Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century 1783277831, 9781783277834

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

H.C. Boston

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© H.C. Boston 2024 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of H.C. Boston to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2024 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge ISBN 978 1 78327 783 4 (Hardback) ISBN 978 1 80543 171 8 (ePDF) The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate Cover image: Staffordshire Record Office D603/A/Add/17, grant and confirmation by Abbot Robert of Burton-upon-Trent (Staffs.) of the manor of Leigh to Robert son of Uviet his liege man (1150–1159). Reproduced with kind permission of the Staffordshire Record Office

For my family

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

ix

Acknowledgements

xi

List of Abbreviations

xiii

Introduction 1 1.

Multiple lordship: a quantitative analysis

47

2.

Multiple lordship and the honour

61

3.

Multiple lordship and religious patronage

121

4.

Multiple lordship and urban centres

151

5.

The abbey of Burton-upon-Trent: a case study

197

Conclusion

221

Bibliography

227

Index

253

ILLUSTRATIONS

Maps 1.

Major landholders in Leicestershire at the time of Domesday Book 33

2.

Major landholders in Derbyshire at the time of Domesday Book 34

3.

Major landholders in Staffordshire at the time of Domesday Book 37

4.

Heatmap of all charters, c.1094–c.1220

39

5.

Churches, religious houses, and castles to c.1100, over heatmap of all charters to c.1220

40

6.

Churches, religious houses, and castles to c.1200, over heatmap of all charters to c.1220

42

7.

Churches, religious houses, and castles to mid-thirteenth century, over heatmap of all charters to c.1220

43

8.

Lands held by the Gresley family, c.1130

75

9.

Places associated with the Kniveton family, late twelfth to thirteenth centuries

93

10.

Lands held by the Shirley family, c.1166

96

11.

Lands held by the Ridware family, c.1166

101

12.

Lands of 1217 reversi

117

13.

Benefactions and witnesses to Ranton Priory

147

14.

Benefactions to St Thomas’ Priory, Stafford

179

x

Illustrations

Tables 1.

194 families broken down by category

57

2.

Breakdown of single and multiple tenants by lord by c.1216

58

3.

Instances of clear multiple tenancy by date

59

Charts 1.

Multiple tenancies against appearance of all families

59

2.

Proportion of donations to Tutbury Priory by Ferrers knightly tenants of the old enfeoffment

133

3.

Proportion of donations to Tutbury Priory by Ferrers knightly tenants of the new enfeoffment

133

4.

Weighted proportion of donations to Tutbury Priory by Ferrers knightly tenants of the old enfeoffment 135

5.

Weighted proportion of donations to Tutbury Priory by Ferrers knightly tenants of the new enfeoffment 135

Genealogical Tables 1.

Gresley

77

2.

Shirley

95

3.

Bakepuiz

105

4.

Bagot

108

5.

fitzNoel

111

6.

Goda and Walkelin

166

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I

have incurred many debts of gratitude in writing this book. My very grateful thanks go to Sir Charles and Lady Angela Chadwyck-Healey for their generous support of my past studies. In a time when Humanities funding is struggling, it is tremendous that the discipline has such supporters. Thanks also to the Leicester Archaeological and Historical Society for their generous support of travel and research expenses, and Professor Marilyn Palmer for her advice. A lectureship at Magdalen College, Oxford has provided a great environment in which to write up the final chapters of this book, and the college has been a model of support for an early career post. Thank you to Nick Stargardt, John Nightingale, Richard Allen, Michelle Pfeffer and Morgan Golf-French for their help and kindness. Great thanks must go, also, to Professor George Garnett and Dr Tom Lambert. They have been my staunchest supporters and my sternest critics, and I am immensely grateful for both. My thanks to George for his inspiration, rigour, and pithy comments on my early drafts; to Tom, for all his help in untangling my ideas and for his rigorous approach to writing. Thanks, too, to Peter Coss, John Hudson, John Blair, Alice Taylor, Chris Wickham, Bryan Ward-Perkins, Chris Lewis, Daniel Power, Stephen Church, Sally Harvey, Elina Screen, Louise Wilkinson, Amy Livingstone, Richard Purkiss and Mary Boyle for their help with clarifying arguments and tracking down references, and for their support and friendship. The archivists of the Record Office of Leicestershire, Leicester, and Rutland, Derbyshire, and Staffordshire, and the British Library have provided invaluable help and guidance throughout this project. Caroline Palmer, Demi Wormgoor, and the team at Boydell and Brewer have been endlessly supportive and patient in bringing this book to completion. Thanks also to the anonymous readers whose comments have been invaluable. Any errors which remain are of course my own. Finally, thanks to my family, who have endured my studies and research alongside me, and to whom this book is dedicated. Thanks to my sister, Rebecca Boston, and my parents, Paul and Judith Boston, for whom my interest in history is entirely to blame. Greatest of all thanks are to my husband, Zander Goss, for his unending support and encouragement.

ABBREVIATIONS ANS ASC Barraclough CB Cole

CRR DAJ Dale Darley DB DRO EEA EHR Glanvill

Anglo-Norman Studies The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Revised Translation, ed. D. Whitelock with D.C. Douglas and S.I. Tucker (London, 1961) G. Barraclough, The Charters of the Anglo-Norman earls of Chester, c.1071–1237 (Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1988) Cartae Baronum, ed. N. Stacy (Pipe Roll Society NS 62, 2019) BL Add. MS 5822 (1780 transcript of Bodleian, Gough MS Derby I by William Cole, antiquary), charters from this added by Darlington to his edition of the Darley cartulary (see Darley p. lxxvi) Curia Regis Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office (20 vols, 1922–2006), ed. C.T. Flower, D. Crook, P. Brand Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (1879–1960); Derbyshire Archaeological Journal (1961-) The Cartulary of Dale Abbey, ed. A. Saltman (London, H.M.S.O., 1967) The Cartulary of Darley Abbey, ed. R.R. Darlington (Kendal, 1945) The Alecto Domesday 34 vols (1985–92) ed. A. Williams Derbyshire Record Office English Episcopal Acta English Historical Review The treatise on the laws and customs of the realm of England, commonly called Glanvill, ed. G.D.G. Hall and M.T. Clanchy (London, 1993)

xiv

Hudson, OHLE Jeayes Kniveton LAHS LHP Modwenna Monasticon Nichols, Leicester ODNB PR RRAN i, ed. Bates ROLLR S SHC SRO TRHS Tutbury VCH

Abbreviations

J. Hudson, Oxford History of the Laws of England, Vol. II, 817–1216 (Oxford, 2012) I.H. Jeayes, Descriptive catalogue of Derbyshire charters in public and private libraries and muniment rooms (London, 1906) A. Saltman, The Kniveton Leiger (London, H.M.S.O., 1977) Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Leges Henrici Primi, ed. L.J. Downer (Oxford, 1972) Geoffrey of Burton, Life and Miracles of St Modwenna, ed. R. Bartlett (Oxford, 2002) W. Dugdale, Rev. J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel (eds), Monasticon Anglicanum (6 vols in 8, London 1817–30) J. Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester (4 vols, London, 1795–1811) H.C.G. Matthew and B. Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), cited from online version, accessible at http://www.oxforddnb.com/ Pipe Roll Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I (1066–1087) ed. D. Bates (Oxford, 1998) Record Office of Leicestershire, Leicester, and Rutland ESawyer (http://www.esawyer.org.uk) Collections for a History of Staffordshire (The William Salt Archaeological Society, 1879-) Staffordshire Record Office Transactions of the Royal Historical Society The Cartulary of Tutbury Priory, ed. A. Saltman (London, H.M.S.O., 1962) Victoria County History

INTRODUCTION

T

his book focuses on the minor aristocracy in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire during the long twelfth century (c.1066–c.1216) and in particular those individuals who owed allegiance to more than one lord. Such individuals have often been regarded as exceptions to the norms of the time, or their cases have been noted in isolation in historiography. Multiple lordship was, however, a common and widespread practice that had developed well before the Norman Conquest in both England and Normandy, was well-established in Anglo-Norman England by 1100, and continued to proliferate there through the following century and beyond.1 This work addresses the practice of multiple lordship, its role in twelfthcentury English regional society, and its impact on the behaviour of the minor aristocracy. Beginning with a statistical analysis in Chapter 1, the impact of multiple lordship is examined in the context of the honour, religious patronage, in towns, and through a case study of the abbey of Burton-uponTrent (Staffs.). The introductory chapter will first discuss the current state of the historiography on lordship and multiple lordship, before moving on to the terminological, legal and geographical frameworks underpinning this book.

Multiple lordship in context Current historiographical treatment of multiple lordship is based on older models of feudalism. These models still underpin much of our understanding of the central Middle Ages, despite sustained attack by E.A.R. Brown and Susan Reynolds.2 As these historians noted, definitions of feudalism vary. Much of its modern historiography derives from Francophone work, and it is here that some of the great syntheses were developed and exported to 1

H. Boston, ‘Changing ideas of lordship in England, c.1065–c.1115’, ANS 43 (2021), 61–74. 2 E.A.R. Brown, ‘The tyranny of a construct: feudalism and historians of medieval Europe’, American Historical Review 79:4 (1974), 1063–88; S. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford, 1994).

2

Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

other regions. Marc Bloch in his paradigmatic Société Féodale (1939) regarded it as an entire social order of overlapping dependencies from peasant to lord that shaped not just political and social institutions, but law, culture, family relations, and the church.3 F.-L. Ganshof, another key figure in early twentieth-century medieval studies, used feudalism in a narrower technical term to refer to military obligations between lords and their vassals. In return for his service, a vassal received a grant of land from the lord as a fief, which rewarded his adherence and, through exploitation of the land’s workers, provided him with money and status.4 The imprecision of the term feudalism has hindered its discussion in the historiography.5 In their essence, however, both the broad definition of Bloch and the narrow definition of Ganshof see the feudal social order as hinging on the relationship between a man and his lord. As a result, both of these authors, and many of their successors, regarded a man with more than one lord as morally dubious at best, socially disruptive at worst. Bloch dedicated a short and scathing chapter to ‘L’homme de plusieurs maîtres’.6 Taking on additional lords in order to acquire more land was ‘un abus’, and the greed of such men was a factor that ultimately led to the decay of the entire feudal system.7 Several of Bloch’s successors followed this moralising tone.8 Ganshof, too, saw it as a destructive practice that weakened the idea of the personal bond in society.9 Although very many subsequent French regional historians have noted the instances of multiple lordship in their areas, some with a Blochian disapproval, some as a quotidian fact, the impact of the practice on social or historiographical structures is rarely given sustained attention.10 3

M. Bloch, La Société Féodale (Paris, 1949). F.L. Ganshof, Qu’est-ce que la féodalité? (Brussels, 1947), 83–183. See also F.L. Cheyette, ‘”Feudalism”: a memoir and an assessment’, in Feud, Violence, and Practice: Essays in Medieval Studies in Honour of Stephen D. White, ed. T.S. Tuten, B.L. Billado (Farnham, 2010), 119–133. 5 Brown, ‘Tyranny of a construct’, esp. 1065–7. 6 Bloch, Société Féodale, 325–36. 7 Bloch, Société Féodale, 328. 8 J.-F. Lemarignier, ‘Political and monastic structures in France at the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century’, in Lordship and Community in Medieval Europe: Selected Readings, ed. F.L. Cheyette (New York and London, 1968), 100–27 at 101; F. Olivier-Martin, ‘Les liens de vassalité dans la France Médiévale’, in Les Liens de Vassalité et les Immunités, 2nd edn (Brussels, 1958), 217–22 at 219; see also H. Boston, ‘Multiple allegiance and its impact: England and Normandy, 1066–c.1204’, HSJ 32 (2021), 115–131. 9 Ganshof, Féodalité, 121–5; F.L. Ganshof, ‘Depuis quand a-t-on Pu, en France, Être Vassal de Plusieurs Seigneurs?’, Mélanges Paul Fournier, de la Bibliothèque D’Histoire du Droit Publiée sous les auspices de la Société d’Histoire du droit (Paris, 1929), 261–70. 10 E.g. Duby, La Société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise (Paris, 1953), 192 and n.; D. Power, The Norman Frontier in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 2004), 266–9; R.E. Barton, Lordship in the County of Maine, c. 890–1160 (Woodbridge, 2004), 91; Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, 21, 4

Introduction

3

In Anglophone historiography, these models of feudalism were fused with older insular ideas of feudalism, the latter derived ultimately from post-medieval lawyers.11 J.H. Round set the tone for much early twentiethcentury work by arguing that feudalism was imported with the Norman Conquest in 1066 but, unlike French feudalism, this was a system centred on the Crown.12 At the Conquest, King William I became the holder of all land in England. He distributed his land to his lords in parcels (‘honours’) to reward their service and gain their support in securing outlying parts of the kingdom, and military quotas were imposed as a condition of tenure. Sir Frank Stenton built on Round’s framework by addressing society outside the royal court.13 His seminal First Century of English Feudalism, 1066–1166 (1929, 2nd edn 1961) saw the honour as a ‘feudal state in miniature’. After they received their honours, barons granted out their lands to their own men in turn, again to secure service, reward support, and secure outlying lands.14 The performance of this service and attendance of the honorial court served to create a retinue around the lord that was focused on serving that single lord.15 The key, therefore, for understanding the English socio-political structure was the institution of the honour: the arrangement between the lord and his fideles, with land and service forming the linchpin.16 167–8, 438, 447. See also P. Bonnassie, La Catalogne du milieu de Xe à la fin du XIe siècle. Croissance et mutations d’une société (Toulouse, 1975), 743–6; L. Musset, ‘L’aristocratie Normande au XIe siècle’, in La Noblesse au Moyen âge: Essais à la mémoire de Robert Boutruche, ed. P. Contamine (Paris, 1976), 71–96; L. Musset, ‘Naissance de la Normandie’, in Documents de l’Histoire de la Normandie, publiés sous la direction de Michel de Boüard, ed. E. Privat (Toulouse, 1972), 59–98; G. Devailly, Le Berry du Xe siècle au milieu du XIIIe. Étude politique, religieuse, sociale et économique (Paris, 1973), 511; R. Fossier, La terre et les hommes en Picardie jusqu’à la fin du XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1968), 549, 670–2. H. Débax gives the fullest recent discussion: La féodalité languedocinne: XIe–XIIe siècles: serments, hommages et fiefs dans le Languedoc des Trancavel (Toulouse, 2003), 217–20. 11 See e.g. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, 6–9. 12 J.H. Round, ‘The introduction of knight-service into England’, EHR 6 (1891), 417–48, reprinted in his Feudal England (London, 1895), 225–314. For dissenting views see F.W. Maitland and H.A.L. Fisher, The Constitutional History of England: A Course of Lectures (Cambridge, 1908), 142–4; Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century (Oxford, 1908), 39–89. 13 F.M. Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, 1066–1166, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1961), 1–6. J.H. Round, Feudal England: Historical Studies of the XIth and XIIth Centuries (London, 1909), 225–307. See also J.C. Holt, ‘Feudal Society and the Family, I–IV’, in his Colonial England, 1066–1216 (London, 1997), 161–78, 197–270. 14 Stenton, First Century, 13. 15 Ibid., esp. chs 2–3. 16 Ibid., 98. David Crouch argued that Stenton’s views of the honour softened between the first and second editions, and claims that the famous ‘feudal state in miniature’ quotation was dropped in the latter. The phrase is still used, however, in Stenton’s later edition. ‘The honour of Bolingbroke was a feudal state in miniature.

4

Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

The honour in its Stentonian form is thus bound up with the historiography of feudalism in Anglophone scholarship, and the honour has been regarded as forming an integral part of English ‘feudal society’. One of the most influential endorsements of this model came from S.F.C. Milsom in his Legal Framework of English Feudalism (1976). Milsom argued that the crucial element of twelfth-century English society was the bond of lordship. For him, the lord’s court was sovereign – at least before the Angevin reforms. Before the reforms there could be no ‘right’ of inheritance, only custom and the lord’s absolute ‘discretion’ over which decision would be best for the management of his lands.17 The ‘right’ of an heir to inherit could be no more than an expectation: on the death of the tenant, the land returned to the lord’s hand and the decision lay with him. If passed over for succession, a tenant could seek no redress from elsewhere.18 From 1166, Milsom argued, Henry II and his court began to introduce new means for tenants to seek redress against their lords in the form of new assizes.19 Rather than the lord’s decision being final, a claimant could now obtain a standard writ that would draw the case into the jurisdiction of the royal court.20 The decisions of the lord’s court could thereby be undone, and the lord’s previous decision overruled in favour of a tenant with a stronger claim.21 The change of jurisdiction caused more fundamental change, however: the king’s court was not able to exercise such discretion as the lord’s court, meaning that abstract rules about property began to develop.22 At the same time, the assize of mort d’ancestor (‘death of ancestor’) began to break down seigneurial power over the inheritance of an heir. The assizes had the effect, Milsom argued, of weakening the lord’s position over succession of land. On the death of an ancestor, the lord still took the land into his hand, as had been the case prior to Henry II’s reforms, but had to be done now without disseising the heir.23 Rather than waiting for the lord to deliver seisin and confirm the heir as new tenant, the heir went straight into the Within it the peers of the fee were tenants in chief, and any arrangement on which they were agreed needed no sanction except that which their lord could give’ (D. Crouch, ‘From Stenton to McFarlane: Models of Societies of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, TRHS 6th ser., vol. 5 (1995), 179–200, esp. 184; Stenton, First Century, 51). 17 Milsom, The Legal Framework of English Feudalism (London, 1976), esp. pp. 11–22, 36–54, 65–6. See also S.E. Thorne, ‘English feudalism and estates in land’, Cambridge Law Journal 17 (1959), 193–209 at 196. 18 S.F.C. Milsom, Historical Foundations of the Common Law, 2nd edn (London, 1981), 106–7. 19 D.M. Stenton, English Justice between the Norman Conquest and the Great Charter, 1066–1215 (Philadelphia, 1964), 71–9. 20 Milsom, Historical Foundations, 121–2. 21 Ibid., 127–8. 22 Ibid., 122; S.F.C. Milsom, A Natural History of the Common Law (New York, 2003), 61–3. 23 Milsom, Legal Framework, 164 and 170–1.

Introduction

5

lands without the lord’s involvement, in what Milsom termed ‘a magical event transacting itself without human intervention’.24 These elements came together to encourage the formation of abstract property rights, and, Milsom claimed, in a way which had not been foreseen, destroyed the sovereignty of the lord’s court and led to the gradual decline of the honour from the late twelfth century.25 In Milsom’s work, the strong restatement of the honour’s significance meant that the feudal model was thereby reinforced with a legal underpinning, and the overall feudal narrative along with it. In so doing, he also simplified Stenton’s model of the honour, smoothing over the myriad complexities that Stenton noted in order to create a clean theoretical model.26 This is problematic, particularly when we address Stenton’s own sources. Stenton appears to have based his arguments almost entirely on evidence from Stephen’s reign – which from the point of view of honours (as with much else), was anomalous.27 Although some historians may express unease with the extent of Milsom’s claims for seigneurial power, the underlying feudal narrative has barely been questioned, and his general model has been widely accepted.28 Feudalism as a concept has never been as popular in English historiography as it has been in France, however.29 Sustained criticisms of feudalism as a concept from the mid twentieth century onwards mean that the ‘feudal’ part of the ‘feudal honour’ has been quietly dropped, but its historiographical underpinning remains in place. The current framework of the honor, therefore, perpetuates many of the problems with ‘feudalism’ as a model, but masks them under a superficially empirical gloss: we can, after all, easily find references throughout twelfth-century documents to the honor. It is more difficult, however, to identify the problematic assumptions that we as modern historians bring to our reading of this term.30 In this book, three of the underlying problems with the honorial model will be addressed: the assumption that a bond of allegiance should be singular and that multiple lordship was therefore contrary to the norm; that an honour began as a tidy 24 Milsom,

Historical Foundations, 136. 183. 26 For instance, the lord’s honour seems to have been by no means as closed as Milsom assumed. Important discussions on this idea include J.C. Holt, The Northerners, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1992), 36; Coss, Lordship, Knighthood and Locality: A Study in English Society c.1180–c.1280 (Cambridge, 1991), 8. Stenton has also been challenged on the basis of royal intervention in the honour: J. Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship in Anglo-Norman England (Oxford, 1994), 4–5. 27 My thanks to George Garnett for this observation. 28 P. Hyams, ‘Review of The Legal Framework of English Feudalism’, EHR 93 (1978), 856–61; for a critical reading of Milsom and Thorne see Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 8–10, 67–77, 176–8, 212–16; Hudson, OHLE, 636–53. 29 Maitland, Constitutional History, 142–4. 30 See for instance the use of honour, passim in the Cartae Baronum, ed. N. Stacy (Pipe Roll Society, N.S. 62, 2019). 25 Ibid.,

6

Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

and discrete community around a lord, to whom sole loyalty was owed, and that multiple lordship was a sign of the breakdown of this system; and that the honour, rather than other ties such as kinship or vicinity, is the most useful category for understanding regional society and its personnel. There has been much excellent work to date on individual honours, which has both illuminated the utility of the framework and begun to identify its limitations. Notable among this is Diana Greenway’s work on the de Mowbray honour, which provided an edited collection of the honour’s charters and a useful introductory essay analysing the honorial structure.31 Other studies by K.J. Stringer on the honour of Earl David of Huntingdon, Barbara English on the honour of Holderness, Richard Mortimer on the honour of Clare, and David Crouch on the Beaumont honour of Leicester have provided valuable studies of the operation and composition of secular honours in the twelfth century, and have begun to highlight that individual honours saw variation and complexity in their structures.32 To this list should also be added an excellent unpublished thesis by P.E. Golob on the de Ferrers.33 Many of these studies note the existence of tenants on the honour with lands or allegiances elsewhere. Barbara English recognised briefly the existence of multiple allegiance amongst her families of Holderness (Yorks.): ‘[i]t was usual rather than abnormal for barons and knights to hold extensive tenures of several baronies’.34 Richard Mortimer concurred: several of the largest tenants of the honour of Clare (Suffolk) held elsewhere by the time of Domesday, and the number of multiple tenants increased through the twelfth century.35 Hugh Thomas’ work on the Yorkshire ‘gentry’ of the twelfth century also briefly noted the existence of multiple allegiance in Henry II’s reign, and he suggested that it was not a new phenomenon at that time.36 David Crouch’s Beaumont Twins notes that in addition to the ‘family’ honorial baron, there was another, ‘intriguing’ type, which he characterises as 31

D. Greenway, Charters of the honour of Mowbray, 1107–1191 (Oxford, 1972). Stringer, Earl David of Huntingdon, 1152–1219: A Study in Anglo-Scottish History (Edinburgh, 1985) esp. p. 127; B. English, The Lords of Holderness, 1086–1260: a Study in Feudal Society (Oxford, 1979) esp. pp. 153–4, 156; D. Crouch, The Beaumont Twins: the Roots and Branches of Power in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1986), esp. pp. 127–30; Dalton, Conquest, Anarchy and Lordship: Yorkshire, 1066–1154 (Cambridge, 1994); R. Mortimer, ‘The beginnings of the honour of Clare’, ANS III (1980), 119–41; R. Mortimer, ‘Land and Service: the tenants of the honour of Clare’, ANS VIII (1986), 177–97. These works’ treatment of multiple lordship is discussed below. See also J. Hunt, Lordship and the Landscape: A Documentary and Archaeological Study of the Honor of Dudley, c.1066–1322 (British Archaeological Reports, British Series 264, 1997). 33 P.E. Golob, ‘The Ferrers earls of Derby: a study of the honour of Tutbury 1066–1279’ (2 vols, Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1984). 34 English, The Lords of Holderness, 153; see also pp. 155–6. 35 Mortimer, ‘Land and service’, 194–5. 36 H. Thomas, Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders, and Thugs: The Gentry of Angevin Yorkshire, 1154–1216 (Philadelphia, 1993), 27. 32 K.J.

Introduction

7

those of ‘split allegiance’.37 He traces the tenures and political behaviour of a few men of the latter group, notes that their tenurial and political activities seem to correspond, and suggests that the occurrence of such barons ‘may be of some importance’.38 Crouch’s main focus in the book is elsewhere, and he comments that a lack of honorial studies at the time of publication is a hindrance to comparison.39 He sees multiple lordship, however, a weakening force for both lords and men.40 Crouch speaks of the ‘confused’ tenures held by a family in the twelfth century,41 and that it was generally the ‘family’ baron – which here seems to denote men of one lord – who was of higher standing.42 The honorial baron, he argues, was ‘the source of power of the great magnate … The solidarity between the honorial baron and his lord was the measure of the magnate’s strength’.43 In later work, he has contextualised the honour within a wider socio-political landscape and stressed the emergence of ‘affinities’ in the twelfth century which could attract service from across honorial lines.44 David Carpenter, in a debate with Peter Coss and David Crouch in Past and Present, takes a more negative view. Multiple lordship had been present, he thinks, since the early twelfth century, but it increasingly weakened honorial integrity and honorial strength by helping to destroy ‘the walls of the honour’.45 He acknowledges that the practice could be beneficial for knights, however, by allowing them to take service with other lords.46 A few useful studies have begun to further explore these limitations of the honorial model in a deeper structural way. John Hudson in his seminal Land, Law, and Lordship demonstrates the possibility for royal intervention in the honorial court from at least the time of Henry I. This intervention, combined with customs of landholding, could be alternative sources of authority to the lord’s discretion within the honour.47 In addition, his work is attuned to the impact of the power balance between a lord and his man, an important and under-studied topic to which this book seeks to contribute. For Hudson, a well-placed tenant could have considerable influence on their lord. Although the lord held the ultimate weapon of disseisin, there was room for negotiation 37 Crouch,

Beaumont Twins, 127–32. Ibid., 129. 39 In a later essay, he described multiple allegiance as being common on the honour of Leicester and elsewhere (Crouch, ‘Stenton to McFarlane’, 186). 40 Crouch, Beaumont Twins, 131–2. 41 Ibid., 127. 42 Ibid., 131. 43 Ibid. 44 Crouch, ‘Stenton to McFarlane’, esp. 184–6, 199–200; D. Crouch, The English Aristocracy 1070–1272: A Social Transformation (New Haven, 2011), 145–6, 150–9. 45 D.A. Carpenter and D. Crouch, ‘Debate: Bastard feudalism revised’, Past and Present 131 (1991), 165–203 at 185. 46 Ibid., 188–9; D.A. Carpenter, ‘The Second Century of English Feudalism’, Past and Present 168 (2000), 30–71 at 34, 56. 47 Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 148–50. 38

8

Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

and political pressure.48 Nevertheless, the majority of his material comes from a single honour, that of Abingdon Abbey, and his main focus is therefore on the relationship between lord and man within this. The possibility of men having interests outside the honour, and its potential impact, is only briefly noted by him in Land, Law, and Lordship and elsewhere.49 J.C. Holt’s classic study The Northerners addressed the actions of the northern barons in the rebellion against King John. He presented multiple lordship as a ‘weakness’ of the tenurial bond between man and baron, describing multiple tenancies as ‘one of the main breaches in the unity of the barony’. This was something made particularly acute by the fact that multiple tenants were often of higher wealth and standing than smaller tenants-in-chief.50 As he worked from the perspective of the tenants, however, he showed the benefits of the practice: ‘To hold of many different lords was, in some ways, to hold of none and to enjoy a measure of political independence.’51 A key recognition in Holt’s study was that, far from being ‘automata’, the northern knights were ‘men of substance, who might have to be sought and won, and who might act along their own lines in pursuit of their interests and visions.’52 Their political allegiances could be determined by their neighbourhood as much as by their lord. His work thus illuminates, in the context of early thirteenth-century rebellion, that for knightly tenants the honour could be only one force among several. Peter Coss’ work on Coventry, too, is important as a study that moves outside the honour to address the locality. His book Lordship, Knighthood and Locality focuses on the ‘knightly class’ around Coventry, c.1180–c.1280, and takes an honour as its starting point. His work is tinged with his ongoing interest in the history of the gentry as a class, so his focus is on whether it is possible to see the forerunner of the kind of local associative bonds characteristic of later gentry society. He concluded that, even in a limited area around Coventry, despite finding a few instances where groups of local knights came together to protect mutual interests, there was not enough local group activity to constitute a community.53 Although the direction of his study is different from the present one, it provides a useful model as a counterpoint to works focused on a single honour. With his focus on a geographical area, rather than one defined by a lord’s lands, his work is more attuned to knights as being actors in their own right, rather than simply as tools of their lords. The honours that his study covers, moreover, are placed within a landscape that acknowledges the 48 Ibid., 48, 152–3. For

instance, Milsom, Legal Framework, 33 assumes that Glanvill’s description of a lord who is unable to justiciare his tenant can only be referring to the tenant having some legal immunity, rather than this being due to a power imbalance (referring to Glanvill IX. 1, ed. Hall, 105). 49 Hudson, Land, Law and Lordship, 49, n. 159; Hudson, OHLE, 432 and ns. 112–14. 50 Holt, The Northerners, 36. 51 Ibid., 36; see also, 55. 52 Ibid., 37. 53 Coss, Lordship, Knighthood, and Locality, 4–11, 54–5, 154–6, 309–10.

Introduction

9

coexistence of other social ties and forms of association, and that ‘even in the hey-day of baronial justice […] it is doubtful whether many feudal communities can have been entirely self-contained’.54 He notes that in the Leges Henrici Primi (hereafter LHP), the one holding the court is recommended to bring together his pares et vicinos to witness property transactions, and that ‘[n]otions of neighbourhood and district must have co-existed with the feudal’.55 Crouch also argued for breaking outside the honour as a focus of study, in order to better understand the nature of seigneurial dominance and the structure of society.56 As part of this, he recognises the existence of multiple lordship as a force that could cut across honours.57 His ideas of a loose ‘neighbourhood’ of interests, and of magnates’ ambitions to dominate a locality, have also proven useful for the present study.58 The present book’s attention on the coexistence of the honour with other forms of power and association will also seek to contribute to three linked historiographical debates, namely, the decline of the honour in the late twelfth century, the rise of the gentry, and the development of bastard feudalism in the thirteenth. The decline of the honour has been attributed to various causes: the beginning of more direct intervention by the king in the tenures of subtenants (although some bond had been created by William I and at least theoretically maintained since);59 the development and growth of multiple lordship as lords sought service outside their honour; the destruction of seigneurial discretion over the disposition of lands; the declining ability of a lord to direct his tenants; and the declining value of tenants’ service.60 For Coss, increasing royal assertiveness was a key factor in the decline of the honour. The twelfth century was a feudal world structured around the relationship between lord and man, and was increasingly weakened by the ‘latent threat to magnate power’ presented by the forging of direct relationships between free subject and crown.61 He sees this as beginning with the Angevin legal reforms, and continuing through the thirteenth century.62 Under this pressure, and that of lords seeking service outside their 54 Ibid., 55 Ibid.

8.

56 Crouch,

‘Stenton to McFarlane’, 185–6. See also his comments in Crouch, ‘Strategies of lordship in Angevin England and the career of William Marshal’, in The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood II: Papers from the Third Strawberry Hill Conference, ed. C. Harper-Bill and R. Harvey (Woodbridge, 1988), 1–25 at 1–2. 57 ‘[…] the tenants of the honour were men with diverse ambitions and interests, which naturally led some of them outside the honour.’ Crouch, ‘Stenton to McFarlane’, 185. 58 Ibid., 193–4, 198; Crouch, The English Aristocracy, 158–9. 59 Holt, ‘1086’, in Holt, Colonial England, 31–58 at 49–55. 60 Thomas, Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders and Thugs, 20–6. 61 Coss, ‘Bastard feudalism revised’, 41. 62 Coss, Lordship, Knighthood and Locality, 5–7.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

honours, the latter began to break down. Bastard feudalism later developed as ‘a response to the resurrection of public authority within feudal society and within the feudal state’.63 Carpenter, responding to Coss’ argument, agrees with the overall model of honorial decline, but places its starting date earlier, and attributes it to the creation of multiple allegiances. He argues that lords were looking outside their honours for service from the reign of Henry I. This was, he thought, a good thing, since ‘the sooner he broke out of the honorial strait-jacket the better’.64 Ambitious knights were breaking up the honour too, as they sought lords who could act as better patrons.65 Crouch, too, agrees with the overall model of honorial decline, but attributes it to the drying up of patronage. The honour for him is in essence no more than an accumulation of acts of patronage between a lord and those who had consented to become his men; frozen by custom and obligation. Initially it would be flexible and even lively, capable of growth while free lands were available for further distribution. Then in two, three or four generations that flexibility would in the end stiffen, and the honor would become a fossilised shell of a community of interest long departed.66

He thinks, however, that lords had sufficient resources that a decline in the honour did not prove catastrophic for their power: the changes between 1180 and 1230 were not a crisis for magnates, but they were ‘simply adjusting their position, shifting the weight from one leg to another’.67 A general assumption of this model of honorial decline is that there was a starting point when the honour was a tidy ‘ideal type’. By analogy, this would seem to be a putative point that saw strong seigneurial control, and when a lord’s tenants owed allegiance solely to him.68 As Chapter 1 will argue, the latter was at no time true in England. Instead, multiple lordship emerged alongside the Norman settlement of England. The first generation of settlers and survivors seems to have managed ties to plural lords, claims of kin, geography, and vicinity alongside concerns from a single honour. Multiple lordship may have seen a gradual increase through the twelfth century, but there were no sudden spikes, and no events seem to have catalysed the practice. This book’s focus on multiple lordship also contributes to debates around bastard feudalism, although this is not the book’s primary concern. A dichotomy has been set up in the historiography between lords looking for service from men within their own honour, and ‘breaking out’ of it to look 63 64 65 66 67 68

Coss, ‘Bastard feudalism revised’, 54. Carpenter, ‘Bastard feudalism revised’, 185–6. Ibid., 188–9. See also Thomas, Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders and Thugs, 28–32. Crouch, ‘Stenton to McFarlane,’ 198. Crouch, ‘Bastard feudalism revised’, 172. See Dalton, Conquest, Anarchy, and Lordship, 249–56.

Introduction

11

elsewhere, the latter being taken as incipient bastard feudalism. Focus on multiple lordship in its own right suggests that the contrast drawn in this model is too stark.69 The practice of multiple lordship gave lords scope for flexibility in recruiting men and their service. Rather than there being a clear switch in seigneurial policy from lords taking service only from within the honour to seeking it largely from outside, lords seem to have employed both tactics from as early as we have records. Multiple lordship could also serve to bring new tenants into the honour: lords were able to give men a small portion of land – much smaller than a minor lord would need to maintain himself entirely – and thereby gain their support for a lower cost. The walls of the honour were thus porous; they were no ‘straitjacket’. Taken from this perspective, the contrast between the honour and bastard feudalism seems too strong: what we are seeing in the latter case is a change in the means of securing and rewarding service through indentures and money payments, not a difference in practice of where lords were able to look for service.70 These debates are also bound up with the emergence of the gentry class. This book does not explicitly discuss the origins of the gentry, but its findings nevertheless have implications for the historiography. Historians disagree on the rigidity of the definition of the ‘gentry class’, and, therefore, on when it emerged. John Gillingham takes a broad view. For him, the England of the ‘long eleventh century’ (990s–1130s) saw a gentry based on a shared, quasichivalric code of honour, a focus on land and church, and involvement in local administration linking the regions to the king. These processes have been argued as causing the development of ‘county solidarities’ in the later medieval period, but Gillingham pushed them back into the early medieval period.71 Hugh Thomas and Jean Scammell, meanwhile, both see the Angevin period as the crucial one in the emergence of the gentry.72 Scammell regarded Henry II as ‘the gentry’s midwife’.73 Thomas uses the term gentry in his study of the minor aristocracy of Yorkshire, as it ‘stresses continuities with later periods’.74 He also focuses, as does the present book, on the existence of cross-honorial ties in the Angevin period.75 Like Thomas, this book emphasises the existence of cross-honorial and extra-honorial ties within twelfth-century society, and argues that such ties existed alongside the honour throughout its lifespan.

69

Carpenter, ‘Bastard feudalism revised’, 185. G.L. Harriss, ‘Introduction’, in K.B. McFarlane, England in the Fifteenth Century, ed. G.L. Harriss (London, 1981), ix–xi, xxiv; pp. 23–4. 71 J. Gillingham, ‘Thegns and knights in eleventh-century England: who was then the gentleman?’ TRHS 5 (1995), 129–53 at 130–1. 72 Thomas, Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders, and Thugs, 4–12; J. Scammell, ‘Formation of the English social structure: freedom, knights, and gentry, 1066–1300’, Speculum 68:3 (1993), 591–618, esp. 618. 73 Ibid., 618. 74 Thomas, Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders, and Thugs, 10–11, quotation at 11. 75 Ibid., 185. 70

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

The present work follows Coss, however, in seeing the gentry as a later and more specialised class than those of twelfth-century England. Coss argues that the English gentry is defined by six key factors: that they are a kind of lesser nobility; that their wealth is based primarily but not solely on landownership; that they were a territorial elite; that they relate to an active but distant public authority; that they exercised social control on a territorial basis; and that they had a collective identity and shared interests.76 The gentry in this definition, he thought, was formed from the mid-thirteenth to mid-fourteenth centuries, and that all that came before this was a ‘precondition’.77 He also cautions against the idea of a smooth, linear development of a gentry class across the medieval period.78 The social framework in this book is of a loose group of minor aristocracy who will be termed ‘minor lords’. These are the social predecessors to the gentry, and, like them, encompassed a wide span of families: from those small landholders on the rise, to the greater subtenants of the earls and barons, to a few, very minor tenants-in-chief.79 Although this group covers a range of wealth and political power, these twelfth-century families show distinct characteristics. First, even if they hold some lands directly from the king, the vast majority of their lands, in both size and value, are held as a subtenancy from a tenant-inchief or another lord. This work avoids, however, simply classifying these men as subtenants, both in order to give flexibility to include very minor tenantsin-chief, and to emphasise their ability to act as small lords in their own right rather than mere subordinates. Second, their focus is predominantly local. They could hold land in one or two counties (very occasionally more), but their focus was primarily on their immediate localities. Only rarely do we see individuals with ambitions beyond the horizon of their lands.80 I have elsewhere used ‘knightly tenants’ to describe this group of individuals, but am here using the more neutral ‘minor lords’.81 Briefly, there are two 76 Coss,

Origins of the English Gentry, 11. 12. 78 Ibid., 8. 79 Hugh Thomas used ‘gentry’ as a term for this group in Angevin Yorkshire as a means of emphasising continuity with the later medieval class (ibid., 3–6, 10–11). This book has gone, as it were, the other way, in using the less historiographicallyrooted term ‘minor lords’. See Coss, Origins of the English Gentry, 1–13 for discussion of the various historiographical uses of this word. Lennard’s idea of the ‘immediate lord’ comes close to the category under study (R. Lennard, Rural England, 1066–1135 (Oxford, 1959), 47–8, 52–3, 105–6). See also Gillingham, ‘Who was then the gentleman?’, 130; Scammell, ‘Formation of the English social structure’, 618. 80 The level under study corresponds roughly to Maria Elena Cortese’s ‘puntiform’ minor aristocracy, namely those active within a single area (M.E. Cortese, Signori, castelli, città: L’aristocrazia del territorio fiorentino tra X e XII secolo (Florence, 2007), 36; Coss, The Aristocracy in England and Tuscany, 1000–1250 (Oxford, 2019), 69–70, 319). 81 Boston, ‘Multiple lordship’, 178–9. See Thomas, Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders, and Thugs, 7–12 on the difficulties of terminology for this group. 77 Ibid.,

Introduction

13

reasons for this. First, the study covers a period during which an important shift in the social meaning of ‘knight’ seems to have occurred: from the very minor fighting men described as such in Domesday Book,82 to a member of the lesser nobility by the end of the period.83 To use it in this sense across the 150-year period following the Conquest, therefore, risks being both imprecise and anachronistic. Second, identifying knights even in the later twelfth century is hardly straightforward, since the term is rarely used in twelfthcentury charters. The rolls of the Curia Regis sometimes provide lists of milites from the visnetum as part of grand assize proceedings or who were required to confirm legitimate essoins de malo lecti.84 In the later twelfth century, there is not sufficient overlap between these lists and that of individuals arising from the charter evidence to assume that they form one group. This is in contrast to the c.1220s, when the two lists are much closer.85 Nor should we allow the category to be defined by those holding knight’s fees. This would exclude several important minor lordly families, such as the de Applebys or the de Okeovers, whose similarities with ‘knightly’ families are plain, and who are described as knights in the thirteenth century and later, despite not holding by military tenure.86 Using ‘minor lords’ gives a stable but flexible category when contemporary terminology was in flux. * * * The model of the ‘feudal’ honour is thus ripe for reassessment. It is still useful and historically rooted to recognise the honour as a feature of twelfth-century society, but the historiographical baggage that has built up around the term needs to be addressed, and its dominance as a lens for the study of twelfth-century society needs to be balanced with studies from other perspectives. This book seeks to provide three main challenges to the 82

See particularly S. Harvey, ‘The knight and the knight’s fee in England’, Past and Present 49 (1970), 3–43. 83 See Stenton, First Century, 142 and n.; Vinogradoff, English Society, 80–7, 74–9; H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles, The Governance of Medieval England (Edinburgh, 1963), 60; Scammell, ‘Formation of the English social structure’, esp. 598–611; D.F. Fleming, ‘Milites as attestors to charters in England, 1101–1300’, Albion 22 (1990), 185–98 at 186–7. 84 Coss, Origins of the English Gentry, 45–51. 85 See Glanvill, II. 10–21, ed. Hall, 30–7 for the role of knights in judicial proceedings. We should probably look to the decline in the number of individuals taking up knighthood as an explanation for the pattern described above. In the late twelfth century, some of the milites may still have been very minor, younger sons or the like. By the second decade of the thirteenth century, the lower uptake in knighthood may mean that only those wealthier families who had weathered better the inflation of c.1180–1220 – and who would be much more likely to appear in charters – were going to the trouble of the financial outlay involved in becoming a knight (Coss, Origins of the English Gentry, 69–108). 86 Gresley charters nos. 152, 174. See below, 54, 82–91.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

feudal honorial model. First, it challenges the idea that honours were largely discrete entities, and that evidence of multiple lordship is therefore evidence for decline. Instead of declining from a ‘golden age’ of an ideal and coherent honour, we can see that from the earliest days after the Norman Conquest many of an honour’s men had plural allegiance. In holding lands and owing homage to several lords, they created a more diverse political and social framework than has hitherto been recognised, and from the earliest years of post-Conquest England began to build their own local centres of power. It is impossible to deny that there was a change in the prominence of honours in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The question here is the scale of that change. Since we can see individuals in late eleventh-century England with multiple lordship bonds, and who can be seen interacting with others on the basis of neighbourhood and locality, it is nothing revolutionary to see similar structures in the thirteenth century. This is despite a shift by then in weight towards locality, that is, concerns with building a localised power base and engagement with neighbouring peers, other lords, and other centres of power in the landscape. The second challenge is to the historiographical focus on the honour as a means of understanding twelfth-century society, by looking at the minor lords and their interaction with each other, their lords, and the world around them. In particular, this book emphasises that lordship from a single honour was only one of a nexus of ties through which knightly tenants had to navigate, and coexisted with important influences from other lords, from kinship, and from locality. The historiography of this social level by Carpenter, Coss, Dalton and Crouch, has tended to argue for a switch from a seigneurial world of honorial tenants to a primarily geographical world of the gentry.87 I will argue that this is a false dichotomy: minor lords were engaged from the earliest days of the Norman settlement in forming loose local networks based on a combination of plural lordship, kinship and locality. Finally, this book challenges the understanding of power in this society. Underlying the honorial model is an assumption of a classic feudal dichotomy of power and authority vested in baron and king as a means of explaining events and change in society. Much of twelfth-century historiography focuses on one as a means of describing or disputing the power of the other, even where their relationship is not thought to be antagonistic. The contention here, however, is that this dichotomy of power is too simplistic. The power and ambitions of the minor lordly class, their localised structures and centres of power – and, underlying this, the impact of geography – need to be more fully recognised as another source of authority and reason for action in the twelfth century, as they are in the later medieval period. Much of a lord’s power in this era derived ultimately from the ability to exert his or her will over people. Garnering political support, success in court, military prowess, all 87

See above, 6–7, 8–10.

Introduction

15

required successful management of supporters and rounding up of waverers. Recognition of multiple lordship means recognising also that this ability for a lord to exert their will over their own tenants or an area was in turn more complex. When one is the only lord on the scene, this kind of persuasion seems to have been needed but was perhaps more straightforward. Needing to negotiate attention and attendance from lesser men when there are other viable sources of power or lordship seems harder still. Despite the increasing use of written documents – or, at least, their greater survival rates – exerting power as a lord over a particular area in this period still relied on face-to-face relationships, namely, being able to gather people together to exert control over them, or summon them to face-to-face meetings. But in such assemblies, other forms of association were also in operation. Horizontal bonds formed between participants, created through oaths, kin alliances such as marriages or fosterage, connections to other lords if present, or to ambitious minor lords on the rise, made for a teeming and thick-textured web of power relations.

Lordship in twelfth-century England The focus of this book will still be on the classic stuff of feudalism: lords, knights, tenure, and their relationship to a wider world. It will, however, try to move past the older models through its use of contemporary sources, and through the lens of multiple lordship. It seeks to thereby provide a challenge to one of the central tenets of feudalism, and its corresponding utility as a model. A significant but shadowy group will be omitted from the discussion below: those individuals who owed allegiance to a lord but held no land of him. Such men rarely seem to have appeared in charters, so it is impossible to do a companion prosopographical study of non-landholding minor lords, or even to suggest how many such allegiances existed. Nevertheless, we get occasional glimpses. We know that lords maintained military households in the immediate aftermath of the Conquest, and it is almost certain that these continued, perhaps to a smaller degree in settled periods.88 It is likely that from the second generation after the Conquest these would have been largely composed of tenants’ sons – both those who stood to inherit from their fathers, and younger sons seeking their own grant of land.89 The greater lords 88

For example, Abbot Adelelm of Abingdon travelled with his own military retinue in the immediate aftermath of the Conquest, Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis, ii. 5, ed. Hudson, ii, 4–9. See also J.O. Prestwich, ‘The military household of the Norman kings’, EHR 96 (1981), 1–35, esp. 5–6 on the difficulties of reconstructing even that of the king before the reign of Edward I; M. Chibnall, ‘Mercenaries and the familia regis under Henry I’, History lxii (1977), 15–23. 89 See below, 107–12.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

also seem to have recruited ambitious men with whom they had no tenurial connection, and rewarded them with cash or other movable rewards.90 The career of William Marshal gives a rare glimpse into this world.91 The ensuing discussion, therefore, should not be taken as representing the entirety of seigneurial relationships at this level: merely those that are illustrated by the evidence of the charters. Just as ‘honour’ needs definition in order to be a useful historiographical concept, so too do a number of other ancillary terms for the twelfth-century seigneury. Key among these is ‘lordship’, a term that can cover a wide range of scenarios. In its simplest description, lordship in twelfth-century England was a hierarchical relationship between two people, based on mutual protection, service, and often involving a grant of land. The form of lordship that is most visible in the surviving evidence, and is the main focus of this book, rests on three key components: on homage and fides, tenure, and service.92 The Conquest did not see an ushering in of ‘feudalism’, but it did see a continued importance of lordship and kingship in society, and a strengthening of both.93 The Old English kings had been able to take oaths of loyalty from every free man.94 Their Norman successors seem to have done similarly. William I’s position as conqueror and, he claimed, rightful heir of Edward the Confessor, meant that he was able to take control of all land in England.95 The king after 1066 became the theoretical fount of all tenure. The Salisbury Oath of 1086 has generally been taken as the time when ‘all landholding men of any account’ swore allegiance to King William, certainly in regard to the faith they owed him, and possibly in connection with the tenure of their lands.96 Throughout the twelfth century, successive kings tried to assert their priority 90

Carpenter, ‘The second century’, 34. D. Crouch, William Marshal: Court, Career and Chivalry in the Angevin Empire, 1147–1219 (Harlow, 1990) esp. pp. 26–52; S. Painter, William Marshal: Knighterrant, Baron, and Regent of England (Toronto, 1933), 17–60. 92 Some forms of landholding were possible without this. The LHP mentions that the settlement of a dispute over land in fee-farm varies depending on whether or not the holder is the grantor’s man (LHP 56,1–2, 174–5). John Hudson is also sceptical about whether a grant of land to a free man always required homage (Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 21; see also G. Garnett, Conquered England: Kingship, Succession, and Tenure 1066–1166 (Oxford, 2009), 81–2). 93 H. Boston, ‘Change and continuity: multiple lordship in post-Conquest England’, ANS 43 (2021), 61–74. 94 II Edward 5; T.B. Lambert, Law and Order in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2017), 211–12; L. Roach, Kingship and Consent (Cambridge, 2013), 113–14, 120. 95 Garnett, Conquered England, 5–9; see also Ermenfrid of Sion’s Penitential Ordinance (English Historical Documents ii, no. 81). 96 ASC ‘E’, s.a. 1085 (1086); EHD ii, no. 1, 160; Holt, ‘1086’, esp. 31–5; Stenton, First Century, 112–14. Garnett, Conquered England, 83–7 and n. 279. John of Worcester’s account that it was just the milites who were required to swear seems to be flawed ( John of Worcester, iii. 44; cf. Prestwich, ‘Mistranslations and Misinterpretations in Medieval English History’, Peritia x (1996), 332–40 at 333–6). 91

Introduction

17

of service over all subjects, whether or not they held land directly of them.97 As Jean Scammell puts it, ‘England’s post-Conquest kings had not Two Bodies, but Three’, namely as individuals, kings, and landlords.98 In a sense, all individuals in England who held land of someone other than the king had two lords, albeit of particular kind. The king was always to be ‘liege’ and thereby receive priority of service above any other lord.99 In addressing how non-royal lordship was understood, this work takes a parallel path to that of Thomas Bisson. His Crisis of the Twelfth Century emphasises that across Europe in the twelfth century the primary form of power was lordship rather than ‘the state’, the latter of which Bisson sees as an anachronism for the late twelfth century.100 This lordship was affective, arbitrary, and unaccountable, and exacerbated by the proliferation of castles and knights up to the first decades of the twelfth century. In part, this book has a similar aim to Bisson’s in seeking to understand the experience of lordship. It takes a different line, however: rather than lordship being necessarily coercive and violent, the work emphasises the importance of negotiating and exploiting opportunities for mutual benefit. While some ambitious lords may have wished to predate on other lord’s men, this book will highlight the flip side of Bisson’s coin: the collaborative, quotidian realities of seigneurial interactions with one another and their men. It agrees to a certain degree with Bisson’s image of acquisitive knights – but while there is scattered evidence of encroachment and violence, particularly at times of wider unrest, the knights of midland England often sought to advance through more socially cohesive means such as service, political influence, and pragmatic collaboration.101 The importance of local connections may also have acted as a force against seigneurial and knightly violence: in order to secure grants through witnessing, and in order to secure the borders of their lands, knights had to at least generally negotiate rather than act violently. While neighbourhood ties still seem to have been relatively loose and shifting, violence on the scale envisaged by Bisson would not only disrupt the game but smash the board. How did contemporaries understand lordship and its key components? A useful starting point is the normative sources produced during the twelfth century. The first of these is the LHP, which claims to be a record of the laws in force under Henry I.102 It appears to have been written close to Winchester 97 Garnett,

Conquered England, 86, n. 297; Glanvill, IX.1, ed. Hall, 104. Scammell, ‘Formation of the English social structure’, 613. 99 LHP 43,61, ed. Downer, 152–3; Glanvill, IX.1, ed. Hall, 104. On liege lordship, see below, 202–10. 100 T. Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government (Princeton, 2009), esp. pp. 11–21, 574–81. 101 See also the comments in Carpenter, Locality and Polity, 1 on the importance of ‘peace and security’. 102 F. Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (3 vols, Halle, 1903–16), i, 546–611; LHP, ed. Downer, 23–8; Wormald, ‘Quadripartitus’, in Law and Government, ed. 98

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

by someone familiar with contemporary custom and written lawcodes, but it is not an ‘official’ text.103 Alongside current custom, largely focused on the seigneurial court, there is a jumble of clauses and adaptations from Anglo-Saxon and early Continental codes that cannot have been current.104 Although complex, the work gives a valuable impression of how at least one individual understood legal practice and jurisdiction in the early twelfth century. The second text, generally known as Glanvill, was produced possibly 1187x89 by someone close to the royal courts.105 It provides a kind of working manual of the royal courts, covering both writs and processes, and attempts some analysis of substantive law.106 Although these two sources give a sense of ideals, not necessarily practice, they are a useful starting point for how contemporaries understood key concepts around lordship. The first of the key concepts for this book are those of homage and faith. The homage bond seems to have usually been made before witnesses, and was possibly accompanied by gift-giving.107 From stray references, it seems likely that the man-to-be commonly placed his hands between those of his new lord while reciting an oath.108 It is clear from contemporary sources that this was regarded as a semi-sacral bond. Maitland describes the ‘religious whisper’ Garnett and Hudson, 111–48; R. Sharpe, ‘The dating of Quadripartitus again’, in English Law before Magna Carta: Felix Liebermann and Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. S. Jurasinski, L. Oliver and A. Rabin (Leiden, 2010), 81–94. 103 Hall notes that Wessex and its customs ‘are several times referred to in a manner suggestive of its pre-eminence in the author’s mind’ (LHP, ed. Hall, 44–5). Its author may have also produced Quadripartitus (P. Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century. Volume I, Legislation and its Limits (Oxford, 1999), 407, 412; LHP, ed. Downer, 23–8; Wormald, ‘Quadripartitus’, 133–7, and the appendix by R. Sharpe, ibid., ‘The prefaces of Quadripartitus’, 148–72; R. Sharpe, ‘The dating of Quadripartitus again’, in English Law Before Magna Carta, ed. Jurasinksi, Oliver, and Rabin, 81–94 at 85). 104 For example, in the insertion of slightly amended clauses from the seventh-century Lex Ribuaria in 70,18–20b (cf. Wormald, Making of English Law, 414). 105 Glanvill, ed. Hall, xxx–xxxiii. 106 Ibid., xxvii–xxix. 107 In a grant recorded in Dale Abbey cartulary, the grantee John, nepos of Bishop Walter of Coventry, became the man of Peter de Sandiacre the grantor in the presence of many probi homines, and gave to him 2½ marks, a bezant to his wife, and a gold ring to his son (Dale, no. 281). Given that the grant appears relatively straightforward, but that the charter is unusual in its poor drafting, it may be possible to argue for gift exchange at the homage ceremony being more generally practised. A charter of Burton Abbey of 1130x50 also mentions that after liege homage was sworn, the pactum of fidelitas was strengthened by the payment of 3 marks to the abbot, who used this to pay the church’s workmen (BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 37v; SRO D603/A/Add/7). 108 Hudson, OHLE, 431. References to a similar ritual form can be seen across a wide time-span in western Europe. See the discussion in J. le Goff, ‘The symbolic ritual of vassalage’, in J. le Goff, Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages, transl. A. Goldhammer (Chicago, 1980), 239, 241–4.

Introduction

19

of Glanvill and Bracton when speaking of homage.109 Since it was in large part an agreement of mutual protection, action by either lord or man which contravened this could end the homage bond.110 But homage was a relatively new term, and its precise meaning seems to have been evolving through the twelfth century, both in northern France where it seems to have originated, and in England. In LHP, the lines between homage and fides, faith, were not clear-cut. Homagium111 could be done to several lords, but fides seems to have been an implicit part of the bond,112 and was occasionally used as a metonym for homage.113 Fides was owed to all lords, but priority was to be given to God, to the princeps, and to the liege lord.114 In Glanvill, however, fides has been overtaken by homagium as a means of describing the lordship bond. The latter receives a considerable portion of Book IX to itself, and the writer carefully goes through how homage is to be done, to whom, and for what; its connection to relief (a payment given to take up a landholding); the kind of bond that is created; and in particular its relationship to landholding.115 Terminology about faith is also more precise in Glanvill: fidelitas is used to describe a component of loyalty, and fides as a wider term about faith in oaths.116 109 F. Pollock

and F.W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I, 2nd edn (2 vols, Cambridge, 1898), i, 297. 110 Hudson, Land, Law and Lordship, 21; Hudson, OHLE, 335. 111 Hominium appears frequently as a synonym. The author of the History of Abingdon Abbey helpfully clarified this: ‘abbas … Picotum in hominem, id est homagium, suscepit’ (1087x1100) (Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis, ed. J. Hudson (2 vols, Oxford, 2002–07), ii. c.43, 48–9; cited Garnett, Conquered England, 78, n. 244). 112 Hudson, OHLE, 431; Garnett, Conquered England, 209 and n. 611. 113 Drawing from this, it does not seem feasible to use the LHP’s statement on the fides reserved for the terre princeps as a definitive statement on the type of oath that was required by kings in the century after the conquest (Leges Heniric Primi, 55,3, ed. Downer, 172–3). The Salisbury Oath of 1086 has generally been taken as the time when ‘all landholding men of any account’ did homage and fealty to the king (ASC ‘E’, s.a. 1085 (1086); EHD ii, no. 1, 160; Holt, ‘1086’, 31; Stenton, First Century, 112–14). By Glanvill’s day in the 1180s, the king was the only lord to whom homage could be owed for ‘mere lordship’, rather than for a grant of land (Glanvill, IX. 2, ed. Hall, 106). 114 LHP 55,3, 55,3b, ed. Downer, 172–5; cf. Garnett, Conquered England, 81–2. See Chapter 5 for discussion of liege lordship. 115 Glanvill IX. 1–7, ed. Hall, 103–11, esp. IX. 2, 106. 116 Glanvill, VII. 18; IX. 1, ed. Hall, 92; pp. 103–6. Fides is used in Glanvill to mean, variously, the faith owed by a son to his father (ibid. II. 3, ed. Hall, 23); pledging of a solemn vow (I. 12; X. 3, ed. Hall, 8; 117); and to describe an oath about the truth of legal testimony (II. 7, ed. Hall, 28). Bracton in the 1230s described fidelitas as being less solemn than homage, and while it made a man liable for bearing faith, it did not make him his lord’s man. It still had a sacral element, however, and was to be sworn on a gospel-book (Bracton, De Legibus et Consuetudines Angliae, fo. 80, ed. S.E. Thorne (4 vols, London, 1968), ii, 232–4; Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, i, 298).

