A wet and miserable evening saw some twenty members attend Dr. Ian Robertson’s most interesting lecture on ‘Northumberland as a Feudal County’. He began by explaining that, compared with modern invasions which can overrun a country in a matter of weeks or months, the Norman invasion of 1066 was a slow and steady business, taking between 50 and 100 years to reach as far north as Northumberland. The Feudal system which then emerged was very much one dominated by the aristocrats – appointed and given lands to secure the borders and the coast. Exactly how fully developed it was, however, is not entirely clear, although some evidence can be gained from Manorial court records. It was not until 1871 that a full land survey was carried out in Britain to establish how much land was still in the hands of the aristocracy. This survey established that in Northumberland over half the county was owned by those with estates of 10,000 acres or more – nine peers held a quarter of the county, compared with the national figure of one sixth.
Dr. Robertson stressed that, despite the picture often painted by the Victorians of mean and grasping landlords, Northumbrian estate owners, such as the Earl of Redesdale and the Duke of Northumberland, had a care for their tenants, investing in improvements in buildings and equipment and, in years of bad harvest, remitting rents up to 25%. It might be thought that the greater social mobility of the twentieth century, together with the death of many of the estate heirs in the Great War and the consequent need to sell large amounts of land to meet death duties, the picture now would be significantly different. Nevertheless, a study published in 2001 showed that half the county was still in the hands of large landowners – although the holdings of the aristocracy are now equalled by the Forestry Commission, the Ministry of Defence and the National Trust. He left us with the question of whether Northumberland was the last feudal county. Many members, with experience of tenantry were able to contribute their own experiences of Lords and land agents, and for some it clearly brought back a range of rich memories.
Our last meeting of the session takes place on Wednesday 30th May in the Community Club at 7.30, when our speaker will be Dr. Tony Barrow on ‘The Region and the Sea’; all welcome; visitors £2.