Agricultural History Review, Volume 61 Part 2 (2013), p. 354

The Black Book of Hexham is a rental of the lands belonging to Hexham Priory, dating from 1379. However, it contains more detailed information than one would expect from a simple rental, and consequently the editors rightly decided that the manuscript could be likened much more to an estate survey, providing extensive details about properties, estate assets and individual holdings. As such it offers a detailed and fascinating snapshot into an ecclesiastical estate of the late fourteenth century.

The whereabouts of the original manuscript are currently not known, and the editors worked instead with an edited version, which represented a mere transcript of the original, in abbreviated Latin, which was published in 1864–5. In addition, some extracts from the Black Book prepared around 1841 were deposited in the Northumberland Record Office. The editors of the current volume, commissioned by the Local History Society of Hexham, had the unenviable task of reconciling the invariable discrepancies between the surviving transcriptions. Considering these challenges, a thoughtful and careful edition of the Black Book of Hexham, now fully translated, has been crafted.

Useful maps illustrate the locations of the far-flung properties of the Abbey, which together made up what was called Hexhamshire, an estate encompassing properties across a number of Northern counties, including Northumberland and Yorkshire. The book contains a very helpful glossary of English words. There is also a detailed list of properties acquired by Hexham, as well as a gazetteer listing properties mentioned with National Grid references. The introduction is clearly structured, with subheadings describing in detail the estates of the Augustinian Abbey and the editorial process.

The Black Book itself is a treasure trove of evidence for a whole variety of matters pertaining to the daily running of an estate as well as the individual manors. The documents provide fascinating insights into the economy of the estates of Hexham and their social structures. It contains information about tenurial structures and lord-tenant relationships. It shows for example that even at this late stage, when other lords were starting to abandon their attempts to enforce suit at mill, Hexham’s lord still noted that tenants owed suit of the lord’s water mill at Hexham, or they had to face a penalty of the forfeiture of ‘a horse with a saddle’, no less, ‘to the lord’ (p. 35). The documents also contain details of acreages held, rent and service obligations. There is information about a myriad agricultural activities and by-industries such as brewing. Very close and detailed information about the location of tenements and fields, with many identified by fieldnames, will also be of interest to landscape historians. The Black Book also describes rights of common, and provides details of the demesne lands.

In addition to the main survey, the editors have very helpfully included further documents relating to the estate, such as charters and royal commissions. As an interesting point of comparison to the fourteenth-century Black Book, the survey of the Hexham estates conducted at the time of the Dissolution is also provided.

Such editions of primary sources are very welcome as teaching tools for undergraduate or postgraduate students, but also of great interest to the general reader and to researchers. At £18 the paperback also represents excellent value for money. Overall this is one of the best ones I have seen. It is very user-friendly, carefully researched and executed, and contains a fascinating collection of documents.