20

Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

Both the LHP and Glanvill give useful insights into what contemporary writers expected of the seigneurial bond. For the compiler of the Leges Henrici, a man was to observe his lord’s counsel (obseruatione consilii sui),117 and should be towards his lord honourable, useful, and protective of his lord’s power and health, both bodily and spiritual.118 Treachery towards one’s lord (proditio) is placed on a par with other things contrary to God’s law.119 For Glanvill, in the 1180s, the duties of the homage bond are owed by both the lord and man: Mutua quidem debet esse dominii et homagii fidelitatis connexio, ita quod quantum homo debet domino ex homagio tantum dominus debet illi ex dominio, preter solam reuerenciam. The bond of trust arising from lordship and homage should be mutual, so that the lord owes as much to the man on account of lordship as the man owes to the lord on account of homage, save only reverence.120

Women were not permitted by law to do homage, but were able to swear fealty (fidelitas) to their lords.121 In describing the provisions for co-heiresses, Glanvill says that the husbands of younger daughters were not bound to do homagium uel eciam [sic] fidelitatem to the husband of the eldest daughter until the third generation.122 Similarly, a man marrying a widow with dower ‘need only do fidelitas accompanied by an oath to her warrantor, and not homagium’.123 There is also a strong emphasis on fidelity and protection within the lordship bond. The man is not to ‘do anything which works to the disinheritance or bodily dishonour of his lord’ (ad exheredationem domini sui uel ad dedecus corporis sui).124 The man was to preserve his lord’s honour, as long as this did not conflict with his primary obligation to the king and his heirs. He could not attack him, except in self-defence, or when ordered to by the king. For Glanvill, homage also provided protection for the man, however. A lord was not to demand service, including relief, from an heir, until he had received his homage for that tenement, and could not take wardship of an heir until he had received that heir’s homage.125 Homage was to be done only for lands, free tenements (tenementis liberis), services, and for precise rents, and its

117 LHP

55,3, ed. Downer, 172–3. 82,5, ed. Downer, 256–7. 119 Ibid., 55,3a, ed. Downer, 174–5. 120 Glanvill, IX. 4, ed. Hall, 107. 121 Ibid., IX. 1, ed. Hall, 103. 122 Ibid., VII. 3, ed. Hall, 76. 123 Ibid., VII. 12, ed. Hall, 86. See also VII. 18, ed. Hall, 92. 124 Ibid., IX. 1, ed. Hall, 104. 125 Ibid., IX. 1; 4, ed. Hall, 103–4; 107. 118 Ibid.,

Introduction

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performance put a lord under obligation to warrant his man’s lands, or give others in exchange if they were lost to a third party.126 By Henry II’s day, homage also seems to have helped to cement an heir’s rights: if an heir came to the land when he was of full age, he was able to remain in it even against the lord’s will, provided that he offered his homage and service, and a ‘reasonable relief ’ (rationabile relleuium), in the presence of trustworthy men.127 So strong was the heir’s ability to push his lord on this that, even if the lord refused, he could keep offering it to his lord, and finally receive a writ commanding the lord to receive his homage, on pain of having to explain to the king or his justices why he would not.128 In addition, the man could expect his lord to provide more general forms of protection for his person and position, which would increase in value with the lord’s standing. F.W. Maitland summarised it neatly: ‘[I]n the Middle Ages the advantages of the rich and powerful must have been enormous. Happy then was the tenant who could say to any adverse claimant: ‘Sue me if you will, but remember that behind me you will find the earl or the abbot.’129 The second key component is the grant of land from lord to man. A central question for the period is the extent to which homage and land tenure can be linked. As a broad outline, in many cases it appears that the relationship between a man and his lord, formed by homage, was rewarded, and the man supported by the grant of a parcel of lands. As a result, both of this and of the homage bond, the man was required to render service from the land and by his person. Glanvill assumed that homage should be done in return for a grant of land (illo tenemento unde homagium suum prestat).130 Although he recognised that there were exceptions,131 only the king could receive homage for ‘mere lordship’ without giving land in return.132 Hudson argues that the most we can say is ‘that homage was generally central to the bond of man and lord … A structure to explain twelfth-century land law cannot, therefore, happily rest upon the act of homage as peculiarly constitutive of the holding of each tenement by the vassal from the lord.’133 Taking into account that not all landholding was secured by homage, or that all homage was secured with landholding, there is a strong link between the two

126 Ibid.;

Garnett, Conquered England, 74–5. IX. 4, ed. Hall, 108. 128 Ibid., IX. 4–6, ed. Hall, 108–10. 129 Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law i, 306. 130 Glanvill, IX. 1, ed. Hall, 104. 131 IX. 2, ed. Hall, 106 mentions that homage is not due for dower, for free marriage until the third generation, or for younger sisters holding of eldest, free alms, or for marriage portions by the new husband. 132 Ibid. IX. 2, ed. Hall, 106; Garnett, Conquered England, 83–7. 133 Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 21. Hudson argues that Glanvill’s ‘preoccupation’ with land tenure led to this statement, which is contradicted by other sources, most notably vernacular literature (ibid., 16). Cf. Garnett, Conquered England, 81–3. 127 Glanvill

22

Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

that appears to have strengthened through the twelfth century.134 Charters, too, increasingly mention lands being given ‘for [the grantee’s] homage and service [pro homagio et seruicio suo]’.135 Homage may not have been needed every time land was granted, however: it was probably not necessary to re-do homage for each grant of land, and even references to lands being held for an individual’s ‘homage and service’ may refer to this having been done in the past.136 The nature of the services required as a consequence of a homage bond and grant of land varied depending on the lord’s requirements, and his previous relationship with the grantee. Tenure of land by knight’s service falls into two groups. In Domesday Book we can see small grants of lands given to unnamed knights, whose descent is very difficult to trace.137 Evidence from the first decades after the Conquest, however, points to tenure by knight’s service being the most common form of landholding for the greater tenants on an honour.138 These grants of lands tended to be large, sufficient to pay for a knight and his equipment, and would have given these tenants local standing.139 Tenants holding by knight’s service were at least in theory required to do military service for their lord, both in his retinue when summoned by the king or occasionally the lord himself, and in guarding his castles.140 In practice, this could be commuted with a money payment, known as scutage, although the early development of this practice is obscure.141 Those holding by this form of tenure in the twelfth century are generally among the most visible in a lord’s charters, and often form stable dynasties stretching into the later medieval period and beyond.142 Evidence from charters for homage is in general sparse, so 134 Hudson,

OHLE, 431–2, 631; Glanvill, IX. 2, ed. Hall, 106. instance, Dale, nos. 41, 51, 303, 304, 394, 395, 460, 501. Although this phrase is relatively uncommon in charters, it generally appears in those instances where the performance of homage or its absence would have the greatest impact, namely in charters dealing with grants of land within families. 136 Hudson, OHLE, 336. 137 Harvey, ‘The knight and the knight’s fee’, 4–5; Stenton, First Century, 23. 138 Mortimer, ‘Land and service’, 177–81. 139 See Henry I’s Coronation edict, c. 11. Magna Carta laid down a maximum relief of 100s. for a knight’s fee (c.2, ed. D. Carpenter, Magna Carta (London, 2015), 38–9). 140 Dale abbey has a grant by Adam de Morteyn of lands at Stanton to Fulcher de ‘Codinton’ (now Cottons Farm, Normanton) at farm. This land is to be quit of military service (exercitu) and ward, the latter of which Saltman suggests would have been castleguard at Nottingham – although his reasons for saying so are opaque. The land is also to be quit from all services which pertain to the corpus militis, but not from forinsec service (Dale, no. 312; F.M. Stenton, Documents Illustrative of the Social and Economic History of the Danelaw (London, 1920), cxxvi). 141 F. Barlow, The Feudal Kingdom of England, 1042–1216, 5th edn (London, 1977), 147–8, 258–9. 142 Mortimer, ‘Land and service’, 181–5; H.M. Colvin, ‘Holme Lacy: an episcopal manor and its tenants in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, in Medieval Studies Presented to Rose Graham (Oxford, 1950), ed. V. Ruffer and A.J. Taylor, 15–40. Occasionally tenure in fee appears in a usage closer to that of pre-1066 Normandy, where it meant tenure in return for a specific service that was not necessarily military (E.Z. Tabuteau, Transfers 135 For

Introduction

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it is not possible to say with certainty the role which homage played in tenure by knight’s service, but it generally seems to have been required.143 Serjeanty, that is, lands held for a nominal non-military yearly render, such as a rose or a pair of gloves, appears in the later twelfth century. It is thought to be a reward of lands made by a lord to his man for services previously rendered.144 Tenure by fee-farm appears in Domesday Book and continues to crop up in the twelfth century.145 This required a fixed amount of money to be paid yearly from the lands. As would be expected, the money render required of the ‘farmer’ is generally higher than that exacted from other forms of tenure, and correspondingly must have left less over for the ‘farmer’s’ own pocket. Hudson argues that this form of tenure was often hereditary;146 but variation in terms occurred.147 As well as the money farm due each year, there may have been other things required, such as hospitality or certain agricultural services.148 The LHP suggests that homage was not always exacted for lands held in this way,149 but in most of the instances to which this book will refer, the sources state explicitly that homage had been done.150 of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law (Chapel Hill, 1988), 51–2). William the vicar of Marston-on-Dove granted a messuage in fee (feudo) in Hilton (Derbys.) to his godson William fitz Stephen, clerk of Egginton, for the service of maintaining a lamp in Hilton at the celebration of the Mass antiquitus statutis. (Dale, no. 464). 143 Garnett, Conquered England, 86 and ibid., n. 297; 125. 144 Hudson, OHLE, 634–5 and n. 41. 145 The sources for the use of fee-farm by Burton Abbey are particularly rich: see Chapter 5 below. On fee-farm more generally see Lennard, Rural England, 110–28, 142, 146–59, 276–7; Faith, English Peasantry, 181–3. 146 Hudson, OHLE, 338–9. The evidence of the Burton charters, below, suggests that in the first decades of the twelfth century succession was still under the church’s control. The lands generally seem to have been granted for two lives. See also J. Hudson, ‘Life grants of land and the development of inheritance in AngloNorman England’, ANS 12 (1990), 67–80. 147 Garnett, Conquered England, 97–8. 148 BL Add. MS 89169, fos 17–19. 149 Under LHP c. 56, rubricated as De firma tenanda, it is recorded that if a dispute arises with someone who holds of the person or body in fee-farm, and that the farmer is not their man (homo suus), then the dispute is to be settled in the manorial court (in ipso manerio). If the farmer has done homage, however, and holds it in fee (in feodo teneat et homagium inde fecerit), the dispute is to go to the lord’s court, or the court of the lord whose fee it is (LHP 56, 1–2, ed. Downer, 174–5). The rest of c. 56 may shed light on why there should be such a distinction. Its focus on the demands of the reeve’s office indicates that the main focus of this chapter may have been more on the position of a reeve in managing his lord’s estates (see Karn’s argument that the rubrication of the LHP was later and inaccurate (N. Karn, ‘Rethinking the LHP’, in English Law before Magna Carta, ed. Jurasinski, Oliver and Rabin, 199–220). Since reeves were not infrequently drawn from the level of unfree men, this would account for the distinction: those holding lands by farm could either be the lord’s officials, bound in a servile way to the lord and the soil, or higher-ranking freemen or minor lords – and disputes with their lord were treated according to this bond with their lord. 150 See below, 202–10.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

Tenure by socage does not appear by name until the thirteenth century, but the term is a convenient way for modern historians to categorise the forms of tenure that we see in the twelfth century which were based largely on the rendering of agricultural dues. Hudson suggests that the term developed as a means of categorising the tenure of sokemen and prefers for this reason ‘free tenure’.151 This kind of tenure required its tenant to render a set amount of money or produce, and probably certain agricultural dues, so may have blurred in its early years fee-farm and what were later termed serjeanties.152 It is unclear whether homage was always required from tenants in socage. Bracton states for the thirteenth century that it was not due for this type of tenure, although it was sometimes done.153 Maitland noted, however, that by the latter century homage by tenants in socage seems to have been common.154 In addition to the particular services performed for these kinds of tenures, which charters often outline, there were a raft of other services which only rarely appear in writing, but which may have been exacted more widely. Service exacted from allegiance and tenure seems to have operated on a kind of sliding scale. There were some services which had to be performed to avoid a breach of homage: not formally defying the lord, attacking him, or causing damage to his person or possessions. Into this category we may also put what services were recorded in writing in a charter, the most common of which was a render in money or produce. We certainly see instances of where individuals failed to pay these, but judging by court cases and final concords, the tenant was generally adjudged to have acted wrongly in so doing. Suit of court might also be included as a requirement.155 The appearance of lords’ courts is difficult to date precisely, and will to some degree depend on our definition of the term. It is likely that lords had long been mediating disputes between their own men. With the closer connection in the post-Conquest period between land tenure and jurisdiction, conditions were favourable for the lord’s ability to mediate between tenants becoming hardened into customary law. Lords’ ‘private’ courts do not appear in charters until the mid-twelfth century, but the LHP shows a system in which they are already up and running, and that some of the complexities of where a case should be heard have begun to be worked out.156 Nicholas Karn has argued recently that seigneurial courts of the twelfth century emerged as lords ‘broke 151 Hudson,

OHLE, 340. 634–5. 153 Bracton, De Legibus, ii. fos 77b, 78, 79b, ed. Thorne, ii, 226, 231. 154 Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, i, 305–6. Bracton also warns against lords allowing villeins, through negligentiam vel stultitiam, to do homage, since it will be damaging to the lord (Bracton, De Legibus, ii, fo. 78, ed. Thorne, ii, 226). 155 Lennard, Rural England, 24, 34–9. 156 LHP 9,4, 33,1, 57,1a–9a etc., ed. Downer, 104–7, 136–7, 176–9; F.W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England (Cambridge, 1897), 80–3; Wormald, The Making of English Law, 413. 152 Ibid.,

Introduction

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off ’ some of the roles previously played by the hundred and established halimotas on their own lands.157 When we have evidence about how these courts were run, the lord’s role appears to have been more as an overseer rather than dictating all decisions.158 The suitors to the court seem to have most commonly been those to state the custom and to direct what should happen in the particular instance. The lord’s main role was in providing a place and lending legitimacy to decisions, grants and dispute resolution – backed up by force and officials to intervene decisively when necessary.159 Nevertheless, the dynamic of jurisdiction had changed since the late Saxon period. There could now be jurisdictional struggles between courts as lords attempted to compel men’s attendance.160 Generally, we have little sense of what other services might be required because charters rarely mention them in detail. A notable exception are the early-to-mid twelfth century charters of the Benedictine abbey at Burtonupon-Trent (Staffs.), which shed some rare light on what else these services might entail.161 They demand, variously, that their fee-farm tenants accompany the abbot on his travels, attend pleas when summoned, lend their carts or ploughs as the abbey might need, supervise agricultural work at boon times, provide hospitality and, in one case, build a house for provision of this.162 In trying to apply these services more widely, we run up against the classic charter dilemma: were these kinds of services so common as to not need record, or merely orally contracted, and Burton Abbey simply more assiduous in recording them in writing (presumably to make their enforcement easier); or are these kinds of services more unusual? Burton was in some ways archaic in its land management, and some of these may be hangovers that Norman lords were less interested or perhaps less able in enforcing (although the increase in renders post-Conquest suggests the trend would run towards exacting more). Nevertheless, these might conceivably be services to be performed ‘where possible’. It is acknowledged in one charter, discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5, that a man would not have to go the abbey’s

157 N.

Karn, Kings, Lords and Courts in Anglo-Norman England (Woodbridge, 2020), 101–2, 106–26, 204–7. 158 The miracle stories from Burton Abbey seem to imply that an official could direct judgments, but that this was an abuse of power. These stories include one about a sheriff directing the court to make the judgment against the abbey. He is however divinely punished. While sitting among his family and boasting about this, he leans unwisely on his hand, slips, and knocks out his own eye (Life and Miracles of St. Modwenna, c. 47, ed. R. Bartlett (Oxford, 2002), 190–3. See J.F.A. Mason, ‘Barons and their officials in the later eleventh century’, ANS 13 (1991), 243–62 at 248–9 on lords’ sheriffs. 159 See the example of the Okeover family, below, 82–91. 160 Karn, Kings, Lords and Courts, 117. 161 On Burton Abbey, see below, 197–201. 162 BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 37v. See below, 202–3.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

summons to attend a plea if he were already attending on another local lord.163 Such services may have been desirable, but failure to perform them may not have been fatal to one’s relationship with the lord. In a third category is a kind of much closer personal service. This service is often associated with those that are variously classed as a lord’s inner circle, his retinue, or his honorial barons. These are a group who were frequently in a lord’s presence, often travelled with him outside their areas of tenure, were more likely to have supported his religious foundations and donations, acted as household officials, and were probably among his main counsellors.164 This group by no means included all of a lord’s tenants, but is instead a special sub-category of those whom through reasons we cannot now see clearly – perhaps kinship, personal connection or ambition – involved themselves closely with their lord’s interests. The composition of the honorial baronage varied honour to honour, over time, and must have varied, too, between generations.165 The kind of service honorial barons seem to have performed was important to a lord for the smooth running of his household and estates, a military retinue, and the life of his household, but this service was not something that was performed by every tenant, and it should not be assumed that it was. Such services do not seem to have been expected from all men – or at least, the trajectory of honours over the long twelfth century shows that those who (as far as we can tell) did not behave in this way towards their lords did not lose their lands. Alongside the seigneurial structures, older structures continued. Shires, namely the administrative structure of the county, with its own court and judicial function, had been established in the north Midland area long before.166 These were subdivided into smaller units known as hundreds, or wapentakes in Danelaw areas. The shire, hundred, and wapentake courts continued in use throughout the twelfth century and beyond, but much of our evidence for them in our period is from gatherings specially summoned by the king to resolve a particular dispute.167 The well-known 1108 writ of Henry I reserved his right to summon meetings of the shire and hundred, but decreed that courts were otherwise to continue to meet at the same times and places as in the past.168 It gives a useful insight, too, into the jurisdiction over land of these and of seigneurial courts. The king’s barons were to have their plea in his court, and a plea between the men of the same baron were to go to the baron’s court. If the men in dispute were of different lords, the plea was to go to the shire court.169 Some royal business used the county as well: 163 BL

Add. MS 89169, fos 38v–39; Modwenna, Appendix no. 9, li–lii; see below, 206. First Century, 84–114. 165 Thomas, Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders, and Thugs, 19–20. 166 See G. Molyneaux, The Formation of the English Kingdom in the Tenth Century (Oxford, 2015), 157–64. 167 Hudson, OHLE, 276–80. 168 RRAN ii, no. 892; on dating see Sharpe, ‘The prefaces of Quadripartitus’, 150, n. 10. 169 RRAN, ii, no. 892. 164 Stenton,

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27

justices in eyre held cases before the court, either at routine or extraordinary sessions;170 and Hudson points out that some cases between tenants-in-chief can also be found in the county, rather than being heard before the king.171 LHP states that the county court should deal with religious pleas, then royal, and finally those of individuals,172 although it is unclear whether this was followed in practice.173 Suit of the county court seems to have been owed by those with a certain, although unknown, quantity of land in the county,174 which seems to have been sufficiently inconvenient for individuals to seek exemptions from this duty.175 Similarly, suit to the hundred seems to have been determined by the tenure of land within its jurisdiction.176 Hudson thinks that the division between county and hundred courts seems to have been a case of scale rather than substance, although more serious disciplinary cases may have been reserved for the larger court or royal justices.177 Similarly, the divisions between the territorial and seigneurial courts were not always clear,178 and they coalesced in cases where a lord held an entire hundred or shire.179 Appletree wapentake in Derbyshire, for example, was held almost in its entirety by the Ferrers, and the hundred court seems to have been held at the Ferrers caput of Tutbury castle.180 Similarly, it is rarely possible to say with any certainty in what kind of court a charter’s business took place. Occasionally it is mentioned that the transaction took place before a certain lord, or that a certain hundred witnessed it. Throughout this book, therefore, the type of court in which proceedings are happening is left to one side unless clear evidence is available: instead, the focus will be on the individuals who were present at a gathering and the business transacted there. Alongside these developing social structures, the twelfth century saw a general increase in pressure on lands.181 A growing population and rising prices across all levels of society was compounded by ambitious minor lords swallowing up small parcels of land where they could and, we may assume, 170 Hudson,

OHLE, 269–70, 280; W.T. Reedy, ‘The origin of the General Eyre in the reign of Henry I’, Speculum 44 (1966), 688–724; Stenton, English Justice, 61–5, 71–4. 171 Hudson, OHLE, 279; English Lawsuits from William I to Richard I (2 vols, London, 1990–91), ed. van Caenegem, i. nos. 18, 43–50; no. 160, 127; no. 245, 210; no. 267, 226–7. 172 LHP, 7,3, ed. Downer, 100–1. 173 Hudson, OHLE, 278–9. 174 Ibid., 277; RRAN, i, no. 393. 175 Hudson, OHLE, 278. Henry I’s writ of 1108 expressed concerns on this matter (RRAN ii, no. 892). 176 Hudson, OHLE, 281 and n. 65; LHP, 7,8, ed. Downer, 100–1. 177 Hudson, OHLE, 282. 178 RRAN, ii, no. 892; cf. LHP, 7,1, ed. Downer, 98–9; Hudson, OHLE, 281, 285. 179 Ibid., 284–5; W.O. Ault, Private Jurisdiction in England (New Haven, 1923), 6–8. 180 SRO D603/A/Add/10 and BL Add. Ch.27313; printed Modwenna, Appendix no. 10, lii–lv. See also Karn, Kings, Lords and Courts, 82–100. 181 Faith, English Peasantry, 184–7, 201.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

squeezing as much revenue out of it as possible. For much of the twelfth century, the charter evidence gives us frustratingly little detail on how minor lords managed their lands: whether they kept lands in demesne, that is under their direct management, or granted it out in turn to their own retainers.182 Both seem likely, although demesne resources may have been small at this level.183 Where minor lords had small parcels of scattered lands, it may have been necessary to grant them to tenants and collect revenue, rather than attempting to manage them as demesne. Minor lords’ seeming preference for acquiring lands in a consolidated block may have been to aid direct cultivation.184 The inflation of the later twelfth century and the rising costs to maintain the required trappings of seigneurial life undoubtedly put more economic pressure on minor lords. The ability to gain lands from outside a single lord may have acted as something of a safety valve, allowing minor lords to grow their revenues and balance the books. This would, however, transfer pressure to the peasantry. Ros Faith has noted how peasants, including formerly free individuals who lost status at the Conquest, found themselves on a downward social and legal trajectory as they became tied to the new manoria.185 Although lordship over peasants is one seigneurial form, it is of quite a different nature from the lordship that the minor seigneurial class experienced. With all land held in theory from the king after the Conquest, peasants were gradually pushed into dependence on their lord for land and livelihood.186 Lords could thus exert considerable control on setting the terms of service, and although, as Faith argues, this may have been a negotiated position, the increasing shortage of available land in the later twelfth century exacerbated conditions for those who laboured on the land.187 After the Conquest, a wedge was driven between the cultivators who needed land to work and the controllers of land who profited from peasant labour, in a much more striking way than previously. Minor lords were on the right side of the line, as it were, with sufficient standing, connections and scope for performing honorable service to ensure that they would benefit from this change in land tenure. Far from suffering the same pressures as peasants, minor lords benefited from the appropriation of peasant land and labour after the Conquest. They were able to exact payment and service that allowed them as a group, although not always individually, to flourish in the twelfth century. As the maps below suggest, seigneurial presence in the lowland areas

182 Ibid.,

201–2; 207. 184–5. 184 Ibid., 169–70. 185 Ibid., 207, 215–8. 186 Ibid., 223. See also Karn, Kings, Lords and Courts, 108–26. 187 Ibid., 221–3; R. Faith, The Moral Economy of the Countryside: Anglo-Saxon to AngloNorman England (Cambridge, 2020), 21, 156–8. 183 Ibid.,

Introduction

29

of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire was extending its tendrils throughout the region, and enmeshing the peasantry more tightly in its grip. The experience of lordship for peasants and for minor lords, even from the same landlords, was thus increasingly divergent. Paul Hyams’ discussion of the development of villein rights shows a similar split. In his work he emphasised the relativity of villein status – that their rights towards the world in law were much greater than their rights to prosecute their own lords.188 Between lords and minor lords, no such restrictions were in place. Unlike the lordship over peasants, lordship over minor lords was that over someone of free status, who could thus change and shape their relationship. It is therefore of a different nature, with different possibilities and expectations on each side. A minor lord with the capacity to take his service elsewhere was someone requiring negotiation, not domination.

The north Midlands region: sources and geography This book is about the dynamics of seigneurial power between a lord and his men in this period. As a result, the area on which the book focuses – the Midland counties of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire – is used as a case study, whose implications for understanding central medieval society are much broader. It also means that this book does not intend to be a comprehensive history of the area under study, still less the three counties as a whole. Rather, it will draw representative examples from the area to discuss and illustrate relationships. This means that it has been necessary to omit detailed discussion of certain lords, towns and religious houses, particularly those that have been better covered by other historians. Readers wanting to explore these in greater detail will be able to find key works in the footnotes and bibliography. The main source base for this book is the charter, a broad term covering grants of property and rights, quitclaims, final concords and other business. In all, many thousands survive for the three counties between the Conquest and 1216, and I have endeavoured to examine all accessible extant documents. These include original single-sheet charters, copies in both secular and monastic cartularies, and editions produced by antiquarians such as William Dugdale and John Nichols, where the originals from which they were working are now lost.189 The first charter for the region is 1094x1113, but examples from this early in the period tend to be sparse.190 From those examined for this study there is a sharp uptick in the number of charters 188 P.

Hyams, Kings, Lords, and Peasants in Medieval England (Oxford, 1980), 126–51. Dugdale, Rev. J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel (eds), Monasticon Anglicanum (6 vols in 8, London, 1817–30); J. Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester (4 vols, London, 1795–1811). 190 BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 17. 189 W.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

surviving from c.1150 onwards, and another increase in the first decades of the thirteenth century. All were in Latin, although the quality of this could vary widely. In this period, private charters should be understood as records of orally-transacted agreements, and generally are focused primarily on grants of, or settlements of dispute over, land.191 They give us an unparalleled glimpse into a society for which we have few other records: letter collections, accounts and other rich documentary sources only begin to appear in later centuries. As a result, the image they give us is skewed towards the landholding classes and business relating to property. Women and landless individuals are thus more elusive in the documents, although will be examined where they appear. For convenience, I use ‘he’ and ‘his’ to describe lords and tenants, but women could be present in both categories. To these documents can be added Domesday Book, the early entries from the Curia Regis rolls, which begin in 1196, the Pipe Rolls of 1130/1 and the series from after 1155, and other miscellaneous royal records. The minor lords of this region rarely appear in narrative sources, but occasional accounts from religious houses help to fill in some important gaps. The exceptional records from the abbey of Burton-upon-Trent are examined in their own right in Chapter 5. Some archaeology and landscape history has also been used, but for this the twelfth century is surprisingly elusive. Although castles are often datable from attendant written sources, we seem to have little on how minor lords were living. The archaeology of everyday life does not seem to show much distinctive change around the twelfth century. The large-scale reorganisation of the countryside by minor lords into parkland seems to begin in earnest in the mid-thirteenth century.192 As a result, what archaeology we currently have for the area again tends towards the higher elite, but will nevertheless be used where possible. The counties of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire are particularly suitable for this study for four reasons. The first is the layout of the counties. All three meet with a fourth, Warwickshire, at No Man’s Heath. North of here, for approximately 16 miles, the Derbyshire lands form a corridor of no more than 7 miles wide between Leicestershire and Staffordshire, and therefore gives a useful test area to determine the extent to which county boundaries had an impact on the landholding of the minor lords.193 191 M.

Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 3rd edn (Chichester, 2013), 55–80, 87–105. 192 S.A. Mileson, Parks in Medieval England (Oxford, 2009), 146–57. O. Creighton, Designs upon the Land: Elite Landscapes of the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2009), esp. pp. 122–7. 193 A number of vills in this area shifted between counties. Netherseal and Overseal, now in Derbyshire, were included in the Leicestershire folios of Domesday Book. Conversely, in the same area, Chilcote, Oakthorpe, Measham and Willesley, which are now in Leicestershire, were included in the Derbyshire folios. Appleby, Ravenstone, Stretton en le Field, Donisthorpe, and Linton appear on both the Leicestershire and Derbyshire folios (D. Holly, ‘Leicestershire’, in H.C. Darby

Introduction

31

Second, the counties provide useful contrasts in honorial geography. The Ferrers held the entirety of Appletree wapentake in Derbyshire, and a considerable number of vills in neighbouring wapentakes. These were abutted by other great lords, and there were a few very small tenants-inchief, particularly in south Derbyshire and Staffordshire. In Leicestershire, by contrast, the Survey of c.1130 shows us clearly that almost half of vills by this time were subdivided by two or more tenants-in-chief. The area, then, allows us to examine how far proximity had an impact on prevalence of multiple lordship. Third, the three counties are well-served with documents for the period. Considerable numbers of private charters survive, probably in part due to the longevity of many of the post-Conquest families, and a widespread interest in family history in more recent centuries which saw these collected and preserved.194 A boom in the foundation of religious houses after 1066, which were understandably keen to preserve records of their endowments, furnishes us with a lot more information on the minor lords who were their patrons and neighbours. Fourth and finally, the region is relatively marginal to national concerns. Although the earl of Chester exerted pressure here in Stephen’s reign, and there were rebellions across the period, most of its concern seems to have been relatively local. It was sufficiently far from the usual royal ambit to feel little especial royal power; it had no great strategic value, and it was not particularly valuable economically. It is good for providing, therefore, a survey of local society in the period that in many cases had only local horizons. While the area has its idiosyncrasies, I argue that the practices of lordship discussed below are representative of wider patterns in central medieval society. The three counties also present different geographical frameworks. Leicestershire is the lowest-lying, with only small areas to the north-west and east lying above 180 metres (600 feet). Much of it is covered with the well-known Midlands clay. It is roughly divided in half by the River Soar. Despite its ridges of high land and wold, the eastern half of the county seems to have been richer than the west. In the Domesday Survey, it appears to have been more densely populated, with a denser distribution of plough teams and mills, and relatively little woodland.195 Holly thought that this indicated and I.B. Terrett (eds), The Domesday Geography of Midland England, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1971), 313–15). 194 The Gresley and Shirley families did particularly well on this front: the former only became extinct in the main line in the early twentieth century; the latter still survives. In south Derbyshire and Staffordshire, the gentry seem to have been enduringly powerful: in this area still, there are a considerable number of small stately homes built from the late medieval period or up to the eighteenth century, many more so than are known from Leicestershire, for instance. Geography may have played a role: Derbyshire’s poorer transport links and the relative isolation of some valleys and uplands may have allowed gentry to maintain influence over the local population for longer. 195 Holly, ‘Leicestershire’, 332–8, 344.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

‘a moderately high agricultural development’.196 The west of the county was poorer and, although it had a comparable number of settlements, it had a noticeably lower population. In part, this may have been due to less fertile soil, less meadowland, and a larger amount of woodland. In particular, there is a large gap of settlement caused by Charnwood Forest. This forms the highest part of the county, lying between 120 and 275 metres (400 and 900 feet) and, although a few settlements appear on its edges, it seems to have been thinly populated.197 At the time of the Domesday Survey, the king held extensive lands in the more valuable eastern half of the county, and only a small clutch of lands to the west of the Soar. His eastern holdings included the large manors of Rothley and Great Bowden, of which the former had 21 and the latter ten dependent vills.198 The king also had in his hand the lands previously held by Earl Aubrey de Couci, who had resigned his English lands and withdrawn to Normandy shortly after 1080.199 The largest landowner by some way was Hugh de Grandmesnil. His holdings clustered around the centre of the county, and the wapentakes of Guthlaxton and Gartree.200 These lands later came to the Meulan earls of Leicester after the forfeiture by Hugh’s heir. Henry de Ferrers held only two small blocks in the county: one in the east, to the north of the River Wreake; and one by the western border that abutted his lands in south Derbyshire.201 The ‘Leicestershire Survey’ of c.1130 allows us to update this picture for Framland, Goscote and Gartree wapentakes. The king still retained some lands, but had distributed some to existing earls, and had carved out holdings for ‘new men’ Norman de Verdun and Richard Basset.202 The earl of Chester had a block of land in Goscote wapentake, although he had begun to acquire additional holdings nearby.203 Derbyshire was and is a county of two halves. To the south of a line running roughly from Derby north-westward towards Ashbourne, the Midland clay continues from Leicestershire, and the landscape is low and gently rolling. This area of southern Derbyshire had the densest population, the largest amount of meadow and number of mills,204 and the most valuable manors.205 North of this line the geology changes to limestone hills with deep, narrow river valleys, and grassy uplands. The Light Peak region of the Peak District starts to the immediate north-east of Ashbourne, and has several peaks 196 Ibid.,

353–6, quotation at 355. 357–8. 198 Ibid., 316–17. 199 DB i, fo. 231v; VCH Leics, i, 290. 200 DB i fos 232–233; VCH Leics, i, 291–2. 201 Ibid., 291–2. 202 C.F. Slade, ‘The Leicestershire Survey c. AD 1130’ (Department of English Local History Occasional Papers No. 7, University College of Leicester, 1956), 14–29, 86. 203 Ibid., 87. 204 Holly, ‘Derbyshire’, in Domesday Geography, 319–21. 205 Ibid., 297–301. 197 Ibid.,

Map 1  Major landholders in Leicestershire at the time of Domesday Book.

Map 2  Major landholders in Derbyshire at the time of Domesday Book.

Introduction

35

of around 500 metres (1640 feet) above sea level. In the far northern part of Derbyshire, the Dark Peak region lies on sandstone, and rises in places above 600 metres (1969 feet). Settlement on this higher land is very sparse. The county as a whole was relatively poor, particularly outside the southern lowlands; by the time of the Domesday Survey, there were many waste vills in the north-western uplands.206 Nevertheless, there was some value in these uplands: the Survey makes reference to the lead works, plumbaria, at seven manors in the Derwent Valley, including Hope, Bakewell and Wirksworth.207 At the time of Domesday, King William had inherited from Edward in the far north of Derbyshire an unbroken line of manors from the eastern to the western border.208 To these he seems to have added nearby manors lying to the west of the Derwent, which Stenton thought looked like ‘a deliberate attempt on the part of the king to round off his possessions in the north of the county.’209 By 1086 King William also had received the forfeited lands of Earl Edwin, which included a line of manors along the Trent in the southern part of Derbyshire. These are recorded in Domesday under the name of Earl Edwin’s father, Aelfgar, who is listed as the TRE tenant – that is, the last legitimate tenant, who supposedly held on the day when King Edward the Confessor died.210 William Peverel held these manors by 1086, probably as the king’s bailiff, and they seem to have become part of his own property by 1108.211 Further south, almost all the land west of the River Derwent was held by Henry de Ferrers, along with a clutch of manors further north between the Rivers Dove and Wye and a couple of outlying vills in the high uplands. Henry’s caput lay at Tutbury Castle, just over the border into Staffordshire, but his greatest body of lands was in western Derbyshire, and, as noted above, included the entirety of Appletree wapentake.212 Burton Abbey held a scatter of lands in the lowland area of Derbyshire, extending both to the north and south of the Trent, although they were denser to the immediate west of Derby.213 Hugh earl of Chester held Markeaton, immediately to the north of Derby, with three ‘waste’ berewicks.214 The outlines of the county of Staffordshire have undergone significant change since the Domesday Survey: land in the south and west was transferred 206 Ibid.,

313–15. 323–4; Lennard, Rural England, 241–2. 208 These were Ashbourne, Parwich, Wirksworth, ‘Mestesford’, Darley Dale, Bakewell, Ashford and Hope, all of which had a considerable number of dependent vills. They had been farmed before the Conquest in two groups, of which Bakewell, Ashford and Hope formed one. These paid TRE £30, 5½ sesters of honey, and five cartloads of lead (DB i fos 272–2v; VCH Derbys i, 297). 209 Ibid., 298. 210 Ibid. On TRE see Garnett, Conquered England, pp. 18–26. 211 VCH Derbys i, 303–4. 212 DB i fos 274–6; Lennard, Rural England, 31–2. 213 DB i., fo. 273. 214 Ibid., fo. 273v; VCH Derbys i, 299. See Lennard, Rural England, 237–41 for discussion of the vills and agricultural production in post-Conquest Derbyshire. 207 Ibid.,

36

Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

to Shropshire, some by the end of the twelfth century; and the region of Birmingham has been more recently transferred to Warwickshire.215 This study uses the bounds of the historic county. Those parts of this region that were populated were generally sparse, and the soils were poor.216 The central part of the county, in which Stafford lies, is lower-lying, and comprised of heavy but relatively fertile clay.217 Here could be found the greatest population density, and the most valuable manors.218 Mills and meadows were relatively frequent and, as with Derbyshire, it is from this region that the majority of our documentary record comes. To the north of this area the county becomes bleak and had at the time of Domesday a sparse population, in what Wheatley terms ‘a drab and sombre landscape’ with little arable land.219 In the north-east, the land rises to above 250 metres (800 feet) to form the southern Pennines, and joins on its eastern border with the Peak District in Derbyshire. The county was heavily wooded, with around half of vills recorded as having some tract of woodland.220 In addition to these, there was the large royal forests at Cannock, Brewood, and Kinver, and the large ancient woodland of Needwood, which lay to the south-west of Tutbury.221 The county’s geography meant that it was generally poor in 1086. Added to this, around a fifth of vills are described in the Survey as waste (wasta), of which half lay in the northern uplands.222 How far this should be attributed to King William’s subduing of the area is unclear.223 Despite being a large county by area, Staffordshire’s entry in Domesday is a mere five folios, and only 11 tenants-in-chief are listed. The king’s lands were scattered across the county fairly evenly, although he had fewer manors on the western side. Aside from the king, most of the lands in the county were held by the bishop of Chester, Roger earl of Shrewsbury, Henry de Ferrers, and Robert de Stafford. The bishops held a largely contiguous group of manors in the west of the county and, from here, a line of manors spread eastwards to the border with Warwickshire, focused mainly in the lowlands.224 Earl Roger had 215 P. Wheatley, ‘Staffordshire’, in

The Domesday Geography of Midland England, 163–4. 214–15. 217 Ibid., 212–13. 218 Ibid., 184–91. 219 Ibid., 211. Robert Plot reported that King James II commented the county was ‘fit only to be cut into thongs, to make high-ways for the rest of the Kingdom’ (D.M. Palliser, The Staffordshire Landscape (London, 1976), 7). 220 Wheatley, ‘Staffordshire’, 194–7. 221 Palliser, Staffordshire Landscape, 67. The forest survived as a royal chase into the seventeenth century after the forfeiture of the Ferrers following Simon de Montford’s rebellion. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the forest was finally enclosed, following several decades of resistance by a local pressure group (VCH Staffs ii, 349, 354). 222 Wheatley, ‘Staffordshire’, 202–4. 223 VCH Staffs, IV, 12–13. 224 DB i, fo. 247. 216 Ibid.,

Map 3 Major landholders in Staffordshire at the time of Domesday Book.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

the majority of his lands in the neighbouring county of Shropshire, but some of his manors lay just over the border into western Staffordshire. He also had a line of manors, largely along the lowlands of the county, but with a handful in the high uplands on the north-east.225 Henry de Ferrers similarly had manors in Staffordshire that abutted his lands in western Derbyshire; but he also had a small interest in Stafford itself, and at Chebsey to the west.226 The largest landholder in the county was Robert de Stafford, who held lands in a block to the south-west of Stafford, with loose lines of manors spreading up to the north and, east, and west of the county.227 As Slade noted, however, the spread of his manors meant that he was not in as strong a position as those lords of the region who had consolidated lands: Robert’s were interspersed by those of the bishops.228 Earl Edwin had survived the Conquest and maintained his position, but his lands were broken up after his dispossession and death in 1071. In some cases, these lands were still recorded separately within barons’ honours. The overall impression in Domesday is of a county still reeling from the Norman impact. Within these three counties, our records are not evenly spread. Map 4 shows a heatmap of all lands given by charter before c.1220 included in this study, covering c.2000 data points. Areas with greater numbers of charters show as lighter patches. In interpreting this data, there is the risk of blurring survival rate of charters with production rate. The main hotspots of charter survival, unsurprisingly, are around the religious houses at Burtonupon-Trent, Tutbury, Derby, Leicester and Stafford, which took especial care to preserve their records. The greatest number of documents are to be found in the lowland areas between Stafford, Ashbourne, Derby and into Leicestershire. The upland areas of Derbyshire and Staffordshire were more sparsely populated, and largely covered by royal estates. Few charters survive for this area during the twelfth century, meaning that it is correspondingly more difficult to identify minor lords in upland areas. If they originally began to appear as a class thanks to the breakdown of large Saxon estates, the large royal estates in the Peak District may have offered less opportunity for them to acquire land, and have caused them to focus attention in the more tenurially fragmented lowlands.229 The non-documentary evidence for minor lords in this period is elusive. Our best information for where seigneurial resources were being invested in material

225 Ibid.,

fos 248–248v. i, fo. 248v; VCH Staffs iv, 30. 227 Ibid., fos 248v–249v. 228 VCH Staffs, iv, 30–1. 229 Faith, English Peasantry, 153–5. See, however, D.A. Carpenter, ‘The struggle to control the peak: an unknown letter patent from 1217’, in Foundations of Medieval Scholarship: Records Edited in Honour of David Crook, ed. P. Brand and S. Cunningham (Heslington, 2008), 35–49. 226 DB

Map 4 Heatmap of all charters, c.1094–c.1220.

Map 5 Churches, religious houses, and castles to c.1100, over heatmap of all charters to c.1220.

Introduction

41

display therefore comes from parish churches and religious houses.230 Although parish churches, in particular, are vulnerable to replacement in the later medieval and Victorian eras, enough evidence survives to show broad patterns. Map 5 shows pre-1100 churches, castles and religious houses overlaid onto the heatmap of charters. Saxon churches had spread up the river valleys into upland areas, but were not followed by early Norman building aside from a castle at the Peak. Much of the early Norman interest was instead focused around the Trent valley, and early monasteries which were often paired with castles. By the end of the twelfth century there had been an explosion in the number of monasteries and new or newly-rebuilt parish churches. Much of this was focused on the Trent valley, eastern Leicestershire and Rutland, but there was also a frontier of parish churches marching up river valleys to the north of Ashbourne. Between Ashbourne and Alton, around Cannock, and on the borders of Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, a series of new religious houses had been founded and had begun developing marginal land.231 These patterns of intensity do not always match up with charter use, which may be due to patterns of survival. Broadly, however, the map to c.1200 shows the intensification of seigneurial patronage – and, presumably, attention and control – in a circuit from Melton Mowbray in the east to Cannock in the west and Ashbourne to the north. Into the mid-thirteenth century, this intensification continued but at a seemingly slower pace: monasteries were still founded, pushing further into Charnwood Forest in north-central Leicestershire and eastern Staffordshire. Parish churches began to cluster more closely in the lowland areas, and to extend further north through river valleys in uplands. The main focus of this book will be primarily on the area of greatest intensity and most detailed evidence: broadly, the area lying between Leicester, Stafford, Leek and Matlock. As minor lords produced many of the churches and charters in the maps above, this also seems to indicate the area where they were most active and attempting to assert control. * * * This is the historiographical and historical framework within which this book will be working. Chapter 1 builds on this with a statistical framework to show the prevalence of multiple lordship among the minor lords of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire between c.1066 and c.1216. It demonstrates that the practice was at least as common as single lordship throughout the long twelfth century. The proportion of individuals with 230 Dating

for churches taken from N. Pevsner, G.K. Brandwood, and E. Williamson, Derbyshire: The Buildings of England, 2nd edn (London, 2016), N. Pevsner, Staffordshire: The Buildings of England, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth, 2001), and N. Pevsner, G.K. Brandswood and E. Williamson, Leicestershire and Rutland, 2nd edn (Buildings of England, Harmondsworth, 1984). 231 See below, 126–7.

Map 6 Churches, religious houses, and castles to c.1200, over heatmap of all charters to c.1220.

Map 7 Churches, religious houses, and castles to mid-thirteenth century, over heatmap of all charters to c.1220.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

multiple lords seems to hold steady through the period, moreover, and to have been present within the first generation of the Norman settlement. It does not appear to be connected to the decline of a socio-political order, therefore. The figures also show that vicinity mattered in lordship: the more cohesive a lord’s lands, the more single tenants he would tend to have. Those honours with more scattered lands tended to have tenants with similarly scattered seigneurial relationships. Chapter 2 moves from the quantitative to the qualitative, to examine the behaviour of single and multiple tenants and their relationships with their lords. Through a series of prosopographical studies, it is shown that single tenants, for long regarded as the normal pattern, were generally less wealthy and more geographically limited than their multiple-tenant counterparts. They generally fall into one or more of three categories. First are those who find themselves in a tight nexus of lordship, kinship and locality, where all three pulled an individual towards the same lord. Second are those of apparently minor status who appear to have been limited to holding from a single lord. Third are those individuals who had additional reason to be bound to a single lord, such as through ties of service or family. By contrast, multiple tenants were often wealthier, with greater geographical range and a greater circuit of activities. Four categories of multiple lordship are discussed. First is the use of multiple tenancy to create a focused block of lands. Such families collected lands from neighbouring lords around a single focal point, upon which they often seem to have stamped their authority and from which they drew identity. Second are multiple tenants who garnered dispersed lands from multiple lords. The intentions of such families or individuals are sometimes less clear, but opportunism, acquisition of wealth or connection to particular areas may have been factors. Third are minor lords who seem to have been particularly ambitious to gather lands and to rise through roles such as administration and royal service. Finally, category four are those multiple tenancies that seem to have been almost incidental: where additional lands and lords were acquired through marriage or inheritance. Although a lord’s honour could provide a focus, minor lords existed in a web of overlapping ties that could pull against a sole focus on one lord: other lords, kin, and locality. Chapter 3 delves more deeply into the web within which minor lords operated through a study of their religious bequests. Although lords could encourage their tenants to make bequests to their own religious house, decisions on endowment largely seem to have been voluntary. As such, they stand as a kind of fossilisation of minor lords’ choices. By unpicking these, we can see that the main visible factors are those of lordship, locality, and kinship. These forces could be interwoven into a tie that pulled patronage in one direction, or could spread a family’s patronage over a wider range of endowments. Occasionally, where one of these ties of lordship, kinship or locality was particularly strong, it is possible to see it override other

Introduction

45

considerations, and appear to become the sole reason for choosing a particular house. The alignment of these ties happened most commonly on a lord’s honour and in cases of single lordship. Through a study of the patronage of the men of the Ferrers lords of Derby we can see that, while a significant number of the honour’s tenants did patronise the Ferrers foundations, there is a noticeable number who did not. These individuals do not, moreover, appear to have regularly involved themselves in other ways with the Ferrers honour, suggesting that their patronage is reflective of broader trends in behaviour. Several representative examples from each group will be drawn out, which show that these trends seem to have been largely driven by competing interests within a tenant’s own network. From here, the focus will turn to the impact of an individual’s kin and his locality on their actions. These could reinforce seigneurial ties, particularly for those men who only held of one lord. In other cases, these claims could cut across those of a lord. Small and large houses alike attracted patronage from their locality. In the case of a seigneurial house like Tutbury, this often coincided with the lord’s honour, but grants commonly crossed honorial, hundredal and county boundaries. Connection to a local religious house brought considerable benefits, other than the spiritual, and minor lordly families seem to have been keen to take advantage of these. Chapter 4 will examine relations with lords in an urban context, focusing on the county towns of Leicester, Derby and Stafford. Although the underlying structures of urban property are somewhat different from much in rural tenure, the single and multiple lordship power dynamic is comparable. Leicester and much of its property was strongly under the control of the Grandmesnils and later the earls of Leicester. As a result, the burgesses and merchant guild still emerged as important communal institutions, but did so under the auspices of the earls. Their position as main landlord, as protector of the borough, and mercantile rights, overseer of institutions, and the lack of alternative lords in the town, drew a tight net around Leicester’s inhabitants. Derby and Stafford see the burgesses and minor lords associated with the town acting with something closer to independence. The communal institutions increasingly took the seigneurial roles. These towns also allow a glimpse into individual burgesses and minor lords. Like those in rural areas, these individuals were collecting their own portfolios of lands but, unlike rural tenure, they seem to have been able to do so without collecting lords to the same degree. Where a single lord was in a position of power, he could exercise considerable control, although negotiation was sometimes still needed. Where top-down lordship was more diffuse, lower-level individuals and their concerns seem to have come to the fore. Finally, Chapter 5 draws on the rich sources from the Benedictine house of Burton-upon-Trent (Staffs.) for an in-depth study of management of tenants and multiple lordship. Two types of evidence from the abbey will be examined. First, the house is very unusual in recording in charters for the

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

first two-thirds of the twelfth century whether its tenants had performed homage or liege homage to its abbot. This seems to have been done out of concern for whether the abbey would be able to claim priority of its tenants’ service, or whether they would have to work around the claims of their neighbours. Similarly, the miracle stories from the house’s Vita of St Modwenna demonstrate that the house was concerned with the management of its tenants’ lordship relationships as a means of avoiding disputes between the abbey and its neighbouring lords. These sources recognise the importance of subtenants and servants in shaping regional relationships, and that the house was attempting to work pragmatically around any difficulties that its tenants’ relationships with other lords could potentially cause. Throughout the book, the focus will be on the frequency of multiple lordship, and the extent to which it seems to have been regarded as a normal practice by minor lords and lords alike. Although it could cause complications, it was not in itself an inherently destabilising practice, and contemporaries seem to have worked with its benefits and difficulties in a pragmatic way. Through this practice, too, we can see the inherent flexibility of lordship, how it could be shaped by the relative power between man and lord, and the needs of both. Power did not flow solely from the top to the bottom of society, but was also derived from negotiation with and control over those embedded in the regions.

1

MULTIPLE LORDSHIP: A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

A

s discussed in the Introduction, multiple lordship has been generally sidelined, or treated as an anomaly in the wider pattern of lordship.1 It is the aim of this book to demonstrate that multiple lordship was common, regarded as normal, and constituted part of the web of connections of lordship, kinship and geography in local society. This chapter establishes a quantitative baseline from which to discuss the practice. The aim of this study is to establish a reliable estimate of how many of the minor lords were holding land of more than one landlord by c.1216, in order to show how prevalent multiple lordship was during the ‘long twelfth century’; by when these instances of multiple lordship appeared; and what patterns could be seen in its appearance. There has been no previous attempt to establish numbers or proportions of subtenants who held of more than one lord during this period but, as discussed above, the general assumption seems to be that it was uncommon compared to those individuals who held solely from a single lord. As with the rest of the book, the study takes in the counties of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire, between the Domesday survey in 1086 and the end of King John’s reign in 1216. This 150-year period is when feudalism in England was supposedly at its strongest, and feudal lords had the greatest strength over their men.2 Study of this period in detail, however, shows that, even by 1086, multiple lordship was a common practice. In order to take as accurate a view as possible, all available evidence has been examined: court and Exchequer records including the early Curia Regis, patent, fine, and pipe rolls and private land charters, the latter of which have several thousand extant for the region.3 These include original single-sheet charters, copies in monastic and secular cartularies,4 and editions produced by the antiquarians 1

This chapter is derived in part from an article published in Journal of Medieval History: ‘Multiple lordship in twelfth-century England: a quantitative study’, JMH 47 (2021), copyright Taylor & Francis. My thanks for their kind permission in allowing the research to appear here. 2 See above, 9–10. 3 For a full list see Boston, ‘Multiple lordship: a quantitative study’, 195–202. 4 The full cartulary of Croxton abbey (Leics.) has been omitted for reasons of practicality (R.H.C. Davis, C. Breay, J. Harrison, and D.M. Smith, Medieval

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

William Dugdale and John Nichols and others.5 In total, 194 families from these three counties have sufficient documentary evidence to be included in the survey. Of these, 33% were clear multiple tenants, 18% possible multiple tenants, and 27% single tenants. This section below details how this total number of families was reached, and the breakdown into these categories is explained below.6 In order to take as broad a scope as possible, all individuals appearing whether as defendants, complainants, grantors, grantees, witnesses, or as a means of describing the location of land, who are given a byname or a patronymic, were recorded for the survey. Those simply with a single name or described as churchmen were omitted. For instance, a grant by Ralph de Seal with the assent of his son Ralph to William de Norreis and Wlfene his wife, dated to late in the reign of Henry II, has among its witnesses William, presbyter de Seal, Alan, Goimer, William Buche and Walerand de Appleby.7 The de Seals and de Norreis, and the latter two witnesses were included in the survey, but the first three witnesses were not. These selection criteria produced a corpus of over 1550 named individuals. Next, it proved necessary to exclude most of those individuals described simply as ‘son of X’ or ‘fitzX’, since connecting these individuals proved to be too uncertain. For instance, over 30 individuals appeared who were described only as ‘son of Ralph’ across a wide geographical span. Even connecting two Williams fitz Ralph in the same region is therefore fraught with difficulty, since both of these names were so common. While this step may skew the results towards those individuals who took a toponym or byname in this period, this proved a necessary pragmatic decision. Those few individuals of this type who were retained in the survey show clear enough familial descent to allow them to be studied: generally, they are those families where an ancestor’s name becomes a stable patronym and is transmitted to successive generations. The fitz Noels of the Ranton area of Staffordshire have been included, for instance, since sufficient record survives to be able to link the family together clearly.8

5 6 7 8

Cartularies of Great Britain and Ireland, 2nd edn (London, 2010), nos. 291–2. It is in private hands, but an eighteenth-century copy exists in the British Library, compiled by Francis Peck (d. 1743) (BL Add. MS 4934, fos 145ff; BL Add. MS 4935, fos 95ff ). I have examined Peck’s copy but, owing to its great length, I have been unable yet to thoroughly study and date the documents contained there. I have therefore used for this study only the partial edition printed by John Nichols in his History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, ii, pt. 1 Appendix xi, 77–104. Monasticon, ed. W. Dugdale et al.; Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester. See below, 52–6. I.H. Jeayes, Descriptive Catalogue of the Charters and Muniments of the Gresley Family, in the Possession of Sir Robert Gresley, Bart., at Drakelow (London, 1895), no. 9. CB, LXXXVII/9, LXXXVIII/9II, /34; Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. H. Hall (3 vols, Rolls Series, London, 1857–1944), ii, 553; The Ranton Cartulary (London, BL, Cotton MS Vespasian, C.XV), fo. 1 and passim; DRO D158/1/46 (late C12th); English Episcopal Acta 14, Coventry and Lichfield 1072–1159, ed. M.J. Franklin (Oxford, 1997), no. 63. On this family see below, 110–12.

Multiple lordship: a quantitative analysis

49

The ideal for a survey of this kind would be to study the seigneurial relationships of a list of discrete individuals from the period. Unfortunately, the fragmentary nature of twelfth-century evidence means that only 85 of the individuals appear sufficient times and with sufficient detail in the documentary record to use in this way. Using individuals only, therefore, would severely limit the scope of the survey. It would also introduce methodological problems. Those individuals who appear frequently enough to be studied fall into one of two groups: either the small group of relatively well-documented individuals, or the otherwise very poorly documented people who only appear a few times in one context. Focusing solely on these would therefore skew the resultant statistics to reflect the patterns of these two polar opposites. To avoid this pitfall, it was necessary to make some basic reconstruction of the lineages of the minor lords, in order to be able to bridge gaps in the documentary record, and to identify seigneurial relationships more fully. Initially, the individuals in the survey were placed in groups with other individuals with the same byname (for instance, ‘de Alfreton’, ‘Bagot’), which produced a list of 478 groups. Those groups with fewer than three appearances in the documentary record were then cut, since these would not yield sufficient data. Henry and Geoffrey del Luy appear once each in charters of Darley Abbey. Geoffrey granted land in Derby to the abbey in the late twelfth century, and Henry a collection of land mostly centred on Ripley and Pentrich (Derbys.).9 Nevertheless, no other references to them were apparent in the documentary record, so they were excluded from analysis. It also seems unlikely that those appearing so sparsely in the record, either as individuals or groups, can be claimed to be of anything but very minor status, or were present very rarely in the area. A charter recorded in Jeayes’ Derbyshire collection is a quitclaim from John’s reign by Wymarc’ daughter of Richard the tanner of Bakewell to the church of Bakewell concerning a toft in the same vill.10 She was included in the initial list of individuals, but since no other references to her or her kin survive, she was subsequently removed. Also removed were those individuals who seem to only appear in the area as part of a great lord’s usual retinue, for instance, those who appear in the train of the earls of Chester such as the de Montalts and de Orrebys,11 and five prominent families: the de Verduns, de Vernons, 9

The Cartulary of Darley Abbey, ed. R.R. Darlington (2 vols, Kendal, 1945), nos. H8, H13. 10 I.H. Jeayes, Descriptive Catalogue of Derbyshire Charters in Public and Private Libraries and Muniment Rooms (London, 1906), no.174. 11 De Montalt: Jeayes 2025–6; Dieulacres, 3; G. Barraclough, The Charters of the AngloNorman Earls of Chester, c.1071–1237 (Chester, 1988), nos. 226, 232, 282, 285, 311, 315, 337, 353, 374, 378–9, 386, 389, 400, 451–4, 462–3. de Orreby: Jeayes, 486–7, DRO D779/T/1/25, Dieulacres 2–3, Barraclough, nos. 140, 207, 209, 211–15, 220, 226, 229, 231–2, 241, 244–5, 247–50, 253–4, 256–8, 260, 262, 268, 276, 279–86, 288–90, 296–300, 307–9, 312–15, 327–8, 335, 337–8, 340–1, 348–60, 363, 371–4, 377–9, 381–9, 392, 394–5, 398, 400–3, 406–11, 416, 427, 432, 434.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

Bassets, Marmions and Ridels. While these were all multiple tenants, they were too wealthy to fit the criteria outlined above for the families in this study.12 Members of the remaining 427 groups were then examined to identify family connections. In all cases, the identification of the first-born male line was prioritised, since succession practice meant that this line was most likely to preserve the lands held and therefore seigneurial relationships.13 Eldest sons in particular tend to be identified in the record as ‘X son of Y de Zton’ or similar. In a significant number, however, it was not possible either firmly to establish or disprove from the texts the existence of family ties within groups of individuals sharing a byname. These family groups were therefore included in the analysis under categories that stress the uncertainties involved (Category II, possible multiple tenants, and IV, no clear lords). Two key factors were taken into consideration when trying to establish possible relationships: location and lords. First, since the majority of bynames thrown up by this survey are toponyms, some suggestions can be made on the basis of proximity of the name’s origin to the place to which a record relates. The further away and more uncommon the origin for a toponym is, the more likely it is that a group bearing this had a familial relationship. For instance, those appearing in an English context with a French toponym seem more likely to be related – the chances of two unrelated individuals appearing in England from the same small Norman vill seem slim – while more caution is needed in attempting to link two individuals whose toponym was derived from a place within the immediate area of a grant. Equal caution is needed for those toponyms that refer to large settlements, or to common placenames such as Stretton. In both of these cases, if some relationship within the group could not be clearly proven, the individuals in question were cut from the study.14 If a relationship appeared likely, then they were categorised as possible kin. 12 Verduns:

CB XC CXXXVII/1; SRO D603/A/Add/34b. Vernons, CB CXLIX/16, Barraclough, Chester, no. 141, 273. Bassets: CB XXXVII/22, CXXXIII/1–3, 26, 32, CLIII/14, 28; RRAN iii, no. 44; R.V. Turner, Men Raised from the Dust: Administrative Service and Upward Mobility in Angevin England (Philadelphia, 1988); J. Green, The Government of England under Henry I (Cambridge, 1986), 145–6, 231–2; W. Reedy, Basset Charters c.1120–1250 (London, Pipe Roll Society, 1995); Marmions, CB CI/8, CL, CXIX/12, CXLIX/21, CCV/1; Barraclough, Chester, no. 74. Ridels: CB LXXXVIII/38, CLIII, CLXVI/2. 13 LHP, 70, 21, ed. Downer, 224–5; Hudson, OHLE, 351. See below for discussion of the seigneurial relationship patterns of younger sons, 107–12. 14 For instance, three men ‘de London’ appeared in the record: Ralph (The cartulary of Stone Priory, London, BL, Cotton MS Vespasian E.XXIV, fo. 28), Robert (G. Wrottesley, ‘An Account of the Family of Okeover of Okeover, co. Stafford’, Collections for a History of Staffordshire VII (1904), 4–187, charter no. 8), and William (DRO D187/1/39–40). Ralph was witness for a grant by Roger Vigil to Stone priory (Staffs.); Robert as witness for a confirmation by Roger abbot of Burton to Hugh fitzRalph de Okeover of land in Okeover (Derbys.); and William as witness for quitclaims by John de Eyncourt and Maud de Beley to Simon son of Hugh de Glapwell (Derbys.). Glapwell lies 28 miles from Okeover, and 50 miles

Multiple lordship: a quantitative analysis

51

Second, individuals bearing the same byname who appear in connection with a certain lord, religious house or vill, are likely to be related, although again caution is needed in those cases where a toponym related to a nearby place. Ralph de Chaldwell had his service, previously owed to Burton Abbey, granted to Robert de Gresley,15 and appears as witness for two further grants by the same house.16 A David de Chaldwell appears with his brother, John, as witnesses for two charters relating to Burton Abbey, and David as witness for a marriage settlement between Richard de Staunton and Gilbert of Measham.17 Chaldwell is likely to refer to Caldwell (Derbys.), 4 miles to the south of Burton-upon-Trent, and adjoining Castle Gresley. David and John therefore seem likely to be related to Ralph – from the dates and range where they appear, they may be his sons. They have been included in this analysis, however, as possible kin only, and therefore only as possible multiple tenants, since their relationship is nowhere made explicit. Finally, one last group was excluded from inclusion within a familial group. Younger sons quite frequently seem to have taken service and lands with other lords, probably in order to counteract elder brothers receiving the lion’s share of the inheritance.18 A sibling with a different lord from his brother, therefore, has not been counted as an example of that kin group having multiple lords. This left a final sample size of 194 groups and individuals. There are two types of evidence which relate to these 194 individuals or groups: direct evidence that a land grant has taken place, or that a seigneurial relationship exists, and indirect evidence for a seigneurial relationship such as attestations in charters. The latter evidence is more complex to interpret, as individuals could appear as witnesses to a charter as the men of one or more of the lords involved, as kin members, or as neighbours.19 As the early twelfth-century treatise the LHP advised, it was a good idea to have one’s relations and neighbours attend assemblies in order to attest the business transacted there and thereby secure it against future disputes.20 In all of the cases included here, therefore, care was taken from Stone priory. Clearly, no link can be suggested between these men on the basis of this evidence. 15 Jeayes, Gresley Family, no. 2. 16 Jeayes, Derbyshire Charters, no. 1197; Staffordshire Record Office (hereafter SRO) D603/A/Add/28, Jeayes, Gresley Family, no. 3. 17 SRO D603/A/Add/35, D603/A/Add/34b; Record Office of Leicester, Leicester­ shire and Rutland (hereafter ROLLR) DE170/1. 18 Nicholas de Gresley was a younger son of the Domesday tenant Nigel de Stafford and married Margaret de Longford, a ward of Geoffrey de Clinton. The direction of Nicholas’ activities seems to have been shaped by this lord: he later founded a cell at Calwich, dependent on Geoffrey’s foundation at Kenilworth and he and Margaret founded a cadet branch in Warwickshire (Dugdale, Monasticon, VI, 223–4, nos. VII–IX. See also RRAN ii, nos. 600, 726, 766). See below, 106–12, 142 n.92. 19 See below, 53 n.26. 20 ‘If anyone has a plea which is to be tried in his own court or in any judicial assemblies, he shall summon his peers and neighbours so that, with the establishment of a body of judges, he may provide justice which is freely given and cannot be challenged’ (Si quis in curia sua uel in quibuslibet agendorum locis placitum tractandum habeat, conuocet pares et

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

to try to separate those attestations that may have been made as a neighbour or kin member from those where an attestation may indicate attendance on a lord. Where an individual or family shows repeated attestation for a particular lord, this is taken as suggesting that they had some relationship with that lord, although without explicit evidence we cannot be sure whether or not they were tenants of the lord in question. In using solely witness lists, therefore, a seigneurial connection has only been concluded in cases where the individuals appear more than three times for the particular lord, or where their attendance is a significant proportion of their total appearances in the documentary record. For instance, Geoffrey de Tatenhill and his son Robert appear repeatedly as witnesses for Burton Abbey, concerning lands more than 20 miles apart.21 Although we have no evidence for this family’s holdings (and therefore some of these attestations could conceivably be as neighbours), their activities show a clear trend solely towards attendance at abbey business, and they are categorised below as single tenants. Where the attestations are less frequent, but still show a pattern of recurrent attendance on a lord, the family in question has been categorised as having a possible connection to the lord in question. For instance, Geoffrey de Trowell appears in c.1212x17 as holding a serjeanty from the honour of Peverel in Derbyshire. He also appears several times as witness for the de Sandiacre family at Sandiacre (Notts.).22 Since the location of his landholding from Peverel is unknown it is unclear whether he attested the Sandiacre charters as a neighbour, so he is categorised below as a possible multiple tenant only. These 194 families were then placed into four categories. 1. Those families with clear evidence for multiple lordship by 1216. Sixty-four fell into this category, or 33% of the total sample. This category covers three scenarios: i.

those individuals who were demonstrably recipients of lands from two or more lords. For example, Entrop Hasteng is recorded in the Cartae Baronum as having held one knight’s fee from the Ferrers barony by 1166, a quarter-fee from the bishop of Coventry, and a half-fee from the bishop of Worcester by the same date.23 Forty-five fell into this subcategory, or 70% of those in Category 1.

ii. cases where an individual received land from one lord, and a member of the immediate patrilineal family (grandfather, father, son etc.) can be shown to have received land from another lord, and where the earlier seigneurial connections seem to have been maintained. As discussed above, evidence that solely relates to fraternal lines was excluded. For

uicinos suos ut, infortiato iudicio, gratuituam et cui contradici non possit iustitiam exhibeat.) LHP 33,1, ed. Downer, 136–7; see also 8,5; 43,9, 102–5, 152–3. 21 DRO D231/M/T/1; SRO D603/A/Add/28; SRO D603/A/Add/29; SRO D603/A/ Add/34b; SRO D603/A/Add/35. See discussion of this family below, 68–70. 22 Jeayes, Derbyshire Charters, nos. 2090, 2092; The Cartulary of Dale Abbey, ed. A. Saltman (London, 1957), no. 291. 23 CB LXXXVII/16, CXIX/11, CLXI/24, CLXIV/1.

Multiple lordship: a quantitative analysis

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example, Nicholas de Brailsford received one knight’s fee from Robert de Ferrers before the end of Henry I’s reign, and Nicholas’ son Henry had inherited this by 1166.24 This Henry or his son, also called Henry, received land from Darley abbey 1188x98, and the latter Henry also received land from Henry fitz Matthew de Kniveton in the early thirteenth century.25 Although we do not have definite evidence that any one of these definitely received more than one new grant of land, we can see them building up grants and seigneurial relationships – and maintaining them – over several generations. Thirteeen cases fell into this subcategory, or 20% of Category 1.

iii. cases where an individual who can be shown to have received land from one lord, and for whom record survives of consistent attestation for another lord, either by the individual or their patrilineal family. These attestations must also be in places more than 10 miles from where the family is known to have held lands in order to reduce the likelihood that they were witnessing the transaction as neighbouring landholders.26 For instance, Robert de Livet had received land worth two knight’s fees from the Ferrers barony by 1135.27 Roger de Livet, probably his son, granted tithes from his land to the Ferrers family foundation of Tutbury priory by 1150x59, so the Ferrers relationship seems to have been maintained; but Roger also appears as witness to 13 extant charters of the earls of Chester in instances as widely spaced as the Wirral and Caen.28 Although we have no record for Roger having received a grant of land from the earls, a seigneurial relationship between the former and the latter seems certain. In all, six groups and individuals fell into this subcategory, or 10% of those in Category 1. 2. The second category, possible multiple tenants, are those families that seem likely to have been multiple tenants by 1216, but for whom there is no direct evidence of land-grants from two lords, and the evidence is suggestive

24 Ibid.,

CLXI/25. ROLLR 26D53/186 (early C13th); Darley, no. K17. Both of these were grants of lands in Brailsford, where the family was building up a cluster of lands from different lords. On the de Knivetons, see below, 91–2. 26 Ten miles from one’s land appears to be a rough average for the circuit of an individual’s local involvement. Peter Coss and Kathryn Faulkner also noticed this figure as a seeming measure of locality: that knights summoned to a grand assize in the early thirteenth century seem to have generally held land within 10 miles of the disputed tenancy (P. Coss, The Knight in Medieval England, 1000–1400 (Stroud, 1993), 36–8; Faulkner, ‘The transformation of knighthood’, 5, n.4). 27 CB CLXI/10. 28 The Cartulary of Tutbury Priory, ed. A. Saltman (London, 1962), no. 52; Barraclough, nos. 121, 131–2, 147–8, 162, 174, 176–7, 184–6, 193. See below, 134. 25

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rather than conclusive. Thirty-five fell into this category, or 18% of the total. This covers four scenarios: iv. individuals for whom record of a grant by a single lord survives, and where they or their family appear as reasonably frequent witnesses for a different lord – again, at least 10 miles from the family’s holdings. This category is close to 1iii) above, but where the pattern of attestation shows a suggestive but not indisputable trend, the family has been placed here. Robert de Beufei received land in Trusley (Derbys.) from the nunnery of St Mary de Pratis, Derby, in the early thirteenth century.29 He appears as a witness for the Ferrers,30 and Robert’s grant to the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem of other land at Trusley is witnessed by William I de Ferrers, his uncle and brother, both named Robert, and members of the Ferrers usual retinue.31 He was clearly a tenant of St Mary’s, in attendance on the Ferrers, and possibly using the court of the latter to secure his own grants. Fifteen individuals and groups fell into this subcategory, 43% of those in Category 2.

v. individuals and families for whom no evidence survives for their receipt of lands from a lord, but who appear consistently enough as witnesses for more than one lord to strongly suggest a relationship. As above, these attestations have to be at least 10 miles distant from the family’s holdings to mitigate the possibility of attestation on the basis of being a neighbour. Walerand de Appleby and his son Robert take their toponym from Appleby on the Leicestershire–Derbyshire border, which they may have held from the Ferrers or the earls of Chester.32 No charters recording their receipt of lands survive, but their extant attestations suggest clustering around two local lords. Robert appears as witness for a grant by Hugh de Okeover concerning land in Snelston (27 miles to the north of Appleby), that was made before William de Ferrers and a gathering of his men.33 There also seems to be a connection to Burton Abbey: Walerand and Robert appear several times as witnesses for the abbey’s grants.34 Some of these were far removed from the Appleby region, which makes it unlikely that they were attesting as neighbours: Robert appears as a witness for a grant by Burton Abbey of land in Potlock, 15 miles to the north of Appleby.35 Eight fell into this subcategory, 23% of all those in Category 2. 29

Jeayes, no. 2383. Ibid., no. 51. 31 Ibid., no. 2380. 32 See DB i. fos 233v, 273. 33 Wrottesley, ‘Okeover’, no. 14. 34 SRO D603/A/Add/35, D603/A/Add/34b. 35 SRO D603/A/Add/29. 30

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55

vi. situations where two or more individuals appear to have accrued more than one lord over a series of generations, as in 1ii), but where the patrilineal relationship between these individuals is less certain. For instance, Robert de Dun and his son Jacob appear successively in the Cartae Baronum as Ferrers tenants.36 A Hugh de Dun appears as a tenant of the de Tuschet family in the late twelfth century at Allestree (Derbys.).37 From the period in which he appears and the locality, no more than 12 miles from any of Robert or Jacob’s activities, he is plausibly the latter’s son. Nevertheless, the relationship cannot be definitely proven, so he is categorised as a possible multiple tenant only. Seven individuals and groups fell into this subcategory, 20% of all those in Category 2. vii. individuals or groups for whom one lord can be established, but who also held lands that almost certainly did not come from this lord. Jordan de Abetot held half a fee of William de Beauchamp in Worcester in 1166. He and William de Abetot, almost certainly his son, also appear holding land in Barlow (Derbys.), a county with which the de Beauchamp family appears to have had no connection.38 They are therefore categorised as possible multiple tenants, since their Derbyshire tenancy is likely to have come from another lord. Five individuals and families fall into this subcategory, or 14% of Category 2. 3. The third group, single tenants, is those families who appear solely in connection with one lord, both as witnesses and as grantees. Where there was doubt in a family’s categorisation as single or multiple, they were placed in this group in order to keep the results conservative. Fifty-three fell into this category, or 27% of the total sample. This covers two scenarios: i.

36

individuals and families who received a grant from one lord and repeatedly act as witness for his grants. Occasionally these appear as witnesses in charters concerning lands or lords in proximity to theirs, but not with sufficient frequency to suggest anything other than occasional attestation of business regarding nearby lands. David de Stanton is recorded in the Ferrers Carta as holding half a knight’s fee in 1166,39 and he and his son Robert appear several times as Ferrers witnesses.40 Although Robert appears twice as a witness for Burton Abbey, these are both in charters concerning lands at Findern (Derbys.), 7 miles from the Stantons’ usual focus around Tutbury.

