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Lifestyles of the not-so-rich-and-famous The policies of the Stanleys made life difficult from an economic standpoint. Adam's family not wealthy, but landowners. They would have been basically self sustaining, raising cattle and crops, and probqably spinning and weaving their own cloth and making their own clothing. As the family outgrew their lands some were able to acqire new lands of their own, while others learned a trade or spent their lives working for others. From their wills. it's apparent that within a few generations our branch of the family was quite poor, leaving their children only an animal or two, a spinning wheel, or a few pieces of furniture. Kinvig says the gentryand well-to-do folk lived in the country, and their houses were substantial and well built, while the houses of the famers and tradesmen usuallyi had only one story, and were thatched with straw, and the poorer people lived in small cottages built of stones bound with mud, or of turf sods alone, sometimes thatched with straw, but often covered simply with sods of turf. The thatch was held in place by twisted ropes, also made of straw. These cottages often consisted of a single room with a loft over one ned ot it. If a second room existed it was calleld a cuilee or parlor. The floor was usually earth, with an open fireplace or hearth called a chiollagh, where there was a long chain, called a slouree, owhich suspeded the big cooking pot over the fire. Turf, ling, and gorse were sued as fuel, though the better-class houses used a mixture of turf and coal. Kinvig says large families were raised in these homes, oand sometimes animals shared them as well. The food of the poorer classes was chiefly herrings and oatcakes, while they drank water or buttermilk with beer (jough) on feast days and market days. Potatoes also became a staple after they were introduced. Kinvig says the island was not short on mutton, beef, bacon, poultry, eggs, honey, or butter, but that these were produced mainly for sale. They made their clothing from the wool of the native sheep and from native grown flax. Shoes and stockings were seldom worn by either sex except on Sunday. For work in the fields they wore carranes, iwhich were untanned strips of cow-hide bound to their feet by thongs of the same material. The native Manx pony was a small but hardy beast. The cows were small and rather poor, and lived in the open all year. When fodder became scarce they were often fed bruised gorse shoots, and if near the sea, dulse and other seaweed. They used sleds rather than wheeled carriages, and the roads resembled bridle paths. Travel was mostly on horseback. In addition to the "rents" they had to pay during 200 years of Stanley rule the tenants wre heavily taxed. The lord had the right to claim the best fish and game, and was entitled to a very large quantity of free food for his castle. Each quarterland had to supply one beef per year, and their were "customs" due of corn and herring as well. Turf and ling had be to brought to his castle free. Tenants had to loabor on certain fixed days in repairing the lord's forts and houses, and to pay taxes for the liberty of fishing for herrings, for importing or exporting goods, and for grinding at the lord's mills. No tenant could leave the island without special license, and if he did so he was considered a felon and his goods forfeited. There was compulsory military service, and all men between 20 and 60 had to train as militiamen, with bows and arrows, and swords and bucklers, which every man had to provide form himself. Nearly every man had to take in turn in keeping "watch and ward" both day and night for an enemy. Servants who refused to carry out their duties could be whipped, and farm laborers who broke their contracts were imprisoned. In the middle of the 17th century, James Stanley the 7th Earl of Derby secured a reduction of tithes and other payments to the clergy, but created another sore grievance when he tried to establish a system of leases by which no family could claim to hold a piece of land for more than "three lives" or twenty one years. By the end of the 17th century farms were becoming empty, not only because of the uncertainty of the rights of the landholders, but also because a succession of bad harvests and poor fishing seasons had caused many to emigrate, iand James the 10th Earl, agreed to the proposals drafted by Bishop Wilson and the Keys by which the "tenants" finally became owners of their lands. By the last quarter of th 18th century smuggling had become commonplace, and the British government bought out the Atholl claims and took over. More elaboration needed here. Interject family dates as appropriate.
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