Bottisham Second Millennium
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(d.1016) was followed by the calming of King Canute,
(d.1035) by which time England was divided into four great
earldoms. Closer to home, in 1036. Harold died most cruelly
at nearby Ely. Even greater repercussions took place when
William of Normandy landed at Pevensey and defeated Harold
II at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Typically, during the first half of this first century of
the second millennium, the inhabitants had been freeholders,
living in homesteads grouped into hamlets, (villages) with a
number of such groupings (from 100 to 120) constituting a
hundred. The latter, under the presidency of an earldom,
formed a shire with a court meeting twice a year. The King
was, overall, held in respect. Edward the Confessor had given
land to the abbey of Ramsey. In the ‘History of Ramsey’ it is
said that Abbot Athelstan of Ramsey licensed, in 1047, a farm
of some 400 acres of land in Bottisham to the bishop’s
relation, the monk, Ailric: more about Ailric later. In the
Bottisham area there was fertile arable land skirting the Fens
and the area could also boast valuable victuals of fish and fowl
obtained from the fens, and good sheep grazing land on the
heaths of the higher chalk lands. The population of
Cambridgeshire was between 10 and 14 per square mile It was
a hard life for all inhabitants. The ploughman was out at dawn to
yoke the oxen to the plough, whatever the season or the
weather. In addition to ploughing an acre or more the
ploughman was daily required to feed, water and clear the oxen
stalls. It could be even more miserable for the boy who drove
the oxen with a goad. For the peasant working within the fen
life was to remain hard for centuries to come. The women had
a formal place in the small communities; they cooked, milked
the goats and ewes, sheared the sheep and made the simple
clothes. Within the groups of these Saxon people the skills of
masons, potters, weavers, tanners, smiths, fishermen