CB CLXI/8. Darley, no. K38. 38 DB i fos 277v, 278v indicate that part of the vill was in the hands of Hasculf Musard in 1086, and part in the hands of the king’s thegns. 39 CB, CLXI/18. 40 Dugdale, Monasticon, III p.393; SRO D(W)1734/J/939; DRO D231/M/T/1/31. 37

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

While this may indicate some relationship with Burton Abbey, it is not possible to disentangle these attestations from the pull of geographical proximity. Twenty-seven individuals and families fall into this subcategory, which accounts for 51% of Category 3.

ii. individuals and families for whom no grants of land are extant, but who repeatedly attest the grants of one lord. Again, these occasionally appear as witnesses for neighbouring lands or lords in addition. Ranulf de Alsop appears three times as witness in the record. For two, he was witness for William II de Ferrers, concerning, respectively, land in Callow and in Bradbourne (Derbys.), which lie approximately 6 miles apart.41 He also witnessed a grant by Herbert de Merle to Lord Hugh of land in ‘Mulnecliff ’ (unidentified, but probably Derbys.), which seems to have been carried out before Robert II de Ferrers and his retinue.42 Although no record of him receiving land has survived, his attestations show consistency, and come from a range of sources – so he has been categorised here as the man of a single lord. This subcategory has 26 individuals and groups, or 49% of the total for Category 3. 4. The fourth and final group is those for whom it has not been possible to establish a clear relationship with any lord, and whose attestations and interactions seem to have been primarily in response to transactions that were taking place near to their holdings rather than showing a clear trend towards any lord. Forty-two fell into this group, or 22% of the total sample. Hugh de Findern (Derbys.) appears three times in the charter record: first, as a witness to a grant by Richard clerk of Findern to Burton Abbey, 1197x1210; second, making a grant of land in Willington (Derbys.) to Repton Priory in the early thirteenth century; and third, making a fine with Nicholas de Willington against a Robert de Al’ – the latter’s name has been badly defaced – of 16 November 1208.43 The close clustering of dates and locations, with all three falling within Morleystone hundred, make it almost certain that these all refer to the same man. Hugh also appears in Michaelmas 1203 and 1204 in the Curia Regis Rolls bringing a suit against Robert de Audley concerning 4 bovates in Findern.44 In Trinity 1219, he was one of the jurors for a suit

41

Wrottesley, ‘Okeover’, no. 9, Jeayes, Derbyshire Charters, no. 385. ‘Okeover’, no. 12, also preserved as DRO D231/M/T/131. I have separated Ranulf de Alsop from the Henry and Robert de Alsop who appear in the same period, since no connection can be shown between them, and all attestations concern lands within 7 miles of Alsop-en-le-Dale – so it is possible that these are two separate groups who share a toponym. 43 Jeayes, nos. 1276, 2571, 2757. 44 Curia Regis Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, ed. C.T. Flower, D. Crook, P. Brand (20 vols, London, 1922–2006), III, 2, 193. 42 Wrottesley,

Multiple lordship: a quantitative analysis

57

between Nicholas de Wileton and the prior of Repton.45 From none of these, however, can we be certain about the identity of his lord (or lords). Also included in Category 4 are those who appear solely in connection with a single religious house founded in the twelfth century, only in that house’s cartulary, and only in connection to a single location. While these may potentially have been tenants of the house in question, it is entirely plausible that they were only appearing as neighbours, or sometimes as previous donors with an ongoing interest in the house. Generally, these seem to have been very minor individuals. Walter Coyne gave the canons of Ranton Priory (Staffs.)46 5 bovates at Weston, and he and his son John and grandson Thomas later confirmed and augmented this gift.47 Walter and his descendants also appear as witnesses and donors of other lands.48 They clearly had considerable landed resources, but the exigency of other documents from the area make it impossible to establish any clear seigneurial connections. Moreover, as shown below, Category 4 is a common one. This reflects the patchy state of the documentary evidence, particularly the charters. It is significant, though, that there is a substantial number of individuals and families who do not show a clear trend towards any lord, and instead can only be seen operating in a particular locality – suggesting that for a significant number of minor lords, their focus was primarily geographical, not seigneurial. Where a connection with a lord is possible but uncertain, the family has been placed in this category in order to err on the side of caution. As discussed, these figures are only provisional, based on the documentation available, and a cautious interpretation of it. These figures and the following discussion should therefore be taken as a broad-brush overview. The results are summarised in Table 1. Table 1  194 families broken down by category.

Category

Number

Percentage of total

Possible multiple

35

18%

Clear multiple Single

No pattern 45

64 53 42

33% 27% 22%

CRR, VIII, 54. Also known as St Mary of the Assarts, this was an Augustinian priory founded by Robert fitz Noel sometime before 1166 at Ranton (Staffs.) and lay approximately 7 miles to the west of Stafford. It was a daughter-house of Haughmond Abbey (Shrops.) until 1247. An early fourteenth-century cartulary survives, although the majority of charters from are heavily abridged (BL, Cotton MS Vespasian C. XV; Davis, no. 823; G. Wrottesley, ‘The Ronton Chartulary’, Collections for a History of Staffordshire 4 (1883), 264–95). See below, 143–8. 47 BL, Cotton MS Vespasian C. XV, fo. 28. 48 Ibid., fos 28, 31–2, 34. 46

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

From this data, then, it is suggested that multiple lordship was the seigneurial structure for at least 33% of the minor lordly families in this area by c.1216. If more evidence were extant, it is likely that this figure could be significantly increased. Given the degree to which this pattern of allegiance has been overlooked, it is clear that this has been a serious omission in our understanding of local society in the twelfth century. Further, it is possible to dig deeper into the data in order to create a clearer picture of what was happening between men and their lords. Table 2 shows the number of single and multiple tenants for those lords for whom there is largest amount of data. Table 2  Breakdown of single and multiple tenants by lord by c.1216.

Lord Ferrers

Earls of Chester

Lords of Stafford Burton Abbey

Bishop of Coventry Earls of Leicester Earls of Warwick

Honour of Peverel de Verduns Sandiacre

Number of multiple tenants 22 17 8 3 5 6 5 6 6 2

Number of single tenants 14

8 9 4 1 1 1 0 0 0

Unsurprisingly, we can see that landholders with larger land-holdings in the area such as the Ferrers are more likely to have tenants who held solely of them.49 Those whose lands were patchier and more marginal in these three counties, such as the earls of Warwick, frequently had tenants who were shared with other lords – often a lord who was more central to the area. Smaller tenants-in-chief such as the de Verduns were in a similar position. They had less land to distribute to their men, and so these men would be more likely to take on lands and patronage from other lords. They were initially slotted into the region in Henry I’s reign, and so they may have attracted men who were already well-established under other lords.50 A final key finding to take from this survey is the chronology of the establishment of multiple tenancies. As discussed above, tenants’ acquisition 49 50

See 63–72. M. Hagger, The Fortunes of a Norman Family: the de Verduns in England, Ireland and Wales, 1066–1316 (Dublin, 2001), 24–6; Green, The Government of England, 171–2, 181–4; Crouch, The Aristocracy of Norman England, 215–6; Turner, Men Raised from the Dust, 1–6.

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Chart 1  Multiple tenancies against appearance of all families.

of more than one lord has been seen as symptomatic of the breakdown of the honour from the later twelfth century onward as service was sought outside the existing tenants.51 The chart below shows the date by which those families who were holding of multiple lords by c.1216 can first be seen as multiple tenants. The figures below err on the side of caution. Where date ranges for charters are unclear, the latest possible date has been taken to keep the figures conservative. The third and fourth columns attempt to contextualise these figures by showing when these families first appear in the record. Better documentary record and survival rate from the later twelfth century bring more minor lords and their relationships into view. Some of these tenancies must have been in existence previously, and only survive in written record in the later twelfth century. It is likely, therefore, that the figures in Table 3 attribute some of the development of multiple tenancy later than it was in reality. Table 3  Instances of clear multiple tenancy by date.

Date 1100

Number of identifiable Total number of multiple tenancies by families visible by date date (cumulative) (cumulative) 3

6

1135

20

62

1166

34

99

1154 1200 1216

51

26 47 64

See above, 9–11.

84 169 194

Percentage of visible families who are clear multiple tenants 50% 32% 31% 34% 28% 33%

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

The evidence suggests that multiple lordship on a broad scale among tenants was well-established by the end of Henry I’s reign: its appearance seems to owe little if anything to the putative changes in honorial structure of the late twelfth century. By 1166, we can see that 53% of the multiple tenancies visible by c.1216 are in evidence. The practice was well-established before Henry II’s legal reforms had been set in motion, and were increasing in number before those reforms could have had any real impact on the structures of seigneurial power.52 1135 and the late twelfth century both see a large increase in appearances due to an increase in the amount of evidence available, but generally Table 3 shows a consistent rate of accumulation of lords. The findings in this chapter call for a revision of the way in which we conceptualise local political society, and the nature of the relationship between a lord and his tenants. Far from being a marginal practice, we can see that it is at least as common as single lordship, and may have been the prevalent form. Nor is it something that arises only from the putative decline of the honour in the later twelfth century: it was a well-established practice long before this, and very many examples seem to have been in existence by 1135 or even before. Taking on additional lords and lands seems to have been primarily driven or at least underpinned by geographical proximity to pre-existing lands – there does not seem to have been a turning point in the later twelfth century or at any other time. Accretion of lords was a constant process in our period, and multiple tenancies existed in parallel with the honour along the latter’s entire lifespan. One of the main historiographical contentions about multiple lordship – that it was relatively unusual, although increasing through time – is not borne out in this study. The rest of the book will build on these findings by challenging a second historiographical contention: that multiple lordship was damaging to the society in which it operated. Through a series of studies, it will demonstrate the apparent acceptance of the practice by tenants-in-chief, minor lords, and within regional society. Chapter 2 focuses on how single and multiple patterns of lordship shaped the behaviour of minor lords, and their relationships with tenants-in-chief.

52

See 4–5.

2

MULTIPLE LORDSHIP AND THE HONOUR

I

t has long been tacitly assumed that the tenants of the great barons, whether knightly or not, generally had allegiance to only one lord.1 The findings in Chapter 1, however, show that multiple allegiance is considerably more common than has previously been recognised. At least a quarter of minor lords from the sample area were in such a relationship by c.1216, and this is likely to be an underestimation. These figures signal that there is a fundamental lacuna in our understanding of lordship and local society in this period. Far from being a marginal practice, multiple allegiance in this area was widespread. This chapter will shift from the quantitative focus of Chapter 1 to a series of representative examples. As noted in the Introduction, an influential strand of historiography regards the practice of multiple allegiance as being corrosive or outright damaging to the fundamental structures of lordship and, by extension, damaging to the society that was built around these structures. The reality seems, however, to have been that the practice was widespread, regarded as normal, and was no more intrinsically problematic than other ties such as kinship. This chapter provides a study of allegiance among minor lords in the long twelfth century. The examples below show overwhelmingly that the seigneurial relationships of this group were varied, and that the outlines of service and behaviour similarly varied between lords. As discussed in the Introduction, allegiance has often been treated in feudal historiography both as a fixed category and a monolithic concept. It is argued here, however, that allegiance should instead be seen as a series of concentric circles of fuzzy expectations with some crucial, irrevocable duties at its core: to perform any agreed service, and not to injure one’s lord, either in person or possessions.2 Particularly since the Norman Conquest, much of tenure had become bound up with lordship, and this connection was only strengthened through the twelfth century.3 Lords expected service in return for these land grants: failure to do so breached the relationship, and what few instances we have 1

See above, 1–11. See above, 24–6. 3 Glanvill, IX. 1; 2, ed. Hall, 103–4; 106. 2

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

for a breakdown in lordship centre on this point. While multiple lordship could provide challenges to these duties, generally they could be resolved. But conversely, as seen in the examples below, it appears that if these two core duties were fulfilled then other components of lordship – attendance on the lord, support for his religious houses, travel in his retinue and so forth – were more negotiable. Rather than a one-size-fits-all model, lordships were constructed that were shaped by the local politics of the region, the relative power of man and lord, and the needs of both. The discussion below will first address several studies of single tenancy, which has long been regarded as the normal pattern. These examples show, however, that such individuals and families were often less wealthy and more geographically limited than their multiple-tenant counterparts. Moreover, single tenants do not seem to have been recognised on a lord’s honour as being of a special group. While some were servants or family members of their lord, they are not marked by any particular closeness to their one lord, and indeed there are plenty of servants and seigneurial kin who were multiple tenants.4 Part of this may be attributable to lack of evidence from within a lord’s innermost circle, but what evidence we do have seems clear that single tenancy status did not bring with it an advantage in one’s relationship with a lord. By contrast, study of multiple tenants show that they were often more prominent figures, with a wider geographical span of activity and more valuable lands. Several different strategies of land acquisition are apparent: some seem to have worked on acquiring lands centred on a particular point in the landscape, while others seem to have been content to receive more widely scattered tenancies. While their relationships with their lords could be more sporadic or shifting, generally these individuals and families do not seem to have been less trusted or less central to the lord’s retinue or honour court. Quite the reverse can be seen in some cases: lords seem to have been happy to recruit skilled administrators who had served successive neighbours and still held lands from the latter. Lords could also seek to increase their political reach in a locality, or perhaps to sap rivals’ support by drawing other lords’ men into their orbit. Multiple allegiance does not seem to have been seen by contemporaries as necessarily threatening to the honour, or as damaging the moral quality of those men who formed such ties. Instead, the evidence that we have suggests strongly that the practice was frequent, treated pragmatically, and was largely unproblematic. Although this chapter primarily focuses on seigneurial allegiances, it also seeks to contextualise these in the landscape and the broader structures of allegiance. This helps to step beyond an exclusive focus on lordship, and to bring forward two other important motive forces that acted on minor lords: kinship and locality. These will be discussed further in subsequent chapters, but their overlap with seigneurial ties will be addressed here. At no point should we think of twelfth-century society as being one where seigneurial relationships 4

See discussion of the Ridwares, below 100–3.

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63

dominated all else. Instead, we can see that lordship, kinship and locality coexisted as significant forces, and by focusing on these we can provide a much fuller explanation for the behaviour of minor lords than seigneurial ties alone. Locality is of particular importance for understanding multiple lordship: often, the two seem to have converged in driving where men took on additional lands and lords.5 Throughout the life of the honour, the ties to a lord coexisted or cut across other seigneurial ties, and those of family and locality. The honour was not a ‘closed’ environment – to its members, particularly those with several lords, it was one part of a complex socio-political web. Unlike the richer sources of the later medieval period, our sources for this are again largely the private charters. These focus us primarily on the tenurial dimension of the relationship, but even so it is possible to conduct analysis of attendance, relationships, and the fossilisation of the latter within an honour’s tenurial structure. As in Chapter 1, the focus will be on minor lords. The examples below are drawn from those families who are particularly well-represented in the extant documentary sources, and can therefore give the most detailed impressions of seigneurial relationships. Given the variability in the survival rate of charter material, particularly that relating to secular tenancy, the extant material seems to represent chance survival, rather than indicating that these families were in some way unusual. The other criterion for selection of these case studies is that they are illustrative of some of the more important trends in single and multiple tenancy that emerged in the course of research. The first instances are of tenants of a single lord, brought in here in order to compare with the later examples of multiple lordship.

Patterns of lordship Single lordship The study in Chapter 1 shows that 27% of the families in the study appear to have had only one lord.6 While some of the individuals and families in the ‘no clear pattern’ category may conceivably be moved into this category, this is still a strikingly low figure for a category that has been taken as the baseline, and calls for a shift in how we should conceptualise structures of lordship and local society in this period. Moreover, these 27% have several key features that mark them off from the multiple tenants later in this chapter. First, they were often of much more minor status, both holding less land and less valuable land than their multiple counterparts. As a result, their field of action was much more restricted, and they generally only appear in a single county or locality. Second, they sometimes had a stronger than usual connection to a particular 5 6

See Mortimer’s comments in ‘Land and Service’, at 194–5. See above, 55–6.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

lord through another channel than the purely seigneurial: as members of the family, or as officials, which may have helped to secure their sole allegiance.7 Third, much as multiple tenants did, we can still see these single tenants embedding themselves in the landscape, and creating local connections. Focus on a single lord did not serve to prioritise the honour over locality. Fourth, and crucially, this 27% who maintained single lordship throughout the period were still subject to the pulls of locality and kinship as their multiple counterparts. Unlike them, however, these pulls often seem to have tugged them in one direction, towards one single lord. If, for instance, an individual held of a single lord, as did his immediate family, and his lands were surrounded by those of the same lord, he was more likely to adhere solely to that one lord and his descendants through this period. They were enmeshed in a lord’s honour in all senses of the term. This is not to say that such individuals were necessarily isolated from other lords and their men: while we know little about the day-to-day activities of the minor lords below, they must have had occasion to travel to towns and markets, possibly county courts, and certainly some were summoned to grand assizes from the late twelfth century. Nevertheless, the lack of a different lord, as it were, on the doorstep, seems to have restricted extra-honorial ties. If we compare the dense Ferrers honour in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, which covered the entirety of Appletree wapentake, with the much more dispersed lands of the earls of Chester, the latter had a much lower proportion of single tenants.8 Three instances of single lordship will be addressed here: one of an unusually well-documented family of relatively prominent standing on an honour, one tenant of a minor lord, and one minor tenant of a religious house. These will be followed by discussion of an instance of single lordship within a family and one that seems to have been due to a familial connection.9 A particular deficiency with the sources for single lordship needs first to be acknowledged. Since these examples with single lordship are generally lesser individuals and families, they appear less often in the sources. It is therefore possible that they may have had additional seigneurial connection, for which 7

As noted below, many seigneurial officials did have multiple allegiances, but a few seem to have adhered more closely to a single lord, 100–3. 8 On this pattern, see the discussion of the Shirley family below, 92–100. 9 A second category, that of seigneurial servants who were single tenants, has not yielded any instances from the area under study, but several Chester servants, including Philip de Orreby and the de Montalts, fit into this category. Since they do not hold lands in the relevant counties, they will not be discussed here, but they represent another, minor, pattern of single lordship (see, e.g., Philip de Orreby, justiciar of Chester: Barraclough, 140, 207, 209, 211–15, 220, 226, 229, 231–2, 241, 244–5, 247–50, 253–4, 256–8, 260, 262, 268, 276, 279–86, 288–90, 296–99, 307–9, 312–13, 327–8, 335, 337–88, 340–1, 348–51, 353–9, 363, 371–4, 377–9, 381–9, 394–5, 398, 400–01, 406–11, 416, 427, 434; see also 392; Ralph de Montalt dapifer: Barraclough 170, 182, 194, 206, 223, 228, 240, 244, 256–7, 262, 264, 266–7; Robert de Montalt: Barraclough 151, 157, 182, 214, 242, 271, 282, 311, 313).

Multiple lordship and the honour

65

records have not survived or were not made in the first place. These examples are, therefore, those which are only to the best of current knowledge ones who have a demonstrable attachment to one lord in the form of tenancy and attestations.

de Montgomerys The de Montgomerys are a well-documented family who appear to have been single tenants of the Ferrers earls.10 They are categorised as this because, despite appearing sporadically as witnesses for other individuals and lords, these were all other Ferrers tenants and within 10 miles of where the family are known to have held lands. There is no indication that they were attesting these transactions as anything other than neighbours.11 The circumstances of their relationship with their lord and their tenancy makes them a good example of individuals whose pulls of lordship, locality, and kinship drew them in one direction, in this case into a dense mesh of Ferrers power. Their name indicates that they were Normans and, while it is not possible to prove that they were tenants of the Ferrers (Ferrières) in Normandy, it seems likely that the two had some relationship prior to 1066. Loyd has suggested that they may have originated either in Saint-Germain-de-Montgomery or Sainte-Foy-de-Montgomery (Calvados, arr. Lisieux, cant. Livarot), which lie 4 miles from Courson, where the Ferrières are known to have held land.12 The progenitor of the English branch is not readily visible in Domesday Book, and the location of the family’s primary lands is as yet unknown, although later evidence suggests that they had held in the heartland of the Ferrers Midlands honour in Appletree wapentake. The family held four knight’s fees of the Ferrers by 1135, a reasonably large enfeoffment considering the distribution of lands on the honour, but the name of this early tenant is not recorded.13 By 1166, these fees were held by one Walter de Montgomery. We do not have clear descriptions of how these various members related to one another, so reconstruction of the family tree must be conjectural. A second Walter was active in the first two decades of the thirteenth century.14 We also find a Ralph de Montgomery in a charter of 1150x57, the first of the family to appear by name, who witnessed a grant by Burton Abbey to Ralph son of Orm de Okeover,15 and a grant of before 1166, conducted in the halimote of Barton Blount (Derbys.).16 There are also a Robert and William de Montgomery who were active in the area in Henry II’s reign. 10

They do not seem to be related to the Montgomery barons (L.C. Loyd, The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families (Leeds, 1951), 68–9). 11 On categorisation of neighbours see above, 53 n.26. 12 Loyd, Anglo-Norman Families, 68–9. 13 CB CLXI/4. 14 CRR IV, 115, 200. 15 DRO D213/M/T/1, also recorded as Okeover 7. This must be the Ralph de Okeover who appears in the area in the mid-twelfth century. 16 Jeayes, Derbyshire Charters, 238.

66

Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

Although we do not have a clear picture of where the Montgomerys’ knight’s fees lay, some later evidence gives a few possibilities. By the early thirteenth century Walter II de Montgomery held lands at Hatton (Derbys.), 2 bovates of which was held from him by an otherwise unknown William son of Ethebald. The latter granted this to William the dyer (tinctor) of Tutbury, with Walter’s assent, in the early years of the thirteenth century.17 Before Trinity term 1206, William de Montgomery was holding Snelston (Derbys.) when he was called to warranty in a case between Roger Putrell and his wife Margaret, and Hugh de Okeover. William in turn called Walter de Montgomery to warranty, presumably as his, William’s, landlord.18 Hatton and Snelston both lay in Appletree wapentake, which the Ferrers held in its entirety. From what evidence we now have, the geography of the Montgomery tenures within a block of Ferrers lands suggests that their local network is more likely to focus around these lords. As a result of this geographical framework, almost all of the Montgomery neighbours – at least, those now visible – were Ferrers tenants. We cannot now reconstruct precisely the tenures of a particular region, but examining the cohort of knights summoned to a grand assize can give us a glimpse of nearby landholders.19 Around Easter 1210, William de Mackley and Henry de Piro had a dispute concerning land in Mackley (Derbys.). Walter de Montgomery was summoned as an elector, and later for the grand assize.20 The two in dispute were Ferrers tenants, and Walter’s double summons strongly suggests that he was holding land in the immediate vicinity. The other men summoned for the grand assize largely read like a roll-call of Ferrers tenants: John de Bakepuz, Geoffrey de Okeover, Robert fitzWalkelin, Richard de Herthill, Walter de Halum, Richard de Curcun, Robert de Bellefoi, Henry de Denston, Henry de Brailsford.21 From the framework of electors and jurors, it seems to have been assumed by contemporaries that a landholder would also be familiar with the tenures of their neighbours. At least in part, this must have been driven by the need to have neighbours act as witnesses. Where one’s locality was dominated by a particular lord, neighbourhood attestations and the associative bonds these may imply added a further level of enmeshment with that lord’s interests. This is borne out with the Montgomery pattern of attestations, which all have a distinctly Ferrers flavour. As well as his tenancy of the knight’s fees Walter appears as witness to a notification by William I de Ferrers of a sale between his tenants Ralph de Seal and Ralph de Gresley, concerning land in Seal (now

17

Tutbury, nos. 121 and 166. CRR IV, 115, 200. 19 See Glanvill, II. 10–11, ed. Hall, 30–1. 20 CRR VI, 61, 95. 21 CRR VI, 95. It has not been possible to trace information on William de Codrington and Walter de Estwode, so their seigneurial relationships are unknown. 18

Multiple lordship and the honour

67

Overseal or Netherseal, Derbys.).22 Before 1176/7, a duel was carried out in the presence of William I de Ferrers, with those present being amerced 40s. each.23 The entry for this on the Pipe Roll of that year is a snapshot of the honorial court, in which William de Montgomery takes his place alongside representatives of some of the most prominent families in the Ferrers network. Even Montgomery attestations outside the Ferrers court were shaped by the network of Ferrers tenants. Walter I de Montgomery was one of few secular witnesses when Robert de Gresley received land from Burton Abbey in Darlaston (Staffs., now West Midlands) in 1160x75,24 and William de Montgomery attested a grant of Robert’s brother Ralph de Gresley to Merevale Abbey along with Ferrers family and men.25 Walter II de Montgomery appears as witness for a late twelfth-century grant by Serlo II de Grendon to Serlo de Mungay of land in Bradley and Yeldersley.26 Again, this is a Ferrers gathering without the earl: grantor, grantee, and the nine witnesses are all Ferrers tenants, meeting to see a transfer of lands that were ultimately held under the Ferrers. Even where the de Montgomerys appear in the record without a direct Ferrers connection, the latter’s influence is plain. The de Montgomerys only ever appear elsewhere as witnesses for other Ferrers tenants, and relating to a limited area of Derbyshire. Their situation seems to be a perfect storm of lordship and locality drawing the de Montgomerys in one direction, namely towards the Ferrers. This gives us the reverse side of the coin from the multiple tenancies which will be discussed below, where we can see these three key influences pulling in different directions and scattering the influence that a lord could have over his tenant.

de Ilam The de Ilams are a typical example of a single tenant family, being of relatively low standing and infrequent appearance in the documentary record. They appear to have been solely tenants of the de Okeovers, a prominent family of minor lords, and the only extant Ilam records come from this Okeover connection.27 In 1150x59, Turgis de Ilam, the first of the family to appear, received a grant of 14 bovates in that vill from Hugh de Okeover.28 Another charter of the same date has Turgis witnessing a grant by the same Hugh to

22 23 24 25 26

27 28

Gresley charters 3 PR 23 Hen. II, 61. Gresley charters 2. Gresley charters 4, 5 (grant and counterpart). Kniveton cartulary, 420. As part of the manor of Okeover, Ilam had been granted to Orm de Okeover in the early eleventh century (Wrottesley, ‘Okeover’, 5). On the Okeovers, see below, 82–91. SRO D603/A/Add/21/2.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

Robert f. Robert de Casterne of land in Casterne (Staffs.).29 Henry de Ilam, who may have been Turgis’ son or grandson, appears three times as witness to Hugh son of Robert de Okeover in the early thirteenth century.30 These are connected to lands at Okeover, Sheen and Woodhouse (Derbys.). The latter cannot be pinpointed precisely but seem to be near to Okeover, itself 3 miles from Ilam. Sheen, 8 miles to the north of Ilam. was held for a while by Bertram de Verdun, but was acquired by Hugh de Okeover in 1180x90, and it is only after this that Henry began to appear as a witness.31 While we have here a classic case of a family only appearing in the record in conjunction with one lord, the repeat attestations suggest that this is a representative sample. Several factors seem to have aligned to encourage this behaviour. The first is that the family’s caput appears to be Ilam, very close to the Okeover caput at Okeover. The second is the Okeover family’s dominance and presence solely on this small area. While the Okeover family was relatively wealthy, we cannot find traces of them having held lands in any other region. Being on the doorstep of such a lord may have been one of the more intensive forms of lordship for a free man in this period. Thirdly, the de Ilams seem to have themselves been minor. They were tenants of a minor lord, and there is no evidence that they were ever designated as knights. Although 14 bovates (c.280 acres) is a respectable tenancy, this is the only land that they are known to have held. Turgis’ toponym may suggest he already had another small tenancy in Ilam by the 1150s but, if so, this must, too, have been ultimately held under the Okeovers.

de Tatenhills Geoffrey de Tatenhill and Robert his son appear to have been single tenants of the pre-Conquest Benedictine abbey of Burton-upon-Trent (Staffs.). As discussed below in Chapter 5, Burton was the only surviving pre-Conquest monastic house in the area under study, and having lost the presence of its original founder acted more as a lord in its own right than its neighbouring houses in the twelfth century.32 It rarely seems to have received any additional endowments of land after the Conquest, and most of its records concern management of its lands and its grants to others. As tenants of a religious house, the de Tatenhills seem to have encountered a wider range of neighbours and the men of other lords than tenants of secular lords seem to have generally had exposure to. Unlike the general pattern among the tenants of secular lords, however, these additional interactions do not seem to have led to the acquisition of more lords. 29

SRO D603/A/Add/21/1. See Wrottesley, ‘Okeovers’, 127, n. 31 Okeover Cartulary, fo. 7r; P. Watson, ‘The Okeovers c.1100-c.1300: a gentry family and their cartulary’ (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 2017), appendix II, no. 27. 32 See below, 197–200. 30

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We do not have written record of the family receiving land from Burton, but their toponym indicates that they held land in a vill which was itself held in its entirety by Burton Abbey. Although as tenants of the house they would have held at farm, rather than with one of the more usual tenancies of secular lords, other records from Burton show that the house still expected and received allegiance from their ‘farmers’.33 Geoffrey appears several times as witness to grants by the abbey between c.1150 and 1187x97, including an exchange made with the abbey by Bertram de Verdun.34 Geoffrey’s son Robert, who is described as such in one of the charters, seems to have continued his father’s pattern of attestation into the early thirteenth century.35 The lands in question for which the two make attestation include both those in the immediate locality, at Stapenhill, 4 miles to the east of Tatenhill, lands at Potlock 12 miles north,36 and Okeover, 20 miles to the north. These attestations fit with the pattern seen elsewhere, where the attestations driven by seigneurial connection are spread over a wider area outside the rough 10-mile circuit of usual neighbourly activity. A possible relation, William de Tatenhill, also appears as censarius in Burton Surveys A (1116x26) and B (1114x18)37 holding 2 bovates in Branston, and 4 bovates in Winshill.38 His connection to Geoffrey and Robert is not certain, but is suggestive, and the dates make it possible that he may have been Geoffrey’s father. This William stands out from his censarii peers, who almost to a man have standard Old English or Old Norse names – Alured, Stori, Godric, Lepsi – and who almost always appear without bynames.39 It begs the question as to whether the Tatenhills were Norman, both from the name and the characteristically Norman early adoption of a toponym. Their position as men and witnesses for Burton Abbey may have brought them into contact with a broader range of people than if they had been the men of secular lords such as the Ferrers. In Burton’s charters, we commonly see a mixture of their own men and monks, alongside more neighbouring lords and minor lords than the average charter conducted in an honorial court will record. For instance, in an exchange of land between Bertram de Verdun and Burton Abbey in 1188x92, a significant part of the witness list – Adam de Audley, Gilbert and Peter Pipard, Hernard the steward, and William de Verdun, were clearly there as Bertram’s men and supporters. Alongside 33

BL Add. MS fos 37r ff.; a selection are printed in Bartlett, Modwenna, xlvii–lxxi. SRO D603/A/Add/34b, Bertram de Verdun to Burton Abbey; DRO D213/M/T/1 (Okeover, 6); SRO D603/A/Add/28–29, D603/A/Add/35. 35 SRO D603/A/Add/35, D603/A/Add/54. 36 Now represented only by Potlocks Farm between Radbourne and Mickleover (Derbys.). 37 J.H. Round, ‘The Burton Abbey Surveys’, EHR 20 (1905), 275–89 at 275; C.G.O. Bridgeman, ‘The Burton Abbey Twelfth Century Surveys’, SHC 3rd series, 23 (1916), 209–300 at 248. 38 Ibid., 216, 241–2. 39 Ibid., 216, 241–2. 34

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them and Geoffrey de Tatenhill are the Burton tenant farmers Walerand de Appleby and his son Robert, Philip de Willington and his brother Umfrey, and David de Chaldwell with John his brother. Similarly, when Henry de Touke received a grant of Potlock (Derbys.) from the abbey, the secular witnesses show a roughly equal split between connections and neighbours of de Touke – Alan and William de Leake, William de Montgomery, John de Boscherville – and Burton abbey tenants – Reginald de St Albans, Robert de Appleby, Richard de Lea.40 Alongside this, Robert de Tatenhill served as a knight of the grand assize for a dispute between William de Parles and William de Barre concerning 60 acres of wood in Hunsworth.41 Despite this, however, they appear to have maintained single tenancy with the abbey only. The reasons for this are uncertain. Perhaps the abbey kept a tighter rein on its tenants’ other seigneurial relationships, in line with their unusual attention to recording liege homage, or geography may again have played a role.42 The Tatenhills only appears in this immediate area, and almost always in direct connection with Burton Abbey. Although Burton’s lands were not as densely packed as those of the Ferrers, the position of Tatenhill may have contributed to the family being solely tenants of the house. It lies 3 miles to the west of Burton-upon-Trent, separated by Icknield Street (now the A38). To Tatenhill’s west was the ancient forest of Needwood, which was gradually being assarted by neighbouring tenants and may have provided scope for extension of the family’s lands. The abbey held considerable rights here and this block served to surround the family with Burton power. While they may have had connection with more lords met through Burton house itself – Ferrers, Gresley, and others – they do not seem to have taken advantage of this to form other seigneurial connections. This family again suggests a connection between lower status and single tenancy.

Families and single lordship Distribution of lands within a kin group could prove complex. While the eldest son generally received the most valuable clutch of lands, younger sons and other collateral relations could be required to gather their own portfolio of tenancies or expand on a meagre holding from the head of the kin. This could push some towards pursuing a relationship with a single lord or encourage multiple tenancy as a means of acquiring whatever lands were available.43 The instance below is a more unusual one: the landed strategies of an illegitimate branch of the family.

40

SRO D603/A/Add/29. CRR VI, 134, 157; see also ibid., 69, 167, 213. Hunsworth lay somewhere in southern Staffordshire. 42 See below, 202–10. 43 On the latter see below, 106–12. 41

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de Bacuns Richard and his brother William Bacun appear to have been solely tenants of Ranulf II earl of Chester, who was their uncle (avunculus). They were active in the mid-twelfth century in Staffordshire. Farrer suggested, plausibly, that their mother was an illegitimate daughter of Ranulf I.44 While they appear much less frequently than the earl’s honorial servants, Richard and William occasionally seem to have been in attendance on their uncle as witnesses.45 Despite their relative lack of attendance on Ranulf, there is evidence of familial feeling. Richard was founder of Rocester Abbey in Dovedale (Derbys.), a house of Austin canons, 1141x46, for himself and his family, and for the health of his uncle Ranulf ’s soul.46 This was a small house, and even at the Dissolution only had nine canons.47 All of the lands that he gave had been previously given to Richard by Ranulf.48 Little else of Richard’s tenancies are now traceable, but this endowment seems to have represented a significant part of his lands and it is tempting to suggest that these lands had been granted by Ranulf to him for life: Richard’s son Roger, as discussed below, seems to have rapidly lost all ties to this area, and, unusually, no subsequent Bacuns appear in connection with the house.49 As it stands, the house’s foundation charter is a forgery, but the witness list is sound and mentions several prominent Chester tenants. The foundation was confirmed soon after by Earl Ranulf, and later by Pope Eugenius III.50 Nevertheless, subsequent generations of the family began to break away from the earls as sole lords. Richard’s son, Roger Bacun, had by 1166 married the daughter of William fitz John of Harptree, and held part of a knight’s 44 Farrer, 45

46

47

48 49 50

Honors and Knights’ Fees, 257–8. Barraclough nos. 43, 52, 66, 67. Monasticon VI, pt. I, 409–12; VCH Staffs iii, 247–8. The foundation charter states that he gave land in Rocester and East Bridgeford (Notts.), but a more detailed charter also survives. This is not genuine, but the document may have been somewhat later drawn up to give a more extensive account of the foundation (Monasticon VI, pt. I, 410–11; VCH Staffs iii p.247; Barraclough, ‘Chester Charters’, in Medieval Miscellany for Doris Mary Stenton, 26; Barraclough, no. 262 and pp. 260–2). According to this, Richard gave the church of Rocester with its chapels of Bradleyin-the-Moors and Waterfall; vills of Rocester and Combridge, and demesnes there and at Wootton; appurtenances at Nothill in Croxden, Denstone in Alton, Quixhill in Rocester, Roston, Bradley-in-the-Moors, Waterfall and Calton; land and mills at East Bridgeford. Rocester had been the second most valuable manor in Staffordshire in 1086 (DB i, fo. 246v). According to the second charter, the men of Rocester, Combridge, Nothill, Wootton, Roston, Waterfall and Bradley were to continue to render services and suit of court at Rocester (VCH Staffs iii, 247). Monasticon VI, pt i, 410. These were largely in Rocester, Bradley-in-the-Moors, Waterfall and Combridge (all Staffs.). Monasticon VI, pt i, 410–12. Number VII in the Monasticon, a royal charter of 1 April 1246, confirms Richard Bacun’s donation, but there is nothing to suggest that a Bacun was involved in the acquisition of this (ibid., Num VII, 412). Monasticon, VI, pt. I, 411, Num II; BL Harleian 4028.

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fee from him in Dorset.51 He does not appear in any of the extant Chester charters, but a Roger de Bacun who was amerced 40s. for default by the itinerant justices in Dorset and Somerset in 1176 is conceivably the same man, and confirms that his focus seems to have been shifted by his marriage.52 * * * Those with single lordship seem generally to fall into one or more of three categories. First are those who find themselves in a tight nexus of lordship, kinship and locality, where all three pull an individual towards the same lord. As discussed above, the Montgomerys are a particularly clear instance of this pattern. The family’s lands were deep within the consolidated Ferrers honour, meaning that bordering lands and neighbours were equally under Ferrers control, and their contact with other lords was consequently reduced. The second category is of individuals who were apparently of minor status, and who appear to have been limited to holding from a single lord. With such individuals we have particular difficulty in asserting for certain that these were definite single tenants, since record for them is often meagre, or depends on particular hotspots of charter survival such as a religious house. Nevertheless, they have been included here as they appear, to the best of present knowledge, to have been single tenants. The third category is those individuals who had additional reason to be bound to a single lord, such as through ties of service or family. As discussed below, servants and lesser family members often did take and maintain relationships with multiple lords, but clearly some did not, whether through choice or some form of pressure that has not left a trace in the record.

Multiple lordship Chapter 1 showed that at least 33% of the minor lords in the sample held tenancy from and allegiance to more than one lord simultaneously by c.1216. As a third or more of the minor seigneurial population, this is a fundamental group to reconstruct in order to understand local society and lordship in this period. Four categories of multiple lordship have been identified in the course of this research and are discussed below in turn. First is the use of multiple tenancy to create a focused block of lands. Such families collected lands from neighbouring lords around a single focal point, upon which they often seem to have stamped their authority and from which they seem to have drawn identity. Second are multiple tenants who garnered dispersed lands from multiple lords. The intention of such families or individuals are sometimes 51

52

CB XXXIII/4. PR 22 Hen. II, 156; 23 Hen. II, 19. There is also a Roger Bacun who is recorded as owing 1 mark in London and Middlesex from 1183 until 1191, but the connection to this individual is less clear (PR 29 Hen. II, 166; 30 Hen. II, 141; 31 Hen. II, 220; 32 Hen. II, 51; 33 Hen. II, 42; 34 Hen. II, 20; 1 Ric. I, 227; 2 Ric. I, 157; 3 Ric. I, 137).

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less clear, but opportunism, acquisition of wealth or connection to particular areas may have been factors. The distinction between Categories 1 and 2 are not hard and fast: sometimes we can see minor lords using a combination of the two, and this combination is noticeable in Category 3. These are those minor lords who seem to have been particularly ambitious to gather lands and to rise through roles such as administration and royal service, often collecting lands from various lords along the way. Finally, Category 4 are those multiple tenancies that seem to have been almost incidental: where additional lands and lords were acquired through marriage or inheritance. To what degree did such acquisitions affect the behaviour of the new multiple tenants?

Multiple lordship category 1: focused lands The Gresley family The extant records for the Gresleys allow a particularly detailed study of a family of multiple tenants who had acquired many of their tenancies by 1086. Their acquisition of lords allowed them to build up a concentration of lands around their small tenancy-in-chief at Drakelow (Derbys.), with a secondary cluster further west. With this family, we can see both the construction of these tenancies, and, of particular value, something of their subsequent relationships with these lords and their locality.53 By the time of the Domesday Survey, Nigel de Stafford (c.1040–c.1115)54 held manors of the king, Henry de Ferrers, and the bishop of Chester. By the early twelfth century he had also acquired a small amount of land from the earls of Chester.

53

I have been unable to determine the reason for Nigel de Stafford’s toponym, other than to suggest that it had been extended from his elder brother Robert de Stafford to him. The subsequent replacement of this with Gresley may reflect the shift of focus by the family to the Derbyshire lands. 54 This dating is from Madan, The Gresleys of Drakelow, 18. This work, and that of J.H. Round, was strongly criticised by J.P. Yeatman in the early twentieth century, who believed that the Gresley family had become extinct by the Stewart era, and the title then bought by an upstart imposter. This view, however, rests on multiple mistranslations of the documents, and is lampooned by J.H. Round in ‘Our oldest families XII: the Gresleys’, The Ancestor, x (1904), 133–7 and ‘The origins of the Shirleys and of the Gresleys’, DAJ 27 (1905), 151–84. Aside from his misreading of Domesday Book, Madan’s work contains much careful source collation. The connection between Nigel de Stafford and the Gresley family has been disputed, but Round’s assertion of their connection is undoubtedly correct ( J.H. Round, ‘The origins of the Shirleys and the Gresleys’, 164). Like the Shirley line, the Gresley family survived into the modern era. The Gresley line became extinct in 1976 on the death of the last Baronet. Drakelowe Hall, the family seat, was vacated in 1931 and demolished in 1934.

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Nigel de Stafford’s tenancy-in-chief was small,55 worth just over £6 in the Domesday valuit.56 He may have lost the manor of Drakelow to Roger the Poitevin by the end of the eleventh century, but by 1170–71 at the latest was holding it of the honour of Lancaster.57 By the time of King John, it was again held of the king by service of a bow, quiver, and 12 arrows yearly.58 Nigel’s tenancies-in-chief were tightly clustered, covering a span of no more than 10 miles on the Leicestershire and Derbyshire border, immediately to the east and south-east of Burton-upon-Trent. Between these lands, the majority of other vills were either held by Henry de Ferrers in 1086, or were outlying sokelands of the royal manor of Repton.59 By the time of the Survey, Nigel de Stafford had acquired five parcels of land from Henry:60 Linton (Derbys.) and Swepstone (Leics.) that fell within the circuit of his tenancy-in-chief, the latter abutting the manor of Gresley that may have already been a caput in Nigel’s lifetime;61 Twycross (Leics.) that lay 9 miles to the south of Gresley; and Catton, 5 miles to the west of Gresley, and which abutted the River 55

It has not been possible to put a date on when Nigel received his tenancy-in-chief. His antecessors, where named, have a mixture of English and Scandinavian names (DB i, fo. 278), but none of them prominent enough to be able to draw out any further information. Since their names are common for the area, it is risky to try to connect them to antecessors of the same name on other lands. The name Godric appears three times, and it is possible that this was the same individual who had previously held in Stapenhill, Swadlincote, and Ravenstone. The latter manor is an outlier from Nigel de Stafford’s lands held in chief, being some 10 miles distant from Gresley, and it may be that this was acquired on the basis of the previous tenure of this Godric. 56 Nigel was a younger son of the de Toeni family, formerly standard bearers to the dukes of Normandy. His elder brother Robert is mentioned as fighting at Hastings, and Nigel is likely to have done similarly. His Domesday tenancy-in-chief covered Drakelow, Heathcote, Stapenhill, Swadlincote, Foremark, Smisby, Ravenstone, Donisthorpe, Oakthorpe and Thringstone; and Ticknall and Ingleby as sokeland (DB i, fo. 278) Gresley was probably included in the lands of Heathcote (VCH Derbys i, 306) The total annual value of these lands was £6 0.s. 6d. in 1086 (DB i, fo. 278). 57 PR 17 Hen. II, 29; see also 28 Hen. II, 62–3. 58 Madan, Gresleys, 33–4; T. Rymer, Foedera (London, 1816), i. 82. 59 These were Measham, Willesley and Chilcote (Leics.) 60 DB i, fos. 233, 233v, 274. Madan erroneously claimed that the family held further lands of several other lords in 1086 by seeking to equate every ‘Nigel’ in the region with his own ancestor (Madan, Gresleys, appendix B, 183–4). Some of the scattered references in Domesday may be indeed the right man, such as the Nigel who held Kingsley under Richard fitz Hubert, as these lands are later found in the family’s possession (ibid., 18–21) Some of these claims must be taken as completely unfounded, however – such as the Nigel who held of Richard the Forester, none of whose lands of Thursfield, Whitmore, Hanford and Clayton are later found in the family’s possession (DB i, fo. 250v; VCH Derbys, i. 302 and n. 3). 61 His son, William fitz Nigel de Gresley, appears to have taken the toponym early after having received his father’s lands. I am therefore using it as the family’s caput from which to measure the distance to other lands. The development of Gresley as a site dates to after 1086, and is now split into two settlements of Church and Castle Gresley, lying approximately a mile apart.

Map 8  Lands held by the Gresley family, c.1130.

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Trent at its confluence with the Tame.62 By the time of the Leicestershire Survey (c.1130), ‘Widesers’ and Linton seem to have been wrested from the Ferrers and were held in chief by Nigel’s son William de Gresley.63 From Burton Abbey Nigel had received lands at Stapenhill by 1086, just over the border from Gresley in Staffordshire. These acquisitions fall within a small and coherent area. In addition to this cluster, Nigel also received one around 20 miles to the west of Gresley, lying in Staffordshire to the north of Cannock Chase, and a little over 6 miles to the east of Stafford. In Domesday Book he held in five places directly of the bishop,64 and held Hixon of one Picot who himself held it from the bishop.65 The reason for this acquisition is less clear, although it may have been to provide a small base near the town. William de Gresley, Nigel’s son and heir (active c.1115x20–c.1150sx early 1160s), clearly inherited these lands, and is recorded as still holding them in 116666 and 1184.67 But there is little to connect the Gresleys otherwise to the bishops. The bishop of, by then, Coventry, was present with William fitz Nigel as witness to the deathbed bequests of Ranulf II earl of Chester, but this may have been for the safeguarding of Ranulf ’s grants, rather than from any especial connection between William and the bishop.68 There are only two charters of the bishops which a William fitz Nigel attests, and one of these appears spurious. It records a supposed grant by Walter Durdent, bishop of Coventry to Ralph lord of Harborne, his steward, of several small parcels of land for 4s. annual render, for which a ‘William fitz Nigel’ was the chief witness.69 In Franklin’s edition of this charter, he suggests a date of January 1152x55 if genuine, but suggests that it may instead have been a fabrication of the

62

The Tame flows northwards through Tamworth before reaching this confluence. Immediately on the other side of the Trent at Catton runs the Roman Rykneld Street, which follows the western bank of the Trent until northwards of Burtonupon-Trent, where the former continues to Derby, and the latter turns to the east. This manor was, therefore, a very useful one for access to travelling links, and it may be this that accounts for its acquisition outside the immediate tenancy-in-chief bloc. 63 Slade, ‘Leicestershire Survey’, 88. 64 DB i, fo. 247. These were at Wolseley, Coley, Moreton, Drointon and Tamhorn. 65 Ibid. Hixon adjoined the manor of Drointon. 66 CB LXXXVII/2. The seat for the diocese was moved from Lichfield to Chester by Bishop Peter in 1075, but under Bishop Robert I de Limesy, it was moved to Coventry 1088x1100 (EEA 14, xxx–xxxv). 67 In 1184, William fitz Robert de Gresley accounted for 30 marks in Warwickshire and Leicestershire for having his father’s lands in the fee of the earl of Chester and the bishop of Chester (P.R. 30 Hen. II, 49). Three years later, he still owed 8s. (P.R. 33 Hen. II, 116). In the early thirteenth century, William de Gresley, eldest grandson of William fitz Nigel held Drakelow of King John by the service of a bow, quiver and 12 arrows yearly (Madan, Gresleys, 33–4). 68 Barraclough, no. 34. 69 EEA 14, no. 63.

William de Gresley occ. 1184–1220

Henry de Gresley

Robert Engenulph Nigel William de occ. 1166 de de Gresley Gresley Gresley occ. 1166 late C12th

William fitz Nigel d. by 1166 Ralph de Gresley

Nigel de Stafford Domesday tenant d. c.1115

Genealogical Table 1  Gresley. Adapted from Madan, The Gresleys of Drakelowe, 224.

Margaret de Longford

de Longfords

Nicholas fitz Nigel

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1220s.70 His argument that the witness list may be a conflation of two from genuine documents gives us little basis for showing that William fitz Nigel was ever much in attendance on the bishops; if completely fabricated, then we have even less.71 The charter which appears to be genuine is a grant by the same Bishop Walter to Roger Durdent of land in Stivichall, dated 8 January 1152x57 December 1159.72 The witness list is long: the archdeacons of three counties, six churchmen, and ten lay witnesses, the latter including representatives from local families of Wiborville, Swinefen, and Handsacre, the latter of which held half a knight’s fee from the bishops.73 Compared with record for his activities elsewhere, William was clearly not in regular attendance on the bishops. There is ample evidence, however, for his activities around his tenancy-inchief. William’s seigneurial activity is entirely with lords around this central base. He continued to hold the lands that his father had received from the Ferrers, whose caput of Tutbury stood 8 miles to the north-west. To the north and south of the Gresley tenancy-in-chief by the early twelfth century lay the lands of the earl of Chester at Repton and Appleby Magna – although parts of the latter were also held by the Ferrers and Burton Abbey.74 At Drakelow and Stapenhill, his lands bordered Burton Abbey, from whom he held a small tenancy. His relationship with these will be addressed in turn. With the Ferrers caput lying so close, it is perhaps not surprising that William often appears in connection with these lords. In Robert II de Ferrers’ Carta return, he had held four knight’s fees of the old enfeoffment, which his son Robert had inherited by 1166.75 William witnessed a number of the earls’ charters, always appearing in a prominent position, including the foundation of Merevale, and Robert II de Ferrers’ grant of lands in Northamptonshire to Savigny Abbey (Manche). These were well outside the Gresley ambit, and so his presence is likely to have been seigneurially driven, rather than because he was local to the lands in question. Out of these five charters, two have 70

Ibid., 60. There is one other possible connection: a William fitz Nigel occurs as a witness for the foundation of Buildwas Abbey by the bishop 1140x47 (ibid., no. 11). There is a possibility that this might be William de Gresley, due to the Coventry connection, and the presence of Robert de Stafford, who may have been William’s cousin. It is, however, impossible to find any stronger evidence than this to link William fitz Nigel to the grant. 72 EEA 14, no. 67. 73 CB LXXXVII/10. See Handsacres below, 110–12. 74 DB i. fos 231v, 233v, 273; C.P. Lewis, ‘The formation of the honor of Chester, 1066–1100’, in The Earldom of Chester and its Charters, ed. A.T. Thacker, Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society 71 (1991), 37–68 at 43. 75 CB CLXI/2. These lands probably comprised those which Nigel held of Henry de Ferrers in Domesday. Linton and ‘Widesers’, two of Nigel’s holdings, was certainly still in the family’s possession at the time of the Leicestershire Survey of c.1130. William fitz Nigel held 1 carucate in the former, and 3 in the latter (Slade, ‘Leicestershire Survey’, 19). 71

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places recorded. A grant of lands in Stebbing (Essex), dated 26 September 1139, is dated at ‘Stutesberiam’, possibly Stuchbury (Northants);76 and that concerning Potterspury at ‘Norham’ (?Northampton), possibly suggesting that William at least occasionally travelled with Robert II’s retinue. William was also present for the agreement made between Robert I de Ferrers and Geoffrey abbot of Burton.77 By 1201, King John had granted the tenancy-inchief at Drakelow to William de Ferrers, the then earl. William de Gresley was to hold it of de Ferrers, owing the same service as previously of an unstrung bow, a Tutbury or Lancaster style quiver, and 12 feathered arrows, to still be rendered to the king.78 Geoffrey de Gresley, one of William’s sons, was steward of William II de Ferrers.79 Geoffrey seems to have been made constable of the castle of High Peak (Derbys.) after William was made castellanus there by King John. He also administered money allocated by John to William de Ferrers for campaigning with the king in Ireland.80 For the Chester earls, the picture is a little different. We are hamstrung in this instance because of the lack of a Carta return from the earls in 1166, and so we largely have to rely on survival of charters. Nigel de Stafford held lands of Henry de Ferrers in Twycross by 1086. In the early twelfth century he augmented this holding by acquiring neighbouring lands at Norton-juxtaTwycross from the earls of Chester.81 Nigel granted the church here to the St Albans Abbey, which was confirmed by Richard second earl of Chester sometime c.1107x15. Although a reasonably sized manor for the area, this tenancy from the Chester earls was a fairly minor one compared with the family’s other local holdings. With such wide-ranging holdings, and the Welsh to subdue, the earls of Chester are likely to have been very different lords from the Ferrers; the former could not have been present in the area much, while the Ferrers’ main focus seems to have been the north Midlands. It is not surprising, then, to find few instances of William attending on the earls of Chester, and all of these related to land in the immediate area. William is likely to be the William fitzNigel who appeared for (ex parte) Ranulf II earl of Chester in a peace agreement between the latter and the earl of Leicester made in the last years of Stephen’s reign.82 The other 76 BL

Add. Cht. 65173; ‘The Manuscripts of the Earl of Essex preserved at Cassiobury Park, Watford’, Historic Manuscripts Commission Reports on Manuscripts in Various Collections, vii (1914), 310; M. Jones, ‘The charters of Robert II de Ferrers’, Nottingham Medieval Studies xxiv (1980), no. 1. 77 See below, 217–18. 78 Madan, Gresleys, 34; Testa de Nevill, 17, 18, 409 (Feud. Derb. i. 401, 409): Brit Mus Ms Harl. 6671, fol. 33. 79 Madan, Gresleys, 35–6; Gresley Charters 49: Shaw, Staffordshire, i. 85. 80 Madan, Gresleys, 35–6; Lib. Rott, 203, 210, 223. 81 DB i, fo. 231v. The holding was 6 carucates, with a priest, one villein and two bordars, and was worth 6s. 82 BL, Cotton MS Nero C. iii, fo. 178, printed Stenton, First Century, 250–3, 286–8. Stenton, 253–4, n. 3 discusses some of the witnesses but excludes William. It is

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witnesses for Ranulf are prominent men: Richard de Luvetot was from a prominent Derbyshire family, and was an important tenant of Tickhill honour, which was possibly in the earl of Chester’s hands at this time;83 and Rannulf was a sheriff.84 Ranulf ’s supporters were all men – chosen, we may suspect, as a show of his force and local power. It may also suggest that William fitz Nigel was supporting the earl during Stephen’s reign – but, if so, this is the only trace. We may wonder how he acted when the earl of Chester, with others, laid siege to Ferrers in 1153 – although he does not seem to have lost his tenancies from either.85 William’s only other probable appearances in a Chester charter come from a few charters issued by Ranulf II while he was dying in 1153. The Gesta Stephani claims that Ranulf was served poisoned wine by William Peverel, while the earl was a guest at the latter’s house, in retaliation for the deal that the earl had recently made that would destroy Peverel’s tenure.86 This poison, the source says, killed three of the earl’s men, but Ranulf himself recovered for a short while before finally dying at Gresley. Whatever the truth of the matter, Ranulf fell seriously and unexpectedly ill in 1153, and died soon after. Seemingly prompted by his illness, Ranulf carried out the common aristocratic practice of making grants of land to religious houses in order to make amends for damage that he had previously committed. William fitz Nigel appears as a witness to a grant made by Ranulf at Rocester to Burton Abbey, in recompense for damage that he had previously caused in seizing islands in the Trent belonging to the house.87 William attests this along with members of Ranulf ’s more usual retinue, and the local clerics William of Radmore abbey, near Cannock, Albinus the abbot of Darley, and the prior of Calke, all of whom had been founded by, or in the case of Derby, endowed by, the earls.88 After this, Ranulf made a final move to Gresley. It is impossible to say whether Ranulf ’s stay at Gresley was an unusual occurrence forced by his illness, or whether this was a stop that he had made more frequently but which has left no record. From here he issued three further charters: two grants to St Werburgh’s abbey for the damage which he had inflicted; likely, however, that this was William de Gresley, and no other strong candidates emerge for this figure. 83 Ibid., 253–4, n. 3. 84 He had previously appeared as witness for Chester (ibid., 253–4, n. 3, 104, 271–2). 85 Gesta Stephani, c.119, ed. K.R. Potter (Oxford, 1976), 234–5; Golob, ‘Ferrers’ i. 114–41. 86 Gesta Stephani, c. 119, ed. Potter, 236–7. The Gesta does not however attribute the earl’s death to the poison. VCH Derbys ii. 96 claims that he was poisoned as a result of his dispossession under the Treaty of Devizes but, as this treaty was not implemented before Ranulf ’s death, this argument seems unlikely. 87 Barraclough, no. 115. 88 Most notably Hugh ostricarius who attests 18 of the earls’ charters (ibid., nos. 25, 27–8, 34, 46, 55, 66, 69, 71–2, 80, 82, 85, 90, 103–4, 111, 149. For Hugh, see also nos. 102, 150).

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and 100 solidates of land in Staffordshire to restore Trentham Abbey.89 William is recorded as witness for two of these.90 After these, evidence for relations between the Gresleys and the earls of Chester falls silent again; but in 1184 William fitz Robert de Gresley paid 30 marks in Warwickshire and Leicestershire for having his father’s land, of the fee of the earl of Chester and the bishop of Chester.91 William fitz Nigel also attested a large number of Burton Abbey’s grants, appearing consistently through the abbacies of Geoffrey (1114–50) and Robert I (1150–59).92 He appears, moreover, more frequently here than in relation to any other lord. Many of the abbey’s lands bordered those of William fitz Nigel and, in some cases, they interspersed his tenancy; in any case, all of those charters that he witnessed lie within 5 miles of his caput at Gresley. His regular attendance at the court, therefore, may be a means of safeguarding the borders of his land by being present for the grants of his neighbours. The proximity of the abbey’s lands may also have encouraged him to expand in this direction: a grant by the abbey of lands at Darlaston seems to have been threatened by William’s acquisitiveness. A conventio from the Burton cartulary between Geoffrey abbot of Burton and Orm of Darlaston grants the latter to hold the lands so that none can cause him to lose it, whether pro Willelmo filio Nigelli, or by anyone else.93 This land was later granted to William’s son Robert, although the nature of the Gresley’s claim to this land – and its legitimacy – is nowhere made explicit.94 Other dimensions of the Gresleys fit with this pattern of a heavy focus on the small locality. William fitz Nigel took Gresley as a toponym, rather than Stafford as his father had, and all of William’s sons – Robert, Engenulf, Nigel, Henry, William and Ralph – appear in documents with the toponym ‘de Gresley’.95 A possible seal of William survives, showing the classic image of a knight on horseback with a drawn sword.96 At the caput the family stamped their presence on the landscape. William fitz Nigel founded a small Augustinian priory dedicated to St Mary and St George on a ridge of high ground on the eastern part of Gresley, sometime during the reign of Henry

89

Ibid., nos. 34, 117, 118. Ibid., nos. 34, 118. 91 PR 30 Hen. II, 49. 92 Abbot Robert was expelled in 1159 but returned in 1176. As William fitz Nigel’s son Robert had inherited his lands by 1166, these charters must be from Robert’s first stint in office (The Heads of Religious Houses, England and Wales I: 940–1216, ed. D. Knowles, C.N.L. Brooke, V.C.M. London, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2001), 30–1. 93 BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 40. 94 Ibid., fo. 41. 95 Madan, Gresleys, 27–8. 96 Ibid., 32; BL Wolley Ch. v. 33; see also those of William’s uncle Ralph de Gresley in Jeayes, Gresley charters, Plate 1. 90

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I.97 Since it was so small, no documents survive, and it is doubtful whether a cartulary was ever produced.98 At the time of the Dissolution, however, it held lands in many of the core Gresley areas: Gresley, Linton, Swadlincote, Heathcote, Newton, Boothorpe, Seal, Donisthorpe, Oakthorpe, Chilcote and Foremark, and the rectory of Lullington, at that time a value of £31 6s. 0d. per year.99 It seems likely from this that the priory never attracted much patronage beyond the Gresley family and possibly its tenants.100 The Gresleys, more unusually, seem to have built a castle at their caput. The name is preserved in the current name of Castle Gresley, and in a mound, still approximately 20 feet high, known locally as Castle Knob, that lies about a mile from the remains of Gresley Priory.101 Unfortunately, there is no documentary record for this site before the fourteenth century, and the date of construction is unknown.102 Nevertheless, from the present remains it appears to have been a motte-and-bailey construction and would be consistent with those constructed during King Stephen’s reign. For Nigel and his descendants, we can see a family whose relationship with their lords was almost entirely driven by their focus on one locality. The tenancy-in-chief which they held was less valuable in 1086 than the lands which they held from other lords, but in all senses these lords and the lands held from them were supplementary to it. This pattern of trying to build up a consolidated block of lands was reasonably common, both in the north midlands area and further afield.103

The Okeover family Orm of Okeover held a tenancy of Burton Abbey based at Okeover by the early twelfth century, and possibly earlier. The former of these was to become the family’s caput, and its surrounds the family’s main focus. Around the land at Okeover, like the Gresleys further south, the family constructed a more or 97 Madan,

Gresleys, 172. small amount of the fabric of the twelfth-century construction survives in the foundations and base of the tower for the now parish church (Pevsner et al., Derbyshire, 272–3). The priory seems to have attracted the majority of the Gresley patronage: there is no evidence that they ever endowed the houses of any of their lords. 99 Dugdale, Monasticon, VI, pt. I, 550. 100 Even the Gresley charters collection contains few grants, such as Lucian Disert of part of his wood in Seal in the early thirteenth century. Merevale Abbey (Warks.) seems to have attracted much of the available patronage in the immediate area, see Gresley charters nos. 1, 4–7, 11–12, 14–24, 26–7, 29 etc. 101 Pevsner et al., Derbyshire, 272–3. 102 D.J.C. King, Castellarium Anglicanum (2 vols, London, 1983), I, 109. 103 See the example of an English survivor, Oswald, who held lands of King William, Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare, and Chertsey Abbey in a concentrated block focused on Effingham in Surrey (Mortimer, ‘The beginnings of the honour of Clare’, 125–7). 98 A

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less contiguous block of lands, held from different lords in the vicinity. This seems to have allowed them to dominate the immediate small region from the early twelfth century. Okeover lies approximately 18 miles to the north-east of the abbey, on the west bank of the River Dove, which rises near Buxton and flows into the Trent at Newton Solney immediately north of Burton. It formed part of an outlying pocket of Burton lands that may have been the remnants of a decayed pre-Conquest estate centred on Ilam.104 The evidence for this family’s activities in the long twelfth century is extensive but complex in parts. They appear in the main extant Burton cartulary (BL Add. MS 89169), several original charters105 and, most strikingly, the Okeover Cartulary, a family collection of material produced in the fourteenth century.106 The latter of these is the most interesting and most potentially problematic. Its production was initiated by a familial dispute over wardship of Roger of Okeover’s lands, so care was taken to include, and sometimes add, details on how earlier tenures were seen or were claimed to be by the early fourteenth century.107 As such, some of the material from the early period shows signs of interpolation or confection and needs to be treated carefully. Nevertheless, the collation of material into a secular cartulary at such an early date is highly unusual and provides some valuable evidence for the family’s activities. Orm of Okeover, the first definite family member in the records, seems to have been active after 1086, but may have received his lands in Okeover and Stretton from the abbey before 1100.108 The confirmation of lands to Orm of Okeover is among one of the best-known pieces of evidence from Burton, as it is so unusually early and detailed. It gives an indication of the relationship between the abbey as landlord and tenant in the early twelfth century and is worth quoting at length. Ego frater Nigellus Dei gratia Abbas Bertonie, dedi in capitulo nostro et omnes fratres mei mecum terram de Acovere Orme hac conventione, ut unoquoque anno nobis xx oras persolvat, et perinde factus est homo noster super quattuor Ewangelia [sic] iurando se nobis fidelitatem servaturum, et quod de ista terra nec de alia neque de aliqua re per se aut per alium aliquem nobis in dampno erit in vita sua. Cum autem mortuus fuerit: deferre ad nos se faciet cum tota pecunia sua ad sepeliendum quo sepulto filius eius in capitulum 104 Watson, ‘Okeovers’,

66. in the DRO D231M and SRO D603/A/Add series, and the British Library Stowe Charter collection. 106 Bodleian Library, Wood empt. 6, no. 8594; part printed in Wrottesley, ‘Okeover’; some printed in Monasticon, vol. III, 41–50; edition of cartulary and discussion in Watson, ‘The Okeovers’, charters at 245–358. 107 Ibid., 49–50. 108 Okeover: BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 37r. Stretton: BL Stowe Charters 102; copied BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 37r; printed Bartlett, Modwenna, appendix no. 19, lxii; Watson, ‘Okeovers’, appendix II, no. 14. See also ibid., 51–2. 105 Primarily

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nostrum veniet daturus pro relevatione ipsius terrae tantum pecunie quantum nobilis homo dare debet pro tali terra iurando similiter sicut pater eius iuravit, donando sicut pater eius donavit, tenendo sicut pater eius tenuit. I, brother Nigel, by the grace of God Abbot of Burton, have given in our chapter and all my brothers with me the land of Okeover to Orm with this agreement, and each year should pay to us 20 oras, and also has become our man over the four Evangelists by swearing that he would keep his fidelitas to us, and that during his life he shall not cause loss to this land, nor to any other, nor to any thing by himself or through anyone else. And when he dies: he should be brought to us with all of his money for burial and when buried his son will come into our chapter, paying for relief of his land as much money as a noble man ought to give for so much land, swearing similarly as his father swore, giving as his father gave, holding as his father held.109

The charter appears in the Burton Cartulary and no original survives, but it appears in all points genuine. It suggests that Burton Abbey was in the early twelfth century keeping reasonably tight control over the succession of its tenants. Orm had to become the man of the abbey in an oath sworn on the Gospels.110 He was to have rights of burial in the abbey, in exchange for all his money, a curiously heavy requirement, and it is unclear whether this payment was for burial or as a more general kind of death duty. Burial at an abbey may have been of higher status and may have been regarded as spiritually beneficial with its proximity to the saint. Orm’s son was to pay the relief of a noble man (nobilis homo) at the abbey chapter. Like his father, he had to renew the oath to the abbey, and was expected to then give and perform services as his father had. Peter Watson sees this as evidence for inherited land; George Garnett as evidence for reversion on the death of a tenant.111 I am inclined to see this as showing the confusion of a developing situation, falling somewhere between the two. Orm’s heir is recognised as having an expectation to possess his father’s lands after the latter’s death, although it is unclear whether this was common custom already, or something that had to be secured by the creation of this document. To take up his father’s lands, Orm’s heir has to renew his bond with the abbey and pay the required dues. We appear to be somewhat in a Thorne-esque world, where an heir is recognised but must perform an oath and offer payment to be put in the land.112 This is a situation that we can see breaking down for the abbey through the twelfth century as grants in inheritance become standard after around 1160.

