Yorkshire Almanac Bishop Pococke finds Richmondshire’s Kirklevington shorthorns in better condition than its fish and farmers

14 May 1760: Bishop Pococke finds Richmondshire’s Kirklevington shorthorns in better condition than its fish and farmers

Richard Pococke. 1915. The Northern Journeys of Bishop Richard Pococke. North Country Diaries (Second Series). Ed. John Crawford Hodgson. Durham: Surtees Society. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

The copper and lead mines here destroyed most of the fish in the Tees in these parts, and they have had a sute to hinder the water running into the Tees that comes from the washing of the ore, but have been cast.

In Richmondshire they are great breeders of horses, every farmer is a courser, which I believe has greatly corrupted the morals of that rank of people. They have also here, and in the Bishoprick, a very fine race of black cattle. They have short horns like the Alderney kind, but are the largest cattle in Britain, and beautifully marked, most commonly with spots of either red, black, or liver colour on a white ground, and some only mixed with white. They say it was a cross with the Dutch breed. They are far beyond any cattle I ever saw in any part of the world; the Hungarian come the nearest to them.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

The note says they’re Kirklevington shorthorns, but I haven’t seen the book cited (Bates 1897).

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Comment

The note says they’re Kirklevington shorthorns, but I haven’t seen the book cited (Bates 1897).

Something to say? Get in touch

10 October 1760: The road surface between Yarm to Guisborough; freight transport in the north

23 January 1640: Andrew Marvell’s father drowns in the Humber at Hull

30 September 1859: A popular village brass band contest at the Golden Lion, Loftus (near Saltburn)

30 January 1709: Charles Boswell, king of the gypsies, is buried at Rossington, Doncaster

7 January 1397: On the longest of the 42 days of his carnivalesque reign, boy-bishop John de Cave of York goes on a 200-mile begging spree

9 November 1840: The end of the horse trade at the Leeds winter fair

18 March 1650: Dorothy Rodes of Bowling (Bradford) blames witchcraft by Mary Sykes for the postpartum illness of her daughter

18 September 1831: William Wallett, an unemployed Hull clown, sets out to walk from Tickhill to Doncaster for the St Leger in home-made clothes

3 May 1641: On the day of the discovery of the True Cross, Driffield folk start moving their livestock out of town to high summer pasture, endangering crops

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Comment

Did local people comment on the coincidence between this transhumance of sheep (amongst others) and the transport of the Lamb of God to Golgotha (a hill in Christian tradition), or to paradise between his crucifixion and resurrection (Luke 23:42-43)? “Wold” turns up again and again in this connection, here in a late 13th century passion poem, regarding the temptation of Christ:

Þe holy gost hyne ledde. vp in-to þe wolde.
For to beon yuonded. of sathanas þen olde.
Þer he wes fourty dawes. al wiþ-vte mete
(Morris 1872)

More medieval wold magic:

This othur nyght soo cold
Hereby apon a wolde
Scheppardis wachyng there fold,
In the nyght soo far
To them aperid a star.
(Anon 1902)

Transhumance in the Yorkshire Dales

My fleeting impression is that longer-distance transhumance (still short of the great Spanish migrations) was conducted before the Dissolution by the great religious orders. Here (via John McDonnel (McDonnel 1988)) in 1598 the herder Richard Knowles (80) recalls moving flocks between Fountains Abbey and Fountains Fell (Malham) before the Dissolution 60 years previously:

Richard Knowles of Wessitt Houses in the parish of Kirkby Malloughdale, aged 80, confirmed from knowledge ever since he could remember the sheep, cattle [kyne], mares, and nags of Fornah Gill House did pasture in common together with the goods of the Abbey before and at the dissolution thereof of his sight, who served one of the Abbey’s herds seven years before the dissolution and at the very time thereof, and helped to fetch the Abbey’s goods at Fountains Abbey yearly about St. Ellen Day [May 21] to Fornah Gill and helped also to drive them back again to Fountains Abbey about Michaelmas [September 29] yearly (Purvis 1949).

Ra. Buck’s testimony re the lack of security before the Dissolution is remarkable:

Being born very near to the same grounds and dwelling there the same time, and so knew the premises to be true and did know the herders that kept the same grounds and goods therein for the Abbey, and hath seen the herders milk the Abbey’s kyne in the same ground, lying there swords and bucklers besides them whilst they were milking. (op. cit.)

Would someone like to reconstruct Richard Knowles’ route? Pateley Bridge, but then? I can’t locate “Wessitt” Houses, but Fornah Gill barn (at least) is 54.121813,-2.236811.

Also, can someone summarise the plant & animal biology behind the dates?

Did transhumance here and/or in general cease with the Dissolution?

Kyne -> cattle, though elsewhere kyne and other cattle suggests cows.

St Helen/Ellen/Helena’ Mass: transhumance day

St. Ellen is St. Helen, popular in the north (e.g. the holy wells). St Helen’s Mass, the day on which transhumance tended to being, was the commemoration on May 3rd of the Invention of the Holy Cross, the True Cross having been found by St Helena on her travels – see e.g. here and here. I previously wrongly thought her feast was May 21st:

Feeling stupid – St Ellen? (Transhumance in the Pennines between Kirkby Malhamdale & Fountains Abbey) pic.twitter.com/8PQQnkXuL3

— Singing Organ-Grinder (@elorganillero) May 10, 2023