A medieval monastic manor house controlling the estates belonging to a monastery. Granges were first created in the 12th century and are, as a rule, a later medieval phenomenon common to several countries in Western Europe. The farms were run by monks with the assistance of lay servants, and their purpose was to produce food for the mother church as well as for sale in the wider market. Granges range in form from the elaborate monumental farm complexes of the Loire Valley such as Parcay-Meslay north of Tours, to the elegant Piedmont farms of Renaissance Italy and the hill farms of the Pennines in England.
The Macmillan dictionary of archaeology, Ruth D. Whitehouse, 1983Copied