109 BL

Add. MS 89169, fo. 37r. Wrottesley’s transcription ‘Burton Chartulary’, 30, contains several errors. 110 See the discussion of developing ideas of homage, above 18–24. 111 Watson, ‘Okeovers’, 74–84; Garnett, Conquered England, 95. 112 Thorne, ‘English feudalism’, 196.

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This holding at Okeover seems to have become the most important of the family’s possessions. It emerged early as their toponym and was used by second sons as well as the oldest sons in the male line, indicating the crystallisation of identity around this place. The land also seems to have been, unsurprisingly, safeguarded within the main line. Where almost all other lands held by the Okeovers were granted with reversion, to younger sons or in marriage at various times in the twelfth and thirteenth century, Okeover itself seems to have been kept by the eldest son. There is evidence that a park had been made at Okeover by the mid-thirteenth century.113 We have no evidence for the family founding their own religious house or becoming major patrons of another, as many families in their position seem to have done. In part, this seems to have been pursued by families as a means of monumentalising the family in the landscape, and these foundations were often treated as family mausolea. For the Okeovers, the early twelfth-century charters indicate that Burton Abbey itself fulfilled this role. Close association between the house’s patron saint, Modwenna, the house, the familial lands, and burial, had the potential to create a tight bond between the abbey and family. As will be discussed below, however, the Okeover attention to their own lands and association with other lords may have limited it. A second tenancy from the abbey at Stretton also seems to have been in Orm’s possession by early in the twelfth century. This land seems to have been of lesser importance than Okeover, despite lying close to the abbey itself: it was at various points assigned as part of marriage portions, albeit with reversion to the main branch of the family if there were no surviving heirs. In Burton Abbey Survey B, Steinchette, a man of Orm of Okeover, was in possession of 4 bovates of warland and 2 of inland, worth 6s. total per year. Andrew, Orm’s son-in-law, held this land by the time of Survey A.114 Abbot Geoffrey also confirmed Orm’s tenure of Stretton in feudum et hereditatem c.1130, in an unquestionably authentic original charter which mentions an earlier grant of the same to Orm by Abbot Nigel (1094–1114).115 Stretton may have been held on slightly different terms than Okeover. It was granted as heritable land much earlier, although it was nevertheless confirmed when a new tenant inherited or a new abbot arrived. Orm’s position there seems to have been as a censarius, which J.F.R. Walmsley has characterised as having characteristics akin to sokemen.116 In addition to their holdings from Burton, the family acquired land held of Tutbury Priory by at least the first decades of the twelfth century. 113 Watson, ‘Okeovers’,

150–1. Add. MS 89169, fo. 28v. 115 BL Stowe charters, no. 102; copy BL Add. MS 89619, fo. 37r; Okeover cartulary, fo. 3v; printed Watson, ‘Okeovers’, appendix II, no. 14. 116 J.F.R. Walmsley, ‘The “Censarii” of Burton Abbey and the Domesday Population’, North Staffordshire Journal of Field Studies 8 (1968), 73–80 at 77; Watson, ‘Okeovers’, 95. 114 BL

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The earliest record of this in the Tutbury Cartulary is a confirmation to Hugh I of Okeover of land in Mayfield, Okeover and Snelston. From the Okeover cartulary, there is a much earlier confirmation by Prior William of Tutbury of apparently 1125x38 of a carucate in Mayfield (Maafeld) which Orm supposedly held ‘in the days of Henry de Ferrers and Engenulph his son and Robert de Ferrers’ (sicut tenuit in diebus Henrici de Ferrariis et Engnulphi filii eius et Roberti de Ferrariis).117 If this is an authentic early charter, this idiosyncratic phrasing may just be something from the period of experimentation in charter form in the early twelfth century. It is questionable, however, whether this charter was entirely confected, or this phrase inserted into an authentic charter in order to establish longer descent for the purposes of the fourteenth-century dispute.118 This charter also requires Orm to provide three ploughs to plough for one day in winter or Lent, and 16 men to harvest for a day in August. If the prior summons him concerning his business (de negociis suis) in Derbyshire or Staffordshire, he is to go unless one of his other lords has previously summoned him. The prior can also summon Orm to business outside these counties, but the former is to pay the expenses of Orm and his men and provide their horses. Finally, a somewhat mixed bag of ‘feudal dues’ is to be passed on to Orm if the Ferrers lord should require them of the priory. The requirement to pay towards the redeeming of the lord from capture or the payment for the marriage of the lord’s firstborn daughter are both standard, but Orm is also to contribute if the land needs to be improved (emendam terram), or if the king’s friendship needs to be recovered (ad recuperandam amicitiam regis si amiserit). The general requirements for agricultural and personal services fit well with what Burton asks of its men, and adds a small piece of evidence to suggest that such things were more widely demanded by landlords as part of the package of services involved in a tenurial relationship. Tutbury’s recognition of Orm’s other lords is interesting, as it is one of the few such that we have, and can be placed alongside the example of Ralph of Anslow discussed below in Chapter 5. Such occasional references demonstrate a situation where multiple lordship was acknowledged and accepted, and that lords took pragmatic steps to work around it. 117 Bodleian

Library, Wood empt. 6, no. 8594, fo. 12v; Wrottesley, ‘Okeover’, 128; Watson, ‘Okeovers’, appendix II, no. 56. For Henry’s grant of Mayfield to the Priory, see Tutbury, ed. Saltman, no. 51. 118 The witness list fits for the supposed date. If this is genuine, then the appearance of Walter de Somerville with his father William is likely to push its date into the 1130s, as he is active into the late twelfth century (Gresley charters 2, 26). Other charters in the Okeover cartulary contain suspicious phrases, e.g. a grant by Robert II de Ferrers to Ralph son of Orm to hold Callow of 1155x59 claims the land is to be held in capite, a very unusual term for this period (Bodleian Library, Wood empt. 6, no. 8594, fo. 32v; Watson, ‘Okeovers’, appendix II, no. 134).

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Ralph son of Orm, the mid-twelfth century head of the family, maintained these previous tenancies and acquired lands in Callow (Derbys.) by grant of Robert II de Ferrers in 1155x59. Robert’s charter, addressed generally, now only survives in the Okeover Cartulary, and aside from the slightly odd requirement that Ralph is to hold Callow of him in capite, appears genuine.119 This was land in the soke of Wirksworth, which Robert held at farm from the king by 1129/30.120 Wirksworth was lost by Robert II de Ferrers after backing the wrong horse in the mid-century civil war, and only recovered by William II de Ferrers in the early thirteenth century.121 Peter Golob argued that Ralph and Hugh also lost Callow when Robert lost Wirksworth, and there is certainly a noticeable dearth of Okeover material relating to the vill between the Ferrers’ loss of it and their regaining in the early thirteenth century.122 William II’s confirmation of Callow to Hugh de Okeover of 1203x20 does not necessarily fall earlier than any of Hugh’s other business with the vill. Given a relative lack of connection between the Ferrers and Okeovers, this grant and regant of Callow needs explaining. As an individual with a powerful local base, Ralph de Okeover may have been a useful person to have on-side as an administrator of all or part of the soke of Wirksworth. At the least, he may have been able to provide support for the Ferrers in an area that the Okeovers seem to have dominated. Other lands were acquired in nearby vills. Hugh de Okeover acquired Sheen (Derbys.) from Bertram de Verdun in exchange for 100s., a palfrey, and 36s. 8d. per year.123 Aside from retaining wartspenny and Peter’s penny, and the requirement to attend court, this appears as close to a sale of lands as we see in the late twelfth century. Hugh may have taken advantage of Bertram’s need to raise funds prior to the latter going on crusade.124 This was transacted before William de Ferrers, earl of Derby, some of his followers, and some of the de Verdun connections including William de Ipstones, Bertram’s kinsman.125 The collection of people may indicate that the business was transacted in a Ferrers court, despite it only relating to the earls indirectly. Hugh also clearly had control of Snelston (Derbys.) by 1207x10 when he granted it to his brother Geoffrey, as discussed further below. Prior to this, in Trinity 1206 he had been in dispute in the king’s court with Roger Putrell and Margaret his wife concerning 2 carucates there.126 The latter called William de 119 Bodleian

Library, Wood empt. 6, no. 8594, fo. 32v; Wrottesley, ‘Okeover’, 129; Golob, ‘Ferrers’, appendix no. 21; Watson, ‘Okeovers’, appendix II, no. 134. 120 PR 31 Hen. I, 6. 121 Golob, ‘Ferrers’, i. 166. 122 Ibid., 64–5. 123 Bodleian Library, Wood empt. 6, no. 8594, fo. 7r; Watson, ‘Okeovers’, appendix II, no. 27. 124 Ibid., 175. 125 Herbert was either Bertram’s brother or nephew. See PR 21 Hen. II, 68; Bodleian Library, Wood empt. 6, no. 8594, fo. 7r. 126 CRR IV, 88, 115, 200.

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Montgomery to warranty, who in turn called Walter de Montgomery.127 The case turned on whether Richard brother of Hugh de Okeover had held 1½ carucates of land in demesne in Snelston on the day he died. Roger Putrell and Margaret now held this as subtenants of William de Montgomery.128 The jurors ruled that Richard was thus seised when he died, and Hugh was duly put into seisin. Walter was put in mercy for unjust detention of the lands. Hugh de Okeover also acquired the wardship of the land and heir of Robert de Thorpe before 1198, lying 2 miles to the north of Okeover. The abbot of Combermere (Cheshire) brought a claim in the Curia Regis against Hugh concerning the mill there.129 He was also required to appear as a knight of the grand assize for cases based in Butterton (Staffs.),130 Acton (Staffs.)131 and Findern (Derbys.).132 Further lands were gathered in the immediate Okeover region. As well as acquiring land from his brother in Snelston, Geoffrey de Okeover and his wife Matilda had acquired land in Wilson (Leics.) and Boylestone (Derbys.) by 1203, when Nicholas Pecche tried to enforce the service and customs they owed him for this fee.133 Geoffrey was also summoned as a knight for cases in Mackley (Derbys.)134 Given the early tenures of Orm from several lords, Peter Watson has argued that the Okeover family were English survivors who maintained their lands under new Norman lords after 1066.135 While intriguing, the evidence does not seem clear enough to say anything but that Orm received some of his tenancies very early after the Conquest, and that they were recorded in writing unusually early. The family tenancies held of Burton Abbey make a best case for being pre-Conquest, if any are. While generally pre-Conquest landholders in the area were pushed to subtenancies and had to build up very piecemeal holdings in the twelfth century, occasional English kin-groups such as the Ridwares were more fortunate.136 Burton Abbey and its lack of military tenure and seeming lack of reorganisation of lands may have insulated its 127 CRR

IV, 200; CRR V, 2. V, 2–3. 129 CRR I, 44, 64. 130 CRR I, 429. 131 CRR IV, 253. 132 CRR III, 193, 252. Hugh was also attached for a case between Nigel de Luvetot and Nicholas de Verdun in Staffordshire (CRR V, 151), and for a case between William Griffin and Alicia his wife, against Hugh son of Matilda and William son of Nicholas (CRR VI, 293, 349). The location of the lands in question for both of these cases does not survive. In the latter, Hugh was attached by the sheriff for repeated failure to attend. 133 CRR III, 9, 73. 134 CRR VI, 95. 135 Watson, ‘Okeovers’, ch. 3; 210. This charter and its terminology seem in all points correct for the period. 136 On the Ridwares see below, 100–3. 128 CRR

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tenants from the dispossessions and changes in terms that many neighbours suffered. The Domesday tenant of Okeover, Eadwulf, has no provable connection to the Okeover family, and his name and Orm’s do not easily suggest kinship. Nevertheless, the tenancy at Okeover may be a previously noble holding, whether or not this family had been in it before 1066: Orm in the early twelfth century is to give ‘as much as a noble man should’ at his death, in something that looks all but identical to heriot. This may be an English surviving family, but their pre-Conquest origins are suggestive and unproven. In their Burton lands, however, they are still in a fairly Anglo-Saxon situation of landholding, rights and exactions, although, as discussed below in Chapter 5, the introduction of liege lordship shows that new ideas were percolating into the house’s estates.137 Whether these putative origins put the Okeovers in a stronger position towards their lords in the twelfth century, or whether from their tenancy with Burton, they seem to have been in a sufficiently powerful position to be able to interact with lords on their terms.138 Even into the thirteenth century, the Okeovers seem to have been reluctant to appear as knights for the grand assize, although this was by no means an unusual problem.139 There does not appear to be any great closeness between the Okeovers and the Ferrers, either directly or through Tutbury Priory. They rarely appear for Ferrers business in their courts, and as only seem to have appeared when they had business of their own to transact. They provided a grant to the Ferrers family foundation, but only a small one: Orm had granted two parts of the tithe of Ireton to Tutbury Priory by 1150x59.140 They present a similar pattern with Burton Abbey. Where other even multiple tenants occasionally attended on Burton, the Okeovers seem to have only visited on their own terms. Orm did appear as witness for Burton in the settlement of the dispute between Robert I de Ferrers and the abbey concerning rights over Needwood and Abbots Bromley wood, but this dispute seems to have been a major one that drew in prominent local families for support on both sides. To return to the model of service suggested in the Introduction, the Okeovers seem to have carried out the requirements of their lands to their various lords, but without performing much in the way of additional personal services or acting as part of a retinue. Their main interactions with lords seem to have been either when in dispute, or when they wanted their own familial or seigneurial business to be transacted. The witness lists of many of their charters suggest that they used Ferrers and Burton courts as a forum for creating and securing grants within family or to their followers and neighbours.

137 See

below, 202–10.

138 Watson, ‘Okeovers’,

108–9. CRR III, 193, 252. 140 Tutbury no. 52. 139 E.g.

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In 1207x10, for instance, Hugh de Okeover granted to his brother Geoffrey land in Snelston, for 10s. annually.141 There is nothing particularly contentious suggested in this agreement that might indicate a serious underlying dispute settlement: Geoffrey is to receive the land, which is to revert to Hugh if Geoffrey has no heirs of his body. If the field by the mill, now to be part of Geoffrey’s lands, should flood, then Hugh or his heirs will make amends per visum legalium virorum, an interesting testament to the role that ‘law-worthy’ men could play in judging even small matters. None of this suggests that a serious dispute sufficient to require mediation of a great lord has taken place. The witness list, however, is impressive for a minor family matter. Along with William II earl de Ferrers are William de Ridware his seneschal, and many usual Ferrers witnesses: Geoffrey Savage, Jordan de Touke, Roger de Ridware, Geoffrey de Costentin, Henry de Brailsford and William de Grendon. The suggestion seems to be that Hugh and Geoffrey are using a Ferrers court as a forum to conduct their family’s tenurial business.142 Similarly, Herbert de Merle’s quitclaim of land in Winndun wood, Mulneclif, and Atlow (Derbys.) to Hugh of Okeover, dating to 1207x20, has an impressive witness list for what appeared to be a minor piece of business. Herbert and his wife Margarita confirmed that they would not demand any common land in Winndun wood, and that they would allow Hugh to make a vivarium or a park.143 Among the witnesses we again see common Ferrers retinue members including Henry de Brailsford, William de Grendon, Ralph de Bakepuz, Jordan de Snitterton and others. These again suggest that a Ferrers court was being used as a forum to transact business for lower-level tenants. What allowed the Okeover family to act in this way towards their lords? As we have seen, multiple tenancy allowed some families to dictate their seigneurial relationships more to their own advantage. Their area of interest is also one of the more distant of the post-Conquest Burton lands, which may have allowed them greater freedom from attending on the abbey, or made it more difficult for them to do so regularly. Watson has suggested that their position as socage tenants (or at least being recognised as such by the fourteenth century) rather than military ones may have meant that lordship rested on them more lightly.144 While an interesting idea, this does not seem to have been the case for the services outlined by Burton and Tutbury. Both houses required personal attendance when summoned, and while no military 141 Bodleian

Library, Wood empt. 6, no. 8594, fo. 24v; Watson, ‘Okeovers’, appendix II, no. 99. 142 Ibid., 134. As a record only surviving in the later family cartulary, this witness list have been inflated to emphasise importance, but both formulae and witnesses are plausible for the date. For a parallel usage of seigneurial courts, see the Shirleys below, 98–100. 143 DRO D231/M/T/131; Watson, ‘Okeovers’, appendix II, no. 120. 144 Watson, ‘Okeovers’, 139.

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service may mean no castle-guard, fighting service, or scutage, their other services look very similar. Even if no ‘feudal’ services are being required by Burton, relief was still to be paid; and Tutbury transposed feudal dues from their own lord down to their tenant. They may have missed some of the more secular opportunities that connected a lord with his men such as hunting, but it is not altogether certain that the abbots did not indulge in this. This ability of the Okeovers, then, to engage with lords seemingly on their own terms, in context with military tenants does not look unusual. Rather, this appears to be another instance of the flexibility in lordship relationships that were possible at this time, particularly with religious houses, and the ability of minor lords to direct their own activities.

The Kniveton family The acquisition of lands in a consolidated area is not limited to the greater of the minor lords. The tenurial patterns of the Norman settlement and its subsequent developments left tenants with holdings scattered across the landscape. Families seem to have aimed to fill in these gaps, particularly around the vill or area from which they took their name, and often over hundred or shire boundaries. This process of acquisition of lands from neighbouring lords could be gradual. Often it seems to have been achieved by offering service to the neighbouring lord in exchange for the land (and probably some sort of payment). Sale was possible, but much more unusual – and still usually required the buyer to acknowledge and be accepted by the lord of the land in question. In the early thirteenth century, the Kniveton family appear to have been using both of these methods, and up to the mid-century they seem to have been busily engaged in trying to acquire blocks of lands immediately to the east of Ashbourne, within a 4-mile radius in Kniveton, Bradley and Sturston. The Knivetons are a clear example of how lands could be acquired through multiple lordship, and how acceptance of the latter practice could be crucial for an ambitious family. We only know about the family in detail because c.1302–03 the documents recording the family’s landed business were written up into an unusually large cartulary.145 Since it is only from the thirteenth century that we have much evidence for free peasants using charters, the evidence for this family is somewhat later than the other examples in this chapter. I am sceptical, however, that free peasants only began to acquire land in this piecemeal way from multiple lords when 145 Lincoln, Dean

and Chapter, Muniments A/1/9. It is 112 folios, so must have been an expensive undertaking. It is also an immensely careful one that delves back into the twelfth century to establish previous chains of tenure, and includes documents about lands that had been lost by the time of production; possibly it was kept up to date until 1311, and a couple of works added in the fifteenth century. Pym Yeatman produced a transcript in the 1890s, but it is, in Saltman’s words, ‘useless’. Avrom Saltman produced a considerably better edition in 1977 (A. Saltman, The Kniveton Leiger (London, 1977).

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we can begin to see it in the documentary record. The Knivetons are therefore included here as a possible glimpse into the seigneurial and tenurial practices of the wealthier free peasantry in the twelfth century. Although almost nothing is known of the family outside the document, it is clear that at the end of the twelfth century they were very minor freeholders at Kniveton, and tenants of Robert fitz Toly. Humphrey fitz Haslac, the first of the family to appear in the cartulary, held a toft and croft and 10 acres of land from him.146 Humphrey’s son Matthew, in Saltman’s words, ‘lifted himself out of the ruck of small peasant freeholders’, and gained a few grants in Kniveton.147 Matthew’s son, also called Matthew, seems to have stepped into his father’s shoes c.1240. He continued to expand the family holdings in Kniveton, but his focus expanded to Bradley and Sturston and he seems to have risen rapidly: he is called clericus, dominus and miles, which hints at both wealth and education.148 As with the examples above, we can see that acquisition of lands was carried out carefully: the lands accepted were local or contiguous to those already held, and Humphrey and his successors made relationships with a number of lords in order to achieve this. From this example, we can see that by the thirteenth century at the latest, even the lower levels of free landholders were carefully and persistently building up their own tenurial portfolios.

Multiple lordship category 2: dispersed lands The Shirley family The Shirley kin-group is one of the best-documented of the Ferrers tenants.149 They held a scatter of lands across the Ferrers honour and outlying lands from 1086, and by the end of the twelfth century had acquired a tenancy in Oxfordshire from the earl of Warwick.150 For most of the period under consideration, they were single tenants, but may have altered strategies due to conditions on the Ferrers honour. 146 Kniveton, 147 Saltman,

xcix, n. 2.

148 Saltman,

no. 230. Kniveton, vii; charters nos. 215, 216, 235, 237; Stenton, Danelaw charters,

Kniveton, vii. These terms seem contradictory from a modern standpoint. Michael Clanchy’s discussion of the term clericus may, however, shed some light on the issue. By the late twelfth century, he observed, this could simply refer to one who was learned, not necessarily a churchman (Clanchy, Memory to Written Record, 229–31). 149 The family themselves did not begin to adopt this toponym consistently until the mid-thirteenth century, but I am using it here as a convenient shorthand. For the survival of the records we are indebted to the work of Evelyn Philip Shirley, a mid-nineteenth-century descendant of the family, who seems to have collated the surviving early charters, and published them with a narrative discussion in the Stemmata Shirleiana (E.P. Shirley, Stemmata Shirleiana, 2nd edn (Westminster, 1873)). See also Darlington’s discussion in Darley, i, xiii–xv, and S.P.H. Statham, ‘Later descendants of Domesday holders of land in Derbyshire’, DAJ xlviii (1927), 295–302. 150 PR 8 Ric. I, 75; 6 John, 108.

Map 9  Places associated with the Kniveton family, late twelfth to thirteenth centuries.

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The first of this family, Saswalo,151 had received from Henry de Ferrers by 1086 a cluster of lands in Derbyshire near Tutbury castle,152 but also single outlying manors in Lincolnshire,153 Northamptonshire154 and Warwickshire.155 In all, these lands were worth £42 annually in 1086.156 Although they received a small amount of land from Tutbury priory, this house was so dominated by

151 The

PASE Domesday project lists the Saswalo who held of Geoffrey de Mandeville in Berkshire and Oxfordshire as the same man as the Ferrers tenant, but this seems unlikely (DB i, fos 62, 159v). Aside from the manor in Lincolnshire, all of Saswalo’s other lands later appear in the hands of his descendants: of any interest in Berkshire and Oxfordshire, or any de Mandeville connection there is no sign (cf. VCH Warks i, 281–2). 152 Hoon, Hatton, and Etwall (DB i fos 274v, 275, 276). The first of these lie within a mile of Tutbury; the latter barely 5 miles. 153 This was Whitton, formerly held by Siward Barn. Domesday records that it had 12 carucates geldable, with 300 acres of meadow, and was worth £7 at the time of the Survey (DB i, fo. 353v). This land disappears from view after the first generation, and it is unclear whether the Ferrers themselves had retained the interest in the area. 154 Domesday lists this as being 10 hides and two parts of half a hide less 1 virgate, worth ‘now’ £7, but does not record where they lay. E.P. Shirley thought that these were at Titchmarsh, in which the family held land until the thirteenth century (DB i, fo. 225; Stemmata Shirleiana, 6). 155 This was a large manor of 17 hides at Ettington, worth £20. At the time of the Survey it had a priest, a mill, and two thegns and a knight (DB i, fo. 242). This manor later became the family’s main holding, and has been retained by Shirley descendants to the present day. On the site there now stands a Victorian manor house, on the site of an earlier building. The village of Ettington remained close by the house until it was cleared in the Georgian period, but the now-ruined church of St Nicholas remains adjacent to the house. The manor house itself is entirely Victorian, and was constructed by Evelyn Philip Shirley, the antiquarian. Its design is testament to his interest in his family’s history: a frieze around the house’s exterior portrays notable and romanticised scenes from the family’s history, and the dining room is in effect a garish shrine containing the arms of all the families which had intermarried with the family by the mid-nineteenth century. Shirley also resurrected a recurrent medieval family name, Sewallis, for his first-born son. My grateful thanks to Helen Worey and Pete Salmond at Ettington Park Hotel for allowing me to visit the house and grounds. 156 DB i, fos 225, 242, 274v, 275, 276, 353v. On Saswalo see also Lennard, Rural England, 28 and n.3. This high value of lands, along with the record of antecessores in Domesday, makes the family very likely to have been of Continental origin. The recurring family names of Sewall and Fulcher suggest Scandinavian ancestry, which makes a Norman origin as likely as one from the English Midlands (T. Forssner, Continental-Germanic Personal Names in England in Old and Middle English Times (Uppsala, 1916), 91 and 223). In the seven Domesday entries mentioning Saswalo, five mention antecessores, and it is clear that his three Derbyshire manors had been previously divided between several men. None of these mention Saswalo as a previous tenant, and each antecessor does not appear more than once. It seems reasonable, therefore, to extend this pattern to the two remaining manors, Ettington in Warwickshire, and Winterton, which do not have an antecessor recorded. Given the scatter of lands, and the total 1086 value of these manors, the balance of probability seems to be heavily in favour of Saswalo being of Norman origin, and seemingly a prominent member of his lord’s retinue.

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Genealogical Table 2  Shirley.

Saswalo Domesday tenant Henry fitz Saswalo d. by 1166

Fulcher d. by 1166

Henry, exchanges inheritance

Sewall late C12th

Matilda Ridel

Ireton cadet branch

Henry

Ralph

Hugh the chaplain d. after 1144 ?Fulcher

Jordan

the Ferrers that it cannot be considered as a separate entity.157 In the Ferrers Carta it is recorded that Saswalo’s sons, Henry and Fulcher, had received five and four knight’s fees respectively and that, by 1166, Sewall, the heir of them both (heres utrorumque) held all nine.158 Sewall, the second son, had received these lands in an exchange from his antenatus brother Henry, which is recorded in an unusual charter noted by Stenton.159 Successive generations of the family were drawn closely into the Ferrers honour. Individuals seem to have been often in attendance on the Ferrers, with members of the kin appearing as witnesses in at least 20 extant documents from across the twelfth century. They also appear as support for 157 This

was 4 bovates of land in Shirley and a mill in Derby, for 6s. 8d. per year, granted to Fulcher son of ‘Sawalus’, clearly the Domesday tenant. The charter is not extant, but we have a record of it in the confirmation issued by Robert I de Ferrers that states that the grant was made with his concessus (ROLLR 2638/1/1 (before 1141)). This grant looks somewhat, then, as if Robert was leaning on the priory in order to use it as an additional source of patronage. The land and mill are to be held in feudum/infeodum by Fulcher and his heirs, which strongly suggests secular service was owing. For discussion of the relationship between the Ferrers lords and Tutbury Priory, see 130–7 below. 158 CB CLXI/1 records that Fulcher had held the fourth part of a knight’s fee, and the Liber Niger that he held four. In the light of Sewall’s later tenancy of nine fees, the latter seems more trustworthy. Henry fitz Saswalo rendered account of 7 marks in 1130 to be quit of oaths (ut sit quietus de sacramentis), although no other information is recorded (PR 31 Hen. I, 7). This indicates that Henry had at least reached his majority by 1130. 159 Stenton, First Century, 52–3, appendix no. 7, 263–4.

Map 10   Lands held by the Shirley family, c.1166.

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the Ferrers in dispute cases. One of the best documented was that between Burton Abbey and Robert I de Ferrers (c.1101–39) concerning the latter’s seizure of abbey lands in Needwood and his implied connivance with repeated thefts of the abbey’s pigs.160 An account of this survives in the St Modwenna miracle collection of the early twelfth century.161 Both texts of the two-part chirograph concerning the dispute have survived,162 and these show that three members of the Shirley family were present ex parte Robert de Ferrers: Henry son of Saswalo, and his brothers Fulcher and Hugh. In addition, two members of the family are recorded as serving the Ferrers as chaplains. The Hugh in this charter is described as capellanus, both here and in a grant by Robert II of the priory of Breedon to Nostell Priory (c.1144).163 A Henry fitz Fulcher, most likely a son of Fulcher fitz Fulcher, a member of the third generation, is described in a charter of c.1170 as capellanus of William I de Ferrers.164 These chaplains may have served as the lord’s confessor and drafted his charters, and provided a means of rewarding and strengthening connection to the lord.165 Clearly, they were receiving good patronage and reward for their service to the Ferrers, and it may be that this initially negated a need to cultivate other ties, or to attempt to establish a family identity separate from that of their lords. Despite their wealth and position, they are not known to have founded any religious house of their own, and they were much later than most other prominent Ferrers tenants in taking a stable toponym. In another sense, the geography of the core Derbyshire lands may have exercised some influence, since these were right on the doorstep of the Ferrers caput. The religious patronage of the Shirleys also overwhelmingly reflects their relationship with the Ferrers. This theme will be explored further in Chapter 3. Briefly, we can see that they made several generous grants to Tutbury Priory early on and continued these throughout the twelfth century – a striking pattern when many families only made initial grants to their lord’s house but did not later continue with this patronage.166 160 Modwenna,

c. 49, ed. Bartlett, 204–7. below, 215–18. 162 SRO D603/A/Add/10 and BL Add. Ch.27313; both printed Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, Appendix no. 10, lii–lv. The latter version was copied into the cartulary, BL Add. MS 89169, at fo. 54. For discussion of these chirographs see below, 217–18. 163 Dugdale, Monasticon, VI, 97–8. Hugh is mentioned with two other chaplains, Richard and ‘Alketillus’. The appearance of three chaplains here is not unusual for comital households at this period (R.B. Patterson (ed.), Earldom of Gloucester Charters: The Charters and Scribes of the Earls and Countesses of Gloucester to AD 1217 (Oxford, 1973), 27). See also Stringer, Earl David, 151–5 on the role of domestic churchmen. 164 J.H. Round (ed.), Calendar of Documents Preserved in France, 918–1206 (London, 1899), no. 586. 165 D. Crouch, The Image of Aristocracy in Britain 1000–1300 (London, 1992), 292; Patterson, Earldom of Gloucester, 27. 166 Saswalo, the Domesday tenant, gave two parts of his demesne at Hoon. As is recorded in Robert II de Ferrers’ general confirmation, Henry, Saswalo’s son, granted Newton with appurtenances (Derbys.), to which was added 3 acres of 161 See

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On an honour as geographically cohesive as that of the Ferrers, locality and kinship were likely to become bound up with seigneurial ties, and horizontal ties to be formed between tenants on the same honour. Where we are able to see Shirley wives in the sources, they appear to largely have been the daughters of other Ferrers tenants: Henry son of Fulcher married a daughter of the Dun family, who appear regularly in Ferrers witness lists. As with the Montgomerys above, the Shirleys made local connections within the honour. From the 1160s, however, there seems to have been a gradual shift in strategy. The Ferrers lords were rarely at the forefront of political life, even that within the Midlands. Robert II de Ferrers generally stayed out of the struggle between Stephen and Matilda until it arrived on his front doorstep in 1153 in the form of Henry of Anjou, the earls of Leicester and Chester, and an army.167 Although Robert was not explicitly punished for his lack of support, he found himself shut out of the new king’s inner circle and lost the farm of the valuable lead-mining manor of Wirksworth.168 Robert’s son William I de Ferrers also struggled with royal disfavour, losing the third penny during his minority (1159–62), which he never regained,169 and later joined Young Henry’s rebellion. For men who held solely of the Ferrers, this had a knock-on effect on their own wealth and standing. This may also play into a shift noticed by P.E. Golob in the Ferrers retinue, towards having charters witnessed by Ferrers family members, not the previously core honorial tenants.170 Rather than this being a case of the lord excluding his men, as Golob suggested, this may have been a case of these men drifting away from the lord. By the early 1160s the heir of the Shirley family, Henry, was already married and had male heirs.171 Despite this, in the early 1160s he permanently exchanged his inherited lands with those of his younger brother, Sewall.172 The motives behind this are nowhere stated, but this exchange seems to coincide with Sewall’s marriage to one Matilda Ridel. Matilda newly broken ground (fractitia) by Jordan his heir; Matilda Ridel, wife of Sewall son of Fulcher, left an annual rent of 7s. in her will (mater enim mea moriens sub testamento dimisit); Sewall himself granted a copse and land between the castle and mill of Tutbury; and ‘Sewal of Shirley‘ granted Polforland at Hoon in the late twelfth century (Tutbury, nos. 1, 52, 62, 67, 113, 142). 167 Gesta Stephani, c.119, ed. Potter, 234–5; Golob, ‘Ferrers’ i, 114–41. 168 Ibid., i, 166–7. Golob points out that this was probably not a deliberate act against the Ferrers, but is rather indicative of Henry II’s resumption of royal demesne in the area that ignored the Ferrers interest in the area at a time when the lords were outside the circle of royal favour. This also seems to have had an impact on former Ferrers tenants. In a case concerning Matlock in 1196, it was stated that one Ralph of Matlock had previously held the manor from the Ferrers at an annual farm of 20s. – clearly, as a sub-farmer for them. At some point 1155x65, Henry II had returned the farm to Ralph of Matlock, to be held directly of the king, at 40s., that is, double the previous farm (ibid.). 169 This essentially ended his right to call himself earl (ibid., i. 167–8). 170 Ibid., i, 162–4. 171 Cf. Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 201–2. 172 Printed Stenton, First Century, 52–3, appendix no. 7, 263–4.

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appears from her name to be related to the Matilda Ridel and Richard Basset who founded Launde Abbey (Leics.) c.1125, although she is not otherwise known.173 Nevertheless, marriage into this family would have brought very good connections outside the honour. Richard Basset, as well as holding extensive lands in the c.1130 Leicestershire Survey, had also been prominent ‘new man’ in Henry I’s court.174 Matilda seems to have behaved as an important woman: exceptionally for the minor lord class, she appears in charters of her own right during her husband’s lifetime, both as a witness and grantor, even in cases where the family’s lands do not seem to have been directly involved.175 It may be that, for a woman of such standing, the family had disrupted normal inheritance practice, and had sought to forge additional connections outside the honour at a time when their main source of patronage was doing poorly. The tenancy of the earls of Warwick may belong to the same shift. Its location is unknown, and it is poorly recorded, first appearing in the Pipe Roll of 1196/97, but does not appear in the Cartae Baronum so almost certainly post-dates 1166.176 The tenancy appears as a debt of 10s. for scutage from Sewall fitz Fulcher, presumably the husband of Matilda Ridel above, and the amount indicates that this is half a knight’s fee. Sewall clearly ignored the charge, and it is duly recorded each year until 1205, with an additional charge of 1 mark picked up in 1199 from King John’s first scutage.177 In 1205 Sewall’s stubbornness is justified, when it is recorded that per inquisitionem it had been discovered that Sewall held of the earl of Warwick, not the king, and so should not owe these fees.178 No other evidence of this tenancy has thus far appeared, however, and we may wonder if this parcel came as part of Matilda Ridel’s dowry, or whether it had been deliberately acquired from the earl. Nevertheless, it is the first indication of serious Shirley involvement outside the honour. There are two other hints of this trend in the early thirteenth century. In 1206, Sewall’s son Henry owed 40s. for seisin of land in Edensor (Derbys.), which he had when he came into the king’s service.179 The nature of this service is not otherwise recorded, but, conversely, the favoured standing of William II de Ferrers with King John may have provided this opportunity. The next year, the sheriff of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire rendered account of 1 mark from Sewall son of Henry, the above Sewall’s nephew, for a tenancy in the honour of Peverel, then in royal hands.180 Whereas younger 173 Dugdale,

Monasticon, VI, pt. I, 187–9; VCH Leics ii, 10 and n.1. 31 Hen. I, 5, 8–9, 34, 36, 41, 44, 49, 55–6, 60, 64, 68, 70, 72, 74, 79, 86, 91–2, 99, 105–6; Reedy, Basset Charters, viii–xii. Slade, ‘Leicestershire Survey’, 14–18, 21–9. 175 Shirley, Stemmata Shirleiana, Appendix, 13. 176 PR 8 Ric. I, 75. 177 PR 9 Ric. I, 38; 10 Ric. I, 193; 1 John, 223, 228; 2 John, 23; 3 John, 208, 210, 213; 4 John, 206, 209; 5 John, 189, 191; 6 John, 108–9. 178 PR 6 John, 108–9. 179 PR 7 John, 230–1. 180 PR 8 John, 83. 174 PR

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lines had previously been provided for from the Ferrers tenancies, again we can see that cadet branches of the family had acquired land elsewhere. The Shirleys provide a useful study of the dynamism of lordship relationships. Although they were single tenants for much of the twelfth century, the flexibility of allegiance meant that when the Ferrers honour began to falter, they were able to cultivate extra-honorial ties. As discussed in the Introduction, an argument has been made that the honour was in decline from the 1160s, and at first glance this would seem to tie in neatly to the Shirleys. The poor political standing of the Ferrers seems, however, to have been the more immediate reason for the shift in policy in this instance, although weakening ties may have prevented them from being subsequently drawn back into the honour. Even those who appeared the staunchest supporters of a particular lord could and would take advantage of the opportunities that multiple lordship could present.

Category 3: multiple lordship and service The Ridware family As with the Gresleys, the Ridware family built up a localised cluster of tenancies from different lords. They provide a particularly useful study of how multiple tenancy does not seem to have damaged a relationship of trust between man and lord. The Ridware family seems to have been of Saxon origin. They took their name from an area of c.8600 acres north of the Trent in Staffordshire, which is now three villages: Mavesyn Ridware, Hamstall Ridware and Pipe Ridware.181 The founder of the family seems to have been Azelin, who appears in Domesday Book holding 1½ hides in Mavesyn Ridware of Earl Roger de Montgomery,182 the latter of whose family’s holdings later passed to Robert de Stafford. Soon after 1086, William Rufus ordered the sheriff of Staffordshire to allow ‘Atsor the Englishman’ (Atsoro Englico) to hold the land of Edingale183 by the same 181 Wrottesley,

‘Rydeware’, 230. Shaw suggested that the area ‘formed antiently one district’ known as Ridware, from the British Rhyd’our or -ware, the latter being a Saxon suffix, the former meaning ‘river-ford’, and the latter ‘people at the ford’. The area is low-lying, on the banks of the River Trent (Shaw, Staffordshire, i, 150). 182 He also held of Montgomery 2 hides in Coton by Stafford, 1 hide in Colton, and the fourth part of a hide in Loxley (DB i, fo. 248). At least three of these seem to have been acquired by him after the Conquest: the TRE tenant for Colton and Coton was Almund, and at Loxley Edmund. The five angli who held at Maveysin Ridware may have included Azelin, but since their land was now combined under him, it is possible that this was a also a new grant post-Conquest. On Earl Roger see J.F.A. Mason, ‘Roger de Montgomery and his sons (1067–1102)’, TRHS 5th ser., 13 (1963), 1–28; ODNB, s.v. ‘Roger de Montgomery, first earl of Shrewsbury’. 183 ‘Rydeware’, fo. 36v. Edingale was part of the royal manor of Alrewas (Derbys.). The Pipe Roll of 2 Hen. II states that William de Rideware paid a mark for the farm of his land, which Wrottesley thinks must have been for Edingale (PR 2 Hen. II, 29; Wrottesley, ‘Rydeware’, 236).

Map 11  Lands held by the Ridware family, c.1166.

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Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

service as his father had done for it,184 and similar writs were issued for the family by Kings Stephen and Henry II.185 The family also held a virgate of land in Ridware under Lapley priory, which had been founded as an alien house of Rheims c.1063.186 Within the first generation after the Conquest, therefore, they were multiple tenants and very minor tenants-in-chief.187 As above, they seemed to be concerned to build up a tenancy in a local area: those held of Montgomery and Lapley may have been contiguous, and Edingale is under 10 miles to the east. Later generations continued to build up the portfolio of lands and lords: William de Ridware did homage to William de Gresley and received from him Woodhouses, which was confirmed by William de Ferrers;188 the same Ridware also received a confirmation by Robert de Stafford of a grant of land in Ridware which ‘W.’ de Tanet had given him with his daughter.189 Most interesting for our purposes here is William II de Ridware (c.1185– 1216),190 who was steward successively to William I and II de Ferrers. William de Ridware seems to have acted as administrator for the former’s lands while he was away on Crusade;191 and appeared as attorney for the latter in the Curia Regis 1198.192 He appears to have been drawn into the honour as an administrator, and his connection secured with a grant of land. Due to this position, he appeared as witness for a considerable number of

184 Rydeware,

fo. 36v; Wrottesley, ‘Rydeware’, 234. This seems to be the 2 carucates that had been held TRE by Algar, and was recorded as being held by 12 villani TRW (DB i fo. 278v). 185 Rydeware, fo. 30v. N. Vincent, The Letters and Charters of Henry II (8 vols, Oxford, 2021), iv nos. 2195–6. 186 Wrottesley, ‘Rydeware’, 231. See below, 122–3. 187 Shaw gave a full account of the family in this period in his History and Antiquities, at i, 150–6, although Wrottesley noted that he was not always sufficiently critical with his sources (Wrottesley, ‘Rydeware’, 230). The Rydeware cartulary (Davis et al., Medieval Cartularies, no. 1316) is, along with the Kniveton Leiger (Davis, no. 1264; see above, 91–2), one of very few secular cartularies that relate to this period and area. Sixty-six folios long, it is datable on palaeographical grounds to the early fourteenth century. On folio 3, it has a passage in French stating that Thomas de Rydeware fiz e heyr of Walter de Rydeware in the reign of le Roi Edward fiz le bon Rei Edward, le secunde commissioned the work to record all the lands that he held in his hand in Ridware, Seal, and elsewhere. Wrottesley thought that the scribe was likely to have been a monk of nearby Merevale Abbey, since its decoration is similar to that of a good monastic cartulary, but further research is needed on this point. 188 Rydeware, fo. 26v. 189 Rydeware, no. 73 also printed at R.W. Eyton, ‘The Staffordshire Chartulary, Series I of Ancient Deeds’, SHC II (1881), 178–276 at 240–4. 190 Wrottesley, ‘Rydeware’, 238–40. 191 Ibid., 238 192 Ibid.

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Ferrers charters,193 and took advantage of this to build on the family’s lands and influence. In c.1192, after Ralph de Seal had given up his manor at Seal through inability to perform the due service, William received it in his stead.194 He was, however, a multiple tenant several times over. Despite his other allegiances, William II de Ridware was trusted enough to act as a chief administrator for the honour, even when his lord was abroad.195 There does not seem to be a uniform pattern for the relationship between a lord and his honorial officials. In some cases, they appear to have been sole tenants of the lord in question, and this is perhaps what we might expect. Nevertheless, multiple tenancy could coexist with seigneurial service, as with the Ridwares. The hereditary stewards of the earls of Leicester, a line of Arnolds du Bois in the twelfth century, were multiple tenants.196 As Stephen Baxter argued for late Anglo-Saxon commendation networks, a lord could benefit from having the allegiance of a well-connected man.197 It could also coexist with close seigneurial relationship: the Harcourts, prominent tenants of the earls of Leicester, did extremely well from their patronage, and Crouch described them as ‘thorough-going family barons’. Nevertheless, by 1135 Ivo de Harcourt held seven knight’s fees from the earl of Leicester’s brother, the earl of Warwick, and three with William fitz Walkeline from Robert de Ferrers.198

193 E.g.

Jeayes, nos. 51, 385; DRO 1233/M/T/62. no. 3. A dispute about the advowson of Seal church in 1226 sheds some light on the transfer of the manor. The abbot of Merevale brought a charter of Ralph of Seal where he granted the advowson of Seal church to the abbey. Walter de Ridware responded that Ralph had been in such poverty as to be unable to perform his due service, and had given back his fief in the Ferrers court (Wrottesley, ‘Rydeware’, 238–9). 195 We generally have much less information on the composition of the Ferrers household than those of their contemporaries such as the earls of Chester. Stewards, clerks and chaplains appear in the charters, and we have an interesting glimpse into the household in the early thirteenth century thanks to a plea by Robert son of Robert de Ferrers against Ranulf of Tattesworth. Robert claimed that Ranulf came into the Ferrers ‘garden’ (venit in gardinum suum), and attacked Roger, his man (homo). On investigation, however, it appeared to have been a quarrel between Osmund, Robert’s gardener (gardinarius), and certain garciones. (Maitland, Select Pleas of the Crown, i, no. 64). 196 In addition to holding lands from the earl of Leicester, they also held a knight’s fee from Robert Foliot by 1135. See also the example of Matthew I de Montmorency, vassal of Count Waleran of Meulan, who served King Louis VII as constable from 1138 (Crouch, Beaumont Twins, 64 and n. 24). 197 Baxter, Earls of Mercia, 257: ‘A man who was unswervingly loyal to the earl of Mercia but who had no influence in his local community was of limited value to the earl: altogether more valuable were men whose primary loyalty lay with the earl, but who also enjoyed connections with other lords and other networks of power.’ 198 CB CLXII/14; CXLIX/7. 194 Rydeware,

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Category 4: Incidental multiple lordship The Bakepuiz family Multiple tenancy could also be acquired through inheritance or marriage. In the latter case, the additional lands and lord may not have diverted a family’s attention in the same way as the ‘standard’ grant. The Bakepuiz family held solely of the Ferrers lords before they acquired an additional lord through marriage. From their toponym, they seem to have come to England from Baquepuits (arr. and cant. Evreux), which they held of the Count of Evreux.199 Since the latter received little land in England after the Conquest in Berkshire and Oxfordshire, Loyd suggested that ‘it would be natural that a man from Bacquepuits seeking fortune overseas should attach himself to a neighbouring baron who had obtained such vast estates in England as had Henry de Ferrers’.200 Golob suggested that they had had a previous connection to the Ferrers, and that the family had come to England a few years after the Conquest.201 A charter of Abingdon Abbey, however, shows that in 1067 Ralph Bakepuiz was already in England when he and Athelelm had granted the church of Kingston Bakepuiz to the house.202 The deed appears to be genuine since there are later records from after Ralph’s son Henry withdrew the revenue from the church, and was only restored under pain of interdict by Henry’s heir, his son Robert.203 By the time of the Domesday survey, Ralph had received two small tenancies from Henry de Ferrers: one in Berkshire, comprising land in Ashridge, Compton and Kingston Bagpuize (now Oxon.), and one in Derbyshire, at Alkmonton, Hungry Bentley and Barton Blount.204 A Robert de Bakepuiz, almost certainly Ralph’s son, married a daughter of one Grimbald in the early decades of the twelfth century,205 and received from him land in Allexton for one knight’s fee.206 His descendants continued to hold this land: his daughter Aelez later held it as a fee from her uncle Robert 199 Loyd, 200 Ibid.

Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, 10.

201 Golob,

‘Ferrers’, i, 86 and ibid., n. 132, thought that the family had crossed the Channel some years after the Conquest, based on the first English Bakepuiz, Ralph, not previously appearing in Normandy. 202 Nichols, III. i, 5. 203 Ibid. 204 Golob, ‘Ferrers’, i, 86; DB i fos 60–60v, 274v. 205 Grimbald was the Domesday tenant of Countess Judith, and father to Robert Grimbald (DB i. fos 228v, 236v). He acted as steward to Earl Simon I de Senlis in the 1120s, and supported Senlis’ foundation of St Andrew’s at Northampton. His son succeeded him as steward, and was the founder of an Augustinian house at Owston (Leics.) c.1161 (R. Dace, ‘Lesser barons and greater knights: the middling group within the English nobility, c.1086- c.1265’, HSJ 10 (2001), 57–79 at 72). 206 Nichols, III. i, 5; Golob, ‘Ferrers’, 77. Receiving land on such a term suggests a relationship that required homage to be done by recipient to grantor, unlike the standard terms for dower, where this was not required until the third generation (Glanvill, VII. 3; IX. 2, ed. Hall, 76; 106).

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Genealogical Table 3  Bakepuiz.

Ralph Bakepuiz fl. 1067–86 Domesday tenant of Henry de Ferrers in Berks. and Derbys.

Grimbald

Robert I Bakepuiz d. after 1139x55

Daughter (name unknown)

Robert II Bakepuiz occ. 1166

John de Bakepuiz

Aelez

Grimbald, who must have been Robert de Bakepuiz’s brother-in-law.207 In the 1166 Ferrers Carta, Robert de Bakepuiz, probably son of the first Robert, is listed as holding three knight’s fees of the old enfeoffment.208 For the first two tenants, therefore, the Bakepuizs seem to have only had one lord, and Ralph’s behaviour reflects this.209 Ralph de Bakepuiz gave tithes from his lands in Ashden (in Compton) and ‘Urleston’ to Tutbury Priory, which were mentioned in Robert II de Ferrers’ general confirmation of 1150x59.210 Despite his marriage and tenancy outside the honour, however, Robert I de Bakepuiz continued with the close association with the Ferrers. 207 Nichols,

III. i, 5, where Aelez granted this fee to her brother John de Bakepuz in the court of Robert Grimbald (in curia sua […] His sunt testes […] tota curia Roberti Grimbald) Nichols, characteristically, does not provide a reference for this original charter, but the formulae appear sound for the early or possibly mid-thirteenth century. A reference to dominus in capite and the appearance of John de Bakepuiz makes it unlikely to be earlier. 208 CB CLXI/5. 209 The grant to Abingdon abbey may have been prompted by the proximity and reputation of the house (see E. Cownie, Religious Patronage in Anglo-Norman England, 1066–1135 (Woodbridge, 1998), 44–5). 210 Tutbury, no. 52. Cf. ibid., no. 126, a warranty by John de Bakepuiz in the reign of Henry III for his brother Peter who had been farming the demesne tithes of Ashden on behalf of the Priory. Golob anglicised these as Ashridge and Allexton, which both seem unlikely. Allexton in particular was only gained later by Ralph’s nephew Robert on his marriage. ‘Urleston’ may be similar to Ashden in being a part of a larger manor not named elsewhere. The early date of this grant by Ralph is suggested by its appearance in the confirmation alongside grants by Saswalo, the Domesday tenant of the Ferrers who seems to have been dead by the early twelfth century at the latest; and Alfinus, Domesday tenant and ancestor of the Brailsford family.

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He witnessed Robert I de Ferrers’ grant of Stebbing in Essex to Maurice fitz Geoffrey in September 1139, and three other Ferrers grants falling between 1139 and 1155 relating to lands in Derbyshire.211 Golob considered the family to be honorial barons on the basis of these appearances.212 We also see Robert de Bakepuiz explicitly acknowledging the Ferrers as lords in the provisions for inheritance made by him for his two sons, Robert and John. By this arrangement Robert II, the elder son, was to hold Kingston Bagpuize (Oxon.) and Alkmonton (Derbys.) of the Ferrers by one knight’s fee; he was also to hold a second at Barton and Hungry Bentley, but these were to be held of him by his younger brother John.213 In addition to these, John was to hold Ashridge and Compton (Berks.) as one fee directly of the Ferrers. This arrangement took place before the earl’s seneschall at Barton (Derbys.) hallmoot, and afterwards before ‘dominus meus Earl William de Ferrers’.214 Again, the flexibility of multiple lordship allowed the acquisition of new lands and lords without necessarily damaging existing seigneurial relationships.

Younger sons and strategies of land acquisition As Milsom noted in his Legal Framework, tenurial arrangements within families could be fraught with difficulties.215 The nominal head of the family, such as the one named on a Carta return as holding several knight’s fees, would often grant out various smaller parcels of lands to his relations, particularly to younger brothers. Often too, however, we see these younger siblings splitting off and forming their own cadet branches of the family: hardly surprising, since most generations would have their younger brothers threatening to deplete the family tenures. In these situations, familial relationships with other lords could be a real boon and could allow younger sons to attach themselves to an alternative who might hopefully reward good service with land. Equally, the presence of younger siblings who were available to do necessary service to lords could allow a family to maintain ties through generations, without needing to pay for proxies to fulfil certain service including military tenure. The actions of younger sons could thereby act in two directions. Either they could focus in the direction of a single lord, in order to maintain the wider 211 ‘The

manuscripts of the earl of Essex’, HMC Reports on MSS. In Various Collections, vii, 310; Jones, ‘Charters of Robert II de Ferrers’, no. 1; Dugdale, Monasticon, V, p.482; ibid., VI, pt. I, 97–8; BL Egerton MS 3041, fo. 36v. 212 Golob, ‘Ferrers’, i, 97. 213 BL Add. Cht. 21172; BL Harl Cht. 45 F 23. Golob dated the first of these to 1159x61, narrowing the 1155x66 suggested by J.H. Round. The latter was dated by Jeayes to after 1166, but Golob notes that it has one witness who died before this year ( J.H. Round, ‘A Bachepuz charter’, The Ancestor xii, 152–5; Jeayes, no. 238; Golob, ‘Ferrers’, i, 147, n. 15). 214 Ibid., i, 151. 215 Milsom, Legal Framework, 132–53.

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family’s connection with this lord, and remain as it were, under the head of the family, or they could strike out more on their own, doing service for one or several lords who may or may not have been previously connected with the family, in order to augment a small holding or build up a new one from scratch. In the discussion in Chapter 1 of the statistics of multiple lordship, such younger sons were not included. This next section will focus on an instance of each pattern, in order to examine how multiple lordship could be a boon to those who had lost the primogeniture lottery.

Bagots The Bagot family was a large and sprawling one in the twelfth century. Wrottesley, a prolific editor of Staffordshire cartularies who was steeped in the genealogies of the region, confessed himself perplexed by their various branches.216 Nevertheless, several strands emerge. The progenitor of the family is the Bagot who appears in Domesday Book as a tenant of Robert de Stafford at Bramshall (Staffs.), holding a half-virgate.217 A Bagot – from the date, probably the son of the Domesday Bagot – also appears as witness for the grant by Nicholas son of Robert Stafford to Kenilworth Priory in 1122218 and in the Pipe Roll of 31 Henry I.219 His son Hervey fitzBagot attested a charter of Nicholas de Stafford c.1130, when he must have shortly succeeded to the lands.220 This Hervey appears with his own son Hervey 1158x65 in a charter of Nicholas’ son Robert II de Stafford.221 One of these Herveys was tenant at the time of the earl’s Carta in 1166, when he held three knight’s fees of the old enfeoffment. Hervey held one of these in demesne at Bramshall with a moiety at Billington; the other two were shared between Alured de Hacumbi, Hervey de Oakley and Ruald de Dulvern and lay in Haconeby (Lincs.), Oakley (Staffs.), Dilhorn, and the other moiety of Billington.222 The son Hervey married Millicent de Stafford, sister and eventual heiress of the 216 G.

Wrottesley, ‘Liber Niger Scaccarii, Staffordscira, or Feodary of 1166 AD’, SHC I (1880), 145–240 at 180. 217 DB i, fo. 249. The entry records that the other half of the virgate lies ‘on the other side of the road’ and belonged to the king, but that Robert had seized the king’s half. The entry is ambiguous as to whether this other half was also held by Bagot from Robert Stafford, but this portion was separated soon after and subsumed into the neighbouring manor of Uttoxeter (G. Wrottesley, ‘A history of the Bagot family with copies of the deeds at Blithfield’, SHC n.s. XI (1908), 1–224 at 3–4). 218 Eyton, ‘The Staffordshire Chartulary’, 195–7; Wrottesley, ‘Bagot’, 4. 219 PR 31 Hen. I, 58. He accounted for 2 silver marks for a plea of his man concerning a certain exchange. Further details of this have not survived. 220 BL Cotton MS Vitellius E. 24, fo. 19. 221 Eyton, ‘The Staffordshire Chartulary’, 247–50. 222 CB LXXXVIII/7; Wrottesley, ‘Bagot’, 5. Billington may conceivably have been held by Bagot in 1086, as Domesday does not record a TRW tenant there. The 2 hides at Billington were berewicks of the manor of Bradley, to the south-west of Stafford (DB i, fo. 248v).

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Genealogical Table 4  Bagot.

Bagot Domesday tenant of Robert de Stafford

Bagot fl. 1122–?1130

Hervey fitzBagot fl. c.1131–?1166 Millicent de Stafford heiress of Stafford barony

Hervey fitzBagot fl. 1158x65 ?early thirteenth

William Bagot occ. early C13th

William Bagot fl. late twelfth

Robert Bagot

John Bagot

Simon Bagot

last Robert de Stafford. After the latter’s death before 1195, he was granted the barony in chief and took its name although his elevation seems to have made him locally unpopular.223 During the rebellions against King John, he seized the sheriffdom of Staffordshire and remained as a rebel until 1217. He had a son, William, who appears as a knight in the early thirteenth century.224 A generation of cadet Bagots is visible around 1166, seemingly all younger brothers of the second Hervey.225 William Bagot held two-thirds of a knight’s fee from Robert II de Stafford, or possibly from Geoffrey de Gresley as a 223 PR

6 Ric. I, 41; Wrottesley, ‘Bagot’, 6. On Hervey see below, 115. Trinity 1214. 225 Eyton, ‘The Staffordshire Chartulary’, 248–9. The family seems to have had successful cadet branches throughout the medieval period: see Wrottesley, ‘Bagot’, 9–10. 224 CRR

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mesne lord at Bagots Bromley, 11 miles to the east of Stafford.226 This line maintained connection with the central line, appearing alongside Hervey and Robert Bagot in occasional charters with Robert II de Stafford.227 In 1176, he was amerced 10 marks for foresta in Staffordshire,228 and in 1181 1 mark for calling the king to warranty, again for land in Staffordshire.229 William seems to have dealt with this smaller land grant from Robert Stafford by acquiring land elsewhere. In 1179, William Bagot and William Trussel rendered account of 10 marks for having their wives’ shares of their inheritance in Leicestershire and Warwickshire, although the names of these wives are unfortunately not recorded.230 This seems to have prompted a suit in Rutland and Leicestershire against Ralph de la Mora that dragged on until 1183.231 William died by 1182, and Simon Bagot had acquired Bromley by 1198.232 A second fraternal line is centred on Robert Bagot, a contemporary and seemingly third-born of the 1166 generation. Little survives about him, but despite being further-flung geographically he maintained his Stafford connection. In 1166 he held a quarter of a knight’s fee of Robert II de Stafford, possibly at Tysoe (Warks.), and appeared alongside other Bagots in connection with the Staffords.233 He was one of the many Bagots who appeared as witnesses for Robert de Stafford’s confirmation of a dispute settlement in his court of 1158x65.234 In the late twelfth century, Robert Bagot son of Robert dapifer gave land there to Stone Priory, a Stafford foundation.235 A third brother, John de Bagot, appears as a tenant of Ranulph de Belmeis, who held in turn from Robert II de Stafford.236 John held two knight’s fees in the neighbouring vills of Blymhill and Brinton (Staffs.) and augmented this by taking on management of royal lands. In 1167, John was the farmer for half a mark’s worth of land in Blymhill for the king.237 Other miscellaneous Bagots appear across a wider region. A Philip Bagot appears in Trinity 1205, alongside Robert de Swynnerton, the two as defendants against one Stephen son of Robert concerning 4 virgates of land in Hatton (Staffs.).238 The case was dropped after 226 CB

LXXXVIII/21; Wrottesley, ‘Liber Niger’, SHC I, 179. ‘The Staffordshire Chartulary’, 204, 248–9. His appearance in the latter as witness after the eldest son Hervey and the latter’s sons, suggests that he may have been the second-born. 228 PR 22 Hen. II, 168. 229 PR 26 Hen. II, 13. 230 PR 25 Hen. II, 114. 231 PR 27 Hen. II, 79; 29 Hen. II, 36. 232 Wrottesley, ‘Bagot’, 13–15, 145–6; Eyton, ‘The Staffordshire Chartulary’, 257–8. 233 CB LXXXVIII/32; Wrottesley, ‘Liber Niger’, 185; Eyton, ‘The Staffordshire Chartulary’, 204–5. 234 Ibid., 248. 235 Wrottesley, ‘Liber Niger’, 185. 236 CB LXXXVIII/14i. 237 PR 13 Hen. II, 54. 238 CRR IV, 28. 70. This is certainly Lower Hatton, which borders Swynnerton, and not the Hatton further east which lies under Tutbury Castle. 227 Eyton,

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Stephen failed to appear the following year. He also clearly acquired land from Hugh de Brininton in Brininton (Staffs.) (either Birmingham or Brineton). In Michaelmas 1211, Aldith, widow of Hugh de Brininton, sought 1 virgate as dower against Philip.239 The latter called to warranty Aldith and Hugh’s son and heir, William, and made peace with Aldith by giving her a third of a virgate. Unlike their relatively stable and prosperous eldest line, the younger Bagots seem to have scattered to find lands and lords elsewhere, while maintaining their Stafford links. Such individuals benefitted from the opportunities presented by the flexibility of allegiance in order to build their own portfolios of lands.

fitzNoels The fitzNoels and their cadet branch, the de Handsacres, provide an example of younger lines acting in the opposite direction from the Bagots: rather than younger lines scattering to find additional lords, the younger line here achieved early stability and seems to have adhered to one lord only. The main line is that of the fitzNoels.240 Little survives about the eponymous Noel in records, although his wife Celestria would appear to have been a daughter of Bishop Robert de Limesi of Chester (1085–1117), and the family seems to have received several manors in Staffordshire through this connection.241 The fractional fee and relatively late second generation suggest that they had perhaps not come to England in the first wave of settlers. Robert fitzNoel, the eldest son of this second generation, first appears in 1152x55 and was tenant of his father’s fractional fee from the bishop of Coventry. He occasionally appears in connection with the bishops.242 He also seems to have acquired a quarter-fee from Robert Stafford at Ranton, held from his demesne, by 1166,243 and by this same date had founded Ranton priory on assarts of this land.244 His son Thomas inherited his lands, and was an active royal servant and justice later in Henry II’s reign and into Richard’s.245 239 CRR

VI, 163. fourteenth-century tradition preserved in the Ranton cartulary claims that Noel and his wife Celestria came to England in exercitu Willelmi Bastard, and were rewarded with a royal grant at Ellenhall. The date of Noel’s arrival, and what lands he had originally received, are unrecorded, and this claim of royal involvement seems unlikely. Wrottesley thought that this story had been created in the fourteenth century, and concluded that it ‘must be looked upon as one of those pious fabrications based on oral tradition which the inmates of religious houses usually composed in honour of their founders’ (Wrottesley, ‘Ronton’, 264–5, quotation at 265). 241 Wrottesley’s statement on the source for these episcopal grants seems plausible. Noel’s wife, Celestria, is recorded in a document appended to Hearne’s ‘History of Glastonbury’ to have been daughter of Robert de Limesi, bishop of Chester c.1088–1177 (Wrottesley, ‘Ronton’, 265). 242 EEA 14, no. 63. The Robert Noel who appears occasionally in Yorkshire in the late twelfth century would not seem to be related (Yorks charters, III, no. 1513; IX, 168). 243 CB LXXXVII/9 LXXXVIII/34. 244 VCH Staffs iii, 251–2. Wrottesley, ‘Ronton’, 264–95. The village is now known as Ranton. See below 143–8. 245 PR 29 Hen. II, 152; 30 Hen. II, 24; 31 Hen. II, 141–2; 32 Hen. II, 145, 164; 33 Hen. II, 64, 120, 132–3, 138, 148, 150; 34 Hen. II, 46, 48, 97, 111, 212–3; 1 Ric. I, 245. 240 A

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Genealogical Table 5  fitzNoel.

?Robert de Limesi, Bishop of Chester 1085–1117 Noel late C11th-early C12th Robert FitzNoel fl. 1150s-60s Thomas FitzNoel

Richard FitzNoel

Celestina

?Hubert de Handsacre occ. 1150s

Robert de Handsacre

William the clerk

John

William de Handsacre

Robert had three younger brothers, Richard, William the clerk, and John. Of the latter two little is known, although William seems to have taken another traditional route for a landless younger son in going into the church.246 Richard shared a knight’s fee with William de Mara, held from Roger son of Henry who himself held from Robert Stafford.247 From its arrangement, this would also appear to have been a relatively recent enfeoffment. Richard appears occasionally alongside his brother, and seems to have followed the fitzNoel swing towards the Stafford barony. An earlier offshoot of the family, however, the de Handsacres, maintained the kin group’s earlier links with the bishops of Chester, and do not seem to have tried to take land or service with the Staffords. The first of these to appear is Hubert de Handsacre, who attested a pair of charters of Bishop Walter of Coventry to his servant Ralph de Harbourne concerning land in Brewood (Staffs.), 15 miles to the west of Handsacre.248 Hubert was presumably already in possession of the half knight’s fee that his son Robert is listed in the bishop’s Carta as holding of the old enfeoffment.249 Although the family ties with the fitzNoels seem to have been maintained – the first of the episcopal charters has Hubert attesting alongside Robert fitzNoel, and Hubert and his sons Robert and William 246 All

three appear at witnesses in the Ranton foundation charter, BL Cotton MS Vespasian C. XV, fo. 1; Wrottesley, ‘Ronton’, 265. 247 CB LXXXVII/9ii. 248 EEA 14 nos. 63–4. 249 CB LXXXVII/10.

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appeared as witnesses to the foundation of Ranton priory in c.1150 – the latter is the only occasion I have found of the de Handsacres appearing in connection with the Staffords. Nevertheless, some expansion of lands was being achieved by later members of the family by the turn of the century, if not before. In Hilary 1200, William de Handsacre, acting in his mother’s place, was in dispute with the Abbot of Pipewell concerning land in Cawston (Warks.).250 In Easter 1201, William appears as a knight of the grand assize for a dispute between Henry de Denstone and Hawise de Waterfall concerning 4 bovates in Butterton (Staffs.), which lies 30 miles to the north of Handsacre. Given that knights were usually drawn from the immediate vicinity of the land under dispute for an assize, this seems to point to William having acquired land further north than Handsacre. Perhaps as a younger son he again had to work to gain his own tenancy, rather than try to share a half-knight’s fee within the family.

