made by Dr. Wiliam Thomas, ob. 1738." Also Thomas died in 1738, it is not the date of the transcript. Ref 3 quotes the book in Latin in its footnote 10. TSventon (talk) 13:29, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi TSventon, thanks for the info and corrections. It is beyond my usual area of work and I seem to have made a few mistakes in my interpretation of the sources! I've made some changes to the article and incorporated your new source. I'd appreciate if you could review the changes and make sure I got them right - Dumelow (talk) 16:24, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi Dumelow, I don't know much about the middle ages, but it is easier to spot someone else's mistakes than my own. Thank you for the changes, however the lead still says that the Red Book has been translated into English, but I have only found references saying that Hollings edited rather than translated it. The Commissioning section still says 1299 rather than circa 1299.

I think a sentence about William Thomas would be useful, he has an Oxford DNB article.

I have skimmed Day's thesis and villani and bordarii seem to relate to 1086 rather than 1299, so I would change

A Doctor of Philosophy thesis by Emma Day in 2011 reviewed the numbers of free tenants and lower classes of peasants recorded in the Red Book. In the feudal system of the period the free tenants were the highest class of peasant, holding more rights and fewer requirements to carry out labour for their liege lords than the lower classes of radmen, villani and bordarii. Day found that 41% of the peasants in the manors of Kempsey, Bredon, Northwick and Wick noted in the Red Book were free tenants, a significant increase from that shown in Domesday where only Northwick had recorded having even any radmen. References pages 2 and 259.

to something like A Doctor of Philosophy thesis by Emma Day in 2011 reviewed the numbers of free tenants and lower classes of peasants recorded in the Red Book. Day found that 41% of the peasants in the manors of Kempsey, Bredon, Northwick and Wick noted in the Red Book were free tenants, who generally paid money rents rather than carrying out labour for their lords. This was a significant increase from the situation in Domesday where there were no freemen and only Northwick had recorded having radmen, a similar status to freemen. References pages 244, 259 and 260.

The lower class peasants were villeins, discussed on page 294. TSventon (talk) 01:43, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks TSventon, changes made as per your recommendations. I have been working on an article for Thomas for the past few days. Hopefully I'll move it to mainspace today - Dumelow (talk) 07:44, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks again, I have found an interesting footnote: "60 Hollings, Red Book of Worcester. 61 These figures omit the ambiguous Osbert, by far the most popular nomen amongst male peasant tenants in the survey. It should be pointed out here that although the editor of the Red Book (Hollings) assigned these surveys to 1182, Christopher Dyer suggests an earlier date of c. 1170 (Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society: The Estates of the Bishopric of Worcester, 680-1540 [Cambridge, 1980], 3)." TSventon (talk) 10:00, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

References