Friday, January 7, 2022

A Cash Crop

      Sheep were multiple players on the home front.  The Giles (Frances and Joseph) in their book Life In A Medieval Village p.147, state that sheep were valued for "...fleece, meat, milk, manure, and skin (whose special character made it a writing material of incomparable durability)." On the same page it was recorded that in one area 23 folks owned 885 sheep.  That is roughly 38 sheep per person.  Here is the deal: 1) lambing time was in early spring, 2) the young were usually weaned in 12 weeks to graze with their mothers, 3) they were sheared in mid-June, and 4) fleeces were then carried to market.  Lots of work is here.  

      It is generally recognized that during the time of our Inigo Sr./Jr. the best (high-quality) wool was derived from the Welsh Marches.  This area is often difficult to understand especially to us who did not live during this window of time.  Basically, it was the boarder land between the Welsh and the Normans from 1066 to the Wars of the Roses 1485.  By 1573 many Welsh had followed Henry VII, and Henry VIII had legally united Wales and England under The Act of Union 1536.  The centers of this Norman march into Wales were Chester in the north, Shrewsberry in the center, and Chepstow in the south.  It was Shrewsbury in the center that occupied the Jones family for many years before and located our families' cash crop.


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