Multiple lordship and political stress The examples above tend to give an impression of stability and cohesion. In part, this impression may be a true one: allegiances and connections were maintained, and lands were passed down through increasingly stable lineages. Documents recording transfers of land will generally give an impression of order, and we rarely see any of the minor lords in narrative sources where the focus tends to be on events. We know, however, that there were periods of civil war and unrest through this period, and that there were regionally focused tensions between lords, particularly between Ranulf II earl of Chester and Robert II earl of Leicester in the mid-twelfth century. King Stephen’s reign was one such period of unrest. Following the death of Henry I’s son in the wreck of the White Ship, the ageing king designated his daughter Matilda, already Holy Roman Empress, as the heir to the throne. On Henry’s death in 1135, however, his nephew Stephen of Blois made his way quickly to England, won the support of the baronage, and had himself crowned king. The empress asserted her claim, arriving in England in September 1139.251 The two contended for the throne, in large part by trying to win support from the baronage. While historiographical debate now generally agrees that the ‘Anarchy’ was only sporadically and regionally violent, much of this was driven both by struggle between the two potential sovereigns and their followers, and by greater lords taking the opportunity to pursue local interests.252 In this struggle over regions, the support of minor lords was crucial. 250 CRR

I, 138. Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery: Britain 1066–1284 (London, 2004), 163–90. 252 Ibid., 176–7; see D. Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen, 1135–1154 (Harlow, 2000), 4–7 for a useful discussion of the historiography. 251 D.

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In the region under study, one of the main struggles during Stephen’s reign was between Robert II earl of Leicester and Ranulf II earl of Chester. The latter’s activities in the unrest of Stephen’s reign are well-known. Although he may not have changed sides as many times as Round thought he had, he seems to have taken advantage of an unstable political situation to draw in men, annex lands, and thereby extend control over new areas.253 He also attempted to get much of the area – including the lands of William Peverel and Robert II de Ferrers – as the price of his support of Henry of Anjou, an arrangement only thwarted by his sudden death in 1153.254 His actions in Lincolnshire were more strenuous than those in the north Midlands, but Paul Dalton has argued convincingly that in the latter area he was seeking to create a corridor of lands between Chester and Lincoln.255 In Lincolnshire, he achieved this in part by bringing prominent minor lords into his retinue, most notably Simon fitz William de Kyme.256 The flexibility of multiple lordship gave scope for this kind of predatory lordship. In the north Midlands, the evidence for this kind of activity is less clear. One possible case is that of the de Leake, later de Staunton, family, who held land of the de Ferrers and the earls of Chester. Due to the number of ‘Leake’-derived toponyms, it is difficult to trace their early history before they became enfeoffed with their main manors of Staunton Harold (Leics.) and West Leake (Notts) around the early twelfth century. The most significant members of the family here are Adam and Alan de Leake, the latter’s son Harold, and his grandsons Richard and William, the latter two of whom were active in the last years of the twelfth century and into the early thirteenth. The first active member of the family is Alan, who appears around the mid-twelfth century. He held lands of Robert de Ferrers (1088–1139) and Ranulf II earl of Chester (1129–53), for which the charters of enfeoffment survive. In c.1135–43 Ranulf II enfeoffed Adam de Leake with all his lands in Ticknall (Derbys), and the land in Frisby-on-the-Wreake which ‘Alfac’ (Ælfric?) de Leake, Adam’s grandfather (suus auus), held previously. The extent of the land is unrecorded, but that in Frisby may have been 4 carcuates.257 Both packages were to be held for the service of half a knight. The regrant with additional lands may be an attempt by Ranulf to bring him more into the earl’s orbit, as Dalton argued Ranulf attempted to do with minor lords in Lincolnshire.258 If so, it does not seem to have 253 J.H.

Round, ‘King Stephen and the earl of Chester’, EHR 10 (1895), 87–91; R.H.C. Davis, ‘King Stephen and the earl of Chester revised’, EHR 75 (1960), 654–60; R.H.C. Davis, ‘What happened in Stephen’s reign, 1135–54’, History 49:165 (1964), 1–12. 254 Golob, ‘Ferrers’, i. 136–42. 255 Dalton, ‘Aiming at the impossible’, 131. 256 Ibid., 127–8. 257 Slade, ‘Leicestershire Survey’, 17. 258 Dalton, ‘Aiming at the impossible’, 127–8.

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been successful. There is no record of the family ever having appeared at the earl’s court or in his retinue, even later in the twelfth century when the Leakes were growing in importance.259 Although the family did endow religious houses connected to the earls, this may have been driven more by proximity than seigneurial connection.260 Meanwhile, the de Leakes’ connection to the Ferrers seems to have remained much closer. The antiquarian Nichols states that Alan de Leake had received a grant of land in Staunton Harold and West Leake from Robert II de Ferrers in exchange for 60 marks and a bay horse.261 He does not give a reference for this document, and it does not seem to have survived, so its authenticity is somewhat shaky. The witness list provided by Nichols is, however, plausible, and would date it to c.1114x44. Alan also bought 1 bovate of land in Stapleford from William pistor for 2 silver marks, which was carried out before Earl Robert in c.1139x62 and confirmed by him to be held by suit of court.262 Most significantly, Alan is described as one of Earl Robert II’s barones in a grant of c.1144. He is listed before Fulcher fitz Saswalo de Shirley who, as we have seen above, was one of the most prominent tenants of the Ferrers honour in this period.263 As this example suggests, pinning down politically-driven interactions between barons and minor lords can prove difficult, not least from the difficulties of dating the evidence precisely. In the aftermath of the rebellions against King John in 1215, however, we have a slightly clearer snapshot of political actions. The reversi lists in the royal Close Rolls record those returning to the new king’s allegiance in 1217. J.C. Holt used these in his classic study of the ‘Northerners’ to show that ties of lordship, kinship and locality could all have an impact on whether or not an individual took part in the rebellion against King John.264 For the north Midlands region, many of the individuals listed as reversi are tenants-in-chief and ones with significant interests elsewhere in the country. The region generally was reasonably loyal, with Ranulf III earl of Chester and William II de Ferrers being staunch members of the royalist 259 A

William de Leek, possibly related, married the daughter of Sheriff Hugh Bardolf and accounted for him in the 1202–03 Pipe Roll (PR 4 John, 186). 260 On this pattern, see below 143–8. Harold de Leake, Alan’s son, granted a carucate and chapel in West Leake to the canons of Calke Priory. This was made in memory of Reinald, Harold’s brother, who had been a canon there. Alan also granted a meadow in West Leake to Garendon Abbey, which the earl of Leicester had founded (Monasticon, VI., 598; Golob, ‘Ferrers’, ii, appendix no. 20). 261 Nichols, Leicestershire, iii. pt. 2, p. 703. He also states that this land was given by Earl Robert as a quarter of a knight’s fee when his daughter Maud married Bertram de Verdun c.1140. 262 ROLLR DE 5555/1. 263 Golob, ‘Ferrers’, ii, 423–4; Cownie, Religious Patronage, 160. On use of knives in land grants see Clanchy, Memory to Written Record, 38–41. 264 Holt, Northerners, 35–53.

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faction. A few of their tenants appear among the reversi, but these are all those with several lords and wider interests.265 In Staffordshire, a letter of Thomas de Erdington to the king states that the county of Staffordshire only Robert Marmion, lord of Tamworth, and Hervey Bagot with his two brothers had been in rebellion in 1215. Hervey had made himself sheriff of the county with the collusion of the barons, but had received the king’s peace from Ranulf III earl of Chester by the time the letter was written. His two brothers were at that time still in rebellion under Fulk fitz Warin, but returned to royal allegiance before 1217.266 Out of 51 identifiable individuals in the rolls who returned to royal allegiance in 1217, 40 appear in other records, which give some indication of their possible seigneurial allegiances. Of these, at least 25 were tenantsin-chief of various sizes. Out of the rest, six had probable connection to the Stafford barony, held at this time by the rebellious Hervey II Bagot. Bagot’s father, also Hervey (d. before 1214), had received the barony through marriage to the heiress Millicent de Stafford. As former tenants of the honour, the elevation of the family seems to have been unpopular: Roger de Somerville, who held two knight’s fees, refused to perform homage to Hervey and transferred his allegiance and lands to William II de Ferrers; and Hervey II and Millicent his mother had to enlist help from the Crown and sheriff in collecting scutage from the honour by 1219 as the tenants refused to pay.267 As a result, he may have struggled to carry many of his tenants with him into rebellion. Nevertheless, some probable Stafford tenants can be found among the rebels: Philip de Wasteneys, who may have held solely of Stafford;268 Roger Wavre, who may be successor of the Robert de Waure who held two parts of a knight’s fee under Robert son of Odo who held in turn from Stafford;269 Ivo de Walton who was also involved with the Stafford Augustinian house at Stone.270 Robert fitz Pagan and Adam de Swinnerton may also be tangentially connected to the Stafford honour if the former can be identified as heir of the Robert fitz Pagan who held a knight’s fee of Robert II de Stafford in 1166,

265 The

Robert and Ralph ‘de Gresley’ who had lands in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire granted away by the king in Close Rolls at this time are almost certainly not Gresleys. Robert seems to be Robert de Grelly, whose greatgrandfather had founded Swineshead Abbey (Lincs.) in 1134. Robert de Grelly was among the barons at Stamford and Runnymede in 1215 (Madan, Gresleys, 154, 209–10). Ralph was of a third similarly-named family, the de Greasleys of Nottinghamshire. He had married a Muschamp heiress named either Isabella or Agnes, which familial connection the Close Roll entry references (Madan, Gresleys, 210–11). 266 Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, X, 326; VCH Staffs. I, 226. 267 Wrottesley, ‘Bagot’, 6. 268 CB LXXXVIII/13; Jeayes 1726, 2024. 269 CB LXXXVIII/3iii. 270 Stone priory fos 7, 10, 19, 21.

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and the latter as a relation of the John and Robert de Swynnerton who were connected to Stafford and Stone Priory.271 Several members of the same family also appear in the reversi lists, suggesting that kinship connections could be instrumental in political decisions. The Basset family seem to have rebelled en masse: Ralph, Reginald, Richard and William de Basset were all recalled to royal fides in 1217.272 Similarly, William and Thomas de Coleville, Ivo and William de Heriz, Robert and William Mauduit, and Milo, Nicholas and Roeland de Verdun had been in rebellion. These kinship ties seem to have stretched across counties: Milo de Verdun’s lands were in Staffordshire, those of Nicholas and Roeland all further south and east. There is also perhaps a slight trend of rebels connected with the honour of Leicester. Robert IV de Beaumont had died c.1204 and his estates were split between his daughters. Simon de Montfort, husband of Amice the elder daughter, received the title of the earldom of Leicester, but seems not to have received full possession. The earldom was given into the custody of Ranulf III earl of Chester instead, and the de Montforts only received the earldom in 1238. This move by King John may have been both a reward for Ranulf ’s support and an attempt to control the Leicester area. The lands of those who rebelled are mapped in Map 12. These tenures have been reconstructed as far as possible from the surviving record, so are inevitably incomplete. While acknowledging that this is a very partial picture, it shows that most of the rebels’ lands were scattered across these three counties. For the most part, it does not appear that there were clusters of rebellion based entirely on locality in these three counties, except for a small cluster between Matlock and Mansfield. Here, John d’Aincourt, Ivo and William de Heriz, Geoffrey de Musters and Robert fitz William d’Aufreton all held land in close proximity to one another and of different landlords. John d’Aincourt was a small tenant-in-chief; the Herizes possibly connected to him and Roger de Buron;273 Geoffrey de Musters to the fee of Hubert fitz Ralph;274 and the connections of Aufreton are unknown. The evidence is one of straws in the wind, but suggestive of a local solidarity not otherwise visible in the record. Generally, as Holt found in Yorkshire, minor lords seem to have remained royalist under royalist barons, and some rebelled under rebel barons. Nevertheless, there is a suggestion of the impact that kinship and locality could have on political action that could cut across ties of lordship.

271 Stone

Priory, fos 5, 6, 24. Litt. Claus., 311, 317, 331. 273 CB CCIII/11; CLXIII/1. 274 Darley, Cole 74; Jeayes, 916. See also Darley L25, Dale 508, DRO 187/1/7, 187/1/37. A Robert de Musters appears once as a witness to a Mowbray charter in Yorkshire (c.1145x57) but the connection is uncertain (Greenway, no. 310). 272 Rot.

Map 12  Lands of 1217 reversi.

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Conclusion The prosopographies above could be replicated many times in this area alone. Some variation is always to be expected, but a few clear trends can be summarised here. As shown in Chapter 1, multiple lordship was more frequent than has previously been recognised. The honour is, therefore, a slightly different beast from what has been theorised previously. For the most part, it cannot have been a closed community: either directly or indirectly, many tenants would come into contact with other lords in the area. Single tenants were often at the far extreme of this, but even these instances often acquired extra lords in the course of the twelfth century or made other connections. Multiple tenants are often those with more points of contact outside the honour. Underlying these patterns is the geography of the honour. Scatters of lands gave other opportunities to interact with other lords and their men on a neighbourhood basis, and a considerable number of tenants seem to have taken advantage of this to receive lands and fill in gaps in their own smaller honours. The forces of lordship and locality coexisted from the earliest days of the Norman settlement, and continued to do so throughout our period.275 There was never a time when lords were as wholly in control as Milsom and others have argued.276 Study of minor lords in their own right lends a different lens through which to study the honour in the twelfth century. It is also useful, however, for studying local society and how individual seigneurial bonds worked. We can see that minor lords with multiple lords of their own were attempting to build up their own local powerbases, in a way that cut across the existing seigneurial geography. Individuals and families took advantage of the ability to have several lords as a means of expanding their lands. Moreover, relationships to several lords were managed, apparently successfully, and the tenancies held of them were passed on to successive generations. Those with multiple lords do not seem to have lost their moral credibility in the eyes of contemporaries: we can see that such minor lords were still given positions of great responsibility on the honour and could be considered as one of the lord’s honorial barons. The allegiance of minor lords and their ties with their own lords were flexible enough to accommodate these varying relationships. We can suggest, then, that there may have been significant advantages for both man and lord in multiple lordship. For men, the benefits are obvious. The possibility of receiving more lands, particularly those in close proximity to an existing tenancy; the acquisition of protection from powerful local lords, which may have been useful both against rival claimants and in exerting 275 Boston, ‘Changing 276 Milsom,

ideas’, 71–2. Legal Framework, 36–54. See also above, 4–6 and below, 224.

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pressure on a man’s other lords; and the additional local standing that both would aid. We are less able to see the benefits accrued from non-tenurial forms of patronage in this period, but we may expect that these were similarly boosted by connection to several lords. Lords may have reaped some benefits too.277 Outside the more obvious benefits of employing a skilled administrator, as shown above, a man with a reasonably large portfolio of lands, particularly within a particular locality, and on good terms with several lords, could be a useful ally. Similarly, sheriffs and other royal administrators could take care of a lord’s interests in the course of carrying out his duties. This may have been particularly the case for lords with widely spaced interests, such as the earls of Chester, who needed men whom they could use as desired, but who were not entirely dependent on the earls for their position. Well-placed men in administration, or ones who were particularly skilled in this field, could also be an asset. We have no clear instances of this from the area under study, but an example from Canterbury gives an insight. In March 1111, Haimo dapifer of the king received a grant of land from Abbot Hugh of St Augustine’s Canterbury. In return for this, the Register records that he swore: […] quod ipse Haymo dapifer, si opus fuerit, ecclesie et michi vel successoribus meis de placitis in comitatu siue in curia regis contra aliquem baronem consulat, adiuuet et succurrat exceptis dominis suis quorum homo manibus suis fuerit. […] that he Haimo dapifer, if needed, will give counsel, help and succour to the church and [the abbot] and [his] successors, for pleas in the county or in the king’s court against any baron, except those lords whose man he will have become by [giving] his hands.278

The abbot has clearly acknowledged that Haimo could take on other lords, and that this would occasionally have the potential to limit his utility to the abbot. Nevertheless, the abbot has accepted Haimo as his man, and will benefit from his aid and service. In this instance, the charter specifies that Haimo has received the lands absque viuagio [i.e. homagio] et fiancia, that is, 277 Stephen

Baxter has argued for a comparable pattern in late Anglo-Saxon England, where the commended men of the Leofwinsons in Worcestershire ‘were well-connected individuals who held land from other lords’ (Baxter, Earls of Mercia, 248–57, quotation at 251). Another benefit, more difficult to prove in this area, may have been more predatory. In Lincolnshire, Ranulf II Earl of Chester may have attempted to weaken neighbouring lords’ support by drawing their men into his retinue. If the knight in question swore an oath to a second lord, he was thus prevented from damaging either one (Dalton, ‘Aiming at the impossible’, 126–32). 278 The Register of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, ed. G.J. Turner and H.E. Salter (2 vols, London, 1924) ii, 462; D.J. Matthew, The Norman Conquest (London, 1966), 115; Harvey, ‘The knight and the knight’s fee’, 8.

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without having done fealty to the abbot and become his man.279 This seems to be an exceptional case.280 Nevertheless, it is clear that the abbot was willing to grant land even under these conditions, in order to receive the valuable support and advice of a well-connected and, we may assume, skilled man. Focus on the minor lords gives us a glimpse into a complex local world, with ambitious men and overlapping ties. The next chapter will address religious patronage as another route into understanding the influences of different lords on minor lords, along with the influences driven by kin and locality.

279 Fiantia

is an unusual term, derived from Old French fiance, ‘pledge’. DMLBS lists only the above charter as a source for the term. 280 As noted above, the terminology is unusual, and does not seem to have been known elsewhere. I have seen nothing comparable to this charter from several thousand charters in the area under discussion. Although we cannot argue conclusively from silence, the silence is nevertheless suggestive, particularly when we consider that the parties to such an arrangement would have been keen to delineate the arrangement carefully. The particularly well-connected position of Haimo may have prompted the particular situation: St Augustine’s seems to be buying his sworn support (see Baxter, Earls of Mercia, 248–9 for an Anglo-Saxon secular parallel).

3

MULTIPLE LORDSHIP AND RELIGIOUS PATRONAGE

I

n 1090, Gilbert fitz Richard, lord of Clare (c.1066–c.1117), granted the collegiate church at Clare to the abbey of Bec, and added sustenance from his own lands for the support of four monks there.1 According to the Stoke-by-Clare cartulary, he was anxious that the foundation should receive support from his own men: ‘imploringly he ordered his barons to give to the church as much as they liked from their lands, churches or tithes without disinheriting their heirs’.2 With the overlapping forces of lordship and multiple lordship, kinship and locality, however, such a plea by a lord would not necessarily be followed. Chapter 2 addressed the relationship between minor lords and their own lords directly, in order to explore – as far as we can see – how a man with multiple lords behaved towards each of them. This chapter seeks to address the same question from a different perspective: how the multiplicity of relationships for minor lords affected which religious houses they patronised. Since there does not generally seem to have been any rule about which houses could or could not be supported,3 the record of a family’s grants fossilises the influences on the group in the patterns of their land grants, and the decisions that they made in response to these. This chapter explores why grants were given to particular religious houses and, through this, to suggest what the key influences were on the behaviour of the minor lords. In doing so it seeks to show that even from the first century after the Conquest, subtenants had different, sometimes contradictory claims 1

Stoke-by-Clare Cartulary, ed. C. Harper-Bill and R. Mortimer (3 vols, Suffolk Charters iv–vi, 1982–84), i, no. 137, 112–21.The college had been founded by Earl Aelfric in the mid-eleventh century. Gilbert’s son Richard moved the house in 1124 to Stoke by Clare (Suffolk), 2 miles from its original site (ODNB, ‘Gilbert de Clare’). 2 Harper-Bill and Mortimer, Stoke-by-Clare, i, no. 137, at 116: Deinde obsecrando precepit baronibus suis ut eidem ecclesie de terris suis ecclesiis vel decimis quantum vellent absque exheriditacione successorum suorum donarent. This phrase survives in the confirmation by Theobald archbishop of Canterbury of 1150x April 1161, but appears to be reciting the words of the original charter. 3 Cownie, Religious Patronage, 177–80.

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on their attention. The first is the impact of the family’s lord or lords. These have often been taken as the primary motivating factor for minor lords in the twelfth century. While often undeniably strong, the degree of influence seems to have varied depending on how many lords an individual had. Importantly, seigneurial ties also coexisted with the ties of kinship and locality,4 and these could coincide and mutually strengthen one another, or could pull the attention and patronage of a minor lord in different directions. Where we encounter instances of this – where, for instance, a man held of several lords – we often see a tendency towards scatters of patronage that do not tally neatly with the grants of any one lord,5 and a strong trend towards grants being made to houses in the immediate area of a man’s interests. Occasionally, where one of these ties of lordship, kinship, or locality was particularly strong, it is possible to see it override other considerations, and appear to become the sole reason for choosing a particular house. The chapter is structured around a series of examples illustrating these three patterns. First, it will address the impact of a lord’s foundation or patronage of a religious house on his tenants and retinue. From here, the focus will turn to the impact of an individual’s kin and his locality on his actions. These could reinforce seigneurial ties, particularly for those men who only held of one lord. Finally, it will discuss how the claims of kin and locality could cut across those of a lord. It continues the argument that the century and a half after the Conquest did not see a change from a world of ‘strong’ honours to one in decline from the later twelfth century. At no point does there appear to have been a period where the honour of a single lord provided the sole focus for the majority of minor lords.

Religious life in the north Midlands In the area under study, there were very few surviving religious houses from the pre-Conquest period. The abbey of Burton-upon-Trent (Staffs.) had been founded in the early eleventh century by Wulfric Spot, a king’s thegn. Despite having lost many of the lands from the original foundation by 1086, it had gained others in the immediate area, and remained locally important through the twelfth century.6 Just before the Conquest, the cell which developed into Lapley Priory may have been founded in western Staffordshire – unusually for the time, as a daughter-house to the alien abbey of St Rémy at Rheims.7 4

As suggested above, 73–6, 91–2, and below, 148, locality does not necessarily seem to have been shaped by hundred and shire boundaries: men’s blocks of lands could and did cross these. 5 Cownie also noticed this phenomenon: Religious Patronage, 175–6. 6 See above, 25, and below, 197–201. 7 Burchard, son of Earl Aelfgar of Mercia, had accompanied Archbishop Ealdred of York on an embassy to Rome, but died on the way back to England. Before death, he requested that he be buried at the abbey of St Remy in Rheims, promising a grant of lands in England. His father carried this out, and gave land in Lapley, Hamstall

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For much of the rest of the area, Scandinavian depredations had destroyed many houses, including the previously prominent foundations at Breedonon-the-Hill (Leics.)8 and Repton (Derbys.)9 and it is likely that particularly in Staffordshire and Derbyshire, there had been few houses in any case.10 In the decades immediately after the Conquest, a few houses were founded by greater lords, often near castles – that of Henry de Ferrers at Tutbury (Staffs.), Roger de Builli at Blyth (Notts.) in c.1088,11 and Robert de Tosny at Belvoir in 1076.12 These were all Benedictine, and the first two were made daughterhouses of abbeys near to where the founders originated in Normandy.13 Ridware, Meaford and Marston in Staffordshire, and Silvington in Shropshire (S1237; Dugdale, Monasticon, VI, pt. II, 1042; C.G.O. Bridgeman, ‘Staffordshire Pre-Conquest Charters’, SHC n.s. 7 (1916), 67–137 at 126–9. Domesday Book records that the hide at Marston was held 1086 by two men of St Rémy, which may indicate that a cell of the abbey was in place by then. By the early 1180s at the latest, this had developed into a priory at Lapley (DB i, fo. 222v; VCH Staffs., IV, 146). 8 The monastery of St Mary and St Hardulf was established as a cell of Medeshamstede in the seventh century. Although little of its history now survives, the quality of the sculpture suggests a prominent community. It was destroyed by raiding in the ninth century, but the church was revived as a cell of Nostell Priory (Yorks.) by Robert II de Ferrers during Henry I’s reign (VCH Leics II, 8 John Rylands Library, Latin MS 222; see also D. Postles, ‘Defensores Astabimus: Garendon Abbey and its early benefactors’, in Monasteries and Society in Early Medieval Britain, ed. B. Thompson (Stamford, 1999), 97–116 at, 104–5); F.M. Stenton, ‘Medeshamstede and its colonies’, Historical Essays in Honour of James Tait, ed. J.G. Edwards, V.H. Galbraith, E.F. Jacob (Manchester, 1933), 316–18; A.W. Clapham, ‘The carved stones at Breedon-on-the-Hill’, Archaeologia lxxvii (1928), 219–40 at 219); A. Dornier, ‘The Anglo-Saxon monastery at Breedonon-the-Hill, Leicestershire’, in A. Dornier, Mercian Studies (Leicester, 1977), 155–68. 9 Repton abbey was a well-known Mercian house, founded c.600. Its crypt, which housed Mercian royal saints, is the only part which now survives. The rest of the monastery was destroyed in Danish raiding during the ninth century. Excavation of the current churchyard has found evidence that the raiding band set up camp there (M. Biddle and B. Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Repton and the Vikings’, Antiquity 66 (1992), 36–51; H.M. Taylor, St Wystan’s Church, Repton: A Guide and History (Repton, 1979)). As with Breedon-on-the-Hill, it was resurrected as a religious house in the twelfth century, when the parish church was granted to Calke Priory. The canons were required to transfer their main focus to Repton and downgrade Calke (founded 1115x20) to being Repton’s cell (VCH Derby II, p.58; H. Colvin, ‘Calke Priory’, DAJ 102 (1982), 102–5). 10 The nunnery at Hanbury (Staffs.), which had been founded c.680 was destroyed in raiding 875. Stone priory, founded c.670 by Wulfhere, King of Mercia, was similarly destroyed in the ninth century. It was refounded as a daughter-house of the Augustinian priory at Kenilworth (Warks.) possibly 1138x42 (VCH Staffs III., 135–6, 240). 11 This was founded c.1088 as a daughter-house of St Katherine’s Abbey, Rouen. De Builli seems to have derived his name from Busli, near Rouen, and had previously granted the tithes from this vill to St Katherine’s (VCH Notts II., 83). 12 VCH Lincs II, 124. On the phenomenon of founding monastic houses next to castles, see Cownie, Religious Patronage, 172. 13 Tutbury was made daughter-house to St-Pierre-sur-Dives (Calvados); Blyth to Holy Trinity in Rouen (VCH Notts II, 83). According to a tradition preserved at Belvoir, the latter house was originally to be an independent abbey; but de Tosny found himself too busy to complete the foundation, and on Archbishop Lanfranc’s

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Gradually through the twelfth century, the practice of founding one’s own religious house spread downwards through society. More minor tenants-inchief and several of the greater subtenants created their own houses and, from the mid-twelfth century, it appears that the richer burgesses were beginning to do the same, leading to a rapid increase in the number of religious institutions in the area. In this, the new founders were aided by the new orders that had begun to arrive in England, all of which required much smaller outlays of land and endowments, and were thus appealing to those with fewer resources.14 By far the most common description of the grants is that the land in question was given ‘in alms’ (in elemosinam), although the definition of this term seems to have been broad. Hudson and Kaye have both concluded that the only unifying feature was that the lands were held in return for spiritual services, and not, for instance, that they were free of secular service.15 Granting land in alms did not automatically absolve the grantor or the recipient from owing service, and this seems to have been dealt with in three different ways. Kaye has noted that this service could be passed onto the recipient of the lands, or remain a burden on the grantor, who had to discharge it from their remaining lands. A third option was that the lord might remit all the service due from the granted land, and thereby participate in the grant.16 Benjamin Thompson argues that, although the ideal was to create a grant free from service, this became increasingly difficult through the twelfth century. Holding of alms ‘freely’ should therefore be regarded instead as holding alms ‘as freely as possible’ – that the only service required was a specified one, rather than a broader range of unspecified services.17 It also means that lords were frequently involved in their tenants’ grants. The question of why individuals devoted resources and energy to patronising religious houses has been amply addressed elsewhere, so I will give here only a brief overview of why it was significant to minor lords, and why the direction of patronage was chosen with care. The reason most commonly stated in the charters was pro anima: for specialist religious intercession for the sake of someone’s soul.18 The foundation charter for Tutbury in the late eleventh century suggestion the house was turned over to St Albans (VCH Lincs II, 124; S. Wood, English Monasteries and their patrons in the thirteenth century (London, 1955), 5–6. On the practice generally see Knowles, The Monastic Order, 135–6. 14 J. Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000–1300 (Cambridge, 1994), 63–84. 15 Hudson, OHLE, 369–70, 668–9; J.M. Kaye, Medieval English Conveyances (Cambridge, 2009), 164–72. In Land, Law, and Lordship Hudson also argued that alms connoted freedom from secular service (Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 96), but the charter evidence of the north Midlands shows that this was not necessarily the case. 16 Kaye, Medieval English Conveyances, 167, 222–3; B. Thompson, ‘Free alms tenure in the twelfth century’, ANS 16 (1993), 221–43 at 230–1; Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law i, 240–3. 17 Thompson, ‘Free alms’, 229–31, 242. 18 See also OV V. 14, ed. Chibnall, iii, 144–5; Cownie, Religious Patronage, 151–9. Particularly before the development of perpetual chantries in the early thirteenth

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has Henry de Ferrers granting it pro anima W. regis et Matildis regine and pro salute anime of his father, mother, wife Bertha, his sons Eugenulph, William and Robert, and his daughter, and all predecessors and successors.19 Very many grants were made pro anima of the donor and his immediate family;20 more rarely, lords or the king were mentioned as beneficiaries of prayers.21 Sometimes specific benefits were desired, as a stray reference in the thirteenth-century chronicle written for Dale Abbey suggests. This chronicle was written by a canon of the house, Thomas de Muskham, who claimed to have his information from one of the co-founders, Matilda de Salicosa Mara.22 According to her account, she and her husband Geoffrey became involved in the final refoundation of Dale Abbey because their seven-year marriage had thus far been barren.23 The ending of the chronicle is lost, so it is unclear whether their endeavours were rewarded. Expiation of a specific sin may also have prompted a foundation. According to Dugdale, Dieulacres Abbey was moved from its earlier site at Poulton, Cheshire, in 1214 for such a reason. Ranulf III, earl of Chester, abandoned his wife Constance, Countess of Brittany, and married Clemence, daughter of Ralph de Feugères in 1199. While in bed with his new wife, he had a vision of his grandfather Ranulf, who told him to go to ‘Cholpesdale, in the territory of Leek, and in that place where there was formerly a chapel to the century, only religious houses could provide the continuous intercession required to ensure the recipient’s soul could escape Purgatory (N. Saul, Lordship and Faith: The English Gentry and the Parish Church in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 2017), 40, 136–9, 161). 19 Tutbury, no. 52; see also Darley, no. N7. 20 E.g. in Darley, no. K57, the grant is made by Fulcher son of Henry (de Shirley) and Matilda de Dun his wife for the benefit of the souls of their fathers, Henry son of Fulcher and Hugh de Dun, et omnium parentium nostrorum. Antecessores and parentes seem to be the most common words used. Ralph de Gresley’s notification to the bishop of Lincoln of a grant he had made to Merevale Abbey of land in Seal is more expressive. The grant was made ut Deus omnipotens nobis omnibus remittat peccata nostra et tribuat vitam eternam (Gresley charters, no. 4). The charter for the foundation of Poulton abbey in 1153x58 expands considerably on the theme of giving worldly goods to accrue heavenly rewards, quoting directly from the New Testament in a relatively long excursus on the point. It is uncertain whether this point is the result of later massaging by a monastic scribe. Although flowery, the basic formulae are sound for 1153x58, and the witness list entirely plausible: a putative forger looking to lend his work legitimacy would hardly have chosen such unsavoury-sounding a witness as William spuens mendacium (G. Wrottesley (ed.), ‘The Chartulary of Dieulacres Abbey’, SHC IX (1906), 293–366, no. 74; on this charter see Clanchy, Memory to Written Record, 133, who notes that the original charter ‘is written on an irregularly shaped piece of parchment in a shaky hand that cannot keep the lines straight’, and suggests that the scribe was the unfortunately-named William himself ). 21 Darley, no. K4, ‘pro salute domini mei regis et mea et sponse mee Sibille et antecessorum meorum’. It may be, too, that the idea of intercession taking place near to one’s lands, family, and burial place was considered desirable (Saul, Lordship and Faith, 40, 64–5). 22 ‘The history of the foundation of Dale Abbey, or the so-called chronicle of Dale’, ed. A. Saltman, DAJ 87 (1967), 18–38 at 21, 24–7. 23 Ibid., 34–7.

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Blessed Virgin, you shall found an abbey of white monks’. The abbey’s name supposedly came from Clemence’s approving exclamation in French when told of this plan, ‘Deux encres’ (‘May God grant it increase’).24 This looks at first glance like a later story to romanticise the foundation, but Wrottesley pointed out that it may contain a grain of truth if the creation and endowment of a new religious house was a condition imposed by the pope to allow Ranulf to put his first wife aside.25 Alongside such hopes were more immediate temporal benefits that could help to support the extension of a family’s influence in the local area. A religious house provided a means of stamping the founder’s family on the landscape and would often become the family’s mausoleum.26 Donors and tenants may also have been allowed burial rights,27 and could become a member of the house’s fraternity.28 In addition, religious houses had economic impact which could benefit founders and grantors. Particularly in areas with more marginal lands, small religious houses, both of Cistercian and other orders, may have helped the 24 Dugdale, Monasticon, V., 626–8;

VCH Staffs. III, 230–5, esp. pp. 230–1; Wrottesley, ‘Dieulacres Abbey’, 293 and n. 3. 25 Ibid., 294. There is also a tradition from Stone priory from a rhyming chronicle that hung on the wall of the monks’ refectory at the time of the Dissolution that the house was founded by one Enysan. According to this source, he had killed the nuns who had been there, and in expiation was advised by Geoffrey de Clinton to restore the house with canons. Although this may be a garbled retelling of the tradition of an earlier house at Stone (which had supposedly been founded by King ‘Wulfer’ of Mercia in expiation of the murder of his sons after their conversion to Christianity), the dates of Enisan and de Clinton agree, and there is record on the Pipe Roll of 31 Hen. I that Ernald son of Enisan owed 10 marks ut habeat pacem de hominibus quos interfecit. Allowing for some confusion of names, some threads of an early tradition may be preserved here (PR 31 Hen. I, 59; printed by G. Wrottesley, ‘The Stone Chartulary’, SHC VI, pt. i (1885), 5–28 at 1). 26 B. Golding, ‘Anglo-Norman knightly burials’, in The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood, ed. C. Harper-Bill, R. Harvey, S.D. Church (Woodbridge, 1986), 35–48; Cownie, Religious Patronage, 201–3. Nigel Saul suggests that an obit list of burials of the founder’s family would have been kept on the high altar (Saul, Lordship and Faith, 65 and n. 54). 27 At Burton Abbey, fee-farmers were also given burial rights, possibly in exchange for the house’s right to take some of the tenant’s chattels at death (BL Add. MS 89169, fos 17–19. On this practice see also Cownie, Patronage, 163–4, 179–80). On his foundation of a priory at Binham (Norfolk), Peter de Valognes gave the new institution a grant of lands of two-thirds of what his knights held of him in the country, for which he had their consent. In a second deed, he stated that if these knights were to die in England, they were to be received by the monks for burial at Binham (Dugdale, Monasticon, III, 345, cited Saul, Lordship and Faith, 65). Saul argued from this and what little evidence we have for minor lordly burial in the twelfth century, that these ‘are invariably to be found in honorial monasteries’ near to those of their lords (ibid., 65). Since this kind of evidence is so rare, it is impossible thus far to say what impact multiple lordship had on the selection of a burial site. 28 Cownie, Religious Patronage, 159–60, 179; Textus Roffensis lists a considerable number of these (Textus Roffensis, ed. P.H. Sawyer, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, vii, ix (Copenhagen, 1957–62), fos 183v–91.

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expansion of lands available for agriculture. In Leicestershire, the inroads made by the Cistercian abbey of Garendon and the Augustinian house at Ulverscroft into the ancient woodland of Charnwood Forest contributed to the settlement of new vills such as Swithland (‘land cleared by burning’) by the early thirteenth century.29 Ranton priory (Staffs.) seems to have been founded on recently cleared land, and was known as ‘St Mary of the Assarts’.30 Foundation of a house in a particular area could aid a lord’s political dominance there.31 A strong case has been made for Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester (1120–68), exploiting the political advantages to monastic patronage. He and Ranulf earl of Chester were engaged in a territorial power struggle in the mid-twelfth century in northern Leicestershire, and the Charnwood region was a frontier zone between the powerbases of the two men. In this area, Robert de Beaumont founded Garendon Abbey in 1133, and a hermitage at Ulverscroft in 1134.32 A little further afield, Biddlesden Abbey (Bucks.) was founded by Arnold du Bois, steward of the earl of Leicester, in 1147 on recently disseised lands of a problematic tenant, presumably as a means of blocking the tenant’s attempts to reclaim this.33 Founders had long-term close connections with their religious houses. Even in those where rights of appointment were not kept (such as priories),34 it is very likely that founders’ families were able to lean heavily on the appointer to ensure that the correct candidate was chosen as head. Indirect control could thereby be held over the house and, more importantly, its lands. It may also have been possible to sway its court.35 Conversely, religious houses could serve 29

B. Cox, A Dictionary of Leicestershire and Rutland Place-names (Nottingham, 2005), s.v. ‘Swithland’ is first attested in 1224. 30 See below, 143–8. 31 See Crouch, ‘Strategies of lordship’, 8–9; J. le Patourel, The Norman Empire (Oxford, 1976), 297–318. 32 D. Postles, ‘The Garendon Cartularies in BL Lansdowne 415’, British Library Journal (1996), 161–71 at 161–2; Postles, ‘Defensores Astabimus‘, esp. 100–4; E. King, ‘Mountsorrel and its region in King Stephen’s reign’, Huntington Library Quarterly 44 (1980–81), 1–10, esp. 5–6. 33 Postles, ‘Defensores Astabimus’, 104. 34 Wood, English Monasteries, 5–6. 35 Both Tutbury Priory and Darley Abbey clearly had sake and soke over at least some of their lands. In de Ferrers confirmations sake and soke, toll and team, and infangentheof, are mentioned as consuetudines of the lands. For Tutbury, Robert II’s general confirmation of 1150–59 states that all the lands granted by the very many men listed in the charter, and omnia alia que avus meus et pater meus et omnes homines eorum sive ego vel homines mei huic ecclesie dedimus are to be held, by his grant, and confirmed by his authority with all customs which they or he melius had or has, nominatim ad tol od tem od sache od infranginthuf [sic] (Tutbury, no. 52). At Darley, Robert II’s ‘foundation’ charter mentions that he granted the monastery omnes libertates quas habeo in predictis tenementis scilicet tol et tem et sacca et socca et infangelth’ (Darley, no. N2). In both these cases, the clause concerning jurisdictional rights is placed immediately after the common in bosco et in plano [etc.] clause, suggesting that this may have been seen as part of a bundle of rights attached to land. See also K.L. Shirley, The Secular Jurisdiction of Monasteries in Anglo-Norman and Angevin England (Woodbridge, 2004), 5–6.

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to foster connections between landholders who attended them and were made members of the fraternity. Particularly at the foundation of a new house by a tenant-in-chief it is not uncommon for prominent neighbours who rarely appear in connection with the founder to be listed as witnesses. Occasionally, religious houses may have acted as arbitrators for disputing local landholders. Finally, religious houses may have provided an informal financial safety-net for founders and donors. William I de Ferrers seems to have borrowed money from the family foundation at Tutbury.36 Lesser landholders may have received leases on favourable terms in return for grants.37 More immediately, a consideration – that is, payment of a lump sum by the religious house – in exchange for grants seem to have been usual, and were sometimes quite large.38 It is not uncommon for grants which appear to be in pure alms to be revealed in a later document as bringing in annual money for the donor; or for charters to be explicit that grants to churches were in return for a yearly render.39 Such demands could be quitclaimed by later kin in exchange for further prayers.40 Supposedly pious grants may in some cases have been a means of generating ready cash. The final point to be made here is on the nature of our sources. Ecclesiastical charters seem to have fared rather better than those of many 36 Darley

charter no. N8 records that William I de Ferrers granted Aldwark and Sewelledale (Derbys.) to the canons, who in return quitclaimed ‘Winleya’ and the debt that he owed them. The charter takes a pious form, claiming the grant in puram et perpetuam elemosinam…pro salute anime mee et Sibille comitisse sponse mee et heredum meorum et pro animabus patris et matris mee et antecessorum meorum. Moreover, the lands in question had previously been granted to the canons by Hamund de Masci (Darley, no. N1). Saltman suggests that Tutbury no. 88 (c.1125) shows a similar use of the monastery by its founder. The priory granted to William Fitzherbert, a de Ferrers tenant, the vill of Norbury (Derbys.), with the stipulation that if the lord of Tutbury was captured and ransomed, married off his eldest daughter, or had to pay relief for his honour, for which the prior of Tutbury granted de Ferrers an aid, Fitzherbert was to make a contribution to the priory. The service therefore appears to have been passed from the priory – which is to say that the priory seems to have had this burden on Norbury originally. Saltman argued that the de Ferrers were thereby treating Tutbury priory as akin to a ‘baron’ of their fee (Tutbury no. 88; ed. Saltman, 12). 37 Barbara Harvey suggests that this was one reason for the favourable lease of Hendon by Gilbert Crispin to one Gunter and his heirs for £8 10s. It was later granted by Abbot Gervase de Blois to Gilbert and heirs for £20 farm (B. Harvey, ‘Abbot Gervase de Blois and the fee-farms of Westminster Abbey’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research XL: 102 (1967), 127–42 at 135–6). 38 William de Harcourt granted Stanton-under-Bardon, his patrimonium, to the Cistercian abbey of Garendon in 1148/49. One-third was in free alms, but the rest passed as an explicit sale in return for 21 marks and four horses. David Postles suggested that the family had run into difficulties in the Anarchy (BL Lansdowne MS 415, fos 15v–16; Nichols, Leicester, III, pt. ii, 815, 823–4; Postles, ‘Defensores Astabimus’, 107 and n. 41; see also the case of the descendants of Ingenulf, ibid., 109). 39 Darley, no. B12, a grant by one Alexander Hauselin to the canons. He granted in alms to the canons 8 acres of moor between Boulton and Osmaston (both Derbys.), for which the canons gave him 6s., and quitclaimed him an annual rent of 12d. which he owed. 40 E.g. Darley, no. F96.

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secular lords. Land given to a monastery was thought of as given to God and the house’s patron saint, the latter of whom was thought to intervene if their lands were in danger.41 It was essential, therefore, for the inhabitants to guard the lands with full force. Since threats often came from a judicial angle, houses took care to arm themselves well by carefully preserving their charters. By the later medieval period, very many houses had written these up into cartularies; although these preserve a large corpus of charter material, they present their own particular difficulties as a source. In copying charters into cartularies, some scribes regularly omitted certain sections, most notably the witness lists. For a scribe compiling a collection up to a hundred or more years after the actual grant, the inclusion of these names was no longer useful – the witnesses were too long dead to be of use as means of attesting grants, and were undoubtedly a waste of time and parchment to duplicate.42 Their omission is, however, a major hindrance to the study of networks around such houses, as in very many cases it is not possible to see who attended the giving of such gifts. Occasional independent survival of charters contained in the cartulary does little to fill this gap, although it does allow an opportunity to check scribal accuracy and adaptation. In addition to omission of witnesses, warranty from long-dead grantors does not seem to have been regarded as useful, and these clauses are commonly omitted with just a mention that warranty had been originally included. Sealing clauses seem to have been similarly treated.43 Despite these limitations, however, the charters and cartularies give a clear image at least of the patronage that the houses received, and it is on this that the chapter will focus.

Founders and their followers The foundation of a religious house by a lord drew donations from his retinue. For many houses, the foundation charter includes a general confirmation by the founder of his men’s initial donations. The reasons for this involvement on the part of a retinue is hardly surprising. Founders usually had a close and 41

This was often violent. See below, 210–20; Modwenna, cc. 47, 49–50, ed. Bartlett, 190–9; 204–11). 42 A scribal note after charter 248 in the Tutbury cartulary (ed. Saltman, 176) reads that: Nota quod vii carte sunt que loquuntur de eadem materia quas non oportet propter prolixitatem et tedium ipsas omnes scribere quia tenor earum est similis duabus cartis immediate precedentibus. (Note that there are seven charters which speak about the same material which it is not necessary to write out on account of length and tedium of them all because the tone of them is the same as the two immediately preceding charters.) 43 For instance, Darley, no. Aiii, a grant by Hubert fitz Ralph to Herbert Tokart of 2 bovates in Ambaston (Derbys.), c.1213, copied out by a fourteenth-century scribe compresses these phrases to Ego uero et heredes mei warantizabimus etc. Et ut hec donacio etc.

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enduring relationship with their houses44 that extended to their successors, both in protecting, endowing and controlling it, and in using the house as a statement of their family’s power and permanence in the landscape. In making a grant to such a place a man could show both his piety and his vassalic virtue, particularly if he stated that it was made in part for the soul of his lord and family. It would also allow the lord in question to retain some influence over the granted lands, such as who received lands on lease from a house and perhaps on what terms.45 Those lords with sufficient resources and standing to endow a house would already have been at the overlap of several networks: as a member of a kin-group, as the centre and patron to a wider group, and as a locus of power in a locality. These networks would have been drawn in both at the initial foundation, and subsequently.46 The extent to which a founder’s retinue became involved, however, was dependent on the relationships between the lord in question and his men, and his men’s other interests. One of the most striking instances of this can be seen on the honour of Tutbury. Henry de Ferrers, the Domesday tenant, founded the Benedictine Tutbury Priory here c.1088. The compact block of lands held by the Ferrers – of which Tutbury was the caput – meant that the men of the Ferrers tended to form a reasonably coherent group around their lord in the twelfth century as participants in the honour and attendants on his person, and in several cases were beholden only to him for their lands.47 As the key Ferrers house, Tutbury priory was well-placed to receive significant donations from Ferrers tenants. The connection between house and lord was striking: the priory was founded a few feet from the main gate of the Ferrers caput at Tutbury Castle, and the two places occupied the same dominating hilltop. We are fortunate to have what appears to be a reasonably complete cartulary from the house, compiled in the mid-fifteenth century.48 44 Benedictine

houses were generally closest to their founder and were more susceptible to his interference, although this could be complicated if the house in question were the daughter-house of an alien foundation (Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, 29–31; Knowles, The Monastic Order, 135). St-Pierre-surDives seems to have retained the right to appoint or depose a prior at Tutbury up to c.1180. At this point, William I de Ferrers, grandson of the founder, sought more control over the right of presentation. Other rights of the mother-house, such as payment of the ‘apport’ and the requirement for the prior to appear at St-Pierre every three years, were however safeguarded. Saltman reproduces a Latin transcription in full, Tutbury, 13. The charter does not appear in the Tutbury cartulary itself, and this is likely to have been part of the deliberate attempt by the fourteenth-century compiler to downplay the mother-house’s original rights. All orders however seem to have been subject to the influence and sometimes interference of their founding lord. 45 E.g. Tutbury 88. 46 Cownie, Religious Patronage, 169, 172–6; Mortimer, ‘Land and service’, 195–6. 47 See above, 63–72. 48 College of Arms MS Arundel 59, from which Avrom Saltman produced an edited volume in 1962; Davis, Medieval Cartularies, no. 981. The original cartulary

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From this it is possible to draw up a list of all extant donors from the period 1066–1216. Against this list, we can set the Ferrers Carta return from Henry II’s survey of knight’s fees in 1166. The latter then gives us a list of Ferrers knightly tenants – who held some of the largest parcels of land and were of the greatest prominence in the honour – which we can compare against the list of donors to the key Ferrers foundation.49 Where an individual with the same first name and toponym appears in both sources within a period of c.25 years, they have been taken to be the same person. The caveat should however be noted that repetition of first names between generations was common in this period. Toponyms or ‘X son of Y’ have been taken to define kin-groups. The possibility of loss of evidence is another important caveat. The compilation of the cartulary several centuries after the production of the documents under scrutiny would allow for some losses, or selective record-keeping by the monks. The Ferrers Carta return is also somewhat idiosyncratic. It has four points of reference: the time of King Henry I (tempore Henrici Regis avi vestri); the knights enfeoffed by William I de Ferrers’ grandfather, Robert I de Ferrers (1088–1139); those enfeoffed by his father Robert II (1139–62); and ‘now’ (modo). For this survey, the cut-off point between ‘old’ and ‘new’ enfeoffment has been made at 1139, so as to not exclude those enfeoffed in the early twelfth century. Those enfeoffed by ‘pater meus’ Robert II, and those holding modo have been counted as new enfeoffment. First, the individuals who appear both in the cartulary as a donor and in the Carta as a tenant of the old enfeoffment (that is, they or their predecessor contained 180 folios, of which eight are now missing, and the charters recorded in it range from the late eleventh until the mid-fifteenth century. A note in the work states that it was compiled under Prior Thomas Gedney (1433–58), which fits with a date of January 1452 for the latest document included. Saltman interpreted the cartulary as ‘a monument’ to Gedney, under whom Tutbury gained independence from the mother-house at St-Pierre-sur-Dives. As a result, the compiler seems to have attempted to remove all traces of St-Pierre’s influence by omitting documents that referred to the house, and by tampering with the text of Pope Alexander’s privilege to make Tutbury appear to have been independent from this date. The impression given by the cartulary may be therefore more independent than was the case in reality. A surviving original from the collection of Gresley charters published by Jeayes mentions the abbot of St-Pierre witnessing a notification by William de Ferrers, of a sale by Ralph de Seal to Ralph de Gresley of land and a mill in Seal. The business in the charter is far too minor and marginal to have brought the abbot specially: it is likely that he was visiting the priory and Ferrers court, and his stature meant he was added as a witness to strengthen the document (Gresley charters, no. 3). 49 There are some methodological caveats with the data. As in Chapter 1, toponyms are used to denote family groups, meaning the data may be skewed towards those groups who had taken a fixed name by this time. Familial interaction with a house could fluctuate over generations, although the evidence suggests that previous kin involvement in a religious house encouraged future participation. As noted above, we know that the Tutbury cartulary was selectively altered to conceal its original dependence on St-Pierresur-Dives, but other tampering or selective record-keeping may be at play.

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were in possession of the knight’s fee by 1135) have been collated in Chart 2. In total, seven individuals appeared both as tenants holding by knight’s service and as donors to Tutbury Priory. Ten individuals also gave at least one donation to the priory who are not listed as directly holding knight’s fees from the Ferrers of the old enfeoffment, but for whom a close family member – brother or father – did so. The charter also shows that there were 20 individuals who held of the old enfeoffment but from whom, and from whose family, no donation was made to the priory, as far as can be seen from surviving evidence. Out of a total of 37 individuals mentioned as holding of the Ferrers old enfeoffment, 54% did not make a grant of land to their lord’s central foundation. Chart 3 shows an identical study using the evidence of the Ferrers new enfeoffment, that is, those who received a grant of land by knight’s service from the Ferrers between 1135 and 1166. There are 17 individuals listed as receiving land in this period. Of these, only one was a donor to the priory, and family members of two of these ‘new’ tenants also made at least one grant. Fourteen out of the 17, however, seem to have made none at all. In the light of the peculiar consolidation of the de Ferrers honour, as argued for by Golob, it is perhaps to be expected that Tutbury Priory would show an especially focused centre for patronage.50 This is borne out to some degree, but only within a small subset of those holding knight’s fees. The number of those holding knight’s fees but who made no donation to the priory is almost double the number who did.51 Moreover, the families of those who appear as holding knight’s fees after 1135 are much less likely to become involved as patrons of the priory and only three kin groups out of 17 did.52 In part, this may be from less impetus to do so, as by 1135 Tutbury priory would have been a long-established house with a substantial endowment, and the mid-twelfth century saw newer houses being founded locally. These figures are not sensitive, however, to the number of fees that each individual or kin-group held. These could vary widely, between nine fees and one-quarter of a fee. The following two charts again take the split at the old and new enfeoffments and takes the number of knight’s fees held by each donor. This shows, essentially, from how many knight’s fees a donation was

50

Golob, ‘Ferrers’, 70–1. See G.D. Barnes, ‘Kirkstall Abbey, 1147–1539: an historical study’, Thoresby Society 58 (Leeds, 1969), 1–28 at 10, 12, 15–18; T. Burrows, ‘The geography of monastic property in Medieval England: a case study of Nostell and Bridlington Priories’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 57 (1985), 76–85 at 85. 52 On kin involvement in patronage see below, 141–3. The lower figure for the new enfeoffment on the honour may also reflect that such tenants were more likely to be new men. Unlike longer-established tenants, they and their families were less likely to be tied into local networks, or to have inherited connections to a local house. 51

Chart 2  Proportion of donations to Tutbury Priory by Ferrers knightly tenants of the old enfeoffment (pre-1139).

Chart 3  Proportion of donations to Tutbury Priory by Ferrers knightly tenants of the new enfeoffment (1139–66).

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made to Tutbury Priory, and questions whether those who held more of the Ferrers were more likely to act as donors to their priory. The figures from the weighted charts show that, unsurprisingly, those who held heavier service (and, presumably, more land) from the Ferrers were more likely to have been donors to the priory. Still, however, there is a significant lack of involvement from many of the more prominent tenants on the honour. In over a third of the total knight’s fees granted in the old enfeoffment, there is no record for the tenant acting as patron to his lord’s foundation. Twenty-one fees had been created in the new enfeoffment; out of these, donations were made from the holders of 31/4 knight’s fees, leaving a significant number of fees where the holders did not become involved in the priory. Moreover, within those patronising the priory, there was wide variation in involvement. Roger de Livet’s grant of two parts of tithe of his demesne of Somerby and Dalby (Leics.) sometime before 1150x59 is the only record of the family’s involvement with the priory,53 although Robert de Livet, his kinsman, held two knight’s fees of the Ferrers of the old enfeoffment and was steward to the Ferrers between 1139 and 1158.54 This behaviour seems to have been due to the Livets’ relationship with other lords. Roger de Livet appears in 13 of the charters of Chester collected by Geoffrey Barraclough. Several of these were relatively local, with de Livet appearing as a witness in charters of Earl Hugh de Kevelioc (1153–81) relating to the Augustinian cell at Calke (Derbys.) which Richard d’Avranches had founded 1115x20,55 Coventry, Barrow-upon-Soar (Leics.) and lands in Leek (Staffs.), which could be attributed to having landed interests nearby.56 The earls of Chester had significant holdings in these areas. De Livet also appears as a witness to the earl’s grants in the Wirral area and Chester itself, and, most significantly, as a witness in Hugh’s confirmation of the grants of his predecessors to St Stephen’s, Caen, given at Chevilly in mid-1171.57 Taken as a whole, this suggests strongly that Roger de Livet was regularly in attendance on Earl Hugh – making the lack of participation in the de Ferrers honour unsurprising. He may also have held serial allegiances to the de Ferrers and earls of Chester. By contrast, those families who were more generous towards the priory tended to be those without substantial interests elsewhere. The de Touke group gained knight’s fees from the de Ferrers during the time of Robert I and II de Ferrers. Humphrey de Touke acquired half a knight’s fee which had been held by Ralph fitz William during Henry I’s reign, and was further 53 Tutbury

no. 52, a general confirmation by Robert de Ferrers II (1150x59). The original charter for this has not survived in the cartulary and is not known elsewhere. 54 CB CLXI/10. 55 Colvin argued for this dating on the basis of a writ by Henry I to Ranulf I earl of Chester, that the latter should respect the grants by his predecessor Richard to Calke (Colvin, ‘Calke Priory’, 102–3; see also G. Barraclough, ‘Chester charters’, in A Medieval Miscellany for D.M. Stenton, 25–43 at 32, n.1. 56 Barraclough, nos. 121, 147–8, 176–7, 193. 57 Ibid., nos. 162, 131–2, 174, 184–6.

Chart 4  Weighted proportion of donations to Tutbury Priory by Ferrers knightly tenants of the old enfeoffment (pre-1139).

Chart 5  Weighted proportion of donations to Tutbury Priory by Ferrers knightly tenants of the new enfeoffment (1139–66).

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enfeoffed with one by Robert II. William de Touke was also enfeoffed by the latter, with a quarter of a knight’s fee. These men do not appear to have had any other lords. Hawise de Touke, their kinswoman, granted the priory two burgages in Tutbury. This was granted in alms c.1185 by Henry de Touke, their kinsman, and augmented with a messuage with curtilage in Anslow (Staffs.).58 In the general confirmation by Robert de Ferrers II, dated 1150x59, a considerable number of grants were recorded, of which a majority were demesne tithes rather than lands. Larger grants such as that by the Toukes appear as a particularly generous effort, therefore, against the general trend for those of the new enfeoffment to not become involved with Tutbury. The Shirley family were the most prominent Ferrers tenants and, as discussed in Chapter 2, appear to have held solely of them until the third quarter of the twelfth century. Henry son of the Domesday tenant Saswalo had held five knight’s fees in 1135, and his brother Fulcher four. By 1166, Sewall, the heir of both,59 held all nine – by far the largest holding of any de Ferrers tenant. Their donations to the priory remain consistently generous through the twelfth century. At or soon after the foundation, Saswalo gave two parts of his demesne at Hoon (Derbys.).60 Henry son of Saswalo granted the vill of Newton (Derbys.) with appurtenances; and his heir Jordan added several acres to this.61 Matilda Ridel, wife of Sewall son of Fulcher, left an annual rent of 7s. in her will (sub testamento dimisit)62; Sewall himself granted a copse and land between the castle and mill of Tutbury;63 and ‘Sewal of Shirley’ granted more land at Hoon in the late twelfth century.64 The scale of these grants is entirely different from those of other tenants, and may reflect the greater wealth at the family’s disposal. It may also reflect a closer relationship than average between the family and the de Ferrers for part of the twelfth century. Even within these instances where the primary motivator for the choice of Tutbury seems to have been seigneurial, kin and locality are likely to have also played a role. Sometimes, where a man’s kin and the scatter of his lands fell within a particular locality, the interests of his family and locality could reinforce the seigneurial bond, and direct all of an individual’s patronage and attention in the same direction. Conversely, it was not uncommon for these ties of lordship, kinship and locality to pull in different directions, and to thereby disperse a man’s attention and patronage. 58

Tutbury, no. 130. See above, 95, 98–9. 60 Tutbury, no. 52. 61 This was confirmed by Robert I de Ferrers 1135–39 (ibid., no. 62); by Robert II de Ferrers 1150–59 (ibid., no. 52); and by Pope Alexander III in his general confirmation to the priory of 1162–63 (ibid., no. 1). 62 Ibid., no. 142 (1161x82). 63 Ibid., no. 67 (1161x82). 64 Ibid., no. 113. 59

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Grants to religious houses tended to draw in other family members and successive generations in order to confirm an initial grant. As Barbara Rosenwein argued in her work on Cluny, however, religious houses could also find themselves deprived of a donation by a donor’s descendants who could seek to challenge the validity of the house’s tenancy, or in some cases simply annex the land back.65 Although a few instances of this survive from the area, more often it appears that a donor’s heirs would confirm the grant, for which a reward is sometimes recorded, and in some cases would augment the original gift, either by adding more lands or by remitting services due from it. Where the religious house in question was under the protection of the lord from whom a family held lands, and from whom heirs wished to hold in the future, the kinship element became ever more tightly bound. But there is also a geographical dimension to this: one of the main factors in choosing which religious house to support seems to have been its proximity to a minor lord’s own lands. This factor may have been in play with two of the instances above. The Shirleys and Toukes held land within sight of the castle and priory of Tutbury and, in both cases, the grants which they made to the priory fell within the same area, rather than being drawn from more profitable estates further away. The Livets had granted, however, tithes on their land at Old Dalby and Somerby, both lying some 40 miles to the east of Tutbury. This may reflect the distribution of their lands and suggests another reason why their grants to Tutbury were so few: the pull of lordship was strong enough to exact one donation from them to their lord’s main foundation, but their attention was later diverted both by their other lords, and their distance from the house. The interaction of geography and lordship on driving religious donations can be seen more clearly in those instances where a lord’s family founded several religious houses at various points in their honours. As well as Tutbury, the Ferrers also founded Merevale Abbey near Atherstone in 1148, a few miles over the county border in Warwickshire;66 and had some hand in the foundation of Darley Abbey on the outskirts of Derby in the mid-twelfth century. Chapter 4 discusses Darley’s place in Derby and its interaction with the Ferrers within the town.67 The current chapter takes a different focus and addresses the interaction between Darley Abbey and Ferrers minor lords as a house that was more peripheral to Ferrers interests. 65

B. Rosenwein, To be the Neighbor of St Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property (Ithaca, 1989), 4, 48, 52–74. 66 VCH Warks, II., 75–6. No cartulary from the house is extant, but it is clear that the distribution of lands was much wider than for other Ferrers houses. Robert II de Ferrers, its founder, gave to it land in Arden Forest in Warwickshire, with lands in Whittington, Weston and Orton-on-the-Hill (Leics.), and Hardwick, Hartington and Pilsbury (Derbys.) (ibid., 75). It also built up a more local landed base, however, and seems to have received a considerable number of grants around (Nether and Over) Seal (Leics.) (Gresley charters, nos. 1, 4–7, 11, 12, 14–24, 26, 27, 29, 32, 41, 43, 44, 49, 50, 52, 55, 57–65). 67 See below, 157–65.

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The initial Ferrers endowment of Darley was considerably smaller than their donations to Tutbury, even taking into account the smaller resources needed for an Augustinian house. The early confirmation by Robert II de Ferrers is couched in terms that suggest he himself was the founder.68 Although he granted some property to the abbey, it is on a much smaller scale than the founding endowment of the earlier Ferrers house at Tutbury.69 The continuing involvement of Robert II’s descendants in the abbey is similarly much smaller than for Tutbury, sometimes only amounting to handfuls of acres70 – although they are nevertheless recognised with their own section in the cartulary.71 Similarly, fewer of the Ferrers tenants seem to have made grants to Darley. The ever-attentive Shirleys made no grants from the main family line, although a member of a cadet line did so in the late twelfth century. It is significant that this latter individual appears to have had lands nearer to this house than to Tutbury, which seems to have drawn his attention towards Darley either as a house in its own right or through an association with Derby.72 In all, seven families who held knight’s fees of the de Ferrers appear as donors to the canons. All of these are known to have had lands in the vicinity of Darley. Of these, five had also made at least one grant to Tutbury priory in 68

This is not entirely out of line with the style of some confirmation charters more generally which imply that grants given by subordinates were the gifts of the lord himself. It may alternatively be a reflection of some complexity in the original foundation, if the earl’s input was a large one – such as arranging licensing from Stephen and Henry II. Darley, no. N2 mentions that he founded the house on the Crown’s demesne (on which point see Darley i, iii), with the licence of both of these kings, and ‘presented’ the abbot to both of them (abbatem uero presentaui utrique regum). In addition, the clause et posui in eam canonicos et abbatem suggests that Robert may have had a role in arranging canons to populate the monastery. 69 Darley, N2–3. See below, 157–65. 70 Darley N6 records the grant of William I de Ferrers of 8 acres in Sewelledale, and 2 acres for a sheepfold. N17 records the grant of a single acre in Riber; and N21 5 acres in Wigwell (all Derbys.). 71 Darley, N7–8, N14–15, N18. The Darley cartulary, BL Cotton MS Titus C. ix, dates from late Henry III or early Edward I. Darlington suggests a date of c.1275, with some additions by a different scribe into the early fourteenth century. Scribe A, who wrote most of the complete original divided the material into 14 sections, labelled A–P (omitting J). These sections were mostly organised by geography, with some exceptions – N is devoted to charters of the de Ferrers earls. Darlington works mostly from this, supplementing material from Bodleian Gough MS Derby I, which was produced in the later fourteenth century. Many of the documents in this latter manuscript are repeats from BL Cotton MS Titus. The circumstances of the production of these registers are unclear, as are the identity of the scribes – so any deliberate manipulation of the charters, as in Tutbury, is more difficult to detect (Darlington, Darley, i, lxxv–i). 72 Darley, N9–11. Henry fitz Fulcher gave half a mark of silver which William I de Ferrers had previously granted him, and two mills – ‘Fulcher’s mill’ on the Derwent, and that at Alport.

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addition to Darley. Alfinus de Brailsford appears in the general confirmation of Robert II de Ferrers of 1150x59, as having given Tutbury Priory the church of Osmaston (Derbys.) with the consent of Robert I in a grant that probably took place long before the 1150s; and ‘Elfinus’, probably the same man, gave two parts of the tithe of his demesne of Thurvaston (Derbys.) and Osmaston, and 4 bovates in Hollington (Derbys.).73 His son Nicholas and grandson Henry granted to the canons the service from their meadow between Derby and Markeaton, 1138x48, which may be before Robert de Ferrers took the house under his protection;74 but Henry’s brother, Robert,75 appears to have given a not inconsiderable amount of land to Tutbury at a similar time.76 Darley was a different kind of foundation from Tutbury, however. The original foundation was probably made by a group of burgesses, before it was taken under Ferrers protection. As earls of Derby, they were prominent both in the town and the Tutbury honour, and so it is hardly surprising that it attracted most of the religious donations made from Derby and its immediate environs.77 Much of the patronage of the house, then, seems to have come through an overlap of seigneurial and local ties, particularly from the town itself. Although the house attracted a few of the more prominent Ferrers tenants, the seigneurial impact was largely tempered by locality, and it was this that seems to have been one of the primary factors influencing grants there.

