Economy and society in Co. Antrim 1100-1300: innovation, evolution and continuity
Channel: The Ulster Archaeological Society
Date: 2023-09-26

The paper tries to avoid being based on political history but is concerned with the economy and settlement of Co. Antrim between 1100 and 1300.  Its starting point is the reform of the Church, not the seizure of lordship by the English; it ends before the problems of the 14th century.  The Church reform transformed the organisation of the countryside, through the creation of parishes, which relied on tithes to support them.  The levying of tithes required the land to be partitioned closely and estates to be defined; the development of townlands may be a result of this.  The economy was able to exploit the resources of the land through the introduction of coinage and smaller towns.  The two combined to expand the numbers of craftsmen and people living off them.  The rural landscape was structured in estates which produced crops for the market, principally cereals, but there are signs that other resources were more commercially exploited such as fish.  The study of the distribution and form of the estate centres shows up their variety.  The lords’ houses are also varied.  We have mottes and small, polygonal stone enclosures to mark them out, while we also have English-style halls and chambers on the one hand and an Irish type of house on the other.  The peasant housing seems to have been located usually in small clusters rather than larger, centralised village-type settlements.  Study of the few of these to be identified appears to imply that some, at least, preceded the addition of a lord’s house to them.  All the evidence, with its variations and mixed English and Irish traditions contradicts the image of medieval Ireland as divided between two nations, as often proposed in studies of the Middle Ages.  The scattered small settlements along with the economic development in Antrim compare well with other examples in Ireland and Lowland Scotland; they are not to be seen as features of a marginal lordship.