A striking and famous feature of the English landscape, Dartmoor (in the southwest of the country) is a beautiful place, with a sense of wildness and mystery. But in the Middle Ages intensive practical use was made of its resources: its extensive moorlands provided summer pasture for thousands of cattle from the Devon lowlands, which flowed in a seasonal tide, up in the spring and down in the autumn.
This book describes, for the first time, the social organization and farming practices associated with that annual transfer of livestock. It presents evidence for a previously unsuspected Anglo-Saxon period of transhumance, by which the cattle's lowland owners moved with their animals and lived temporarily on the moor every summer.
Harold Fox(1945–2007) was professor of social and landscape history at the Centre for English Local History, University of Leicester; and had been president of the Medieval Settlement Research Group; chairman of the Society for Landscape Studies; and president of the Devon History Society.Christopher Dyeris emeritus professor at the Centre for English Local History at University of Leicester, whereMatthew Tompkinsis Honorary Visiting Fellow.
List of Colour Plates
List of Figures
List of Tables
Editors' Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction by Christopher Dyer and Matthew Tompkins
1. Definitions and limitations Defining Dartmoor's resources
Dartmoor and its parts
Transhumance and its types
Limitations of this book
2. The red tides: impersonal transhumance and the central moor The central moor: ownership and commoners
Distances travelled and middlemen
Pastoral management: the herdsman's year
Livestock: numbers and types
3. The red tides: impersonal trl£B
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