Minor lords and their lords’ patronage In addition to their own houses, greater lords generally seem to have donated to a range of religious houses. The focus here is on the impact that a lord’s grants outside his own honour had on his men. Where we see lords making such grants, it is not uncommon to find some of their tenants imitating their patronage and granting land to the same house. By unpicking where this did – and did not – take place, it is possible to draw out some suggestions about the weight of seigneurial ties versus those of kinship and locality. The first and most striking pattern is that minor lords who held land of one lord only were much more likely to imitate their lord’s grants, even in areas that were far outside where they themselves held land. To return to the Shirley family, for whom good records survive, it appears that they followed 73

Tutbury, 52. The name may suggest that this is an English family. Darley, i, xii. 75 The ‘Dolfinus’ referred to as avus meus in this charter appears to be a variant of Alfinus (Darlington, Darley, ii, 489 and n.). 76 60 acres, 35 wainabiles (land suitable for cultivation), and 5 acres of meadow. Tutbury, no. 118 (c.1150). 77 Darley’s position as an Augustinian house may also have encouraged this. Unlike Benedictines, Augustinian canons provided pastoral care and some houses acted as hospitals (Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, 48–50). 74 Darlington,

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their lord’s grants closely across several counties in the first three-quarters of the twelfth century.78 When Robert de Ferrers granted land to Kenilworth Priory (Warks), it appears that the Shirleys copied him, in the latter case granting lands from the sole Shirley manor in Warwickshire, at Ettington, which lay 16 miles to the south of the house.79 The original record for either of these grants has not survived, but the two appear consecutively in a general confirmation by Henry II. This records that the Shirley grant was made with the concensus [sic] of Robert de Ferrers, which strongly suggests his presence at the time of the donation to the house.80 I have been unable to find any evidence of direct relations between the family of Geoffrey de Clinton, the founder of Kenilworth, and that of the Shirleys, or any lands previously held by the house in the Ettington area. The suggestion seems to be, therefore, that this was a grant prompted solely by seigneurial imitation. This suggestion is stronger when we consider the Shirley grant to Buildwas Abbey in Shropshire. Robert de Ferrers had been present as a witness to its foundation by Roger, bishop of Chester in 1133.81 The Ferrers interest may have in part been that this was a relatively new type of house, being one of the first of the Savigniac Order in England. Although the Shirley interest in the house is more difficult to trace than for Kenilworth, it is clear that, at some time before the 1160s, Henry fitz Fulcher de Shirley had granted to it land in Ivonbrook (Derbys.) that lay around 60 miles to the north-east of the foundation.82 Imitation of the Ferrers patronage seems to have been the sole motivation for choosing this house. Even multiple tenants, however, could be drawn into imitating their lord’s patronage. Roger de Buron was in 1166 a small tenant in chief, with four men holding a total of six knight’s fees from him. He himself did service of a quarter of a knight from his demesne.83 De Buron made several grants to Darley Abbey during Henry II’s reign.84 Of his men, two of them, William de Heriz and Patrick de Rosel, held two and one knight’s fees respectively, whose kin appear in connection with Darley. Margaret, Patrick’s daughter, granted to Darley the suit of her men in Kilburn to the mill there, and quitclaimed the 12d. which they were bound to pay her annually, late in 78

See above, 92–100.

79 Dugdale, Monasticon, VI., 213–24; E. Carey-Hill, The Abbey of

St. Mary, Kenilworth, (Coventry, 1937), 1. 80 Hugh de Ferrers’ grant of Broch is followed in the charter by Henry fitz Fulcher’s grant of Ettington. This probably took place before the early 1160s, as Henry exchanged his inheritance with his brother Sewall at this date. 81 W. Dugdale, The Antiquities of Warwickshire (London, 1730), 619. 82 Shirley, Stemmata Shirleiana, appendix, 13, no. XXIV. 83 CB CLXII. 84 Darley, K4. His grants to Darley included Horsley mill, with appurtenances, multure and suit, the messuage of Lady Aalina his sister in Havercroft, the furlong by the canons’ fishpond, and a confirmation of their mills and fishpond to them (Darley K5).

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Henry II’s reign. William and Robert de Heriz, in conjunction with the probable burgesses Walkelin and Goda of Derby, gave land in Thurlescroft to the canons, for which the original charter does not seem to survive in the cartulary. Robert de Heriz and his son Ivo continued this connection with Darley, and the latter’s wife seems to have been buried there.85 As with other instances above, most of these grants were of lands in close proximity to the religious house in question: in this case, within 6 miles. Again, lordship and locality are clear influences. Nor was this pattern for multiple tenants restricted solely to those holding by knight service. Darley cartulary refers to another tenant of de Buron’s, Philip of Kilburn, who was a benefactor. He does not appear in any document as holding by knight service, and appears to have held by rent and service – that is, what was later called socage. Late in Henry II’s reign, with the consent of his lord (assensu Rogeri de Birun domini mei), he granted the multure of his land and men at Kilburn to be rendered at the mill there which Roger de Burun had given them previously.86 Ralf, son of Beatrice of Kilburn, similarly granted lands and mill-soke.87 Darlington gave this a possible date of early in Henry III’s reign, on the grounds of its inclusion in Henry III’s charter of confirmation of 1236,88 and the appearance of a Ralf of Kilburn in 1234.89 This is certainly possible; but the augmentation of de Buron’s grant suggests that it occurred at a similar time to the latter event.

Kinship and patronage Founding a religious house was not, however, the sole preserve of great lords and tenants-in-chief. Starting in the first decades of the twelfth century, minor lords – both those with small tenancies-in-chief, and those at the subtenant level – began to establish their own houses. These tended to divert most of the family’s patronage in this direction, to the exclusion of foundations of 85

Cole nos. 4–6, Darlington, Darley, ii, 349–50. Robert de Heriz also quitclaimed to the canons all his rights in Oakerthorpe (Derbys.) for half a mark of silver annually from the canons 1179x98; he later quitclaimed this half mark for the 4 bovates which he claimed against them there, again 1179x98; and granted them advowson of the church of neighbouring South Wingfield (Derbys.) 1179x82. His son Ivo confirmed this latter grant, and later added two other grants, of a bovate there, and land at Blakemoncros, with the body of his wife Hawise Briweir (all 1198x1225). 86 Darley, K9. 87 Ralf granted a furlong, and suit (sectam) from all his lands and men to the mills which Roger de Burun had given to the canons. He also granted all easements of Kilburn mill, the fishpond to be constructed there, and quitclaimed all his rights to the mill. Darley, K7. 88 Calendar of Charter Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office (6 vols, London, 1903–27), i, 222. 89 Darlington, Darley, ii, 483–4, n. 1.

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their own lords. The Gresley family, mentioned above in Chapter 2, do not appear anywhere as donors to a Ferrers foundation until a small grant by Margaret, widow of Nicholas de Gresley in the early thirteenth century.90 William fitzNigel had founded Gresley Priory during the reign of Henry I, and this seems to have been the main focus for the family’s endowments.91 Little information and no cartulary survive for this house, but it seems to have remained small.92 If we address the sixteenth-century Valor Ecclesiasticus, the only extant source that gives us a snapshot of the house’s endowment, we can see that the house held land around the long-standing Gresley lands of Seal and Gresley itself, which would suggest donations by family and the local Gresley tenants. Kin involvement could also be carried over in marriage.93 The Grendon family were clear multiple tenants by the end of Henry I’s reign.94 This seems to have been reflected in the range of religious houses to which they made donations in the twelfth century.95 From the later twelfth century, however, most of their patronage was directed towards Dale Abbey, following the marriage of Margaret, daughter of Ralph son of Geremund, to Serlo de Grendon.96 Part of her dower lands was a moiety of Ockbrook (Derbys.), 90 This

was of two of her villeins. She bound her son William to maintain (manutenebit) it (Tutbury, 250 (early thirteenth century)). She received a mark of silver from the prior in return. Margaret’s own ancestry has proven untraceable. This grant outside the normal family range of patronage may be a reflection of her maiden kin’s preferences. 91 See above, 73–82. 92 Dugdale, Monasticon, VI, pt. I, 550. Nicholas de Gresley and his wife Margaret also founded a small priory for four canons at Calwich in Dovedale, sometime after c.1125. This branch of the family had its focus at Longford (Derbys.) and does not much appear in documents in connection with the fitzNigel branch, but some connection was likely to have been maintained. It was originally a cell of Kenilworth, which is probably to be attributed to Nicholas’ wife Margaret having been a ward of Geoffrey de Clinton, the founder of Kenilworth Priory (VCH Staffs. III, 237–8). One Robert de Gresley also founded Swineshead abbey (Lincs.) c.1148 (VCH Lincs. II, 145). 93 Saul, Lordship and Faith, 66. 94 Roger de Grendon appears in 1166 as having held one knight’s fee apiece from William de Ferrers and Robert Marmion of the old enfeoffment, and one and a half carucates from Geoffrey Ridel. His son Serlo de Grendon appears in connection with the Shirleys and Ferrers (CB CLXI/33; CL/7, CLIII/10; VCH Derbys, II., 69–71; ROLLR DE2638/2/1 (late C12th); Golob, ‘Ferrers’, ii. appendix no. 34; Shirley, Stemmata Shirleiana, appendix, 9, no. XV). 95 Robert de Grendon appears as a witness to grants by William Salvagius of lands in ‘Freseley’ and ‘Dodenhole’ to Polesworth Monastery, and of Eustace de Moreton concerning lands in Southwell (Notts.). Serlo and William de Grendon appear as witnesses to a grant by Richard de Luvetot to Garendon Abbey (Nichols, Leicester, III ii. 809). 96 Saltman, Dale Abbey, 2. Houses could also be founded as a means of cementing marriage alliances (Burton, Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 86, 192).

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where a baker had established himself as hermit during the reign of King Stephen, and where with the support of Margaret’s father Ralph he had built a chapel. The patronage of the hermit was carried over into the new marriage and expanded. The Dale Abbey Chronicle records that Serlo’s godmother (‘the Gomme of the Dale’) wanted to keep religious life in Depedale, and her and Serlo’s influence brought in an initial foundation of canons from the nearby Augustinian cell of Calke (Derbys.).97 Margaret’s dowry, and, we may expect, a tradition of her kin’s involvement was transferred successfully to the de Grendon family, and proved notably resilient through an extraordinary run of bad luck, which necessitated five attempts for the house to finally be successfully founded.98

Locality and patronage In general, it is more difficult to trace the tenants of the more minor lords: few, if any charters survive that seem to have been issued by them, and often these seem to have been carried out in the court of another lord, meaning that it is unclear whether witnesses were present for them or had been present in the lord’s court on other business. We are not, therefore, able to say with confidence the effect that these foundations had on the relatively lowly men who constituted the retinue of such individuals. There is also a problem in that the surviving records for smaller houses seem to have been less likely to survive. Where cartularies are extant, however, locality seems to outweigh seigneurial connection as the strongest link between a smaller house and its donors.99 Ranton Priory in Staffordshire, also known as St Mary of the Assarts, is one such instance. It was founded on a site approximately 7 miles to the west of Stafford, and from the name appears to have been on newly-assarted land. It was a daughter-house to Haughmond abbey in Shropshire until 1247.100 The house’s cartulary is a little sparse for the period under consideration here.101 Nevertheless, 97 Saltman,

Dale Abbey, 1–2. Ibid., 1–5. See also Crouch, William Marshal, 65–6. 99 Cownie, Religious Patronage, 180. See also Postles, ‘Defensores Astabimus’, 114–5. 100 VCH Staffs III., 251–2. Prior to this there seems to have been ongoing dispute between daughter and mother through the last years of the twelfth century and the first decades of the thirteenth. 101 BL, Cotton MS Vespasian C. XV; Davis, Medieval Cartularies, no. 823. The cartulary comprises 61 folios. Up to fo. 53 it is in a fourteenth-century hand; fos 54–61 are a mixture of hands to the early sixteenth century. Initial letters and headings are rubricated, as are references to members of the founder’s family. Davis dated the cartulary to the first half of the fourteenth century, with some additions to 1531. Wrottesley produced a calendar for the 1883 Collections for a History of Staffordshire, but it has since received little attention (G. Wrottesley, ‘The Ronton Chartulary’, Collections for a History of Staffordshire 4 (1883), 264–95. The village is now known as Ranton). It has not been possible to find originals of any of the early charters. The majority of the charters omit or 98

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it preserves enough to give a sense of the early grants. It was founded by Robert fitz Noel102 sometime before 1166, almost on his doorstep – under 2 miles south of what appears to have been his caput at Ellastone – and endowed with land at Ranton only.103 In fitz Noel’s foundation charter, most of the witnesses are certainly family: Thomas, fitz Noel’s son, and Richard and John his brothers. The only other three recorded witnesses, Hubert de Handsacre and his sons Robert and William, may also be related to the fitz Noels, if Wrottesley was correct in thinking that fitz Noel was brother or son of the Robert who held Handsacre of the bishop of Chester in Domesday.104 Robert fitz Noel held lands from several lords: several manors in Staffordshire of the bishop of Coventry,105 Ranton itself from Robert de Stafford, and possibly Grandborough to the south of Rugby in

considerably abridge the witness lists, which largely restricts the possibility of verifying the documents by cross-reference with contemporaries. Nevertheless, what we do have of the meat of the charters appears plausible for the dates. Beyond this it is not possible to give a greater level of certainty, only to note that in the places where individuals who appear in the cartulary occur elsewhere, the dates correspond well enough to be able to suggest that, even if individual charter were tweaked here and there by a zealous fourteenth-century scribe, the people occurring in the cartulary are likely to be accurate as donors. It is impossible to know, however, what proportion of the grants made were preserved in the cartulary, and we may wonder whether those particularly connected with the founder’s family were prioritised for copying. 102 The Ranton cartulary preserves a fourteenth-century tradition that Noel and his wife Celestria received Ellenhall as a reward for participation in William I’s conquest. As Wrottesley pointed out, however, this is land is recorded as being in the possession of the bishops of Chester after the Conquest (DB i, fo. 247 – although his statement that it was a possession of the see before 1066 seems unwarranted). Since no tenant is recorded TRE or TRW it is possible that Noel held as an unnamed subtenant; but, if so, it is likely that he had received the land from the bishops, not King William. As Wrottesley summarised it, this account ‘was not written in fact before the fourteenth century, and must be looked upon as one of those pious fabrications based on oral tradition which the inmates of religious houses usually composed in honour of their founders’ (Wrottesley, ‘Ronton’, 264–5, quotation at 265). 103 BL Cotton MS Vespasian C. XV, fo. 1; Wrottesley, ‘Ronton’, 265. Wrottesley noted that some of the witnesses to the grant appear to have been deceased by 1166, which allows this as the latest possible date. A date in the early 1160s seems plausible, when all of the men in question were in their majority and holding their fees. Fitz Noel later seems to have added to his foundation grant with the churches of Sethford, and later all churches from his demesne lands (Ranton, fo. 2). Both of these were witnessed by the prior of Stone Priory, and the first of these names him as Roger, who appeared in 1162, and between 1174x76 (VCH Staffs, III, 246). Eyton thought that Robert fitz Noel died in 1171 (Eyton, ‘Staffordshire Chartulary’, 256). These secondary grants probably also took place in the 1160s, therefore. 104 Wrottesley, ‘Ronton’, 265. 105 Wrottesley’s statement on the source for these episcopal grants seems plausible. Noel’s wife, Celestria, is recorded in a document appended to Hearne’s ‘History of Glastonbury’ to have been daughter of Robert de Limesi, bishop of Chester c.1088–1177 (Wrottesley, ‘Ronton’, 265).

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Warwickshire from the prior of Coventry.106 Probably soon after the original foundation, Robert of Stafford confirmed the grant for his miles Robert.107 This appears to have been the only involvement by the Staffords, and no member of the latter family thereafter appears in the cartulary. In the following generations, a considerable proportion of the house’s grants came from the fitz Noel family. Thomas fitz Robert (d.1206), who seems to have adopted Noel as an avonym, confirmed his father’s grants c.1184x97,108 and later added to them nearby lands in Bridgeford, Coton Clanford (Staffs) and further south at Grandborough (Warks).109 A few donors apparently from outside the family begin to appear in this generation, but they are limited in number and geographical range. Since it has not been possible to trace any of the retinue of the Noel family, no discussion of the role of lordship in drawing in donors can be made here. Nevertheless, even if some of the men discussed below were Noel men, it would not be possible to disentangle the ties of locality and lordship. Walter Coyne, his son John, and Alan, either Walter’s son or grandson, gave land in Weston, which lay around 11 miles away, to the east of Stafford in Pirehill hundred.110 Coyne had also given land by the River Blithe, to the north of Ranton, and the house’s interest in this area may have prompted a subsequent grant by Robert fitz Elias and his wife Philomena.111 Richard de Stockton’s grant of a virgate in Stockton (Warks.), which lies 8 miles to the south-west of Ranton, is recorded in the cartulary both as the initial grant, and is embedded in a later inspeximus of John de Chetwynde.112 The latter of these preserves the witness list, a feature generally omitted or abridged from most charters in the cartulary, and this provides a useful snapshot of the individuals connected to the priory in the 1180s and 1190s. The founder’s family was prominent, with Thomas Noel, Philip Noel, and his brother Adam Noel witnessing the grant. Adam de Chetwynd, whose toponym links him to the vill 10 miles to the west, is the first generation of his family to appear in connection with the priory, but his descendants were 106 This

latter grant seems odd, being as it is approximately 70 miles south-east of the cluster of fitz Noel lands in Staffordshire. Nevertheless, Wrottesley thought it was this manor, and it has not been possible to find a plausible place-name closer to Ranton itself (Wrottesley, ‘Ronton’, 264). 107 CB LXXXVIII/34 recorded that a Robert son of ‘Noeel’ held a fee of Robert of Stafford’s demesne. The latter’s confirmation on Ranton, fo. 1 calls fitz Noel miles meus. 108 Ranton, fo. 2. The witnesses to this grant were three Walters: the abbots of Waltham and Lilleshall, and the prior of St Thomas’, almost certainly the Augustinian house near Stafford. These appear, respectively, 1184–1201, c.1177–1203, and 1181–97 (VCH Essex II. 171; Shrops II. 79; Staffs III. 266), which allows an approximate date range. 109 Ranton, fos 2, 5, 55. 110 Ibid., fos 28, 34. 111 Ibid., fo. 28. 112 Ibid., fo. 26.

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to make grants to the house.113 Thomas de Cresswell and Jordan Knightley appear as witness to de Stockton’s grant, and to several of those of Thomas Noel.114 The names of both of these witnesses suggest that they were based within a close radius of Ranton’s lands. The hamlet of Knightley is barely 2 miles from the house; Cresswell lies a little further afield, 15 miles to the north-east and in Totmonslow hundred, but near the Coyne donations at Weston, and possibly that of Robert fitz Elias.115 As with Dale Abbey, the founder’s connection to the house was transmitted through the female line on marriage. Alice, the daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Noel,116 married William de Harcourt c.1200. He confirmed the grants of his predecessors in a charter witnessed by his father-in-law Thomas Noel, and Jordan Knightly and Thomas de Cresswell.117 William does not seem to have lived long after his marriage, and we see no more of him in the cartulary. His widow Alice, however, made a number of donations before her death in c.1221, which seem to have followed the locations of previous grants by the family.118 Alice’s son Richard de Harcourt took on the interest in the house, and it is during this fourth generation of the founder’s family that the house began to acquire more significant grants across a wider area. Ranton priory presents us with another instance of a small foundation by a subtenant family with multiple lords. Unlike Dale abbey, it seems to have been more fortunate in its early years: it was necessary, after all, to establish it only once. Nevertheless, in the period under discussion it was small, and remained small. The primary interest was from the kin, and this was transmitted through one of the co-heiresses. Locality seems to have played an 113 Ibid.

114 Ibid., fos

2, 3, 5. A handful of individuals – William de Dustone, William de Extall and Thomas Halughton – only appear once in the charters (ibid., fos 5, 26), but given the widespread omission of witness lists, it is not possible to determine the extent of their involvement. 115 The location of fitz Elias’ grant is uncertain. The grant is of meadow lying above the River Blithe, by the meadow that the canons held of Walter Coyne. The only record we have of grants by the latter are at Weston (fo. 28). The present Blithe runs, however, for 18 miles from the east of Stoke-on-Trent to Blythe Bridge, continues east to its confluence with the Trent at King’s Bromley, and does not pass near Weston. It may be that this tenure of Walter Coyne is a lease which does not appear in the cartulary; certainly, some hierarchy of tenure, rather than donation in alms, seems to have been implied. The appearance of Thomas de Cresswell may suggest that Ranton had a secondary cluster of interests around this area on the River Blithe. The fact that he appears in the cartulary several times, and for areas where he is not known to have held lands, suggests that he had more of a connection to the priory than merely witnessing a transaction of lands that adjoined his. 116 Joan, her sister and co-heiress, appears in two charters recorded in the cartulary, but does not seem to have made any grants to the priory (Ranton, fo. 55). 117 Ibid., fo. 3. 118 Ibid., fos 3, 55.

Map 13  Benefactions and witnesses to Ranton Priory.

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important role in drawing in donors and regular witnesses from among those of a similarly minor subtenant level. The majority of those who appear in both categories have toponyms that mark them out as being local to Ranton or some of its lands. As discussed above, a religious house offered tangible benefits to its donors, particularly when it was close to their lands. A wish to tap into these benefits must lie behind such a strikingly localised pattern of men of the priory, and their choice to donate lands to this small house rather than one further afield. Ranton priory lay within Pirehill hundred, but even its early benefactions seem to have been shaped by proximity rather than hundred bounds. This is a pattern common to all houses studied here. Darley Abbey in Morleystone wapentake (Derbys.) received ample grants from within the same hundred, but also up to Scarsdale119 and Wirksworth wapentakes (Derbys.),120 and some in Nottinghamshire.121 In a few cases, the house attracted grants from the opposite side of a hundred boundary: from Breadsall, which lay in Appletree wapentake, on the opposite side of the River Derwent from Darley and a scant 2 miles away from the house;122 and Duffield, 3 miles to the north of the house, also lying in Appletree. Similarly, Tutbury Priory on the northern border with Offlow hundred (Staffs.) was endowed with lands in Totmonslow hundred (Staffs.),123 Appletree wapentake,124 Framland wapentake (Leics.),125 and from the Ferrers lands in Berkshire.126 A charter of Hugh of Okeover, dated c.1210, concerns lands in Mayfield, Okeover (Totmonslow, Staffs.), and Snelston (Appletree, Derbys.). Nor does there seem to have been a split between lesser houses drawing from the hundred, and greater houses having a wider focus. Dale Abbey, which as we have seen was at times too poor to survive, lay on the boundary of Appletree and Morleystone wapentakes in Derbyshire. As well as drawing some local grants from both of these wapentakes, it also received grants in Wirksworth wapentake (Derbys.),127 and substantial ones in Nottinghamshire128 and Staffordshire.129 In general, then, the influence of locality seems to have been based on proximity rather than being strictly focused around hundreds or shires. As with seigneurial landed holdings, crossing these boundaries does not seem to have been avoided.

119 Darley,

nos. H19, H20. nos. I1–2. 121 Ibid., nos. K1–2. 122 Ibid., no. K17. 123 Tutbury, no. 13 (1188x94), 179 (c.1220), 319 (c.1210). 124 Ibid., no. 10 (c.1145), 31 (1198x1208), 53 (c.1165), 110 (late twelfth century). 125 Ibid., no. 68 (1158x59). 126 Ibid., nos. 23 (24 June 1199), 28 (1174x84), 54 (1161x82), 55 (1161x82), 63 (1160x90). 127 Dale, nos. 545, 545a. 128 Ibid., nos. 397–99, 402, 407, 409, 442. 129 Ibid., no. 501. 120 Ibid.,

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The interweaving of ties With these instances above, many of the likely influences can be teased out. Nevertheless, in a local society which saw intermarriage, piecemeal holdings, and multiple lordship, the forces of lordship, kinship, and locality can be impossible to unpick, so tightly have they become wound. One charter printed by Jeayes illustrates this neatly.130 During the reign of Henry II, Roger de Buron quitclaimed to Henry son of Fulcher de Shirley and his heirs 5s. rent in Weston,131 so that Henry might pay the same to the canons of Darley. The witness list is suggestive of something of the network around de Buron and Darley Abbey. It includes Ralph de Breadsall, Peter de Sandiacre, Patrick Rosel, Albert de Orsele (?Overseal, Leics.), David de Stanton, William son of Colling and Walkelin monetarius. Since witness lists for charters in the Darley cartulary are so few, it is not possible to say with any degree of certainty which of these had been regularly present for the abbey or were for de Buron. Patrick Rosel may have been present as part of his lord’s retinue, since there is no of record his direct involvement in the abbey. Albert de Orsele, if he is the same Albert named without a byname in de Buron’s Carta, may also be present in this capacity. Walkelin the moneyer, however, may be the husband of Goda, with whom he made extensive grants to Darley Abbey.132 The couple were clearly of standing within the town, so may have been witnesses either as prominent neighbours, long-standing patrons, or both. Peter de Sandiacre may be the son of the Peter of the same who granted the canons land, and later became a canon of the house. Richard, son of the earlier Peter, also granted the canons a small piece of land.133 Peter de Sandiacre also had direct links to Walkelin and Goda, granting a piece of land known as ‘Cap Acre’ to the latter during Henry II’s reign.134 Ralph de Breadsall is more problematic, but the canons had received grants previously in the vill of Breadsall (Derbys.). The vill stood no more than 2 miles from the abbey itself, so there may be some lands here for which he was a neighbour.

130 Jeayes,

no. 2545. The charter is undated, but the grantor and witness list point to a date in Henry II’s reign. 131 Jeayes says, without explanation, that this is Weston Underwood, in Northamptonshire, 80 miles to the south. Given the local nature of the witnesses, it seems much more likely that this is Weston-on-Trent, 10 miles south of Darley Abbey ( Jeayes, ibid.). 132 See below, 165–70. 133 That of Peter de Sandiacre I was in the New Land of Derby; that of Richard, 2 acres in ‘Crowedoles’. Darlington dates this grant to Henry III’s reign, which may suggest that Richard was grandson of Peter I, son of Peter II (Darley, no. A5). 134 Ibid., no. A2.

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Conclusion Lordship, kinship and proximity, therefore, seem to have been the main factors influencing minor lords’ decisions about which religious house received patronage. Importantly, they could and did overlap. Where they did so, adherence could be striking. The Shirleys’ close involvement with Tutbury Priory for much of the twelfth century may be derived from the coalescing of these three aspects: lordship, locality and kin. They were the tenants of the de Ferrers, of whom the family owned almost all of their holdings. They were within the de Ferrers Appletree block, where the de Ferrers power was at its most concentrated. Thirdly, as much of their kin as can be traced for the twelfth century were similarly involved in serving and holding of the de Ferrers family. Two members are mentioned as serving as chaplains to the earls, and there may have been more. In addition, the on-going grants were substantial. A grant of the Domesday tenant, Saswalo, is recorded in a later comital confirmation. The usual confirmations which tended to keep descendants in connection with the house were substantially added to throughout the twelfth century. This situation, even on de Ferrers lands, was fairly unusual as the de Livet family and others suggest. In a local society where families were intermarrying, holding and granting lands of the same lords and to one another, and with interlocking pieces of land, these ties could easily coalesce. These networks visible around monasteries give us useful insight into the factors that helped to shape the behaviour of the minor lords. Although lordship was important, it was a very varied force depending on the nature of the relationship with lord or lords, and could be cut across by kinship or proximity. Most often, it appears that locality cast the deciding vote about which house should be patronised. It is generally too difficult to try and speak of identity being expressed through patronage, at least with the surviving evidence, but there are hints. The ‘Gomme of the Dale’ is identified by Thomas de Muskham as the ‘godmother’ of Dale Abbey, from her close adherence to it. Similarly, through patronage of a lord’s foundation, it might have been possible to thereby demonstrate allegiance and support to one’s lord; or adherence to a town through patronage of an urban foundation. From this, another tentative step brings us to the suggestion that it is here, in these neighbourhoods of 10 miles or so, that we should seek the roots of the local society that we can see among the later medieval gentry. These were at this point nebulous: it would take the reassertion of the ‘royal’ courts of the shire and hundred in the later twelfth century to begin to structure these around the county divisions.

4

MULTIPLE LORDSHIP AND URBAN CENTRES

T

he previous chapters have focused on lordship over rural lands. Although this represents the majority of the lands and minor lords of the area, urban and proto-urban areas with their associated minor lords and burgesses were a developing presence in the locality. This chapter focuses on the structures of single and multiple lordship within the three county towns: Derby, Stafford and Leicester. In Derby, a divided property and jurisdictional structure meant that no one lord had control of the town. Dispute over the foundation of nearby Augustinian abbey of Darley may indicate a mid-century power struggle between the burgesses and newly appointed earl of Derby. Prosopographical study of those mentioned in the house’s documents shows an active and self-assertive group of burgesses and minor lords. In Stafford, seigneurial control was similarly divided and, although our evidence is poorer than for Derby, a similar group of small landholders emerge in the records. Leicester, by contrast, was under the control of a single lord through much of the period under study. As a result, its communal institutions developed under comital control, and all parts of the town seem to reflect the earls’ power. While there has been a trend in historiography towards showing towns as part of the seigneurial landscape – which is undoubtedly true – the underlying structures are a little different from rural property. This in turn puts lords and their relationship with tenants on a different footing, and seigneurial control in urban property may have been somewhat weaker than in its rural counterparts.1 Briefly, there seem to be four main reasons for this. The first is that towns and their burgesses were often regarded by contemporaries as being directly under the king’s protection – and control – rather than that of a lord.2 During the twelfth century in many boroughs, it seems to be the king’s reeve who is the chief official; it is to the king they pay many of their dues, for some including rent; it is generally to the king that burgesses apply 1

See e.g. S. Reynolds, An Introduction to the History of Medieval Towns (Oxford, 1977), 88. 2 Hudson, OHLE, 815–17.

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for patronage, confirmation or extension of rights. Within a borough, a royal or seigneurial reeve or bailiff was usually the senior official. The second is that the power relations connected to property are different in urban tenure. Borough property was generally heritable, held for a fixed and often low money render (Landgable). This pattern was in place in many boroughs by the late eleventh century.3 Burgage tenure seems to have been similar to socage, although the scribe of Magna Carta included both as separate categories.4 Sales seem to have been more much common than subinfeudation, and generally these were not confirmed by the landlord in writing as in rural property. No confirmation charters survive from any greater lords in this area to confirm lower-level sales in towns. Instead, one of the main bodies for securing a land transaction seems to have been the borough court, sometimes called the Portmanmoot, where transactions could be carried out or witnessed. For instance, for a sale, the reeve may have received in his hand the surrendered property from the seller and to have given it over to the buyer.5 Leicester’s Portmanmoot had its right to oversee land transactions in town confirmed by King John in 1199, with an assurance that all reasonable sales and acquisitions made there were to hold good.6 Generally, borough courts seem to have had more jurisdiction over land disputes than their rural counterparts.7 Tait identified the borough court as a crucial part of the development of communal institutions, and as the place where burgess’ ‘aspirations to greater liberty and self-government first woke to life and found in them an instrument which, powerfully aided by merchant gilds, ultimately secured the realisation of those aspirations and became the sovereign body, the communitas, of the fully developed municipality’.8 These may have developed from a hundred court based in the borough, and by the twelfth century it was normal for a borough to have its own court, which Hudson thinks would have had at least the standing of a ‘rural hundred’.9 Little restriction seems to have existed on the disposition of property, although this could vary between

3

Ibid., 833–4. For a list, see M. de W. Hemmeon, Burgage Tenure in Mediaeval England (Cambridge, MA, 1914), 183–5. 4 Hudson, OHLE, 837; Magna Carta, c. 37. 5 E.g. Pontefract custom, 1194 in M. Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs (2 vols, London, 1904–06), ii, 82; Hudson, OHLE, 837. 6 British Borough Charters, 1042–1216, ed. A Ballard (Cambridge, 1913), 67. 7 Hudson, OHLE, 823–4. He notes, however, that disputes could also be removed to royal courts by writ from the later twelfth century. 8 J. Tait, The Medieval English Borough: Studies on its Origins and Constitutional History (Manchester, 1936), 62. 9 Hudson, OHLE, 820.

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boroughs.10 In some, a lord was able to take first refusal on sales of property, or could insist on a payment via a reeve when a transaction was made.11 Urban property also seems less ‘seigneurial’ because of a simplification of services associated with urban tenure. Hudson notes that lords often seem more interested in preserving payments from rent and other dues than in exercising ‘any more extensive lordship’.12 In none of the records do we have mention of homage or the formation of lordship bonds, even allowing for charters’ general reticence in mentioning them. Where there was great variety in rents and renders for rural property, urban rents were often standardised across a town as landgable. It may be that this removed need for negotiation over services. But more than this, there is little evidence for personal services being attached to urban property, and little evidence for homages being done.13 Some agricultural services may have been attached in some towns, but these were increasingly seeming archaic in the twelfth century and increasingly remitted as a cash render. In the early thirteenth century, Leicester remitted even this render. More limited ‘feudal’ dues seem to have been in place in burgage tenure, too. In some places, wardship was managed by the family and even the king could not take his rights.14 The link between property, lordship, and service was thus weaker in urban tenure than in its rural counterpart. As a result, it seems much more possible in urban tenure for small pieces of property to be acquired without having to acquire lords as well. As a result, lords may have been less able to leverage control through property, requirement of personal service as a condition of tenure, and thus less able to exert their will over tenants. These practices can be seen both within towns and in their immediate surrounds, even up to small vills a mile or two distant where burgesses were buying up property.15 Multiple lordship in boroughs seems to have been of a different nature from multiple lordship in rural lands. What we are able to say about the nature of lordship and multiple lordship in boroughs is restricted, however, by the extant records, which are often poor 10

Wells in 1174x80 restricted property being granted to religious houses (British Borough Charters, 1042–1216, ed. Ballard, 65). Hudson suggests that this was to ensure that lords did not suffer loss as a result of such a grant (Hudson, OHLE, 835). A common restriction may have been that only acquired property could be disposed of, not that which had been inherited (Borough Customs, ed. Bateson, ii, 91–3; Hudson, OHLE, 835). 11 Hudson, OHLE, 836; DB i, fo. 179. 12 Hudson, OHLE, 834. 13 Cf. Tait, English Borough, 134. Borough Customs, ed. Bateson, ii, 83, 161 show that homage was not done for land to any lord but the king by the late thirteenthcentury London and Ipswich, although the date by which these customs were established is unclear. See also Hudson, OHLE, 834, who suggests that forfeiture of tenements for non-payment probably still occurred. 14 Hudson, OHLE, 842; see also The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond (Oxford, 1949), ed. H.E. Butler, 106. 15 See e.g. Whitgreave on the outskirts of Stafford, SRO D938/434–8.

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and patchy for this period. While we have references to mercantile guilds, for instance, we have little idea of how large these were, or who were members. For Leicester, we are lucky to have a series of guild rolls starting at the end of the twelfth century, but this is a rare survival. As with rural property, charter survival is often mixed. Where a religious house has kept careful record, as Darley Abbey did for its Derby property, we can get some sense of the town’s internal workings. For others, such as Leicester, our collection of charters is dominated by those of the earl, and the records from the town’s religious houses either do not survive or are dominated by magnate donations. As a result, our understanding of the actions of individual burgesses or the lesser aristocracy is often patchy. Drawing conclusions from the gaps in such sources needs to be undertaken with great care. Our understanding of twelfth-century towns is also, conversely, hindered by the richer records of the thirteenth century. In the early thirteenth century onwards, there was an explosion of royal grants to towns, giving them markets, fairs and firma burgi. We also see, as with rural property, an increase in systematic records such as surveys and toll lists, that give us a much clearer impression of a town’s layout, composition, what was being done there and by whom. This has led to a greater historiographical focus on towns from this period, and a strong temptation to read thirteenth-century developments backwards. The twelfth century has been consequently overshadowed, and there has been little attempt at sustained synthesis of this period since James Tait’s Medieval Borough of 1932 and Susan Reynolds’ Medieval Towns of 1976.16 This chapter does not seek to fill this gap, but will provide some examples of the operation of power and property in medieval towns, and the interaction of the lesser aristocracy with their lords. A note on terminology is needed here. For convenience, places with urban characteristics have been divided into three groups. The word ‘town’ will be used to mean the county towns of Leicester, Stafford and Derby, and those, such as Lichfield, which were described by contemporaries with clear and consistent urban terminology. ‘Borough’ is a common term and is used in contemporary sources. It does not seem to have had a distinctive legal or administrative meaning, and may in some cases have just referred to a fortified site.17 Towns throughout the medieval period underwent foundation, growth or shrinkage, but the twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw most clearly the foundation and expansion of towns, granting of borough and market charters, and the development of urban institutions.

16 Tait,

English Borough, esp. pp. 139–301; Reynolds, Medieval Towns, esp. pp. 46–130; J. Campbell, ‘Power and authority, 600–1300’, in Cambridge Urban History volume, ed. D.M. Palliser1 (Cambridge, 2008), 51–78 esp. pp. 60–70. 17 Hudson, OHLE, 813–14.

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Derby Derby lies on the River Derwent in south Derbyshire. The Roman camp at Little Chester, Derventio Coritanorum, just outside the town, likely provided the first focus in the area, but the first reference to a medieval settlement is c.873.18 The numismatic and onomastic evidence suggests switches between English and Danish control in the tenth century. Æthelstan’s Circumscription Cross is the first coinage series known to have been minted at Derby, and we have record of eight different moneyers.19 There was a brief period of Danish rule from York over the area between 939–41, and the single mule coin find of Anlaf Guthfrithsson bearing Derby as a mint name may date to this period.20 Thereafter, the region returned to English control and there is a consistent series of English rulers’ coins from the reign of Edmund I. The town appears to have been known by separate English and Danish names c.900–c.1025: Æthelweard’s translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle into Latin at the end of the tenth century refers to the burial of an ealdorman at ‘the place which is called Northworthige, but Deoraby in the Danish tongue’, and there is another stray reference to Northworthige in 1020.21 Thereafter the Danish Derby took over.22 By 1066 Derbyshire was under the same sheriff as Nottinghamshire, and the two counties’ administration were closely connected. In Domesday 18 M.

19

20 21

22

Brassington, ‘Exploratory excavations at Little Chester, Derby’, DAJ 102 (1982), 74–83; J. Dool, H. Wheeler et al., ‘Roman Derby: excavations 1968–1983’, DAJ 105 (1985), esp. H. Wheeler, ‘Conclusion: The Development of Roman Derby’, 300–4; R. Langley and C. Drage, ‘Roman occupation at Little Chester, Derby: salvage excavation and recording by the Trent and Peak Archaeological Trust 1986–1990’, DAJ 120 (2000), 123–287; C. Sparey-Green, ‘Excavations on the south eastern defences and extramural settlement of Little Chester, Derby, 1971–2’, DAJ 122 (2002) esp. 122–46. Boia/Boga: EMC/SCBI nos. 1002.0623, 1006.0151, 1034.0075 (a moneyer of the same name also minted coins of Eadred, Eadwig, and Edgar at Derby: 1050.0242, 1050.0254, 1065.0085, 1034.1100, 1006.0572, 1034.1039); Mægenferth 1006.0152; Garheard 1017.0132, 1034.0076; Giencea 1017.0133; Sigeweald 1029.0452, 1034.0271; Beornheard 1034.0074 (a Beornheard was also working at Derby in the reign of Edgar, 1030.0393); Ceel 1034.0269; Æthelnoth 1034.0270. Information from emc.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk on 4/9/22. EMC/SCBI, no. 2006.0377. Liber Vitæ: Register and Martyrology of New Minster and Hyde Abbey, ed. W. de G. Birch (Winchester, 1892): ‘Þonne resteð Sancte Ealhmund on þam mynstre Norðƿeorðig neah þære éá Deorƿentan’, 89. The ‘north settlement’ is thought to be in contrast to Tamworth, which lies to the south (M. Gelling, W.F.H. Nicolaisen and M. Richards, The Names of Towns and Cities in Britain (London, 1970), s.v. ‘Derby’; V. Watts, The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names (Cambridge, 2004), s.v. ‘Derby’). Deoraby first appears on a coin of Athelstan (927–39), and probably is from the Old Norse dyr, ‘deer’ (Gelling et al., Names of Towns and Cities, s.v. ‘Derby’; Watts, Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, s.v. ‘Derby’).

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Book, the information about the borough (burgum) of Derby has been drawn out of the usual place at the beginning of the Derby folios and onto the first folio for Nottinghamshire.23 Derbyshire’s shire customs follow the town’s description, and appear, as elsewhere in Domesday, to be from a pre-Conquest source to which post-Conquest holders have been added. It contains a curious jumble of post-Conquest holders and their successors side-by-side: Siward Barn and Henry de Ferrers; Alsige son of Karski and Roger de Bully.24 But one of the most striking aspects of Derby in 1086 is its apparent decline. TRE records 243 burgesses, but TRW has only 100 burgesses, and 40 lesser ones (minores), along with 103 waste messuages. If these figures were taken from the earlier records, this may have been a longer-term decline, but William I’s brutal repressions and heavier impositions must have had an impact. The borough had certainly increased in amount rendered between TRE and TRW, from £24 to £30.25. Derby is recorded as having some 12 carucates of land, divided between 41 burgesses and paying dues and fines to the king and earl on a 2:1 proportion. This would leave 202 burgesses without access to land of the town, which may be suggestive of the level of trade and non-agricultural production being carried out at the time of the Conquest.26 Despite the Norman damage to the town, the Conquest and the Norman settlement would have provided considerable opportunities for local trade with new magnates alongside continuing lower-status trade with the hinterland,27 and perhaps would have facilitated long-distance trade with the Continent. The moneyers Kolbeinn and Froma who were working in Derby during Edward the Confessor’s reign continued to mint coins there for William I.28 23

DB i. 280. i. 280. 25 This included the mills and nearby vill of Litchurch, the latter of which contained 2 carucates of land, a single sokeman, and nine villeins, so is hardly likely to account for the difference (DB i. 280). 26 Tait, English Borough, esp. p. 73. At least from the evidence of Domesday Book, Derby’s lack of urban arable does not seem to have been due to creeping manorialisation, as Tait argued for in former Roman towns like Canterbury and Leicester (ibid., 71–2). 27 A new group of 42 merchants who live ‘only by their selling’ (de mercato suo tantum) had arrived at Tutbury by 1086, likely drawn there by the presence of Henry de Ferrers and his caput (DB i, fo. 248v). Specific evidence of commercial activity is rare in the documents, however. A William dyer appears in the early thirteenth century, and the monks of Tutbury Priory are recorded as having their own merchant in 1230 (Tutbury, nos. 121, 296). Hilton notes that the burgesses, however, still owed haymaking services in the comital meadows in the early fourteenth century (R. Hilton, The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1975), 220–1). 28 Kolbeinn: Edward the Confessor: EMC/SCBI nos. 1002.1145, 2013.0165; William I: 1975.9106, 2010.0114. Froma: Edward the Confessor: 1018.0797, 1054.0398, 2016.0308, 1054.1094, 1054.1095, 1017.0386,1030.0590, 1066.3679. 1042.1340, 1002.1122, 1002.1123, 1009.0945, 2007.0301; William I: 1048.1097, 24 Ibid.,

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Leofwine appears as a moneyer’s name in the reign of Edward the Confessor and Henry I, and it is conceivable that these might be the same men or individuals from the same kingroup.29 Alongside some continuity in mint activity, the longer-term processes of commercialisation of the countryside, growth of markets and demographic growth, meant that any decline was quickly reversed. By the mid-twelfth century, what records we have suggest a town with a buoyant economy, active burgesses, and a variety of tradesmen particularly related to the cloth trade. Robert I de Ferrers was created first earl of the town following his service in the Battle of the Standard in 1138, although the family lost it again after the mid-twelfth century civil war. William I de Ferrers (1162–1190) never seems to have styled himself as earl of the town.30 Not until King John’s reign were the Ferrers restored as earls of Derby.31 By 1229 the town had acquired a royal charter, granting the burgesses the same rights as the burgesses of Nottingham had had in the time of Henry I and II, namely toll and team, infangentheof, toll of those crossing bridges, a prohibition on anyone around Derby working cloth for 10 leagues, regulations on buying property, protection of those attending markets, and the right to appoint their own provost, the latter being subject to the king’s oversight.32 These seem likely to be largely a confirmation of existing customs rather than a new grant but, if so, it is unclear when these had developed. Our sources for the burgesses of Derby are better than that for neighbouring towns thanks to the large cartulary of Darley Abbey near Derby. The Darley cartulary, BL Cotton Titus C. ix, may have been produced c.1275 with additions into the early fourteenth century. Darlington suggests a plausible date for the cartulary of c.1275, with some additions by a different scribe into the early fourteenth century.33 He produced an edition of this manuscript in 1945, which he supplemented with material from a partial Darley cartulary of the later fourteenth century (Bodleian 1012.0060, 1017.0536. The Svertingr who disappears from the record during or after Edward’s reign had been active as moneyer since the reign of Harold Harefoot so his disappearance as moneyer may be from age rather than deliberate replacement (Harold Harefoot: EMC/SCBI nos. 1040.0802–0810; Harthacnut: 1018.0619, 1040.1592, 1040.1593; Edward the Confessor: 2015.0236, 1054.0719). 29 Leofwine: Edward the Confessor: EMC/SCBI nos. 1020.1190, 1017.0439, 1020.1245; Henry I: 1017.0629, 1017.0641, 1051.1125, 2015.0035. A Godwine also appears in the reign of William I and II, who from his name may be related to the Godric who had been active as a moneyer earlier in Edward the Confessor’s reign. Godric: Edward the Confessor: EMC/SCBI nos. 1018.0798, 1054.0399, 1066.3593. Godwine: William I: 2011.0086, 1011.0200, 1012.0118, 1016.0241, 1017.0563, 1017.0564, 1020.1416, 1200.0616; William II: 1011.0650, 2016.0278. On possible succession within kingroups by moneyers see M. Biddle (ed.), Winchester in the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 1976), 445–7. 30 VCH Staffs X, 11. 31 Ibid. 32 Calendar of Charter Rolls, i. 96. 33 Darlington, Darley, i, lxxv–i.

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Gough MS Derby I). Few of the original charters have survived, and the circumstances of the production of these registers is unknown, but the charters seem nevertheless largely authentic. The early history of Darley Abbey is a little confused. In all, we have three stories for the house’s foundation: by burgesses on the patrimony of Towyus in 1137; by Robert II de Ferrers in c.1154/55; and by Hugh dean of Derby on his own patrimony. These do not necessarily contradict one another. It is worth dwelling on these different claims, however, as they are suggestive of the power structures at play in Derby in the mid-twelfth century. The initial foundation of the house grew out of an earlier burgess foundation at St Helen’s oratory. A defaced note in a thirteenth-century hand on the last folio of the Darley cartulary claims that Towyus founded a house on his patrimony with the support of the greater part of the town’s burgesses in 1137. This would seem to have been a small site immediately outside the town walls on the north-western side of Derby.34 Within a few decades, or perhaps sooner, Darley Abbey was founded from St Helen’s at a site on the Derwent, 2 miles to the north-west of Derby.35 The date of this is generally given as c.1160, but Darlington has suggested that a 1288 note in the cartulary claiming 1146 as the fundacio domus may be a more accurate early tradition for the change in site.36 St Helen’s seems to have maintained a semi-detached relationship with Darley Abbey into at least the early thirteenth century.37 The earlier date of foundation would fit with what may have been a dispute over patronage of the house. In the 1150s, Robert II de Ferrers issued a foundation charter, couched in terms that suggest he himself had founded Darley Abbey (Ego fundaui domum unam). This was on the Crown’s demesne (in f isco regio), with the concession of Kings Stephen and Henry II, and Robert had presented the abbot to both of them.38 It also claims that Robert had populated the abbey with its canons and abbot. The date of this charter must fall between October 1154 when King Stephen died and Bishop Walter Durdent’s death (to whom the charter is addressed) in December 1159. Darlington suggests 1154/55 as the most likely date.39 A memorandum in the house’s cartulary, however, records that an inquest was carried out at the command of Henry II to determine the house’s origins, and this gives a strongly urban rather than seigneurial picture. Twenty-four recognitors, drawn from churchmen (clerici, presbiteri), knights (milites) and burgesses (burgenses) swore on oath that 34

VCH Derby ii, 47. i, ii–iii. 36 Darlington, Darley, i, ii–iv. 37 Ibid., i, ii–iii; Darley, no. N3; VCH Derbys ii, 46–7. 38 Darley, N2. 39 Ibid., N2 and p. 571, n.1. 35 Ibid.,

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the house had been built on the patrimony of Hugh, dean of Derby, and that the advowson still belonged to him. It is an unusual document, and worth giving in full: Memorandum quod talis inquisitio facta fuit super ecclesia sancti Petri de Derb’. Alanus presbiter de Wilna, Radulfus clericus de Breydesale, Osmerus presbiter de Derb’, Rogerus presbiter de Marketon’, Robertus presbiter de Macworth’, Radulfus miles de Merchinton’, Robertus miles de Codinton’, Ricardus miles de Normanton’, Robertus miles de Osmundeston’, Radulfus filius Geremundi, Albertus de Horsel’, Arnwinus de Bolton’, et burgenses de Derb’ scilicet Herewardus de ponte, Ingemundus palmarius, Eilaf, Colbanus, Agamundus, Steynulfus, Leuenad, Godwinus, Robertus filius Wlfet, Alanus, Leuered, Ordmarus. Isti omnes iureiurando affirmauerunt coram Ranulfo uicecomite et coram Frogero archdiacono Derb’ et coram Petro de Sandiacre, iussu regis Henrici filii regine Matildis, in domo Hugonis apud Derb’, ecclesiam sancti Petri in Derb’ fundatam et edificatam in patrimonio predicti Hugonis et predecessorum eius, et donacionem predicte ecclesie eorum esse et non alterius. Memorandum that such an inquest was made upon the church of St Peter of Derby. Alan priest of Wilne, Ralph clerk of Breadsall, Osmer priest of Derby, Roger priest of Markeaton, Robert priest of Mackworth, Ralph knight of Marchington [Staffs.], Robert knight of Cottons Farm [Normanton, Derbys.], Robert knight of Osmaston [Derbys.], Ralph son of Geremund, Albert de Horsley [Derbys.], Arnwin de Boulton [Derbys.], and the burgesses of Derby namely Hereward of the bridge, Ingemund palmer, Eilaf, Colban, Agamund, Steynulf, Leuenad, Godwin, Robert son of Wlfet, Alan, Leuered, Ordmar. These all affirmed by swearing an oath before Ranulf the sheriff and before Froger archdeacon of Derby and before Peter de Sandiacre, by the command of King Henry son of Queen [sic] Matilda, in the house of Hugh at Derby, that the church of St Peter in Derby was founded and built on the patrimony of the aforementioned Hugh and his predecessors, and the gift of the aforementioned church was his and not the other’s.40 40

Darley, A12. Discussed F.M. Stenton, ‘An early inquest relating to St Peter’s, Derby’, EHR xxxii, no.125 (1917), 47–8. Stenton was interested in this document as an example of procedure by inquest under the king’s writ before the introduction of the possessory assizes. Darlington pointed out, however, that the obscure circumstances of the inquest make it difficult to determine whether this is a precocious development, or something more common. If this inquest were due to a dispute between Hugh and another person, such as a burgess, then the use of sworn recognitors is very early. If, however, the dispute was over whether advowson of the church belonged to Hugh or the king, then the inquest would be concerning the king’s rights, with ‘commissioners’ to oversee the jury’s verdict – which Darlington suggests may have been Archdeacon

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The date of composition for this document is unclear, and it contains a curious choice in referring to Henry II’s mother as Queen, rather than Empress, Matilda. The detailed list of names is entirely plausible for the document’s date, however, and the fact that many of these would have been meaningless by c.1275 suggest that it was written contemporaneously, or at least from a contemporary source. This inquest must have taken place between the beginning of Ranulf ’s appointment as sheriff in 1156 and the promotion of Archdeacon Froger as bishop of Séez in 1157.41 The language, too, is suggestive of twelfth-century charter legal terminology. If Darlington is correct that Darley’s move to its second location took place in 1146, this inquest may suggest that the latter site was part of Hugh’s patrimony. The dispute seems to centre on rights of advowson, but we have no information on the identity of the other disputing party. Darlington suggested that the king had attempted to claim the church, which is plausible but unproven. There is also a curious tension, however, between this document and the ‘foundation’ charter by Robert II de Ferrers, the latter of which may have been produced soon before 1156x57. Robert claimed the foundation was on royal demesne, and there is a suggestion of an advowson in his statement that he ‘populated’ the abbey and in his presentation of the abbot to the kings. While it is reasonably common for a lord when confirming a grant or foundation to have the charter worded as if he were the donor or founder, this seems to be a more complicated situation. The burgesses and local knights, meanwhile, at a very similar time, swore that the land and the advowson were Hugh’s, in a memorandum that is entirely lacking in reference to the Ferrers. The main overseers are the sheriff, archdeacon and local knight Peter de Sandiacre.42 The inquest was undertaken in domo Hugonis apud Derb’, the house of Dean Hugh himself. We unfortunately do not have enough other evidence to determine whether Hugh’s domus was a common space in which to carry out judicial business, or whether the venue was determined by his interest in the inquest. Whatever the case, this inquest appears to have been carried out in a burgess-centric environment, where their main seigneurial relationship was with a distant king, not a more immediate lord. If we try to harmonise these two documents, they may suggest a collaborative foundation, with the impetus coming from the burgesses, but with the support of the earl in managing royal approval and staffing. The obtainment of royal approval may have been a particularly fraught and necessary one during Stephen’s reign, and this may have provided additional impetus for the burgesses to work with the earl. It may also suggest, however, Froger and Peter de Sandiacre. The inquest would thereby fit into a pattern stretching back to William I’s day. Even in the latter case, however, the number of burgesses in the jury, and the number of jurors is still noteworthy (Darlington, Darley, i, 71–2). My thanks to Liesbeth van Houts on ‘Queen’ Matilda. 41 Darlington, Darley, i, 71. 42 On the latter see below, 172–4.

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a more antagonistic relationship between the Ferrers and burgesses after the Ferrers received grant of the town’s earldom, and we may wonder whether the new earl was attempting to extend additional control over the town and its inhabitants. Darlington’s claim that the town was granted by Stephen to Robert II during the former’s reign is not convincing: the right to take a third of the royal revenues from the town is not enough to show mediatisation or comital control. Nevertheless, his confirmation of the burgesses’ grants as if he were superior lord over the town may suggest something of his ambitions.43 A curious piece of numismatic evidence may fit into this pattern. During Stephen’s reign there was one moneyer working at Derby, Walkelin, who seems to have been a reasonably wealthy and prominent figure in the town.44 There is also, however, a single coin from what seems to have been a very shortlived mint at ‘STUT’, almost certainly Tutbury, which also bears Walkelin’s name.45 Eleventh- and twelfth-century moneyers are known to have moved between mints,46 and indeed the Tutbury issue is of the same Four Eagles type as that Walkelin produced at Derby. The temporary nature of the mint within a time of unrest is noteworthy, however. Was the mint’s apparently temporary move to Tutbury a means of protecting currency production during an uncertain period, and ensuring that the earl had a supply of coinage? Was it an attempt by Robert II to extend power over Derby by bringing an important economic function directly under his eye? If these fragments of evidence are suggestive of a Ferrers attempt to extend control over the town, it was short-lived and reasonably unsuccessful.47 The Ferrers came relatively late to having a formal relationship with Derby. At Domesday, Henry de Ferrers is recorded as holding only three messuages with sake and soke in the town, a very striking number when placed against the number of messuages that Hugh de Grandmesnil had in Leicester, or Robert de Stafford in Stafford.48 The grant of the town with the earldom in 1138 is likely to have been mostly a grant of the earl’s third penny from the town’s revenues, and there is little to suggest that a large amount of land was granted at the same time.49 They never had a castle at Derby, as there was at Leicester and for a while at Stafford, and the Ferrers’ focus seems to have remained centred on Tutbury, a little over 12 miles to the west, where their caput and main court were based. The loss of Ferrers lands and rights after Stephen’s reign may have scuppered any further chances of exercising much 43 Darlington,

Darley, i. xlviii; Darley, no. N3. See below, 165–70. EMC/SCBI nos. 1020.1628, 1030.0788, 1030.0789, 1300.0331. These are all of the Derby-Tutbury Eagles type. 45 EMC/SCBI, no. 2013.0332. 46 P. Nightingale, ‘Some London moneyers and reflections on the organisation of English mints in the eleventh century’, The Numismatic Chronicle cxlii (1982), 35–50 at 42–3. 47 Cf. Darley, no. N4. 48 DB i fos 280; fos 230, 246. 49 On the earl’s third penny, see Tait, English Borough, 141–3. 44

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power in the town, and William I de Ferrers’ attention seems to have been turned elsewhere to recoup other losses. Although they supported Darley Abbey, the earls never became involved in it to the same degree as their other foundations. Robert’s ‘foundation’ charter lists the property with which he endowed the canons: the church of Uttoxeter, Crich with appurtenances, the tithe of his rents in Derby, a third of the meadow by Markeaton Brook, land worth 6s. at Osmaston, an oratory with cemetery at the grange (hordwic) of Aldwark, and a cartload of wood from Duffield or Chaddesden.50 This original endowment is extremely slender when placed against that of his grandfather Henry de Ferrers for the de Ferrers family foundation at Tutbury, the lighter resources required for an Augustinian house versus a Benedictine one notwithstanding.51 Henry may have had more resources readily available to endow Tutbury, but the gulf between the two is striking, both in breadth of resources, and in geographical scope. The continuing involvement of Robert II’s descendants in the abbey is similarly much smaller than for Tutbury. William I granted 8 acres in Sewelledale, adjoining a previous grant of 6 acres there, and 2 acres for a sheepfold;52 granted Aldwark and Sewelledale in exchange for a quitclaim from the canons concerning Windley (Derbys.) and a debt;53 and gave the canons licence to bring wood through Duffield forest on three days per year.54 William II granted a mark annually from his rent in Bolsover to sustain a chaplain which the canons had to provide to say masses for the de Ferrers in Bolsover chapel.55 This was later quitclaimed by the canons in exchange for a grant by William II of 27 acres of his demesne of Bolsover.56 He also granted a few blocks of a handful of acres, or a single acre.57 These are matched by a number of confirmations, both of the gifts of ancestors,58 and of grants made 50

Darley, no. N2 gives the fullest description; no. N3, a notification to his barons and men, ‘and in particular to the burgesses of Derby’, only mentions the tithe of the rents and the meadow. All of the places mentioned are in Derbyshire. 51 See above, 130–7. 52 Darley, no. N6. 53 Ibid., nos. N7–8. 54 Ibid., no. N18. 55 Ibid., no. N14. 56 Ibid., no. N15. 57 One acre in Riber, and 5 acres in Wigwell (both Derbys.), Darley, nos. N17; N21. 58 Darley, no. N4: confirmation by William I de Ferrers of his father, Robert II’s donations; N12: confirmation by William II of the grants of his father and grandfather; N20, William II’s confirmation of Robert II’s grant that the canons could take wood from Duffield (as given in N2); N26: Hugh de Ferrers’ (son of William II) confirmation of the gift of his ancestors of Aldwark and Sewelledale. N13 should also perhaps be placed in this category. This was a confirmation by William II of the church of Bolsover, and the land between ‘Hambec’ and ‘Godrichesgruf ’ which William Peverel had given. William II de Ferrers was the son of Peverel’s daughter, Margaret; but the de Ferrers did not receive land from

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by smaller landholders which will be discussed in more detail below.59 His son William II confirmed the grant of another minor landholder.60 Unlike the de Ferrers confirmations for Tutbury, then, their confirmations of the abbey’s possessions are much more limited. General confirmations for Darley are limited to the actions of their own family; more rarely do we see them confirming grants of their tenants.61 We only have one charter, too, of a tenant notifying Robert I de Ferrers of a grant to the abbey.62 Moreover, some of these apparent grants may have more hard-headed considerations. William I de Ferrers’ (1162–90) charter granted Aldwark and Sewelledale (Derbys.) to the canons, who in return quitclaimed Windley and the debt which he owed them.63 The lands in question had previously been granted to the canons by Hamund de Masci, so this was a confirmation by William, for which he gained both an unnamed financial benefit and the canons’ prayers.64 If, as I have suggested, the Ferrers were relatively marginal to the town (and perhaps the burgesses were actively working to keep them there), there do not seem to have been any other lords aside from the king who might have been in a position to exercise much control in the town. Listed as holding in Derby in 1086 are: the abbot of Burton, with one mill and one unspecified piece of land cum saca et soca, two pieces over which the king had soke, and 13 acres of meadow; churches held by Geoffrey of Alselin, Ralph son of Hubert, Norman of Lincoln, and Edric; Hugh de Grandmesnil, two messuages and one fishery, with sake and soke; 1 bovate held apiece by Godwin and Osmer the priests, both with sake and soke; and eight manses with sake and soke which belonged to the king, although the rest of his holding in the borough is not recorded. All of the land and residences recorded include sake and soke, the Peverel honour after it was taken into Crown hands. Bolsover castle and the honour of Nottingham were some of the possessions granted by Richard I to his brother John count of Mortain. After the latter became King John, William II received Bolsover with its manor and soke by 1219 (Darlington, Darley, ii. p.580, n.1) The confirmation, therefore, seems odd, as William II does not appear to have had rights over the church of Bolsover at this stage. It may be in the nature of blocking any familial claim on his part against the canons; or it may have been in his capacity as a powerful man in the locality that the confirmation was issued. 59 William I de Ferrers’ confirmations included overseeing the two grants which Henry fitz Fulcher de Shirley made to Darley (Darley, nos. N10–11). 60 William II confirmed 2 bovates which were given by Master Henry of Derby (Darley, no. N16). 61 A few charters explicitly refer to items held of the de Ferrers being granted to the canons for which no de Ferrers confirmation survive, for instance Darley, no. I13. Jordan of Snitterton granted the rent from his land which he had been given by William I de Ferrers in Wilauesleg’ (unidentified). Confirmation charters of this type seem to have been carefully preserved by houses as offering the best protection in case of later challenge, so the absence of one in the cartulary may be significant. 62 Darley, no. K16. 63 Darley, no. N8. 64 Darley, no. N1.

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meaning that these other landlords would have been able to take judicial dues in the town from these holdings. It seems likely that they would have been content to take their dues in cash for such small holdings and not seek anything else from them. This political environment, combined with wider social and economic changes, were all favourable to the emergence of a self-conscious and relatively assertive burgess class in Derby. Individual burgesses will be discussed further below but, thanks to the Darley cartulary, we can draw some inferences about them in the long twelfth century. Domesday lists 100 burgesses TRW and 40 minores, down from 243 burgesses TRE. From the inquest into Darley’s foundation, above, we get a snapshot of some of the burgesses in the 1150s. Scandinavian and Old English personal names are well-represented, although Stenton expressed surprise at the curiously low number of the former.65 In contrast with the overwhelmingly Norman names of the milites, clerici and presbiteri mentioned before them, the lack of French names is striking. Within the names in the rest of the Darley cartulary, there is a similar scatter between Norman and Old English/Scandinavian, although it is often difficult to determine whether French names indicated French settlers or English families choosing new names for their children. Some intermarriage is visible; for instance a William Cusin married to Helga, from whom Walkelin the moneyer bought a messuage.66 Outside of towns, those who appear in charters tend to be either landholders, or in the retinues of them, with the result that Norman names overwhelmingly dominate. Here, however, there is a crosssection of those who may have been to some degree insulated from landed upheavals after the Conquest thanks to borough tenure, the value of their trading links, and their economic power. The Darley cartulary records a variety of tradesmen in the town by the third quarter of the twelfth century – tailor, weaver, dyer, skinner, fuller – and the early thirteenth century ban on any cloth working within 10 leagues of Derby indicates the importance of cloth working to the town. Derby may have been well-positioned to trade raw wool coming from sheep-farming in the uplands of Derbyshire and Staffordshire. The uplands were also important sources of lead, and Derby may have had some stake in this as it was traded southwards. There was an active trade in property within the town, including in market stalls and shops. Most of our evidence of this comes from property that later came into the hands of the canons, so it can only give a partial picture. Nevertheless, these grants and sales reveal a town with links between the burgesses, links between burgesses and knights, and connections between both and the abbey. Without a dominant seigneurial presence, the burgesses seem to have acted more in their own interests rather than operating under the auspices of a lord 65 66

Stenton, ‘An early inquest’, 47. Darley, no. A27.

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as can be seen in Leicester. Like other towns, they were ultimately under the king, mediated through the sheriff. It is unclear whether they had their own Portmanmoot, but if their royal charter of 1229 was confirming existing rights, they may have had the right to impose and adjudicate tolls (toll et team) and to execute thieves caught red-handed (infangentheof).67 Already by c.1140 they seem to have acted as a body in granting Little Darley to the canons of St Helen’s.68 The buoyant economy would have bolstered resources and their consequent ability to hold the Ferrers earls and others at bay. Thanks to Darley’s evidence, we know of well over 180 individuals and families around Derby, of sufficient standing to become patrons of a religious house. As there are far too many to discuss individually here, some of the more interesting individuals and families will be examined in detail to discuss wider trends within the town and its seigneurial and tenurial patterns. Since the cartulary means that much of the surviving evidence is related to land tenure, the majority of the people discussed will be patrons. Nevertheless, these individuals seem to represent some of the most prominent individuals within the town.

Goda and Walkelin of Derby Goda and her husband Walkelin were primarily active in Henry II’s reign, and seem to have been resident in Derby. Like their rural counterparts, they built up a portfolio of property in and immediately around Derby from disparate sources, which they and their descendants granted to Darley Abbey. Their activities demonstrate the strategies and forms of urban land acquisition, and how Darley became integrated into these within the town. Walkelin is likely to be the Walkelin monetarius mentioned twice in the Darley cartulary, and there are five surviving coins from Stephen’s reign which bear this name.69 Walkelin owed the king £100 in the 1159 Pipe Roll, and paid an impressive £50 that year and the next to clear the debt.70 Goda and Walkelin appear directly in three and four charters of Darley Abbey respectively, and are referenced in respectively three and four more. Over time, they made 10 separate gifts to the canons of land in and immediately around Derby. Goda survived her husband, who probably died before 1176,71 and was 67

Calendar of Charter Rolls, i. 96. Darley, no. O4 and confirmed by the bishop of Coventry in O5. 69 Darlington, Darley, i, xlii; charters no. A35, B10; Jeayes, no. 2545; Catalogue of English Coins in the British Museum, Norman Kings, ed. G.C. Brooke (2 vols, London, 1916), i, xcv, ii p.383. Derby: EMC/SCBI nos. 1020.1628, 1030.0788, 1030.0789, 1300.0331; Tutbury: 2013.0332. 70 PR 5 Hen. II, 52; Darlington, Darley, i, xlii. On the position of moneyers see Nightingale, ‘Some London moneyers’, esp. 35–42; Biddle, Winchester in the Early Middle Ages, 445–7. 71 Darley, A xviii. 68

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Genealogical Table 6  Goda and Walkelin.

Walkelin monetarius d. by 1176

Goda

Master Robert

Henry magister occ. early C13th

Walkelin

Peter

Petronilla

Petronilla occ. late C12th

Augustine

Peter

active both as his wife and as a widow. They are not described explicitly as burgesses, but their wealth and activity in the town suggests strongly that they were. They were succeeded by at least two sons, Robert who is usually given the epithet dominus, and Peter, and down to their grandchildren’s day, Goda was still referenced as a progenitor.72 The couple acquired considerable lands through purchase and possibly through grant. The best evidence for their activities comes from a charter by the couple to Henry II and Bishop Richard Peche of Chester of c.1161x79, where they notified that they had granted to the canons certain property which the couple had previously purchased.73 This included various property which Walkelin had bought: unnamed property and mills within and without the borough bought from William de Heriz; a market stall and a bovate of land bought from one Gutha; 2 acres from Helga; 1 acre from Oldric the priest; 1½ acres bought from Richard Cuinterel; 1 acre bought from Eadric situated above the ordeal pit; 1 acre bought from William Blundus; one messuage bought from Robert son of Wewenild; and the messuage in which the donors lived, which he had bought from William Cusin and Helga. Goda also gave an acre which she had bought from Peter de Sandiacre.74 The number of purchases of small parcels of property suggests an active, reasonably low-level, land market in the town and immediate surrounds that was recorded in writing. This property and its grant to the canons was deemed of sufficient importance for a notification to the king and bishop, presumably in 72

Ibid., A xl, A33. Ibid., A27. 74 Ibid., A 27; A2; Monasticon VI, 359. 73

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order to secure the grants. Henry II’s confirmation of these grants distinguished between the tenura that William de Heriz gave to the canons with Goda and Walkelin’s consent, and the ‘whole tenure’ of land which Walkelin had bought from him and subsequently granted to Darley.75 From none of these sales do we have notification being given to the seller of the land’s grant to the abbey, as might be found in rural property: for sales in urban property the link with the seller and lord seems not to have been preserved to the same degree.76 These transfers between burgesses may have been carried out in the Portmanmoot, by analogy with other towns, and therefore performed before and overseen by fellow burgesses, not by a lord and his court as in rural property. They also disposed of lands in a similar way: Walkelin leased a toft to Hereward the skinner for 16d. annually, on which the latter built his house.77 Other traces appear as part of the chain by which the canons received property.78 The most striking of their grants in this notification was that of ‘the messuage where the donors live’, with its buildings: secundum hanc dispositionem scilicet quod aula sit in scolam clericorum et thalami sint in hospitium magistri et clericorum in perpetuum, ita quod nec abbas nec magister nec aliquis accipiat aliquid pro locatione harum domorum et quod peruenerit de furno sit hospitali canonicorum ad pauperes sustentandos. on this condition, that the hall shall be a school for clerks and the chambers serve as a hostel for the master and clerks in perpetuity, in such a way that the abbot, the master, or anyone else should not receive anything for the leasing of the said house, and that which comes from the oven shall be assigned to the canons’ hospice for the maintenance of the poor.79

Darlington has suggested that this project never came to fruition: Darley A28, a charter issued by Master Robert the son of Goda to the canons, grants them inter alia a rent of 2s. of a house which was Walkelin’s, with an oven, 75

Monasticon VI, 359; Darlington, Darley, i, xl–xli. Goda and Walkelin gave their consent to a grant of three messuages in Derby to the canons by Roger son of Ralph of Derby, and Jolenta the latter’s wife also consented. Goda and Walkelin may have been acting as landlords here in giving their consent, or the charter’s emphasis on the messuages being Jolenta’s marriageportion may perhaps suggest that there was a kin connection between Jolenta and the couple (Darley, no. B9). If so, it would make Goda and Walkelin also related to Alexander Hauselin, who is described as Jolenta’s brother, and who also held land in Derby (Darley, B10). Darlington suggests that Walkelin and Goda were tenants of these burgages, but this would not seem to have required their consent for them to be granted (Darlington, Darley, i, xlii). 77 Darley, no. A35. 78 Darley, nos. B10, H13. 79 Darley, no. A27. 76

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which may be the house previously mentioned. This would be an odd grant to make if the house were already in the canons’ possession. Darley A xviii mentions that Master Robert’s niece, Petronilla, held this house with oven by c.1176.80 Nevertheless, the intended grant is a striking one. Like minor lords in rural settings, this kind of foundation acted both as a display of public piety and a means of cementing the family’s position in the locality. This grant may also reflect a kind of civic identity: the expectation that an urban centre should have such resources, as well as the growing need for locally-educated clerici, perhaps to fill parish churches or conduct administration. Goda and Walkelin’s own son Robert clearly had received some level of education to be called magister. In turn, Walkelin and Goda had also held property from the canons. Goda held 46 acres of the canons in campis de Derb’ after Walkelin’s death.81 The second generation followed in making bequests to the abbey. Robert son of Goda gave the canons half of his inheritance in Derby and its fields, namely arable land, meadow, the ‘fuller’s land’ by the house of Edwin Starcolf, half a mill on the Derwent, one of the five mills in Derby, 2s. annually from a house which belonged to his father Walkelin, the oven (furnus), and land which Petronilla his niece and her heirs were to hold of the canons.82 Later, while on his sickbed, he gave the canons everything he possessed within and without the borough, suggesting that he intended to become a canon.83 Although the family appears to have been generous in the first generation, by the third patterns similar to those noted by Barbara Rosenwein around Cluny emerge from the documents. In her classic study of the house, Rosenwein argued that families connected to houses by patronage existed in a more varying and cyclical relationship, involving receiving lands back on lease following the initial grants of land, and lawsuits and encroachment on land of the house.84 There was one grant in alms to the canons made in the third generation by Master Henry, son of Peter of Derby, of 2 bovates in Chaddesden that Walkelin his brother held. The canons were to pay 12d. annually to Henry.85 More of this generation’s interactions with the canons, however, involved disputes over property. Before 1210, Henry, Walkelin, Augustine and Peter, the sons of Peter and grandsons of Goda and Walkelin of Derby, received back from the abbot the land in Thurlescroft which their parents, and Robert and William de Heriz had granted to the canons, in exchange for an annual rent of 2s.86 Restrictions were placed on it that the brothers and their heirs were to not sell or invade the land without the assent of the abbot and canons, a phrase which may betray 80

See also Darlington, Darley, i, xliii. Darley, no. A30. 82 Darley, no. A28, see also A xviii, A xl. 83 Ibid., no. A29. 84 Rosenwein, Neighbor of St Peter, 52–65. 85 Ibid., F98. 86 Ibid., no. A33. 81

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some uneasiness. Later charters show that this was warranted. A dispute is first recorded in the Curia Regis Rolls for Michaelmas 1206, recording that Master Henry, son of Peter of Derby and grandson of Goda and Walkelin, put in his place Walkelin, Augustine or Peter his brothers in a case against the abbot of Darley concerning the plea of some mills.87 The abbot went to court and defended the house’s tenure, but the outcome of the case is not recorded.88 This dispute underlies the large settlement A30 in the cartulary, which probably dates to 1214.89 In this, Walkelin and Master Henry his brother claimed certain moieties and a toft by writ of right in the court of Derby (curia de Derb’).90 These were in addition to the toft and land in Thurlescroft, and which the present Walkelin had obtained back from the canons some years before the present concord for an annual rent of 18d.91 Walkelin, Henry, and the heirs of Peter his brother quitclaimed these and reached a settlement with the canons.92 Walkelin and his heirs received the moiety of the last of the five mills in Derby, for an annual farm of 5s. 4d., presumably as a sweetener from the abbey. The house was, however, careful to protect its interests in return. The right of distraint by the canons if the family failed to pay any of the farm for the lands was laid down in the agreement. This phrase is one that was becoming commoner into the thirteenth century, as tenants became more firmly attached to their lands, and distraint became correspondingly more difficult.93 The overall impression here is of Darley carefully protecting its interests, while attempting to make a mutually acceptable agreement that would last. There appears to have been another disagreement between the abbey and Walkelin son of Peter in the early thirteenth century concerning a shop in the marketplace of Derby. Here the abbot and convent received the shop, next to their own stall, from Walkelin, to pay from it to him 3s. rent per year.94 The circumstances of this dispute, or whether it related to the same claim as above, are not recorded in the agreement.95 This family show three important facets of power structures within towns. First, burgesses were working like minor lords in purely rural areas to build 87

CRR IV, 240, 251; Darlington, Darley, i, xliii–xliv. CRR IV, 291; v, 99. 89 Darlington, Darley, i, xliv. 90 Darley, no. A30 (1214x33). The rights in Thurlaston included a moiety of two mills, a market stall (sella mercatoria) in Derby, and moiety of 46 acres in the fields of Derby which Goda had held after the death of her husband. 91 Mentioned in Darley, no. A30. 92 Darlington is probably correct in concluding that their brothers Augustine and Peter were dead by 1214 (Darlington, Darley, i, xliv). 93 Hudson, OHLE, 637–40. 94 Darley, no. A31. 95 Other members of this family had continuing connection with the abbey through the grants of Goda and Walkelin. In the late twelfth century Petronilla, the daughter of Peter their son, held the messuage which Goda and Walkelin had granted (Darley, no. A xl) 88

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up portfolios of lands from disparate sources. Their holdings covered urban and agricultural land, partially because Derby’s fields were still an important part of the town’s economy, albeit seemingly for a restricted number of the burgesses.96 Sales seem to have been more common, or at least more commonly recorded in writing, than we see in rural lands. Leaseholds, such as those from the abbey, might require a confirmation by the immediate landlord if the holder changed; there seems to have been no such requirement for sales of urban property.97 Moreover, the individuals involved in transactions seem to have been of a similar level: we do not anywhere see the Ferrers or any of the greater landlords becoming involved in this kind of urban property transactions. As a result, individuals may have been able to build up their landed possessions without acquiring lords to the same degree as in rural lands. With this plank of potential seigneurial control weakened, urban property hierarchy seems correspondingly flatter, and there are fewer ‘lords’ who might be able to leverage any power from a continuing interest in land. Similarly, independent female landholding may be more possible, as less service was required from lands, and if they could control their own money they could, as Goda did, they could buy land from neighbours. Second, their example shows the position of a moneyer and his family in the mid-twelfth century. It is unclear whether Walkelin was a descendant of the moneyers of Henry I’s day (Bruna, Leofwine),98 although the name evidence does not suggest a family connection. Nevertheless, he and Goda were clearly wealthy and of good standing in the town. His potential collaboration with Robert II de Ferrers, minting for a while at Tutbury, may have brought him further reward. Third, we can see the extent to which Darley Abbey quickly became a part of the town’s land market. They received property as grants of alms, they bought property from the town’s inhabitants, and they leased it to them for annual renders. Property could move in a cycle, from grant to the canons, to lease, to dispute, to settlement.

Hugh dean of Derby Hugh dean of Derby may have been regarded as an original founder of Darley Abbey, according to a document printed by Dugdale from fourteenth or fifteenth century plea rolls.99 It is addressed to Henry II and Richard Peche, bishop of Chester, and notifies them that Hugh has given to ‘Master Albinus’ and the canons all his tenure in Little Darley to make a church and habitatio, 96 Tait,

English Borough, 69. See ROLLR DE 5555/1 for an example of the procedure for ‘sale’ in rural property. The transaction was carried out before a lord who accepted his new tenant by receiving his homage and service. 98 Bruna: EMC/SCBI, no. 1200.0054; Leofwine: 1017.0629, 1017.0641, 1051.1125, 2015.0035. 99 Darlington, Darley, i, iv; Monasticon, VI, 359. 97

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plus his patrimony in Derby and the advowson of the church of St Peter in Derby. This was given coram Archdeacon Froger of Derby, Peter de Sandiacre, Robert de Dun and Henry de Tuschet. The dates for this, as Darlington observed, do not work: Froger was promoted to bishop of Séez in 1157, and Richard Peche did not become bishop of Chester until 1161.100 Darlington suggests that instead this charter records a series of transactions, including the inquest of 1156/57, which would also account for some curious features such as Albinus being referred to a Magister canonicorum rather than Abbas. Another explanation which he admits is that the text is corrupt or spurious.101 Whatever the case, however, it is clear that Hugh was instrumental in the founding of St Helen’s, later Darley. As discussed above, Dean Hugh hosted the inquest into the foundation of Darley Abbey and who held rights of advowson over it. The cartulary’s memorandum shows that he received the land as his patrimonium from his predecessores: the terminology indicates clearly a family inheritance rather than property connected with his office. Hugh and his family were embedded in local society, and many seem to have been in the church. Hugh was either a son of Henry Tuschet the elder, or was married to one of his daughters. He had a brother, Aghemund, whose name suggests the family was Scandinavian.102 Hugh’s second son Robert is described as Magister. His son Henry also became dean, and Henry himself had at least two sons, Peter and Walter. Soon after Hugh’s death in 1179, the canons issued a curious charter stating that Henry and his heirs were to hold his patrimony of the canons, by the same service as he owed the king, and with the rights of sake and soke, toll and team, and infangentheof that the king had granted to the abbey.103 Darlington suggests that this odd transaction may have been the fulfilment of a promise to dean Hugh that the canons would support Henry. Henry seems to have survived until c.1200.104 Peter, Henry’s son and Hugh’s grandson, was the parson of St Peter’s, Derby.105 Walter, Hugh’s grandson, received from Abbot Walter the tenement which Henry his father and Peter his brother (d.1210) had held before him. Walter set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem not long afterwards, granting part of his lands to his sister Eustachia and her husband Peter son of Ingram in return for 21 marks.106 Like the other case studies addressed here, Hugh’s family acquired and disposed of small pieces of urban property. They were generous patrons to Darley Abbey – hardly surprising, if they claimed to have founded it – and remained so through the long twelfth century.

100 Darlington, 101 Ibid.

102 Darley,

Darley, i, v.

no. O2; xxxv. no. A37; xxxv. 104 Jeayes, no. 1499; Darlington, Darley, i, xxxvi. 105 Darley, nos. A12, A18, O11. 106 Ibid., no. A xxxix; see also A11. 103 Ibid.,

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Peter de Sandiacre Peter de Sandiacre and his family had primarily rural holdings but nevertheless involved themselves in urban property and business. This is a pattern that has been noted for the late Saxon period in an important article by Robin Fleming.107 She identifies nearly 200 named individuals of minor rank whom the Domesday Survey records as having urban property. This is despite the often sketchy accounts that Domesday provides of towns, and Fleming suggests that these proportions may in reality have been higher.108 Alongside property, commercial holdings, and other dues, thegns and lords gathered commendation and sake and soke in towns.109 They could have their own dwelling-places there, and were often buried in urban cemeteries.110 Her work shows clearly the benefits that lords could accrue through acquisition of urban property, and the need they had to be present in towns for judicial, political, religious or commercial business. Rural and urban could be so interlinked that Fleming argues for a group of ‘thegn-burgesses’,111 who were both rural and urban property holders: ‘towns and aristocrats were very much part of the same world’.112 The de Sandiacre main holding was at Sandiacre, on the eastern border of Derbyshire. After the death of Roger de Buron, the family received it in serjeanty from the king per ostriceriam, that is, for the service of a falconer.113 There are three Peters de Sandiacre. The first of them was active in Henry II’s reign, and retired to Darley Abbey before 1179. With his wife Alina he had a daughter, Albretha, and a son and heir Peter. This latter Peter married Beatrice, whose family is not known, and died by 1195 leaving Peter III. Peter’s son Richard succeeded him c.1219.114 Peter I de Sandiacre is the first of the family that we can see concerning himself with Derby. Before 1159, Peter de Sandiacre gave the canons the meadow of the nuns of King’s Mead.115 He also seems to have had land within the town: he granted an acre of this at ‘Cap acre’ to Goda sometime before c.1161x79,116 and had land in the suburban ‘new land’ (noua terra) of Derby.117 107 R.

Fleming, ‘Rural elites and urban communities in late-Saxon England’, Past and Present 141.1 (1993), 3–37. 108 Ibid., 6–7. 109 Ibid., esp. 9–12. 110 Ibid., 22–8. 111 Ibid., 33. 112 Ibid., 28. 113 Darlington, Darley, i, xxx; Sanders, English Baronies, 122–3. 114 Darlington, Darley, i, xxxii. 115 Darley, no. O2 is a confirmation of this, and other grants, by Walter Durdent, bishop of Coventry. 116 Ibid., A2. 117 Monasticon, VI, 359; Darlington, Darley, i, xxxi. See also PR 4 Hen. II, 153 when he owed 8s. 2d. under nova placita.

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It is unclear why he was one of the three before whom the inquest into the origins of the house’s foundation was carried out, iussu regis, alongside Sheriff Ranulf and Archdeacon Froger. A tentative suggestion is that Peter was a royal servant; he does not seem to have been of sufficient prominence otherwise in the area to warrant overseeing this inquest.118 Nevertheless, his interest in the house continued. On becoming a canon at the house in the late 1170s, he gave them all his property in the ‘new land’ of Derby.119 His son Peter and daughter-in-law Alina consented to this grant, and were to receive a half mark annually from the canons. This annual payment seems to have come to Albreda, Peter’s daughter, who later quitclaimed it to the canons in exchange for 6 marks of silver to her and her son Richard de Ruston.120 Richard acquired another 6 marks for a similar quitclaim in the late twelfth century, and promised to give the canons land worth half a mark per year if he could not warrant the quitclaim.121 Richard continued to make small grants to the canons into the mid-thirteenth century, including 2 acres in ‘Crowedoles’,122 the service of two villeins in Litchurch and Burley,123 and more than 13 acres in seven small parcels elsewhere in Litchurch.124 Like other urban landholders, Peter de Sandiacre and his descendants of the same name seem to have acquired small parcels of urban property and to have disposed of them in a similar way to the burgesses. In the case of the Sandiacres, their urban property fitted into a wider pattern of land acquisition and exploitation. Much of their landed interest is focused, unsurprisingly, on Sandiacre. Here, they had some subtenants by the later twelfth century, including John, nephew of Bishop Walter of Coventry who had done homage to Peter and owed him the so-called ‘feudal aids’.125 The yearly rental from this was later granted to the canons by Peter II during the reign of King John.126 As noted in Chapter 3, individuals often supported several religious houses, particularly those that bordered their lands. Peter I de Sandiacre was also benefactor to the ill-fated Dale Abbey, which lay about 7 miles to the east of Darley. Peter granted 4 acres probably in Sandiacre, which lay 4 miles to the south-east of Dale. His son Peter II later confirmed this to the canons for 12s.127 Seven bovates held from Peter III de Sandiacre by tenants also found their way into Dale Abbey’s possessions in the early thirteenth 118 Darley,

A12. A1. 120 Ibid., A3. 121 Ibid., A4. 122 Ibid., A5. 123 Ibid., nos. A6, A9. 124 Ibid., nos. A7, A8. 125 Dale, no. 281. Saltman observes that the draughtsman of this charter is ‘clearly an amateur’, and the document has some interesting incidental detail on countergifts given as part of the process of land transfer (Saltman, Dale, 209, n.1). 126 Dale, no. 282. 127 BL Add. Ch. 47504; printed Dale, no. 283. 119 Ibid.,

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century.128 Some recurrent witnesses around Peter III de Sandiacre may be part of his retinue. A Walter de Halum active in the late twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth appears as witness for Peter’s grant to Dale Abbey.129 Urban landholders were not, then, entirely urban or entirely rural. Some local landholders collected both urban and rural property, and disposed of it in similar ways to nearby religious houses. Locality seems to have played a major factor in directing their patronage. Within this, we can see that local practices in landholding seem to have held sway: Peter de Sandiacre generally bought and sold land in town, but subinfeudated rural holdings.

Stafford In comparison to Derby and Leicester, twelfth-century Stafford is very much the poor relation both in wealth and in documentation. What follows will of necessity be a tentative outline of the town and its seigneurial structure. Like Leicester, Stafford had an eponymous lord who held a considerable amount in the town and the castle. The distribution of property at Domesday seems closer to Derby’s model, however, and the town through the twelfth century seems to have developed more along the latter’s line, with what we can see of the communal institutions developing in collaboration with lords but not under the control of a single lord. Its name seems to have been taken from its position as a crossing point on the River Sow, a small tributary of the Trent.130 The core of the town lies in a loop of the river that almost entirely surrounds it. Within this area there has been evidence of Roman occupation, industry, and a river crossing, but the site may have been abandoned by the mid-Saxon period when St Bertelin supposedly made it the site of a hermitage.131 After Edward the Elder’s victory at Tettenhall in 910, Æthelflæd is credited with constructing a burh at Tamworth in the early summer and Stafford before Lammas (1 August).132 Within a few decades, Stafford was the central town of the newly created

128 Dale

nos. 298–308. no. 299; Jeayes, no. 933. See also ibid., no. 228. 130 Gelling et al., The Names of Towns and Cities, s.v. ‘Stafford’, suggests it is from the Old Norse stǫð, ‘crossing place’ rather than the Old English stæð, ‘bank of a river shore’. Watts suggests that the name indicates activity on and around the river Sow (Watts, Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names s.v. ‘Stafford’. See also D. Horovitz, ‘A survey and analysis of the place-names of Staffordshire’ (Ph.D. thesis, Nottingham, 2003), 43–6. 131 VCH Staffs VI, 186; Church of St Bertelin at Stafford and its Cross, ed. A. Oswald (Birmingham, 1955), 7, 9); Horovitz, ‘Place-names of Staffordshire’, 43–5. 132 VCH Staffs VI, 186; Mercian Register s.a. 913. 129 Ibid.,

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Staffordshire, and by the reign of Æthelstan was minting its own coins.133 In the later Saxon period, Stafford-type ware was produced there, and a small college of canons was founded.134 The town and its region suffered a series of harryings in the eleventh century, first from Edmund Ironside and Uhtred of Northumbria in 1013, then Edmund and Cnut in 1016. After the Conquest, the region’s Earl Edwin had been left in place by William, and probably a number of his followers with him. Stafford suffered as part of William’s brutal repressions of 1069–70, although Edwin had not been among the rebels.135 A castle was built by William in the western part of the town in 1070, although seems to have been short-lived.136 After Edwin’s death following another rebellion in 1071,137 the lands of his earldom were dismantled and redistributed between the king and favoured lords. As a result, both Stafford and its county are somewhat depleted in Domesday Book. It paid £7 yearly to the king TRW, down from £9 TRE, compared with TRW values of £30 for Derby, and £42 10s. for Leicester. Fifty-two houses are recorded as waste, with only 91 of those recorded deemed to be occupied.138 Only one out of William fitz Anculf ’s four houses was deemed habitable (hospitata).139 Some of these houses may have been damaged in the construction of the castle, but the general impression is of a significant and relatively recent drop in population. Even the king is recorded as having only 18 burgesses.140 Within Stafford, Domesday shows the property of Earl Edwin had been shared out between the king, Hugh son of Earl Roger, Robert of Stafford, and William fitz Ansculf. These mansuras are still reckoned separately from the individuals’ other holdings.141 Alongside the king with 18 burgesses and 30 recorded properties, and Robert de Stafford with 54, were Earl Roger (31 properties and three in Sheriff Hales), the bishop of Chester (14), ‘the priests of the borough’, likely the canons of St Mary’s (14), Burton Abbey (5), Roger’s son Hugh (5), William fitz Ansculf (4) and Henry de Ferrers (1). All of these holdings were with sake and soke, and all paid geld to the king.142 133 EMC/SCBI

nos. 1027.1626, 1034.0100, 1001.0577, 1002.0634, 1002.0635, 1034.0198. 134 D. Ford, ‘A late Saxon pottery industry in Staffordshire: a review’, Medieval Ceramics 22–3 (1998–9), 11–36; VCH Staffs III, 303. 135 ODNB ‘Ælfgar, earl of Mercia’. 136 VCH Staffs VI, 200. 137 ASC DE s.a. 1071. 138 Some of the entries seem to have been focused on the number of ‘waste’ houses: the king presumably had more in the town’s royal lands than the eight unoccupied dwellings assigned to him in Domesday (DB i, fo. 246). 139 Ibid. 140 Ibid. 141 Ibid. 142 Ibid.

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The town also seems to have been somewhat marginal even to its eponymous lord. The most prominent landholder aside from the king was Robert de Stafford, who claimed (ut dicit) to receive half of the royal revenues from the town by the king’s gift. Under his lands in Staffordshire, it is recorded that he received 70s. from this grant, which fits with the £7 recorded that the king received.143 Robert de Stafford held lands worth £79 4s. in Staffordshire (excluding the king’s grant of revenues in Stafford),144 and £151 6s. across six other counties.145 Even for one whose name was derived from the town, therefore, Stafford was not the most important or valuable town. Unlike the earls of Leicester, what records we have seem to show the Staffords’ attention was elsewhere. Their religious house and family mausoleum was at Stone Priory, about 8 miles to the north. The castle of 1070 which William I built had been destroyed by 1086. Orderic Vitalis mentions that William Pantulf was given custodiam Stephordi castri in 1102, which may be a second short-lived castle connected to the Bellême uprising.146 No other reference to a castle appears until 1199–1200, when 20s. was paid for the repair of the jail and ironwork of the castle (in reparatione gaiole et ferramento castelli de Stafford’).147 The River Sow has always been small, and seems unlikely to have been navigable in the medieval period. Indeed, it was not until the industrial revolution that the town saw sustained growth in its economy and population. Nevertheless, the town benefited as part of the economic growth of the long twelfth century, and a group of burgesses emerged with sufficient wealth and organisation to gain a charter from King John. The charter is preserved in an inspeximus of Henry III, and granted to Stafford the status of liber burgus, and fee-farm to its burgesses in perpetuity.148 This town was to have standard privileges and rights to exact tolls and fines, but the charter explicitly preserved the exemption of the citizens of London, suggesting the presence of merchants from further afield. By the thirteenth century, the records of St Thomas show a lively trade in small pieces of urban property between the burgesses.149 The house had several mills at farm in the town, worth 10 marks per year.150 One of our few glimpses of the internal politics of Stafford comes from the records of the Premonstratensian priory of St Thomas of Canterbury, founded 143 DB

i. fos 246, 248v. fos 248v–249v. 145 Ibid., fos 62, 158, 176v, 225, 242v, 386v. 146 OV iv. 194, 199, ed. Chibnall, ii, 228, 236; VCH Staffs, I, 222–3. 147 PR 2 John, 249. The jail was first mentioned in 1185, and further money was spent on it between 1194 and 1214 (R.W. Eyton, ‘The Staffordshire pipe rolls of the reigns of King Richard I and King John AD 1189 to AD 1216’, SHC II, 1–177 at 91, 97). 148 VCH Staffs. I, 226; Calendar of Charter Rolls, i. 71–2. 149 SRO D938/177–89. 150 SRO D938/176. 144 Ibid.,

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2 miles east of the town in c.1174.151 Nearly 60 original charters survive from this house for the period under discussion in this book.152 The house also had a cartulary, for which the only surviving record is a calendar made by Walter Chetwynd, a Derbyshire antiquarian and lawyer from the seventeenth century. These were augmented and published by Rev. F. Parker in 1887 for the William Salt society. Most of the house’s extant charters concern land in the immediate vicinity of Stafford, not in the town itself. While some things can be inferred from this evidence, therefore, overall we have a much dimmer impression of what was happening within Stafford in this period. The founder, Gerard fitz Brian, was almost certainly a burgess, although he is never referred to as such in the records. In his founding gift to the house, he gave nearly 70 acres in Sheepwash meadow on the banks of the River Sow, the stretch of the river alongside it, and 8s. rent from property in Stafford itself. The canons were transferred from Darley Abbey, but Gerard ensured that the priory should not be subject to that or any other.153 Gerard made himself advocate and protector of the house (ero advocatus eorum, et protector memorati loci).154 Little else is known about the founder, but he seems to have had modest holdings elsewhere in the town. Four of his grants survive to his three children, making disposition of his land for after his death. His son William received land by Wymer, and a moiety of his land in Stafford market. His daughters Helen and Matilda received land possibly in the Eastgate of Stafford.155 Gerard also appeared frequently as witness for further grants to the house from other donors, although never in the most prominent position in the witness list.156 Gerard held the land on which he founded the house from the bishop of Coventry, at that time Richard Peche (1161–82), whose prominence as founder quickly seems to have overshadowed that of Gerard.157 Nevertheless, the inspeximus containing a confirmation by Pope Celestine III (1191x98) treats them as co-founders.158 In a charter of 1180x October 1182, the bishop confirmed the site and the grants which had been given to the house by that date. In 1182, he resigned his see, took the habit at the house and was eventually buried there, but the patronage of the house remained to his episcopal successors.159 His initial grants were of a burgage of Lichfield; 151 The

appearance of Ralph, archdeacon of Stafford, means that the charter must have been produced before 1175 when he ceased to hold this office. St Thomas’ canonisation only took place in 1173 (VCH Staffs III, 260–1). 152 SRO D938/. 153 William Salt Library S. MS 593; F. Parker, ‘A chartulary of the priory of St Thomas, the martyr, near Stafford’, SHC VIII (1887), 125–201 at 131–2. 154 Ibid., 132. 155 Ibid., 131. 156 SRO D938/141–3, D938/156, D938/226–7, D938/390, D938/391, D938/394–5. 157 Parker, ‘Chartulary’, 133–4; English Episcopal Acta 16, no. 93. 158 Parker, ‘Chartulary’, 135. 159 VCH Staffs. III, 261.

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housbote, haybote and firebote from his wood in the nearby Cannock Chase; common of pasture in nearby Baswich; and part of the River Sow near Stafford with fishing rights.160 By the time of his confirmation of the 1180s, however, he had added a mill by Mulnedigh, Estmora, on the opposite site of the River Sow; meadow pertaining to the manor of Eccleshall, with permission to assart; land at Orberton (unidentified, but almost certainly in an area now covered by the town) held of the bishop by one Mabel; and two more burgages in Lichfield.161 While not lavish, these would have provided the house with some resources as well as agricultural and urban property. This same confirmation covers some modest grants by what appear to be inhabitants or people living near to the town, such as Robert of Orberton. These included some houses in Stafford, from Ralph the archdeacon and Christiana de Wolverhampton, plus land adjoining houses from Henry son of Archdeacon Helias. There were some other small grants of fields, blocks of acres, and the farm of one mill on Kingston Brook. Aside from the bishop’s grant of two burgages in Lichfield, these were all very local grants, focused on Stafford and the land around its river. By the time of Pope Celestine’s confirmation, the circle of grants seems to have been gradually expanding.162 Small amounts of land was granted at Ingestre, 7 miles to the east, Hopton, Haleton, and elsewhere within a 10-mile radius. One grant by Ivo de Mutton was with his body for burial. Some of these, such as Robert de Bec, were minor lords of reasonable prominence. William Bagot, who was of similar local prominence, gave a burgage in Stafford to the house, in a charter which Parker records as c.1100, but is probably closer to 1200.163 In Whitgreave, approximately 3 miles to the north of Stafford, there were a number of small grants and sales to the canons by Walter and his brother Ernald, and by Clement son of Erbert de Whitgreave in the early thirteenth century.164 Walter sold half a virgate of land to St Thomas’ for 3½ marks, one bacon, and one sieve of grain.165 Ernald his brother later confirmed this,166 and also sold his tenancy in Whitgreave from Henry de Honneburi to the canons, who were to henceforth pay to Henry the 2s. owed to him.167 These grants and sales were almost all under 10 acres, often smaller, and sometimes a mixture of lands and rents. From the witness lists to these documents, these individuals seem to have repeatedly witnessed one another’s documents. Ernald de Whitgreave 160 Parker, ‘Chartulary’,

133–4; English Episcopal Acta 16, no. 94. D938/1. 162 Parker, ‘Chartulary’, 135. 163 Ibid., 187. 164 SRO D938/434–8; D938/441–2, D938/444–448. 165 SRO D938/434. 166 SRO D938/435. 167 SRO D938/436–7. Ernald’s son Geoffrey later confirmed this to the canons (D938/438). 161 SRO

Map 14 Benefactions to St Thomas’ Priory, Stafford.

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witnessed a grant to the house by Hugh de Haughton in Cotes.168 Ivo de Mutton appears with his brother Ralph for grants in Whitgreave,169 sometimes Ralph alone for transactions concerning Cotes, Whitgreave and Donisthorpe,170 and a kinsman, Nicholas de Mutton appears for business concerning Haughton and Cotes.171 Eudo de Mere appears as a regular witness for seven extant charters between the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, for charters concerning land in Drayton,172 Cotes,173 Hopton,174 Orberton175 and Whitgreave.176 Although we do not have much information for whether these individuals held land in Stafford or could be considered burgesses, they suggest that there was some network of those holding land in the immediate vicinity of the town, connected perhaps by proximity, by the town itself, or by a shared interest in St Thomas’ priory. We have only one, brief glimpse of the religious role of St Thomas in Stafford from a miracle story collected by Benedict of Peterborough, in the form of a letter from Abbot Albinus of Derby to Odo, prior of Christ Church Canterbury in 1175. A knight had brought a phial of water from Canterbury, which miraculously turned to blood. It was given to an ill burgess in Stafford.177 The date suggests that the priory was already in existence, and this may have prompted the delivery of a peripheral relic of St Thomas to the town and its use by a burgess. It suggests, too, the spiritual reputation of the saint, and that stories of his miracles may have been circulating in the region. The overall impression from the house of St Thomas, then, is of a house with some connections, possibly from the bishop, and a gradually increasing reach, but one that was operating primarily on a small, local scale, and receiving patronage mostly from those in its immediate region. Little light is shed on Stafford itself. There is clearly a market, plenty of meadow land around its rivers, and a reasonably sized group of people wealthy enough to afford to patronise a house. It has an archdeacon, and was clearly of enough standing for the bishop to become involved with the house and town. The land market of the town seems to have been pushing outwards, perhaps taking some of the practices with it: sales between inhabitants and to St Thomas’ seem more common in Stafford’s immediate hinterland, possibly driven by the normal practices of those buying and selling the property. The bishop and Robert de Stafford 168 SRO

D938/392. D938/434–5. 170 SRO D938/228, D938/447, D938/648. He also appears with his brother Philip in D938/396 for business concerning Hopton. 171 SRO D938/143, D938/391–2, D938/395. 172 SRO D938/156. 173 SRO D938/228. 174 SRO D938/396. 175 SRO D938/425–7. 176 SRO D938/446. 177 J.C. Robertson, Materials for a History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (2 vols, England, 1885) ii, 189–91; Darlington, Darley, i, ii. 169 SRO

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appear in connection with Stafford, but neither seems to have been even close to dominating it. Like in Derby the internal associations of the burgess class seem to have constituted one of the main powers in the town.

Leicester Leicester is the odd borough out of the three county towns.178 Orderic Vitalis described the town as being under four masters in 1101: the king, the bishop of Lincoln, Earl Simon de Senlis and Ivo de Grandmesnil.179 Within a few years, however, the newly-created earls of Leicester had control of the Grandmesnil and Senlis lands and possibly some of the king. Over the twelfth century, the earls would contest and encroach on the lands of the bishop of Lincoln. Although Leicester had a strong burgess and mercantile presence, it was almost completely under the control of one lord or another into the thirteenth century and beyond.180 As a result, it provides an important insight into the impact of sole or near-sole lordship over a town and the consequent impact on the development of communal institutions, burgesses and minor lords in the town. Leicester lies on the River Soar, in roughly the centre of the county. Coventry lies around 25 miles to the south-west, and Derby 28 to the north-west. The site of Leicester was first permanently settled in the late Iron Age as the southern centre of the Corieltavi, a loose tribal grouping covering much of Leicestershire, and parts of Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire.181 The settlement covered a 10-hectare site on the east bank of the River Soar, near where St Nicholas’ church now stands.182 It became a major Roman centre at the beginning of the second century AD, 178 Geoffrey

of Monmouth claimed that the town was named Leicester after the tomb of King Leir on the River Soar. It has been suggested, more plausibly, that the first element of the name is from a Brittonic river name, as in Loire in France. A tributary of the Soar, the Leire, is however some distance away, so if this were the root, it may have been derived from the people of the Leire area, if it extended this far (Gelling et al., The Names of Towns and Cities, s.v. ‘Leicester’; Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names s.v. ‘Leicester’). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives the name as variations on Ligere-ceastre (ASC D s.a. 914). 179 OV, ii, 264–5; M. Bateson, Records of the Borough of Leicester, Being a Series of Extracts from the Archives of the Corporation of Leicester, 1103–1327 (London, 1899), xiii–xiv. 180 Bateson, Leicester, ix. It may correspond to the Italian model of a signoria locale, see Coss, Aristocracy in England and Tuscany, 20–2, 168–88, 370–83. 181 R. Buckley, N. Cooper and M. Morris, Life in Roman and Medieval Leicester: Excavations in the Town’s North-East Quarter 1958–2006 (Leicester, 2021), 399–401; M. Morris, R. Buckley and M. Codd, Visions of Ancient Leicester: Reconstructing Life in the Roman and Medieval Town from the Archaeology of the Highcross Leicester Excavations (Leicester, 2011), 9. 182 Morris et al., Visions of Ancient Leicester, 15.

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although may have begun a slow decline from the mid-fourth century.183 The early fifth century is elusive in the material record but there is evidence of settlement from the early Anglo-Saxon period.184 From 737, and possibly from the 680s, it was the seat of the diocese of the Middle Angles, until Scandinavian attacks in the 870s prompted the see’s movement to Dorchester-on-Thames (Oxon.).185 The town was subsequently under Danish control and formed one of the Five Boroughs along with Lincoln, Stamford, Derby and Nottingham. It surrendered to Æthelflæd in 918 and, thereafter, mostly remained under English control.186 It had a minster probably at St Mary’s, later St Mary de Castro.187 After the Conquest, a castle was established in the south-western corner of the town.188 By the early twelfth century, the town’s defences formed three sides of a rough square, with the River Soar forming a fourth side to the west. Within it, the town was roughly divided into two by High Street, with six or so streets running east to west.189 Outside the walls and to the east, south and west were the city’s open fields, and close to the north gate Leicester forest began.190 In Domesday Book, Leicester is described variously as a civitas and a borough (burgum), possibly a reference to its still-visible Roman defences and other remains.191 It paid £42 10s. by weight ‘for city and county’. 183 Buckley

et al., Life in Roman and Medieval Leicester, 103–4, 402; Morris et al., Visions of Ancient Leicester, 17. 184 Buckley et al., Life in Roman and Medieval Leicester, 104–6; Morris et al., Visions of Ancient Leicester, 39–41; Liddle, Leicestershire Archaeology: The Present State of Knowledge, Vol. 2, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Periods (Leicester, 1982), 5. Later settlement does not seem to have respected the Roman street plan (Buckley et al., Life in Roman and Medieval Leicester, 107–8. 185 D.P. Kirkby, ‘The Saxon bishops of Lindsey (Syddensis), Leicester and Dorchester’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 41 (1965–6), 1–8 at 2; Buckley et al., Life in Roman and Medieval Leicester, 106; Courtney, ‘Saxon and medieval Leicester: the making of an urban landscape’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, 72 (1998), 110–45 at 110. 186 Leicester was briefly under the control of Olaf Guthfrithsson 940–2 before being retaken by King Edmund (Courtney, ‘Saxon and medieval Leicester’, 114). 187 Ibid., 127. 188 This was not mentioned in Domesday, but may have been constructed during William’s northwards campaign of 1068, when castles were also constructed at Warwick, Nottingham and Lincoln (VCH Leics. IV, 2). 189 From the map in D. Postles, ‘On the outside looking in: Leicester Abbey’s urban property in Leicester’, in Leicester Abbey: Medieval History, Archaeology, and Manuscript Studies, ed. J. Story, J. Bourne and R. Buckley (Leicester, 2006), 193–216 at 194. 190 Bateson, Leicester, xi. In c.1200, the burgesses were freed by the earl of Leicester from making a yearly payment for the reaping of the earl’s corn (ibid., xxi). 191 This term was often used for towns with visible Roman remains or that were episcopal seats, although terminology is not always consistent (H.C. Darby, Domesday England (Cambridge, 1977), 289–90; Reynolds, Medieval Towns, 97 and 197; Courtney, ‘Saxon and medieval Leicester’, 126).

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In 1086, Hugh de Grandmesnil was in possession of the castle, the third penny of the town mint, and was a dominant lord in both Leicester and Leicestershire. King William is recorded as having 39 houses (domus) in Leicester, and 24 in common with Hugh; not including these, Hugh had 177 houses, two churches, and 37 burgesses.192 Others holding houses in the town were Countess Judith (28 and half of a mill), Earl Hugh (17), Coventry Abbey (10), Robert de Bessy (9), Hugh de Gouville (5, held of Hugh de Grandmesnil), Crowland Abbey (3), the archbishop of York (2), and Henry de Ferrers and Robert the Bursar had one burgess apiece.193 The bishop of Lincoln’s holdings are listed with the rest of his entry, not the borough, but in 1086 he had 17 burgesses paying 32d. a year, 1½ mills, and two churches, plus 10 carucates of land.194 Bateson has identified the latter land as being St Margaret’s parish, immediately to the north-east of Leicester.195 Hugh de Grandmesnil’s dominance of the town, then, is evident by 1086, although the bishop of Lincoln would prove to be a thorn in the side of his successors. Orderic Vitalis, who was well-informed about Leicester and its earl, described Hugh as the town’s municipatus.196 Across Leicestershire, Hugh held 67 manors, and further lands in Nottinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire and Suffolk. The political history of the town is entirely bound up with the activities of the lords of Leicester in this period. Before turning to the records for the town, it is worthwhile to briefly outline their careers which form a background to their aims and actions in Leicester. The town was entrusted to Hugh de Grandmesnil by 1086, who was, like his successors, high in royal favour. He was one of those entrusted with the custody of England during William’s return to Normandy in 1067. He had aided a reconciliation between William I and Robert Curthose in 1079 and, despite supporting the latter against William Rufus in 1087–88, did not lose his position.197 There is little record of Hugh’s management of the town between his acquisition of it and his death in early 1098, but he seems to have remained in control and no

192 As

discussed below, this seems an oddly low number for a major town, and suggests strongly that there were other burgesses that were not recorded. 193 DB i, fo. 230. 194 Ibid., fo. 230v. 195 Bateson, Leicester, xvii–xviii. 196 OV, ii, 264–5. Hugh de Grandmesnil and his brother Robert had refounded Orderic Vitalis’ abbey of St Evroult in c.1050. Hugh became a monk of the house in February 1098, while still in England, dying several days later. His body was transported to St Evroult for burial, and Orderic wrote his epitaph (OV. iv, 336–9; ODNB, ‘Hugh de Grandmesnil’). 197 Henry of Huntingdon, The History of the English People 1000–1154, ed. and transl. D. Greenway (Oxford, 1996), 412–3.

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major rebellions are recorded. It is likely that he was sheriff of Leicestershire throughout this time.198 After his death, Hugh’s second son Ivo inherited his English lands and probably his position as sheriff.199 On the death of William Rufus, however, Ivo supported Robert Curthose as the next king, whom he had previously accompanied on crusade. Orderic Vitalis says that Ivo devastated the estates of his neighbours in the Midlands as part of an uprising, although evidence of this damage has not survived. After the settlement between Henry I and Robert in 1101, Ivo was heavily fined for his disturbance. To pay for this, and to raise funds to go on another crusade, Ivo mortgaged his lands to the count of Meulan, Robert de Beaumont, who was at that time the king’s chief adviser.200 Ivo’s son Ivo was also to marry Robert’s niece, but Ivo I’s death on crusade in 1101 or 1102 meant this never took place. Robert managed to keep hold of Ivo’s lands after his death, and in 1107 the king formally invested him as earl of Leicester.201 Robert added to his control over Leicester by marrying his daughter to the son of Simon de Senlis, to whom Judith’s lands in the town had come. Through this marriage, Robert gained control of Senlis’ lands, leaving only the king and the bishop of Lincoln as the other major landholders in the town. He and his descendants were responsible for much of the material development of Leicester and its involvement in national politics.202 Earl Robert II de Beaumont (1118–68) and his twin brother Waleran inherited their father’s lands and high position at court, and Robert received his father’s earldom, his lands in Leicestershire and its county town. David Crouch describes him as a ‘dutiful, curial earl’ during Henry I’s reign.203 Robert supported Stephen in his bid for the throne in 1135, and benefited from the latter’s arrest of Bishops Alexander of Lincoln and Roger of Salisbury in June 1139. Robert took the opportunity to seize Bishop Alexander’s castle of Newark and his property in Leicester, the latter removing his only potential rival in the town. Robert was successful in pursuing expansionist policies in the Midlands, particularly against the earl of Chester in the Soar valley and 198 J.

Green, English Sheriffs to 1154 (London, 1990), 53. Green notes that direct evidence is lacking, but ‘it is hard to identify anyone else who could have been sheriff at this date’ (ibid.). The close connection between earl and sheriff continued into the twelfth century: Geoffrey l’Abbé was steward of the earls of Leicester and sheriff of the county (D. Crouch, ‘Early charters and patrons of Leicester Abbey’, in J. Story et al. (ed.), Leicester Abbey, 225–87, appendix no. 12). 199 ODNB ‘Ivo de Grandmesnil’; Green, English Sheriffs, 53. 200 ODNB, ‘Robert de Beaumont, count of Meulan and first earl of Leicester (d.1118)’. 201 Ivo II and a brother were brought up in Henry I’s court, but never received lands. Both died in the White Ship in 1120. ODNB ‘Ivo de Grandmesnil’; ODNB, ‘Robert de Beaumont, count of Meulan and earl of Leicester (d. 1118)’. 202 OV iv. 222, ed. Chibnall, ii, 264–5; VCH Leics IV., 2–3. 203 ODNB ‘Robert de Beaumont, second earl of Leicester (1104–1168)’. His twin brother had been imprisoned for a while following a rebellion in 1123.

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Charnwood (Leics.). By 1153 he had switched sides and joined Duke Henry, and was involved in the siege of Tutbury. His adherence brought him the justiciarship of England until his death in 1168.204 Robert’s son, another Robert, was more distant from the court than his father, and joined the Young King’s rebellion in 1173/74.205 As a result, a royal army attacked Leicester in July 1173 and succeeded in taking the town but not the castle. In July 1174, defeated elsewhere, his constables surrendered his castles of Leicester, Groby and Mountsorrel to the king. Leicester and Groby were slighted in 1176, but seem not to have been too seriously damaged. Robert himself was imprisoned from 1174, and again in 1183 for another uprising. His adherence to Count Richard meant, however, that he was in high favour from Richard’s accession in 1189, and had all of his lands restored by the king before his own death on crusade in 1190.206 His son, Robert IV earl of Leicester, had accompanied his father on crusade and was invested as earl in Sicily by King Richard in February 1191.207 After his return in March 1193, Robert was active in the defence of Normandy alongside Richard and later under John. For the support of the latter, he was granted Richmondshire in north-western Yorkshire, and the lands of the Harcourt family, which helped somewhat to compensate the loss of his Norman lands after 1204. His activities kept him away from Leicester for much of his career, but his position at court allowed him to obtain privileges for the borough and to secure his possession of the Leicester suburban lands previously held by the bishop of Lincoln, and which had been contested since the mid-twelfth century. Robert died October 1204 without male heirs. The comital title, town and honour descended to his sister Amice, who styled herself countess of Leicester in her own right, although she may not have enjoyed the lands.208 Her son with Simon I de Montfort, Simon II, sought to obtain Amice’s portion of the Leicester inheritance 1205–07, but the lands were kept in royal hands until 1231. On her death on 3 September 1215, all the lands of the earldom of Leicester were granted by King John to Ranulf III earl of Chester, and it was not until 1231 that Amice’s grandson, Simon de Montfort, received the earldom from Henry III. The bishops of Lincoln were the only other lords holding a notable amount of property in the borough, which seems to have been a point of irritation for the de Beaumont earls. Earl Robert II seems to have tried to appropriate the bishop’s lands in the 1120s, necessitating royal intervention to settle this in 1130.209 When Alexander bishop of Lincoln was arrested along with his 204 ODNB 205 ODNB

‘Robert de Beaumont II’. ‘Robert de Breteuil, third earl of Leicester (c.1130–1190)’.

207 ODNB

‘Robert de Breteuil, fourth earl of Leicester (d.1204)’.

206 Ibid. 208 Ibid.

209 Crouch,

The English Aristocracy, 137–8; D. Crouch, ‘Earls and bishops in twelfthcentury Leicestershire’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 37 (1993), 9–20 at 12–14.

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uncle Bishop Roger of Salisbury at the Oxford council of June 1139, this both removed a rival presence in government for Robert II de Beaumont, and a rival in his stronghold of Leicester. The arrest did not stick, and Stephen was forced to plead his case before a legatine council at Winchester.210 Nevertheless, as already noted, Earl Robert had already seized the bishop’s land in Leicester. Even after Alexander’s release, the land continued to be contested between the earls and bishops until it was finally confirmed to the earldom by King John as a point of favour in 1204.211 There were, however, some attempts at rapprochement between the bishops and earls during this time. At some point between the seizure of the episcopal lands in 1139 and Bishop Alexander’s death in 1147, Earl Robert II gave 10 burgesses from within the borough of Leicester with their houses and lands and all rights as compensation for damages.212 The same Earl Robert had also tried to exchange the vill of Westcotes in Leicester’s great west field for the bishop’s manor of Knighton, an eastern suburb of Leicester.213 Robert seems to have run into difficulty in that the bishop had previously attached his burgesses to the manor of Knighton, and kept them after the exchange of the manor.214 The case was finally settled in 1204 when Earl Robert IV and the bishop of Lincoln agreed to give the disputed lands of Westcotes and Knighton to Leicester Abbey, excluding the burgesses of Knighton fee.215 Nevertheless, periodic disputes over the land of the borough and the bishop continued into the fourteenth century. It seems likely that the opportunism and prickliness of the earls towards a rival power in the town was with the aim of taking over the lands and burgesses of the bishop and ruling the town as sole lords. This demonstrates something of the nature of power in this period. Leicester castle was the comital caput, but the earls may have wanted to extend this to cover all of Leicester. A second power there who could offer an alternative source of authority for his own burgesses, and who held valuable lands, could be a source of profound frustration to an ambitious family. In sole control of the town, the earls’ power to direct internal politics and administration, and to control their men, would have been virtually uncontested. How was this kind of ambition and stranglehold over the town manifested on the ground, and what impact did it have on the minor lords of the town – the burgesses and the minor lords – who worked within this framework? In the first place, it should be noted that our view of people at 210 Carpenter,

Struggle for Mastery, 170. de Breteuil fourth earl of Leicester’; Crouch, The English Aristocracy, 139; Crouch, ‘Earls and bishops’, 16–20. 212 Nichols, Leicester, vol. I, part i, appendix no. viii; Bateson, Leicester, xviii. 213 Nichols, Leicester, vol. II, part ii, appendix, 59 and 258; Rot. Cart., 125; Monasticon VI, 468. 214 Bateson, Leicester, xviii. 215 Monasticon VI, 468; Bateson, Leicester, xviii. 211 ODNB, ‘Robert

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this level is limited by our sources, and so any conclusions drawn must be necessarily tentative. Along with the precociously early merchant guild rolls, for which the earliest extant begins c.1197, there are some borough charters recorded in the corporation archives and published by Mary Bateson in 1899.216 Many of the records of the abbey of St Mary de Pratis, also known as Leicester Abbey, are now lost. By the end of the fifteenth century, it seems to have had several cartularies, of which none are now extant. Several registers were made by William Charyte, prior of Leicester, of which two survive, one of which has suffered serious fire damage, rendering some parts now illegible.217 Nevertheless, David Crouch has succeeded in collecting 94 texts relating to Leicester Abbey from various sources.218 Fifty of these date to before c.1220 but, since much of his collection is taken from later rolls, the evidence leans towards the higher level of charter, such as royal charters of protection and comital grants, and to grants in other counties. Out of these 50 charters, 10 are royal or papal, and 13 others related to lands as far away as Lancashire. What is largely missing, then, from the records of twelfth-century Leicester are the large number of lower-level, documents from burgesses and minor lords as we have for Derby, which are vital in attempting to piece together the internal workings of the town and the groups within it. To some degree these can be filled from comital and royal confirmation charters, but donors are not always apparent, and in the former case may skew towards the earl’s retinue as confirming grants under his protection. As a result of this and other deficiencies in the evidence, our picture of Leicester in the long twelfth century is much less detailed than that of Derby and may appear more comitally-dominated than was in fact the case. In some of the few sources we have, however, there are suggestions that negotiation could also be attempted. To begin with the burgesses, who were they and what was their relationship with the lords and later earls? Domesday shows Hugh de Grandmesnil in a commanding position in the town with 37 burgesses, and the bishop of Lincoln with 17. This number seems oddly low when compared with, say, Derby which had 100 even after a decline, and suggests strongly that some may have been omitted from the record, possibly those directly under the king. The 1147 grant by Robert II de Beaumont to Bishop Alexander of 10 burgesses names those granted: Sweyn son of Thedric, Stori son of Sache, Walraven, Robert Fine, William son of Raven, Daired at the gate (ad portam), Erners his neighbour (vicinus suus), Osmund son of Simon, Bruning and Robert Schlene.219 This would seem to be the earliest named list of Leicester burgesses. The names show a strong Scandinavian component but increasing 216 Bateson,

Leicester, passim. Cotton MS Vitellius F xvii; Bodl. Laud misc. 625 is in better condition. See Crouch, ‘Early charters’, 225–7 for discussion. 218 Ibid., 225–7 and appendix. 219 Nichols, Leicester, vol. I, part i, appendix no. viii; Bateson, Leicester, xviii. 217 BL

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numbers of Norman names. William son of Raven may display a process in action in rural minor lords, namely of Anglo-Scandinavian families beginning to adopt the names of the new elite. The names are distinctly more Norman than the mid-century snapshot we have of a similar number of Derby burgesses. This may give a tentative suggestion of a stronger Norman presence in Leicester, centred on the earl and his retinue. Did the burgesses differ from the merchant guild? Bateson notes that a clear division can be discerned by 1300 between the two, and suggests that there was some distinction earlier. Later burgesses did not necessarily enter the guild, and the early guild rolls suggest that not all guild members were resident in Leicester.220 The merchant guild of Leicester has preserved the earliest guild rolls in the country, with the first entry dating from c.1197 as mentioned above.221 It is unclear whether Leicester was precocious in recording the guild accounts in writing or if these are just an accident of survival. Many of the earliest entries are a list of those entering the guild, their payment, and their pledges if they had not paid full cost up-front. Many also paid a mysterious tax recorded as Taurus, which Bateson has argued may be an additional fine imposed on strangers to the town.222 Some entrants to the guild seem to have come in blocks: Richard Lammesse, Thomas son of Richard son of Bloues, and Hakon son of Simon of Petra all appear paying entry fines and Taurus, and each appear as pledges of the other two. If these were outsiders, this may suggest that there were some small groups of traders joining the guild jointly and standing as pledge for one another. It is notable that there seems to be a link between paying Taurus and having pledges: ‘strangers’ may have needed additional security on their promises to pay. The guild rolls give a useful, if partial, snapshot of those trading in Leicester in the late twelfth century. As with the burgesses, many first names were Norman, with plenty of Roberts, Richards, Williams and Hughs. There is, however, still a scatter of Scandinavian names – Hakon, Sivat (Old Norse Sighvatr), Steinn223 – and some Anglo-Saxon – William son of Æscwig, Ealdwine de Frogmore.224 The bynames give a range of professions – cook, dyer, medicus, sopere (soapmaker), avenor (provider of horse food), farrier, cooper, leather-worker, saddler, carpenter, baker, tanner, pan-beater, fisher, cloth-dubber, carter – which speak to the standard low-status trade with the hinterland that formed the basis of most towns’ economies in this period. A few higher status trades appear – parchment-maker, goldsmith, mason – which may have been patronised by the abbey or earls, or perhaps with wealthier burgesses and minor lords. The inclusion of occasional nicknames 220 Ibid.,

xxviii.

221 Campbell, ‘Power

and authority’, 71. Leicester, 16, n. 1. 223 Ibid., 13, 14, 16. 224 Ibid., 13, 14. 222 Bateson,

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suggest that, despite the expansion of the guild, it was still a small enough society for these descriptors to be useful to record: Simon with the beard (cum barba), William smallbones, Norman petit, Richard Brokenhead, Ralph the simple, Walter the fat, John the tender (marwe).225 Excavation has uncovered at least one high-status house with a twelfth-century stone undercroft, which may have been that of a wealthy merchant.226 By the time of the first roll (c.1197–c.1233) the guild had one or two aldermen, other officials, receivers of guild-pence, chamberlains of the receipt, and a bell-man.227 Twenty-four individuals possibly known as jurats were required to attend all summons by the alderman, and had a role in advising and serving the guild. An oath seems to have been taken from all guildsmen and, although a full oath is not visible until the fourteenth century, members seem to have pledged de libertate et fidelitate.228 There is extensive discussion in the fourteenth-century guild records of judicial procedure, but we know little detail about its business. It seems likely that the officers of the Guild and Portmanmoot were the same individuals, and the distinction between the business of the two is often opaque, particularly in the twelfth century. It is likely that the Portmanmoot met weekly, with fines originally taken in beer, rather than revenue, but there were also larger yearly meetings where some judicial business was carried out.229 Money raised by the guild was spent on town concerns: they contributed £5 to an amercement in the early thirteenth century, and other money was spent on maintaining bridge-works.230 Reynolds argued that the earls remained in control of the Portmanmoot, and it is only through the morning speeches of the merchant guild that any independence was possible.231 Her argument is, however, based on later records, and it is less clear how the two differed in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Whatever their overlap, the burgesses and merchants of Leicester did well from the earls’ protection. Robert count of Meulan, the first earl, confirmed their merchant guild and customs as they had them in the time of Kings William I, II, and ‘now in the time of King Henry’ (et modo in tempore Henrici Regis).232 Bateson has dated this to 1103x18, but would appear to be from early in the count’s takeover of the town: like William I’s charter for Londoners of 1066, a reassurance to nervous merchants that their trade would continue undisrupted. This was followed by two confirmations by Robert II in 1118x68 and one in 1159x62 to his burgesses (omnibus burgensibus meis) of 225 Ibid.,

16, 17, 20, 21. et al., Life in Roman and Medieval Leicester, 113; R. Kipling, ‘A medieval undercroft, tenements and related sites, Leicester’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 84 (2010), 117–50, at 142. 227 Bateson, Leicester, xxx, 33. 228 Ibid., xxx, 25. 229 Ibid., xxx. 230 Ibid., xxxi, xxxvii. 231 Reynolds, Medieval Towns, 119–20. 232 Bateson, Leicester, 1, no. I. 226 Buckley

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customs and the right to have a guild of merchants as they had in the time of his father and his predecessors.233 The burgesses also received various other grants of rights from the earls. Robert II and IV confirmed the burgesses’ right to travel through Leicester forest with their packhorses free from toll as they had had in the time of their fathers.234 Robert II freed the burgesses from the requirement to pay heriot and to plead in any court outside the Portmanmoot of Leicester if summoned ‘as they were accustomed of old’ (sicut antiquitus constitutum fuit).235 Robert IV released the burgesses from paying certain agricultural dues, namely those for reaping the earl’s corn, for escaped cows, and for grinding corn in any but the earl’s mills in Leicester.236 The witnesses to these grants suggest that they were carried out in the comital court rather than a forum with the burgesses present. Indeed, two of Robert II’s are recorded as being given at Breteuil alongside various of the earl’s household officers.237 As a result, the circumstances in which these charters were issued is unclear. It seems likely that they were issued on burgess request, and may have required a ‘gift’ of money from the burgesses to get the comital cogs moving.238 Along with grants from the earls, the burgesses received royal grants of privilege which are likely to have been facilitated by the earls from their status at court. Henry I released the men (homines) of the earl of Leicester from tolls at Oxford (1118x35).239 King John granted two charters confirming the burgesses’ right to trade across England, and the right of the Portmanmoot to confirm sales and purchases of land in Leicester.240 These were both given on 26 December 1199, presumably during John’s first Christmas court. It is unclear whether these confirmations were made on the request of the earl of Leicester or the burgesses, but it is conceivable that representatives from the latter may have attended, potentially in the earl’s retinue, to secure favour with the new king. There is little evidence of any conflict arising between the earls of Leicester and the town either in this period or into the fourteenth century and beyond.241 Robert IV had to confirm Cowhay Pasture in the South Field to the burgesses ‘dwelling within certain bounds’ ([infra] certos limites existentibus), following a view by the lawful men of his council (per visum legalium virorum de consilio meo), 1191x1204.242 The burgesses paid him an unspecified Gersuma for the grant and were to pay 3d. per year for each cow pastured there. He also set 233 Ibid.,

2–4, nos. III, V, VI. 3, 6, nos. IV, VIII. 235 Ibid., 4, no. VI. 236 Ibid., 8, no. XI. 237 Ibid., 3–4, nos. IV, VI. 238 Ibid., 4–6, no. VII. 239 Ibid., 1–2, no. II. 240 Ibid., 7–8, nos. IX–X. 241 Ibid., xxxviii. 242 Ibid., 4–6, no. VII. 234 Ibid.,

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out in clear terms that he, his heirs, and his agents, would make no further claim to the pasture. This kind of comital overreach is hardly unusual for an ambitious lord to carry out, but it is notable that the burgesses constituted a strong enough body to stand up against their lord’s encroachments and bring a negotiation. Among the witnesses for this are Simon Curlevache and John de St Lo, whose families seem to have been on the way to being significant in Leicester: a Simon Curlevache was alderman in 1225, and he may have served until at least 1242. In 1234 a William de St Lo was chosen to accompany him and served for at least the next eight years alongside Simon.243 They appear in the 1191x1204 grant alongside frequent members of the earl’s retinue – Arnold du Bois, Ralph Martivall, Henry Costeyn – and we get an impression of the two groups coming together to oversee the proceedings.244 To a large degree, then, the burgesses and merchant guild seem to have benefited from the earls’ dominance over the town and protection of their interests. Nevertheless, the comital control over the town did block some of the developments towards communal government that were taking place in most towns by the late twelfth and early thirteenth century. Where Derby, for instance, received a grant of firma burgi by 1229, and very many others at a similar time, Leicester did not receive one until the later fourteenth century, and then only on a temporary basis.245 It is unclear whether the burgesses had the right to elect their own officers.246 Borough institutions such as the Portmanmoot did develop in Leicester, and they were likely to have been held weekly in one of the town’s churchyards.247 This court was separate from the earl’s honorial court at Leicester Castle, which was specifically for his tenants, but the earl retained profits from both. Our main other source for understanding twelfth-century Leicester is the (relatively) few extant documents of Leicester Abbey. This was the comital family mausoleum, an Augustinian priory, founded by Robert II de Beaumont 1139x40 outside the north gate of the town.248 Most of the endowment for this came from the pre-existing secular canons of St Mary de Castro, an institution that may have been Saxon in origin.249 The latter continued in use under the abbey, and Robert refounded it as a collegiate church in the mid-1160s with a dean, chaplain, and six other canons who were to be nominated by the abbey of St Mary.250 243 Ibid.,

xliii, 61–2. 4–6, no. VII. 245 Ibid., ix. 246 Ibid., x. 247 Ibid., xxiv. 248 Crouch, ‘Early charters’, appendix no. 1. 249 D. Crouch, ‘The foundation of Leicester abbey and other problems’, Midland History 12 (1987), 1–13 at 3–4; Crouch, ‘Early charters’, 227–8. He points out that the traditional date of 1143, taken by Charyte from Henry Knighton’s fourteenthcentury work, does not fit with the charter evidence. 250 Crouch, ‘Early charters’, appendix no. 13. 244 Ibid.,

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The earls of Leicester were generous patrons of the abbey from its foundation and remained so for the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The house was endowed from redistributed property from the existing St Mary de Castro, as described above. The reuse of the prebends meant that the abbey had considerable property in Leicester from its foundation. Robert II’s foundation charter granted 9 carucates and 8 bovates in or near Leicester, eight houses outside the North Gate and those previously held by Gubert the deacon, £6 of rent from Leicester, and all of the churches in and outside the walls of the town, with their lands and tithes. These grants were supplemented by grants in vills near to Leicester – lands in Thurmaston, Asfordby, Shepshed and Seagrave – but also several which were much further afield – the soke of Halse (Northants.), approximately 50 miles to the south, the church of West Isley in Berkshire. What minor grantors we can see are largely drawn from the retinues of the earls of Leicester. In the foundation charter, the earl’s prominent tenants Arnold de Bosco and Roger de Vateville are listed as giving land alongside their lord.251 The Hugh de Arden who granted land in Berwood (Warks.) to the abbey sometime c.1176x84 was not, however, as far as surviving evidence suggests, much involved with the earl of Leicester.252 The Cartae Baronum lists him as holding five knight’s fees of the earl of Warwick in 1166, however.253 The family connection between the earls may have provided some conduit to attract Hugh’s patronage, but more than this is unclear. There may have been some subsequent dispute over this land: Hugh’s heir Thomas de Arden confirmed the grant in the late twelfth or first decades of the thirteenth century, and added small pieces of neighbouring land.254 The surviving grants to Leicester Abbey fall into two categories: those within an approximately 15-mile span, or being far beyond the county. These latter may reflect the wide reach of the earls of Leicester or of those with a trading connection with Leicester. In the foundation charter, Earl Robert, son of Robert II granted to the abbey the church of Theddingworth, in exchange for the 30s. which his father had granted from the church of St Mary in Blynfield, Dorset.255 A virgate at Burton was also given, the gift of Isabella his mother, which may suggest something of the interconnection of urban sites. Grants by the earl’s men and confirmed in this same charter follow this pattern of being either within 15 miles, or over the county line. Siward Pitefrid gave the land which he held of the earl in Bruntingthorpe, 11 miles to the south. Arnold de Bosco, one in a long line of stewards to the earls, who all bore the same name, gave the church of Thorpe Arnold approximately 15 miles to the north-east 251 The

earls of Leicester had wardship over the de Vatevilles (Crouch, Beaumont Twins, 193). 252 Crouch, ‘Early charters’, appendix no. 16. 253 CB CXLIX/6. 254 Crouch, ‘Early charters’, appendix nos. 18, 28–30. 255 Ibid., appendix no. 1.

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along the River Wreake, and 1 mark of rent in Leicester. He also gave, however, the church of Clifton-in-Dunsmore, in Warwickshire. Roger de Vateville gave the church of Bulkington in Warwickshire, and half a hide in Bramcote. Because of the nature of the sources, it is difficult to trace much in the way of overlap between the donors to Leicester Abbey and the members of the merchant guild in the long twelfth century. Nevertheless, the little evidence we have is suggestive that some individuals were members of both groups. The Geoffrey L’Abbé who granted 6 virgates in Bramcote (Warks.) to Leicester Abbey with his wife Emma was sometime steward of the earl of Leicester and sheriff of the county 1154–55 – all of which suggest a close relationship with the earl.256 His sons Ernald and William appear in the guild rolls; the latter took up his father’s sedes. A Simon of Arden, who may be a relation of the Hugh and Thomas discussed above, entered the guild 1 June 1199. If Hugh had had a longer trading connection with the town, this may have prompted his earlier donation to the abbey.257 Taken together, these hints suggest an urban society that saw some cross-over between minor lords, comital officials, and merchants, with individuals like Geoffrey l’Abbé occupying all three roles. This may again speak to the position of the earls in Leicester: that his honour and town overlapped, and his followers found it easy to move between retinue, town and guild. We unfortunately have no evidence to suggest the impact on burgesses of the struggle between the bishop of Lincoln and the earls concerning the one hold-out against complete comital authority, but it would be unsurprising, for instance, if the earl of Leicester tried to draw burgesses of this area into his orbit, as ambitious lords did with subtenants in rural areas. The records must certainly conceal a great deal of day-to-day interaction between the earl’s household, the abbey, and the merchants and burgesses. An Augustinian abbey like Leicester was designed in part to meet lay pastoral needs within towns, and the house’s role as a manager of lands and resources – with their surpluses – must have prompted considerable overlap with the guild. For instance, the entry on the guild rolls of probably 1205–6, the year is dated by the death of Paul the abbot of Leicester, implying that this was an event that was sufficiently memorable for the guild members.258 As with rural landholdings, single lordship in an urban setting placed the lord in a powerful position and gave their tenants few alternatives to their control. Urban single lordship as in Leicester may have been even more powerful: as well as some control over lands (although perhaps less than rural property), the Grandmesnils acted as sheriffs, and they and the de Beaumonts enjoyed a third of the revenues from the mint, control of 256 Crouch, ‘Early

charters’, appendix, no.12; Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. Hall, ii, 655. He was son of one Ralph, sheriff 1139x47, who may have been Ralph the butler, steward of the earl of Leicester until 1140 (Crouch, Beaumont Twins, 5, 26; Green, Sheriffs, 53). 257 Crouch, ‘Early charters’, appendix, nos. 16, 18, 28–30; Bateson, Leicester, 19. 258 Bateson, Leicester, 17.

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the castle, and may have appointed borough officials. In this context, the hostility of the earls to the bishop of Lincoln is readily understandable: they represented the last hold-out before the earls could control almost the entire borough. Even here, however, the earls could not act entirely as they liked. The case of Cowhay meadow suggests that the burgesses were able to push back against comital encroachments, even while the earls acted as their protectors and obtained charters of privilege for them. While more restricted than other towns, communal identity and the commune as a source of power continued to emerge in Leicester, albeit in a more limited way and alongside comital control.

Conclusion In drawing conclusions about the impact of seigneurial and horizontal power structures in twelfth-century towns, considerable care needs to be exercised over the different sources available for each. In Leicester, many of the extant sources concern the earls. Those sources that do reveal mercantile action, namely the court rolls, are concerned with economic relationships rather than seigneurial. As a result, comital dominance may be exaggerated by the sources. In Derby and Stafford, we have charters issued by some of the burgesses themselves, which reveal much more about the individuals at this level and their interaction with lord and town. But these differences in the nature of sources may themselves be significant, however. For the latter two towns, we have these sources because of burgess foundations of religious houses. Although they were taken under the protection of the earl of Derby and the bishop of Coventry respectively, they remained at their core minor lordly foundations and attracted considerable patronage from this group. There was no such house in Leicester, and the earls’ abbey may instead have been the focus for the town’s patronage. In this way, Darley Abbey and St Thomas’ Priory may reflect as well as record burgess activity. Within towns, a similar dynamic seems to have existed as with single or multiple lordship in rural property. Where a town was under the control of a single lord, or nearly so, that lord’s interests overshadowed everything and shaped the town’s development. In Leicester, the lords and later earls of Leicester took over nearly all property in the town. From what can be seen, the town’s religious house was their family foundation and largely patronised by their retinue. Their followers seem to have been able to move easily between the lord’s household, the town, and the merchant guild, and personnel between these may have significantly overlapped. As with single lordship in a rural setting, where land, kin and locality could create a web of obligations and interests that drew an individual towards one lord, so could a single urban lord draw an individual’s focus through acting as landlord, protector of borough and mercantile rights and a lack of alternative powers

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within the town. Such lords formed a main source for patronage and advancement, so their oversight could be beneficial as well as predatory. Nevertheless, as with rural property, lordship over an area did not mean unquestioning obedience of those within it or a bar to the development of horizontal forms of association. This is particularly the case in towns, where the developing communal institutions and identity could provide a basis from which to negotiate with lords when rights were infringed. A merchant guild and a burgess class had begun to develop in Leicester by at least the late eleventh century, and these continued to flourish under the earls’ protection. Generally, we have little evidence for friction between the communal groups and the earls, but what evidence we have suggests that these groups fought seigneurial infractions, and may have negotiated with the earls and kings for grants of rights. This kind of pattern is also visible on a smaller scale with smaller towns. These were often under the control of one lord, who would have profited from tolls from the town’s trade with its hinterland as well as perhaps driving more high-status trade and consumption. In towns with several lords holding property and exercising their interests – bearing in mind the caveats about evidence above – burgess power seems to have come to the fore to a much greater degree. When they received royal charters, these were addressed to the burgesses as a body, not to a lord. Burgesses were successful in receiving a grant of firma burgi by the early thirteenth century which allowed them to manage their internal affairs to a large degree. No charters survive, if any were made, of the burgesses of Derby or Stafford receiving confirmation of rights from anyone other than the king, however – a reminder that ‘independence’ from a lord could come with drawbacks. Within Derby and Stafford, individuals were collecting urban property in a similar way to ambitious rural minor lords. Unlike in rural property, the greater ease with which property could be bought and sold meant that, although lords could be accumulated, it was easier to avoid getting lord and land at the same time. As a result, the tenurial hierarchy in towns seems to have been much flatter: land could be simply transferred by sale, rather than a new tenant slotted in between existing ones. In addition, the simpler structure of urban rental may have made negotiation with and acquiring of favour from lords less necessary. Those holding a mixture of urban and rural property seem to have switched between the two sets of norms depending on the type of land, indicating that it was a practice of property customs. We do, however, perhaps see urban practices spilling out into the immediate hinterland, with sales becoming more common in the immediate outskirts of Stafford. Pressure from burgesses who wished to buy lands there may have altered the local practice. What does this mean for lordship within towns? While we see confirmation by landlords where a tenancy was being assigned to another holder, no such confirmation seems to have been necessary for sales: the only ones we do have are by kin members to assent to a sale taking place. Nor do we see

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the lords of towns involving themselves at this level. The Ferrers earls do not appear, for instance, confirming any sales or grants between burgesses. In Derby and Stafford, lords seem to have been more distant figures and burgesses may have worked to keep them at arm’s length. The independence that they were able to pursue depended, as we see from Leicester, on being able to fight too-close seigneurial interference, even if, as again in Leicester, a close relationship could be beneficial. The fundamental power relations at play here show the power that could be harnessed by collective action and horizontal bonds, backed by economic and property-based wealth. Property, judicial and political rights as in the countryside formed the basis for a lord’s position. Where these were tied in a particular direction, the lord could be in considerable control, although negotiation was still sometimes needed. Where they were more diffuse, lower-level individuals seem to have worked to build their own power bases: in urban areas, in collecting lands and in participation in the emerging communal institutions. In towns without a dominant lord, these associations seem to have fulfilled the ‘seigneurial’ roles: negotiation with kings to get grants of privilege and to further the town’s interests; founding and endowing religious houses; and managing the town’s administrative and judicial institutions.

5

THE ABBEY OF BURTON-UPON-TRENT: A CASE STUDY

T

he abbey of Burton-upon-Trent has left the most extensive records of any institution in the region under study. As a result, the house provides unusually detailed evidence of how it administered its tenants and sought to regulate their relationship with other lords, giving us valuable insight into the pragmatic ways in which multiple lordship was managed. It also demonstrates the degree to which regional power was to a large extent bottom-up and depended on relations with, and loyalty from, those at the level of subtenants and below. This chapter will first examine the abbey’s foundation and the nature of its documentation, before turning to the most striking evidence for the house’s management of its tenants. In most grants made by the house in the first two-thirds of the twelfth century, the type of homage performed by the tenant is recorded. Throughout these documents, there is a recognition of what services could be reasonably asked of a tenant, or whether and under what circumstances they would have to concede to the prior claims of another lord. A series of case studies explores how these homage relationships operated. Finally, attention will turn to the house’s miracle stories. These demonstrate the importance of managing relations with subtenants and servants as a means of maintaining peaceful relationships with neighbouring lords. Before turning to the abbey’s relations with its tenants, we need to briefly examine the foundation of the house and its sources.

The foundation and the documents The abbey was founded c.1004 by a king’s thegn, Wulfric Spot, who held lands both in the north Midlands area and further to the north-west.1 A 1

The Burton Annals and King Æthelred’s confirmation charter both give this as the foundation date. Matthew Paris gave 1003 and John Brompton 1002, but the later date is followed here as coming from the abbey itself. Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, 152; VCH Staffs III, 199.

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previous religious foundation may have existed at Burton from the seventh century, according to the abbey’s Vita of its patron saint, St Modwenna. The saint was said to be an Irish abbess who came to the area and built two churches: one on an island in the Trent, which was later known as Andressey, suggesting a dedication to St Andrew, and one on the eastern bank of the river. Although St Modwenna was said to have returned to Ireland, she left an unnamed companion at Andressey to act as abbess. After St Modwenna’s death in Scotland, she was buried in this church. This tradition may be in part legendary, but circumstantial evidence also suggests Burton may have been an early religious site associated with Bishop Wilfrid.2 It is unclear precisely when Wulfric’s abbey became known as SS Mary and Modwenna. The saint’s Vita, written in c.1118x35, states that the latter’s relics were translated to the church of Wulfric’s new Benedictine abbey on 9 September, soon after its foundation,3 and that a rich shrine housing the saint’s bones was at Burton ‘long before England was conquered by the Normans’.4 The foundation may have been prompted, or at least shaped, by a need to stabilise the area’s political geography. Burton-upon-Trent lies on the River Trent, on the narrowest point in the river valley between the plateaux of Needwood to the west and South Derbyshire to the east.5 This small region around Burton was part of a central Mercian area in the eighth century possibly based around Hanbury and Tutbury. After being under Danish control for a while in the later ninth century, victory at Tettenhall in 910 and Æthelflæd’s conquest of nearby towns from 914, West Saxon rule was established in the area.6 Land grants were made to help to establish rule, and perhaps to dismantle the Mercian estate centred on Hanbury: King Edmund granted several estates in the Needwood area to Wulfsige the Black in 942, and King Eadred land at Marchington to Wulfhelm in 951.7 Several of Wulfsige and Wulfhelm’s estates descended to their kinsman Wulfric Spot, and at least one of these, Abbots Bromley, was used by Wulfric as endowment for the abbey. The division of this region into shires, and the breakdown of 2 3

4 5 6

7

VCH Staffs IX, 5–6. Modwenna, c. 43, ed. Bartlett, 180–1; for dating see ibid., xi and n.1; VCH Staffs III, 199. Andressey church seems to have survived the Conquest, and appears as ‘St Andrew on the Island’ in a list of alms produced 1200x13. Burton Abbey’s dedication seems to have shifted over its first two centuries: charters of King Æthelred of 1008 and 1012 say it was dedicated to St Benedict (Sawyer 920, 930). By 1086, Domesday Book has its dedication as St Mary (DB i, fo. 247v). The double designation of St Mary and St Modwenna seems to appear in documentation only from the twelfth century, possibly in connection with Abbot Geoffrey’s (1114–50) promotion of her cult. Modwenna, c. 43, ed. Bartlett, 182–3. VCH Staffs IX, 4–5. VCH Staffs X, 4. Ibid.; Sawyer 479, 557; P.H. Sawyer, Charters of Burton Abbey (British Academy, 1979), 9–13, 17–18.

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earlier Mercian structures, may have been relatively recent when the abbey was founded.8 Its position on the Derbyshire–Staffordshire border, 12 miles to the north-west of the meeting point of Leicestershire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire between No Man’s Heath and the River Meuse, may be a deliberate attempt to exercise some influence over the new units. The post-Conquest political arrangement changed the board again, sandwiching the house between new Norman lords and their ambitions. Approximately 4 miles to the north-east as the crow flies lay the old Mercia royal centre of Repton that was by the twelfth century under the control of the earls of Chester. The old Mercian centre at Tutbury lay 5 miles to the north-west, which, as we have seen, was by the late eleventh century the caput of the Ferrers honour, the site of a castle and priory, and an emerging centre of trade. This site was on a high bluff above the River Dove, a small tributary of the Trent which joins it around 2 miles north-north-east of Burton. Downstream, the Trent passes Nottingham, Gainsborough and Flixborough, before joining with the River Ouse and flowing into the Humber Estuary and North Sea. Burton also lay on the opposite bank of the Trent from the Roman road of Ryknild Street, which runs from the Fosse Way near Bourton-on-the-Water (Gloucs.) to Templeborough in south Yorkshire. Travel along this from Burton to the north-east would reach Derby within 12 miles, and to the south-west to Lichfield in a little more. This was a well-chosen site, in short, for trade and for communication with a wider world. We can see that the abbot of Burton travelled to Chester and possibly Droitwich sufficiently often to make escort service to these places a desirable service to demand from suitable tenants in the twelfth century.9 Burton also benefited from a site lying on the eastern border of the huge expanse of Needwood Forest, previously a royal chase.10 Although now much denuded, this expanse can still be seen on the map as smaller patches of woodland around Bagot’s Park, Hawk and Battlested Hills, with accompanying small villages and scattered farmsteads reflecting a gradual process of assarting through the medieval period and later.11 This region is one of densely packed seigneurial interests, and several of these lords seem to have been commonly or permanently present in the area through the twelfth century. It also seems to have been an area of dense lordship, by which is meant one where interests and the service of individuals 8 Molyneaux,

Formation of the English Kingdom, 161–72. BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 40r. 10 Blair, Building Anglo-Saxon England, 106. 11 Sawyer 557, dating to 951, refers to a ‘potter’s clearing’ in Marchington in Needwood (D. Hooke, The Landscape of Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire (Keele, 1983), 103–7). The forest survived as a royal chase into the seventeenth century after the forfeiture of the Ferrers following Simon de Montford’s rebellion. It was finally enclosed and deforested in 1803 by act of Parliament, following several decades of resistance by a local pressure group. The campaign had included the production of several literary works including Francis Noel Clarke Mundy’s Needwood Forest, and Thomas Gisborne’s Walks in the Forest (VCH Staffs II, 349, 354). 9

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were carefully delineated, recorded and, sometimes, disputed. As we will see below, this included resources such as Needwood Forest, as well as those connected to arable production. Rosamund Faith and Rodney Hilton have shown that Burton placed particularly onerous burdens on the workers of its inlands that were heavier than those of the immediate region.12 The map of charter density, indeed, shows this is one of the best-documented of any of the regions under study, although these figures are skewed by the detailed records from the Abbey itself.13 While Burton’s twelfth-century records are valuable for cultivators and workers, the primary focus here will be on the evidence concerning the lesser aristocracy: those of sufficient standing to have their land grants and attestations recorded by charter. Burton was the furthest north Benedictine house surviving by 1066. Curiously, it had no quota of knight’s service imposed after the Conquest, although the reasons for this are opaque. It lay on the River Trent in an area of sufficient concern that one of the neighbouring honours – Tutbury – was set up post-1066 more on the lines of a marcher lordship than of a safely subdued region. The abbot was not sufficiently important to beg a favour from William, or wealthy enough to pay off its obligations in some different way. With the careful records that the house kept of its tenants and the service they owed, we would expect to see at least some evidence if this were the case. There were 10 knights in the abbot’s familia in the early twelfth century, but these do not seem to have been required by the king or rewarded with a grant of land.14 This lack of quota may account for another curious feature of Burton: an unusually gradual development from the Old English past after 1066. The excellent early surveys from the house, in the first decades of the twelfth century, present us with a largely Anglo-Scandinavian collection of names which, when put alongside the large number of French neighbours on neighbouring honours, is quite striking. The record-keeping and treatment of land, too, may have been more ‘archaic’ by the early twelfth century compared to those on neighbouring honours. Certainly, they are idiosyncratic for the area. This attachment may still be seen in the thirteenth century. We owe our knowledge of 38 largely tenth- and eleventh-century documents to Aberystwyth manuscript Peniarth 390 which, Peter Sawyer thought, was copied between c.1240x64 by a scribe with relatively poor Old English.15 Some of these charters relate to the house but they range widely across the Midlands, and it is not clear why or when Burton acquired them. The same scribe may have produced British Library Cotton Vespasian E. III, which contains another transcript of S906, King Æthelred’s 1004 confirmation of Wulfric Spot’s foundation of the house. Alongside this, the house had started 12 Faith,

English Peasantry, 242–3; Hilton, English Peasantry, 228. See above, 38–40. 14 Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, c. 47, 192–5. 15 A copy of Glanvill and a formulary are also contained in the manuscript (Sawyer, Charters of Burton Abbey, xiv–xv). 13

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to respond to customary and terminological developments by the early twelfth century. See, for instance, the unusually detailed descriptions of homage and liege homage (discussed below) in the house’s twelfth-century charters, which are to my knowledge unparalleled in England of this time. British Library Loan 30, now acquired by the Library and renamed Add. MS 89169, is the main extant cartulary for the house. It was produced sometime before 1241 but additions were made up to the fifteenth century. This, too, contains four Old English charters, and the scribe makes a credible attempt to imitate contemporary palaeography. This cartulary contains the well-known Burton Abbey surveys dating from 1114x18 (‘B’) and 1114x?26 (‘A’).16 There is also a fragmentary cartulary, Staffordshire RO D603/A/ ADD, which was written in a similar hand to Add. MS 89169, and produced sometime after 1262.17 Also surviving from Burton for the period under discussion are a clutch of original charters. Finally, we have the Vita of St Modwenna, already referred to above, which was produced in the early twelfth century under the direction of Abbot Geoffrey (1114–50). He seems to have carefully promoted the cult of St Modwenna, but not much was known about the saint by the twelfth century. Her Vita is thus a rather generic saint’s life, and will be largely left to the side in the discussion below. To this, however, was appended a series of early twelfth-century ‘recent’ miracles to claim the saint’s protection over the abbey which are rich in contemporary detail. The Vita seems to have been part of a campaign to warn sharp-elbowed neighbours away from infringing on the abbey’s lands or rights, and to attract local and royal patrons: the abbot is known to have brought the book before Queen Matilda, Henry I’s wife. As will be discussed further below, the richness of Burton’s material brings its own questions: were the Burton patterns in lordship ones followed more broadly and Burton only idiosyncratic in recording them, or were these practices themselves idiosyncrasies? In some cases this is unanswerable but, at the very least, Burton’s material provides a useful example of how one religious house managed its subtenants, and may indicate concerns, ideas, and resolutions that were circulating in the long twelfth century.

16

BL Add. MS 89169, fos 28r–36v; J.H. Round, ‘The Burton Abbey Surveys’, SHC N.S. IX (1906), 271–89 esp. 271–5; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, xii. 17 There is also a later register, compiled by Abbot Thomas Field in the fifteenth century, (Nottingham University Library, Department of MSS and Special Collections, Mi.Dc.7), and a register of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century materials, rentals, and surveys (SRO D(W) 1734/2/3/112a; see N.J. Tringham, ‘Three thirteenth and fourteenth century surveys of Burton Abbey Manors’, SHC, 4th ser. 20 (2004), 1–47, transl. of fos 1–15; D.G. Stuart, ‘A rental of the borough of Burton, 1319’, SHC, 4th ser. 16 (1994), 1–51, transl. of fos 16–24; N.J. Tringham, ‘Select docs for the medieval borough of Burton-upon-Trent’, SHC, 4th ser. 20 (2004), 53–458.

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Liege lordship Where the largest and wealthiest tenants on many lords’ fees were military tenants, on Burton’s lands these individuals were fee-farmers on fixed-term leases.18 As a result, the house’s management of its tenants has some small differences from the relationships that local secular lords had with their tenants. Part of this seems to be due to its attempts to maintain their leases as revocable. Until the 1160s or so, many of the abbey’s tenants held lands in fee-farm for a specified number of lives – usually the recipient and their heir. Possibly as a result of this, the arrival of a new abbot seems to have prompted the creation of confirmatory documents, often phrased as regrants. We can see a similar pattern with some secular landlords for heritable land, but, either from better record-keeping or from the added instability of life-leases, the Burton lease records seem more numerous. As a result, inheritance language only comes into the abbey’s documents gradually through the twelfth century. By the third quarter of the twelfth century, the abbey seems to have been increasingly swimming against the tide in trying to keep these tenures as revertible. Under Abbot Bernard, many of the remaining fee-farms were finally recorded as heritable tenures.19 Fee-farmers seem to have been of sufficient status that they were not expected to get their hands dirty with agricultural work, but often had to provide men at set times of year to plough or to harvest.20 These were the most labourintensive points in the farming year, and highlight the importance of additional workers for a demesne farm.21 More honourable services could also be specified. Fee-farmers could be required to provide escort service to the abbot or his men, generally at the abbot’s expense;22 to provide hospitality for the same;23 or to attend the abbot’s pleas in court.24 Given the continuing division of Burton’s lands into inland and warland into the late twelfth century, it is possible that the dues were similarly built on older requirements of service. Other services speak to the expansion of the abbey in the twelfth century. Abbot Geoffrey’s grant of Leigh to Andrew in the 1120sx30s included a requirement to lend his cart to 18

On the practice see Faith, English Peasantry, 181–3. BL Add. MS 89169, fos 41v–43v. 20 E.g. BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 37v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 23, lxiv– xv. A purported grant to Orm of Okeover by the prior of Tutbury (Wrottesley, ‘Okeover’, 128; Watson, ‘Okeovers’, appendix II, no. 57, 282–3) also requires the work of three ploughs in winter or Lent, and 16 men to work one day in August. See also above, 25–6. 21 Faith, English Peasantry, 183–92. 22 E.g. BL Add. MS 89169, fos 39r–40r; example printed at Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 14, lvii–iii. 23 BL Add. MS fos 37–40; some examples printed Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos. 7, 8, 13, 27, 28, xlix–li, lvi–ii, lxvii–iii. 24 E.g. BL Add. MS fos 38v–39v; an example printed Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 9, li–ii. 19

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transport building material for the abbey.25 One Fromond was granted land on which he was to build a house for the abbot’s use when the latter should be in the area.26 The impression given from free service is of practical services needed to support the abbey’s inland farming, but also of personal support, either in protection in travel, or in helping to defend the abbey in court. Within these fee-farm relationships, the Burton material tells us a great deal about the lordship relationships in its sphere of influence. From the time of Abbot Nigel (1094–1114), through that of Abbot Geoffrey II (1114–50), and in decreasing numbers thereafter, charters often record the type of homage done by a recipient of the abbey’s lands: that is, liege homage and reserved or simple homage. It may be imagined, at first sight, that this is a classic example of an abbey attempting to claim more than its due by asserting imaginary rights (as the abbot of Bury St Edmunds, for instance, may have done for his returns to the Domesday inquest).27 But the presence of instances of reserved homage, which recognise the existence of a liege lord other than the abbot of Burton, makes it likely that these were indeed a record of the lordship relations of the time. Liege lordship, from the Frankish lige, ‘pure’, is a term that appears sporadically in contemporary documents over a wide span of central and southern England.28 Where a potential clash of service arose because of an individual owing homage to two or more lords, several texts suggest a similar solution: that the ‘chief lord’, capitalis dominus, should have the prior claim over the service of his liege man (ligius).29 Those who held land directly of the king had a relatively simple seigneurial structure: the king was their ‘chief lord’ for all purposes, and any other lord’s claim was subordinate. According to the texts on liege lordship, however, non-tenants-in-chiefs’ seigneurial structure was more complex. One of their non-royal lords may have also been designated a liege, giving such individuals, in effect, a royal liege lord and a non-royal liege lord. Although the king had ultimate priority over their service and allegiance, one of their intermediary lords was to be a non-royal ‘chief lord’, who would take priority of the subtenant’s service over the other intermediary lords. The term ligius seems to have appeared in England alongside the Investiture Controversy in William Rufus’ reign.30 Although the origin of the word 25

BL Add. MS 89169, fos 39r–39v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 13, lvi–ii. BL Add. MS fo. 37v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 23, lxiv–lxv. 27 S. Baxter, ‘Lordship and justice in late Anglo-Saxon England: the judicial functions of soke and commendation revisited’, in Early Medieval Studies in Honour of Patrick Wormald, ed. S. Baxter, C. Karkov, J.L. Nelson, and D. Pelteret (Farnham, 2009), 383–419 at 415–17. 28 Bloch, Société Féodale, 333–6; Ganshof, Féodalité, 123–5. 29 The Dialogue of the Exchequer allows these terms to be linked, stating that ligius is the uulgus term for the capitalis dominus (Richard FitzNigel, Dialogue of the Exchequer (Dialogus de Scaccario) II. iv, ed. E. Amt and S.D. Church (Oxford, 2007), 124–5). 30 RRAN i, ed. Davis, no. 337; Registrum Antiquissimum, i. 14, 17; DMLBS s.v. ‘ligius’; cited Hudson, OHLE, 432, n. 113. See also its use in De iniusta vexacione Willelmi 26

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appears continental, the idea was likely a familiar one onto which more expansive French ideas were grafted. Certainly, by c.1115 it was sufficiently well-known to the compiler of the LHP to discuss it comfortably, and was still used by the author of Glanvill more than half a century later.31 It is striking, then, that Burton Abbey uses the term repeatedly and consistently in charters of between c.1114 and the last quarter of the twelfth century, making this the largest collection of documents which I have so far discovered to use it. Ligius and its trappings were clearly well-known enough for its frequent usage in Burton’s sphere of influence and important enough to be written down by its scribes. In giving us this level of detail, the documentation gives us a valuable insight into how the abbey’s relationship with its tenants operated and how it fitted into wider structures of lordship. We can be reasonably certain that the use of ligius and the emphasis on homage in the cartulary was present in the original documents copied into it. Two of the charters which use the term ligius survive as single-sheet documents, and show the cartulary copies to be faithful, verbatim reproductions of their text.32 If the correlation between original and cartulary copies can be assumed for the rest of the cartulary, and there is no reason to think otherwise, then we may be fairly confident in assuming that the appearance of this term in the cartulary is not a thirteenth-century interpolation. The focus here will be on the charters up to the end of the abbacy of Bernard (1160–75); under him the charters were beginning to fall in with the common formulae found more widely.33 Under his successor Roger Malebraunch (1178–82) the charters become entirely conventional, and references to homage largely disappear.34 Homage under Abbot Nigel to Abbot Bernard falls into two main categories – hominagium, which seems to be ‘simple homage’, and ligius, liege homage. The first of these appears in 10 of the charters, the second in 20.35 A specific form of words seem to have been used to create liege homage.36 Liege homage could be made (facere hommagium ligium, facere eis ligiacionem)37, or the episcopi primi per Willelmum regem filium Willelmi magni regis, ed. H.S. Offler, A.J. Piper and A.I. Doyle, Camden Miscellany XXXIV, 5 ser., 10 (London, 1997), 53–101. 31 LHP, 43,6–6a, 55,2, 55,3b, 82,5, ed. Downer, 152–3, 172–5, 256–7; Glanvill, IX.1, ed. Hall, 104; Dialogue II. iv, ed. Amt and Church, 124–7. See also BL Cotton MS Nero C. iii, f. 178, ed. Stenton, First Century, 250–3, appendix, 286–8. 32 SRO D603 A/Add/7 and BL Stowe Ch. 103, copied BL Add. MS 89169, fos 37v, 38–38v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos. 16 and 27, lix–lx, lxvii–lxviii. 33 BL Add. MS 89169, fos 41v–43v. 34 Ibid., 43v–44v; Wrottesley, ‘Burton’, 5. 35 BL Add. MS 89169, fos 37v–41r; 41r–45r. 36 See also Chronicon Abbatiae Ramesiensis c.292, ed. W.D. Macray (London, 1886), 263, ‘[Wido de Auco] effectus est homo ligius abbatis et ligiam fidelitatem fecit ei’ (1114x30); cited Hudson, OHLE, 432, n. 114. 37 Quotations taken from BL Add. MS 89169, fos 37–37v, 39r; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos. 5, 11, xlvii–iii, lv–lvi. ‘Simple’ homage was also made (fecit […] hommagium: ibid., no. 9, li–ii).

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person could become a liege man of a lord (factus [est] ligius homo).38 In one case it is recorded that the new liege man had paid 3 marks to secure (corroborare) the pactum.39 Another common statement is that such and such a piece of land was conceded to the tenant, ligio homini nostro.40 Liege homage within families, or something akin to it, may also have been possible. Abbot Geoffrey of Burton granted lands to Herbert his nepos sometime between 1130x50, who is described as receiving land sicut nostro ligio homini.41 Priests could also do liege homage: Ælwin the priest (presbiter) factus ligius homo iurauit fidelitatem.42 The services required from those described as ligius homo, and those who have done just hominagium, seem largely interchangeable. Both could be required to give hospitality to the abbot and his men,43 come when summoned by the abbot,44 or provide men for labour services or work on the abbey’s lands.45 Both liegemen and those who had done simple homage could receive lands free from consuetudo and service,46 or be received in the abbey for burial, for which one-third of their chattels was to be taken.47 Similarly, the types of tenures themselves did not vary with the types of homage. A lot of these early Burton charters were grants of land in fee-farm, and both liegemen and non-liegemen 38

From BL Add MS 89169, fos 37v–38v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos. 16, 27, lix–x, lxvii–iii. See also The Registrum Antiquissimum of the Cathedral Church of Lincoln, ed. H.W.C. Davis, C. Johnson, H.A. Cronne, and R.H.C. Davis (4 vols, Oxford, 1913–69), ii. 495, 192–3 (c.1150), where one Edrich is described as homo ligeus of Ralf of Caen, a canon of Lincoln Cathedral. Edrich was also to be subject to the justice of the prebend of Asgarby sicut homo ligius, and he and his heirs were to be obedientes et obnoxii (cited Hudson, OHLE, 432, n. 113). The latter phrase is an interesting verbal echo of LHP’s ei magis obnoxious est (LHP 43,6; ed. Downer, 152–3). 39 BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 37v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 16, lix–x. 40 For instance, BL Add MS 89169, fos 37v, 39v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos. 21, 23, lxiii–v. 41 BL Add MS 89169, fo. 38v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 24, lxv. 42 SRO D603/A/Add/7; copied BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 37v; Bartlett, Modwenna, appendix no. 16, lix–x. 43 Liege: BL Add MS 89169, fos 38r–40r; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos. 7, 13, 27, 28, xlix–l, lvi–ii, lxvii–lxix; non-liege: BL Add MS 89169, fo. 40r; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos. 8, 14, l–li, lvii–iii. 44 Liege: BL Add MS 89169, fos 39–39v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos. 11, 13, lv–lvii; non-liege: BL Add MS 89169, fos 38v–9; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 9, li–lii. 45 Liege: BL Add MS 89169, fo. 39–39v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos., 7, 11, 13, xlix–l, lv–lvi, lvi–ii; non-liege: BL Add MS 89169, fo. 40; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 8., l–li 46 Liege: BL Add MS 89169, fo. 37v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos. 16, 23, lix–x, lxiv–lxv; non-liege: BL Add MS 89169, fo. 39r; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 6, xlix. 47 Liege: BL Add MS 89169, fo. 38r–39v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos., 12, 13, 27, lvi–ii, lxvii–lxix; non-liege, fo. 40r, Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix nos. 8, 14, l–li, lvii–iii. See also D. Postles, ‘Monastic burials of non-patronal lay benefactors’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 47:4 (1996), 620–37, esp. 627–8.

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appear as holding by this tenure.48 By contrast, those who are demonstrably multiple tenants of the abbey instead were recorded as just doing hominagium, owe homage subject to specific restrictions on what service can be claimed, or do not have their homage recorded at all. There are two cases of reserved homage which the Burton cartulary gives us in a little detail, and which reveal much about relations between lords over their men’s service. First is an example of how a liege lord could still have to work around the requirements of the royal liege lord. Edwin of Pillatonhall received a grant of 8 bovates of inland in Bedington and 8 of warland in Pillatonhall from Abbot Geoffrey for 20s. per year. The abbot received Edwin’s liege homage, saving the fidelity the latter owed to King Henry (accepit ab eo hominagium suum ligium contra omnes homines in saluam fidelitatem regis Henrici).49 He was to honourably host the abbot when the latter was in Edwin’s area. Wrottesley suggests that Edwin and his successors may have held a position as a forester under the king. The king was to be at the top of the hierarchy of homages and to receive priority of service; even though the abbey had Edwin’s liege homage, the king’s priority of service overruled this. His successors in Pillatonhall also performed liege homage to subsequent abbots, but there is no evidence to show whether the William and Alfred who received the fee-farm successively after him were Edwin’s descendants or merely his successors in Pillatonhall.50 The second example demonstrates the restrictions which being a non-liege lord could bring. Abbot Geoffrey granted to Ralph son of William of Anslow in 1114x26 the land which the latter’s father had previously held. Ralph was to serve the abbot and particularly to come ad placita eius, whenever summoned.51 He could be excused, however, if he was ill, or was otherwise engaged on the service of his lord Robert de Ferrers, ‘whose liege man he is’ (cuius homo ligius est). Clearly, Ralph had obligations to both, and the abbey was satisfied to record that it could not demand liege service from all of its men.52 This in turn makes the records of liege homage owed to the abbey above seem more plausible: a statement of the current relationships rather than an attempt to claim more than their due. Generally, however, those owing liege homage to the abbot seem to fall into the general pattern for single lordship as discussed in Chapter 2: namely, 48 49 50

51 52

Liege: BL Add MS 89169, fos 37r–40r; a selection printed at Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos. 5, 11, 12, 13, 21, 27, 28, xlvii–iii, lv–lvii, lxiii–iv, lxvii–lxix; non-liege fos 38r, 40r; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix, nos. 14, 26, lvii–iii, lxvii. BL. Add. MS 89169, fo. 39v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, xlix–l. BL. Add. MS 89169, fo. 39v–40r, 43v; the former printed Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 28, lxix. William was also required to provide galga from the land for the making of mead when required. The Henry de Broch who received land at Pillatonhall from Abbot Richard seems to have held a different part of the vill (BL. Add. MS 89169, fo. 46r). BL Add MS 89169, fos 38v–39r; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 9, li–ii. For seigneurial power and courts see Karn, Kings, Lords and Courts, 1–2.

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that in so far as surviving evidence shows, they held only of the abbey and generally held less land than multiple tenants. One Andrew received first Field in fee-farm in 1116, and was to pay tithes and 20s. yearly to the monks.53 The monks were to receive a part of his chattels on his death, and he was to be buried in the monastery.54 He was to hold it on the same terms as the ligius homo of the monks, Ernewin had held. Although this is somewhat ambiguous as to whether Andrew did the same homage, a subsequent grant states explicitly that Andrew was the abbot’s liege man.55 Andrew received c.1130 from Abbot Geoffrey a portion of Leigh in exchange for Field. A serious dispute seems to underlie this conuentio which necessitated royal writs and command (propter breuia regis et preceptum eius) and advice (consilium) of Robert de Ferrers, but we unfortunately have nothing more than these hints. This case demonstrates, however, how liege homage and single lordship did not necessarily put the individual in a weak position against their lord, or mean that their relationship was without dispute. This can also be seen in the case of William of St Albans and his son Reginald, who both did liege homage to the abbot and seem to have held solely of Burton Abbey. William first appears in a conventio with Abbot Geoffrey (1114–50) concerning land in Stretton.56 This land had previously been held by one Gamel de Stretton, who withdrew from it per redemptionem sui et suorum. The land, 5 bovates of warland and 9 acres of inland, were granted to William and his heir for 8s. per year. William also received an additional 4 bovates of warland, 2 bovates of inland, 3 acres of unspecified terra, an acre of meadow, a pear orchard (quoddam uirgultum pirorum), a corner of meadow called Preuoteshalh, and land in Burton for a house, that latter held by Hugh and Edric, whose service was granted. For this he performed his liege homage and swore fidelitas to the church. The abbot also granted to William the procuratio of one monk during his lifetime, which would pass to his wife Albreda when William died or became a monk. Their heir Reginald was to receive the land but not the procuratio. The Surveys attest to some details of this grant. In Survey B, the holder of these lands is one ‘William Gamel’, although Bartlett plausibly suggests that ‘William’ is an updating of Gamel’s tenure as the Surveys were used as ongoing records of the abbey lands.57 William’s grant is considerable. Nine bovates of warland, equivalent to perhaps around 135 acres, nearly 40 acres of inland, and valuable meadowland other resources, for 8s. a year is a bargain. There may be additional services required besides the money payment that may account for the low render. There also appears to be a deliberate attempt to link William and his family 53

BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 39v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 12, lvi. On heriots see also Faith’s comments in English Peasantry, 243. 55 BL Add. MS 89169, fos 39–39v; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 13, lvi–lvii. 56 BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 37r; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 5, xlvii–iii. 57 Modwenna, ed Bartlett, xlvii, n. 4. 54

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to the abbey: they are to have a residence immediately proximate (perhaps to more easily render particular service?), despite Stretton lying barely 2 miles distant, and are to receive the food and provisions of one monk, presumably from the abbey kitchens. William and Albreda’s son Reginald inherited these arrangements including the liege homage relationship, and we get a glimpse of the additional services that may have been required.58 He was to receive a corrody from the abbey, and was to receive bread, drink and generalibus (daily fare) of a monk. This is in return for the service of his body, ‘near or far’ (prope sive longe). When he was to go on a long journey, he was to receive expenses for him and his armour-bearer (armigero suo), in place of the corrody. If he were to be in peregrinacionem [sic] or on other business, he could bestow the corrody to another person. Alongside these closer connections to the abbey than mere render, there is also an emphasis on the possibility of becoming a monk. William’s procuratio was to pass to his wife if he died or became a monk. While this may appear as a standard clause, we do see a William of St Albans appear as a monk in a grant of 1150x59 by Abbot Robert to Ralph fitz Orm de Okeover, which would fit chronologically with his retirement to the abbey and his son’s succession.59 In the conuentio with Abbot Bernard concerning the corrody, Reginald is to bring a third of his goods to the abbey if he wished to take on the religious habit there (si vero nobiscum jugo religionis se subdere voluerit cum tertia parte bonorum suorum ad nos veniet quando ei placuerit).60 He was permitted, however, to become a monk elsewhere if he wished, which seems a strange restriction from which to have to have exemption granted (licebit…ei alibi religionis habitum assumere sine reclamatione nostra). Does this suggest that tenancy or homage laid an obligation on an individual to, if they were to take the religious habit, do so at that house? Or is this merely about ensuring that Reginald’s lands would return to the abbey? The evidence is too scanty to be sure. As elsewhere, we can see the abbey’s attempts to control possession of Stretton. They were successful in the first half of the twelfth century in wresting control back from Gamel. William of St Albans was then granted the land for the life of himself and his son. Reginald initially had the land confirmed through a conuentio with Abbot Robert (1150–59), which is nearly identical to that of his father,61 and thereafter with Abbot Bernard (1160–75), where Reginald and one heir were to hold it.62 The latter is the first in a series of four conuentiones granted by Abbot Bernard to Reginald, all but the final one of them being very similar to grants made to Reginald’s father William.63 Soon after, and before 1166, Reginald had received another 58

BL Add MS 89169, fo. 42r. DRO D213/M/T/1. 60 BL Add MS 89169, fo. 42r. 61 Ibid., fo. 40v. 62 1017Ibid., fo. 41v. 63 Ibid., 41v. 59

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grant, this in the form of a more conventional concession, granting him the land of Stretton, the multure (fee for grinding grain) of the mill, and the other lands, in hereditary right. In return, Reginald had given up, for the sake of his soul, that of his father, mother and predecessors, 22 acres of meadow and pasture in Stretton, 28 nummatas of land, and 2 acres in Burton, together with all the right he had in them, and his yearly render increased from 8s. to 10.64 Taken together, these charters may suggest an occasionally rocky relationship between the St Albans father and son and the abbey. The repeated conuentiones record the abbey’s intention to keep rights of reversion over the land, and suggests the need to renew lordship relationships with each new abbot: Reginald is recorded as doing liege homage to Abbots Robert and Bernard successively. The increase of documentation in the time of Abbot Bernard may indicate additional struggles taking place over the land. During the 1160s, the attempt at reversion is abandoned and Reginald received hereditary tenure. This is a pattern that can be seen across the cartulary: by the 1160s, tenures for numbers of lives were being replaced by hereditary ones. Liege homage in this case seems to have secured the land and service for both sides. Neither William nor Reginald his son seem to have held land of other lords, perhaps as a consequence of their form of homage. It was also clearly regarded as a personal bond, hence the need to renew with every new tenant or abbot. It does not, however, seem to have promoted a necessarily harmonious relationship with the abbot, to judge from the number of dispute settlements. Although the two received corrodies from the abbey, as discussed above this does not seem to have been something restricted to those who had performed liege homage. While liege homage may have secured a sole personal bond with the abbot, therefore, it did not necessarily guarantee a trouble-free relationship, but, equally, was not breached by disputes. Before turning to the rest of the discussion for this area, a brief point is worth dwelling on. Why did Burton alone of seemingly all other houses and lords regularly refer to liege homage for a significant portion of the twelfth century, before gradually ceasing in the third quarter? Its disappearance may be easier to answer than its appearance. Although kings for a long time before him had been concerned with gaining an oath of direct loyalty from their subjects, Henry II seems to have been particularly concerned to do so. Under him, we see a greatly increased usage of the term, and more interest in ensuring that individuals had sworn a liege oath.65 As he increasingly asserted this in documents, it may have seemed increasingly inappropriate

64 65

Ibid., fos 41v–42r. See e.g. Cartae Baronum, ed. Stacey, xiii, nos. XCIII, XCVIII, CCXVIII, CCXXII, CCXXV; 1176 Assize of Northampton, 1176, c.6, printed W. Stubbs (ed.), Select Charters and Other Illustrations of English Constitutional History from the Earliest Times to the Reign of Edward I, 9th edn, revised H.W.C. Davis (Oxford, 1913), 180; Garnett, Conquered England, 86, n. 297.

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to use the term to describe non-royal lordship.66 Paired with this, perhaps a turnover of abbots from more conventionally-minded houses served to bring the style of Burton’s documents more into conventional lines. It is alongside the disappearance of ligius, for instance, that we see the loss of detailed descriptions of services, inland and warland, and processes of grants, largely replaced by more standardised forms of words. But why did Burton begin using this term in the first place? In one sense, it is particularly odd, in that it must have been a relatively new one. As discussed above, the term is French in origin, and does not seem to appear in England before the late eleventh century – certainly not before the Conquest. So, it sits rather oddly as a term, and perhaps as a concept, alongside Burton’s conservative retention of pre-Conquest ideas of land and status. Perhaps it was mapped onto existing pre-Conquest ideas, or was early seized upon as a useful means of pre-emptively untangling lordship relationships in the abbey’s lands and safeguarding abbatial rights in a newly fraught local political landscape. Perhaps, too, its appearance at a similar point here and in the LHP indicates an early and rapid adoption of the idea, alongside a wider need in society to find a way to navigate the newly tightened world of loyalty and tenure.

Regulating lordship, managing neighbours Burton seems to have carefully managed its relationships with and control of its tenants at all levels. This control was not just, however, exercised within the house’s own lands, but in managing how its people interacted with neighbouring lands and lords, and, in turn, how those lords and people interacted with Burton’s people and lands. Unlike secular lords, we have a valuable resource for understanding how the house perceived itself and its position in a wider world through the collection of miracle stories of St Modwenna. Eight chapters of ‘recent’ miracles were appended by Abbot Geoffrey to the Vita of the saint. These fall broadly into two categories: punishment of despoilers, sometimes accompanied by dispute settlements, and healing miracles. The former group contains some very valuable insight into Burton’s relationship with its neighbours in the years around the Norman Conquest and the early twelfth century. The abbey seems to have been particularly unlucky – or, perhaps, particularly prickly – in its rights being infringed. The majority of these instances demonstrate that it was the actions of local individuals, lords’ servants, peasants or minor lords, who drove these disputes and rarely the magnate himself – but who was nevertheless obliged to make restitution and concord with the abbey for his men’s actions. Thus, 66

See e.g. S.F.C. Milsom, ‘The origin of prerogative wardship’, in Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy: Essays in Honour of Sir James Holt, ed. G. Garnett and J. Hudson (Cambridge, 1994), 233–44 esp. p. 230.

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there was a need to manage their own tenants’ relationships with other lords to prevent disputes breaking out between the abbey and its neighbours. The first story from the early twelfth century is perhaps the best-known of the St Modwenna’s miracle collection, in part because it is so vivid and strange. It is worth dwelling on the account in some detail, as it gives rich insight into both lordship over (possibly) unfree peasantry and into the thought-world of the time. Two villagers (rustici), living in Stapenhill under the jurisdiction (iure) of the abbot of Burton, ran away to the neighbouring village of Drakelow, and put themselves under the jurisdiction of Count Roger the Poitevin.67 The abbot ordered that their crops, still at that time in the barns, should be confiscated and taken to the abbey barns as a means of forcing their return. Instead, however, these men went to Count Roger and accused the abbot with a false charge, which so angered the count that ‘he threatened to kill him wherever he might find him’. The count gathered a band of knights and peasants with weapons and carts, who seized all the goods in the abbey barns, including those for the monks’ own table. Count Roger also sent men and knights to the abbey fields near Blackpool, ordering them to lay waste to the abbey fields and to try to lure the 10 knights of the abbot’s familia into battle. The abbot forbade his knights to leave the abbey, and instead they entered the church and performed a ritual humiliation of St Modwenna’s relics by placing the shrine on the ground. The abbey knights took advantage of the monks’ distraction, and set out on horseback to fight Count Roger’s men. One of the knights knocked the count’s steward off his horse with such force that he fell to the ground and broke his leg, and another, a relative of the count, was knocked into a muddy stream. These 10 men, the writer claims, put 60 to flight through the bravery of their fighting. At this point, an element of the supernatural enters the story. The very next day, at the third hour, the two runaway peasants who were the cause of this evil were sitting down to eat, when they were both suddenly struck down dead. Next morning they were placed in wooden coffins and buried in the churchyard at Stapenhill, the village from whence they had fled. What followed was amazing and truly remarkable. That very same day on which they were interred they appeared at evening, while the sun was still up, at Drakelow, carrying on their shoulders the wooden coffins in which they had been buried. The whole following night they walked through the paths and fields of the village, now in the shape of men carrying wooden coffins on their shoulders, now in the likeness of bears or dogs or other animals. They spoke to the other peasants, banging on the walls of their houses and shouting, ‘Move, quickly, move! Get going! Come!’ When these astonishing events had taken place every evening and every night for some time, such a disease afflicted the village that all the peasants fell into

67

Modwenna c. 47, ed. Bartlett, 192–9.

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desperate straits and within a few days all except three (whom we shall discuss later) perished by sudden death in a remarkable way.68

The count, perhaps understandably, was terrified by these events. He and his knights came to the abbey and begged forgiveness of the monks, asking that they should placate God and the saint. Drogo, one of the three survivors and the reeve of the village, was ordered by the count to make double restitution on his behalf. Once he had done so, Drogo then fled the area. Meanwhile, the phantoms continued and the two remaining rustici sickened. Some men – it is not described which – received permission from the bishop to exhume the bodies. They found them intact, but the linen cloths over their faces were stained with blood. They cut off the men’s heads and placed them in the graves between their legs, tore out the hearts from their corpses, and covered the bodies with earth again. They brought the hearts to the place called Dodecrossefora/Dodefreseford and there burned them from morning until evening. When they had at last been burned up, they cracked with a great sound and everyone there saw an evil spirit in the form of a crow fly from the flames. Soon after this was done both the disease and the phantoms ceased. The two peasants sick in their beds recovered their health as soon as they saw the smoke rising from the fire where the hearts were burned. They got up, gathered together their sons and wives and all their possessions, and giving thanks to God and to the holy virgin that they had escaped, they departed to the next village, which was called Gresley, and settled there.

The author notes that Drakelow was abandoned for a long while after this out of fear of the ‘vengeance’ that God and the saint had worked there. This part, at least, seems to have been accurate: Drakelow has remained as a hamlet, and Gresley seems early on to have experienced the larger population growth and settlement. The name Drakelow, OE draca hlāw ‘Dragon burialmound/hill’, may preserve a memory of a site already associated with the supernatural, and so was a natural setting for a story of this kind.69 Charles West has suggested that there may be specific political tensions underlying this story.70 He notes that Drakelow had been held pre-Conquest by an Englishman, Alric, and Stapenhill had been held by one Godric. The latter has been identified by the PASE Domesday project as potentially being Godric ‘of Dalbury’, who held a share in lands worth a little over £14.71 Both parcels of land had passed to Nigel de Stafford by the time of the Domesday 68 Ibid.,

translation, 195–7. There was also a ‘Dottes hlawe’ recorded on the boundary of Burton-upon-Trent and Rolleston in 1008, which may have been associated with a pagan pillar (VCH Staffs X, 4; Sawyer, Charters of Burton Abbey, 60). 70 https://turbulentpriests.group.shef.ac.uk/tag/burton-surveys/, accessed 23/5/22. 71 https://domesday.pase.ac.uk/Domesday?op=5&personkey=47240, accessed 23/5/22. 69

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Inquest. West suggests that Godric may have been a client of Burton Abbey, and indeed his land borders that of the house at Sudbury and Dalbury (Derbys.) as well as at Stapenhill. This package of lands at Stapenhill and Drakelow seems to have passed from Nigel to Roger the Poitevin at some time between the Survey and the setting of this miracle story, or Nigel was perhaps a subtenant. Nigel de Gresley had recovered the land by at least 1170–71 and held it of the honour of Lancaster, when he owed £13 16s. with William son of Walkelin for his tenancy.72 Abbot Geoffrey is notoriously cautious in his reference to near-present events, but Count Roger seems to have been a good target. He was a powerful individual in post-Conquest England as third surviving son of Earl Roger de Montgomery, but had lost his lands in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Norfolk, and between the Ribble and Mersey, seemingly by late 1086.73 He was restored to these lands and the honour of Eye in East Anglia by William Rufus in 1088, but was expelled from England after 1102 for joining Robert Curthose’s attempted rebellion against his brother King Henry I.74 So, although still probably alive by the time this account was written,75 he would have been a distant memory of someone who could therefore be safely criticised as one who attacked the abbey, despoiled its lands, and put such a terrifying train of events into motion. There may be another level to this, however. Geoffrey exercised a careful degree of discretion in refusing to name individuals: ‘Because these things happened recently we shall, in our attempts to talk about them, suppress the names of the people involved.’76 He will give single names of individuals – often English names that we can see from the abbey records must have been common ones – but only two individuals are clearly named: Count Roger himself, and Henry lord of Swadlincote, who is also described as a knight (miles). Henry does not otherwise appear in any record I have been able to find. He is described as a ‘bad neighbour’ (uiciniam malam), who blocked the abbey’s right to pasture, impounded their animals, and brought false claims against the abbey. The monks feared his ‘tricks and cleverness in pleading’ (uersutias et ingenia placitationum), but with the intervention of St Modwenna he was struck down with a mortal illness. Both of these individuals are clearly meant to be Norman, and Henry’s actions suggest that he may have been well-educated, perhaps a lower noble. But what links these two very strangely is that they both are described as holding lands 72

PR 17 Hen. II, 29. In the early thirteenth century, William de Gresley, eldest grandson of William fitz Nigel held Drakelow of King John by the service of a bow, quiver and 12 arrows yearly (Red Book, ed. Hall, i, 566; Madan, Gresleys, 33–4). 73 ODNB ‘Roger de Montgomery’, accessed 23/5/22; DB i, fo. 273v. 74 ODNB ‘Roger de Montgomery’. 75 Bartlett suggests the most likely date for composition to be 1118x38, although potential dates could be as wide as 1114x50 (Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, xi, n.1). Count Roger died in 1140. 76 ‘Recentia enim acta sunt et ideo, si quid dicere de eis conabimur, personarum suppressis nominibus eloquemur.’ Modwenna c. 50, ed. Bartlett, 208–9.

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that we know are those connected to the de Gresley family. As mentioned above, Nigel de Stafford received Drakelow as an ‘inheritance’ from the Englishman Alric, Stapenhill from Godric, and Swadlincote probably from the same Godric. These individuals may have been actual local figures in life, of whom we have no other record for the area. But the Gresley connection is a curious one considering the proximity to the family, and the fact that they seem to have been present through much of the twelfth century, possibly at times on the side of those who despoiled the abbey, and therefore in a good position to cause difficulties. A couple of references in charters of the twelfth century suggest that there were some disputes through the period.77 A tentative suggestion – and it is no more than that – may be that some of these miracle stories were a coded reference to the Gresley lords on Burton’s doorstep, perhaps as a warning, or perhaps as hopeful invocation of the saint’s protection in case of further disputes from the family. Such stories could have been read out as part of edifying material during mealtimes at the abbey – for which there are several suggestions in the miracle stories and in the charters that lay neighbours could be present at as honoured guests or the recipients of the house’s corrody.78 Abbot Geoffrey seems to have been keen, moreover, to promote his house’s cult: a man miraculously healed was taken by him to Henry I’s queen, Matilda, to garner donations to the house.79 Whether or not this was an admonitory tale against a specific neighbour, the cautionary element comes through strongly. Two major concerns seem to have been at play: control of individuals, their service and produce; and relations with neighbouring magnates. As we have seen above, the house seems to have carefully guarded the control of individuals and their services through detailed surveys and the unusually rich charters outlining types of homage and service. Some of this may be due to the generally careful control that Benedictine monasteries exercised over their lands. But the smaller size of Burton’s house and holdings may also have encouraged this. Particularly during a period of rebuilding of the abbey, it may have been especially desirable to keep a close guard on every right that could be taken. There is also admonishment here for the rustici. It is unclear precisely what is meant by this term, but the question of its definition is an important one. The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources indicates that the term had implications of unfreedom or of condemnation, the latter perhaps close to ‘yokels’.80 The implication would seem to be, then, that these are seen, by the abbey at least, as unfree peasants. The punishment meted out to the rustici may be suggestive of their perceived duty to the abbey. Oath-breaking could be punished by revenantism. Carl Watkins has suggested that the peasants here were ‘a plaything of demons as 77

BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 40. E.g. ibid., fos 42r, 61r-v. 79 Modwenna c. 48, ed. Bartlett, 202–5. 80 DMLBS s.v. ‘rusticus’. 78

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a visible sign that a soul had been lost’.81 This is a highly dramatised story that dwells on the humiliation of the knights who opposed the knights of the abbey, the horror and terror of those who encountered the revenants. In leaving their proper place and lord, the peasants are portrayed as acting wickedly, of having offended God and St Modwenna, and being properly punished for this. This story was at least in part designed as a strong disincentive to rustici who thought of leaving their abbatial lord. Such action was contrary to God, would invoke divine and saintly wrath, and imperil their immortal souls. It is significant, too, that the villagers of Drakelow were punished by the revenants’ haunting, harassment and a deadly plague. A suggested disincentive may be against villagers receiving runaways into their community: they were symbolically and physically polluted by their association with wrongdoers. When the evil inhabiting these two revenants was destroyed, the surviving but ill villagers immediately recovered. There are, then, a couple of allied questions. Are these unfree peasants who have broken custom by leaving the abbey’s jurisdiction? Is this story indicative of a stronger crack-down on farmers who balked at new restrictions? The peasants in question were not free men who were practising ‘lord-seeking’, but ones breaking a fundamental part of their unfree restrictions by leaving their lord without permission. Their revenantism is therefore a fitting punishment for the breaking of an oath to their lord.82 Nevertheless, the story demonstrates the degree to which even unfree peasants were perceived by the author as being able to manipulate local political situations to their own advantage. Count Roger seems to have been deeply involved with the actions of his new peasants. While we may imagine that he perhaps took the excuse to attack the abbey on any pretence, the peasants are reported as laying a false charge against the abbot before Count Roger, which so riled the count that he threatened to kill the abbot on sight. While much else about this story is fantastical, we may imagine that the motivations and reactions were plausible for the time. It is interesting, then, the degree to which the word of two unfree individuals could create such a violent issue between two lords. It is a detail which perhaps takes us into the world of Ros Faith’s ‘moral economy’, where post-Conquest unfree peasants could negotiate with their lords, and which does something to counter the historiographical assumption of the depressed post-Conquest peasant.83 It also demonstrates how coercion and management of people – even those at low levels and who were in theory ‘tied’ – was crucial to the effective exercise of power in a locality. A second account from Burton Abbey similarly lays the blame for the dispute at the door of a servant, not his lord. One Osmund, forester of the lord 81 C.S.

Watkins, History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge, 2007), 183. 82 On this see C.S. Watkins, History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge, 2007), 183. 83 Faith, Moral Economy, 156–60.

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of Tutbury – never mentioned by name in the narrative, but clearly Robert de Ferrers – was in the habit of over-zealously maintaining his lord’s rights in the large forest of Needwood.84 He was another ‘bad neighbour’ (malam uiciniam), who ‘never failed whenever he could do harm to the monastery’. Osmund blocked access of the monastery’s animals to the pastures, impounded, and killed them when they strayed. He eventually raised a claim with his lord that part of the abbey’s wood should belong to Robert and convinced him to take this portion of land into his own hand. The narrative then skips ahead to the time of Abbot Geoffrey, when Robert, supposedly through fear of God and the persuasion and command of King Henry I, returned it to the monastery. Focus then returns to the forester, ‘who was the source of this evil’ (per quem malum exortum est), a striking verbal echo of the description of the runaway peasants above (quos exortum est malum). While asleep one night, Osmund dreamt that the figure of a threatening nun appeared to him. She placed her fingers on his eyes and said to him in a fearsome and accusing voice: ‘Aren’t you the man who has taken away my wood, bringing lawsuits against my abbot and disturbing my monks? Behold, I will have your eyes torn out and my wood will return to its rightful owners whether you wish it or not.’85 Terrified by this, the forester went to Abbot Nigel the next morning, described his dream, begged the abbey’s pardon, and promised to make amends. Abbot Nigel was delighted and invited Osmund to dine with him that day, filling the forester with food and drink to the point of inebriation. The abbot saw him out of the monastery, and sent him on his way home, ‘begging him to be good’. But on his way home, Osmund found 16 of the abbey’s pigs in the Tutbury woods. He immediately forgot the dream, drove the pigs to Tutbury castle and had them slaughtered. The saint’s vengeance was a little slower in this instance than some others. That same week, Osmund was caught in a crime for which he was condemned to lose his eyes, just as had been previously threatened. What does this dispute tell us, aside from the dangers of drinking and driving pigs? The emphasis seems to be on the over-zealousness of Osmund: any minor infraction by the abbey’s animals was punished severely and, in the case of his frequent slaughtering of straying animals, permanently. Burton, as we have already seen, also seems to have been intent on safeguarding the borders of its lands and rights, and we may wonder if there is an element of hypocrisy in the complaints of undue severity by Osmund: those on Tutbury’s side may have seen it quite differently. The suggestion from this story is, however, that straying animals should be treated with more leniency, not seized or killed. As well as the Biblical echoes of being a ‘bad neighbour’, there is a strong social element to expected standards of behaviour, of perhaps being expected to work around minor irritations of this kind and negotiate with neighbours, as the abbot does when trying to make peace with Osmund. 84

Modwenna., c. 49, ed. Bartlett, 204–7.

85 Ibid.

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This dispute about Needwood is one of many about rights over the large, ancient woodland, but is one of the best documented. In addition to this account in the miracle collection, both texts of the two-part chirograph made between the abbot and Robert de Ferrers have survived.86 These chirographs date from either 1114x17 or 1121x26, based on the appearance of Bishop Robert, either Robert de Limesey (1084–1117) or Robert Peche (1121– 26).87 The chirographs seem to cover two disputes: one over the part of ‘the wood that is between Balca and Watsaches Broc and extends to Stanbruge and Hindfold and Merewei’, which the monks claimed, and part of the wood of Abbots Bromley, which Robert claimed. The former’s place names have not been identified, but may be in Needwood: Robert granted the monks the right to take two cartloads of dead wood from Needwood in exchange for their grant to him of wood between Balca and Watsaches Broc, which may suggest they were in a similar area. If so, this dispute over boundaries in Needwood may be related to the Osmund dispute. These accounts give us valuable insight into how a dispute and its settlement might be described in different contexts. Part (a) of the chirograph88 focuses on Robert de Ferrers.89 The wood in question is not described, or even named. A magna discordia broke out between Robert and the abbot, so great that word of it reached King Henry (in tantum ut ascenderet uerbum usque ad regem Henricum). The settlement was made due to Robert’s fear of God (timor Dei) and his admonishment by the prayer, and command of King Henry. He was received benigne et plenarie into the fraternity and society of the monks, as a friend and protector of the church, with the monks to henceforth love him faithfully (fideliter), and to pray for the souls of himself, his wife and offspring, his father, mother and all of his ancestors. The monks conceded the wood to him without any claim, and Robert and his heirs were to give the monks 20s. per year for this concession. Chirograph (b) is a much fuller account. This half of the chirograph was the one most frequently copied into the Burton records, and appears from its focus (and by contrast with (a)’s focus on Robert de Ferrers) to have been the abbey’s own copy. This gives the information omitted from (a) about the parts of the woods in dispute, and the two carts for dead wood conceded by Robert. Where Robert was properly moved by his piety and service to the king in (a), (b) has him compelled by the king’s command (iussu regis compulsus). Robert’s 86

SRO D603/A/Add/10 and BL Add. Ch. 27313; printed Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 10, lii–lv. The latter version was copied into the cartulary, BL Add MS 89169, at fo. 54r. It is interesting to note that this version attributes Robert’s settlement with the abbey to timor Dei and contains a number of other rhetorical flourishes. R.C. van Caenegem printed part (b) in English Lawsuits, vol. I, no. 252, 214–5. 87 Bartlett, Modwenna, lii, n. 14. 88 I am here following Bartlett’s designation of the charters. Part (a) is the original bottom half of the chirograph, (b) the top (Bartlett, Modwenna, liii). 89 SRO D 603/A/Add/10. One copy of it exists in SRO D 603/A/Add/Burton Chartulary (fragment), fo. 13.

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protection of the monks is also emphasised in (b) where it is absent in (a). Even where exact phrasing differs, there are, however, some similarities in terms: in (a), Robert is received into the fraternity and society of the monks as a friend and protector of the church (sicut amicus et tutor ecclesie); in (b) no fraternity is mentioned and Robert merely made himself friend and protector (constituit se tutorem et amicum ecclesie). Nevertheless, given that these are a two-part chirograph, apparently written by the same scribe on the same piece of parchment, these differences are striking. They suggest the degree to which, even when written in the same context, details of disputes and parts of agreements varied depending on the recipient, which parts they were most interested in, and perhaps which details would be most flattering to them. The chirographs and account in the miracle stories also share clear verbal echoes, and it is likely that the miracle story was written from the document. The ‘lord of Tutbury’ was motivated to make a settlement with the abbey by fear of God (Dei compunctus timore) and King Henry’s command and prayer (regis Henrici iussu et prece inductus). This mirrors the Latin in the probable Burton half of the chirograph, that he was compunctus timore Dei and iussu regis compulsus. The account of this, moreover, sits slightly awkwardly within the narrative of the miracle story – it records that the property was restored in the time of Abbot Geoffrey, before returning to the middle of the account of Osmund – suggesting it may have been a self-contained account that was incorporated as a block. The three accounts are very closely linked, therefore, but the difference between the chirographs and the miracle story is striking. As may be expected, the miracle story accounts more agency to the saint and the supernatural. But it is striking how the narrative focuses on the activities of the forester, while the chirographs focus on the relations between the abbey and Osmund’s lord, Robert de Ferrers. The focus on Osmund may have been to avoid directly condemning Robert de Ferrers, who was likely to have still been alive when this account was composed, and was sufficiently close to and involved with the abbey to have been potentially annoyed to see himself criticised in the abbey’s miracle collection. But there is also a question here about the degree to which these different types of source focus on different individuals. When disputes arose about boundaries of lords’ lands, it was the lords who were the appropriate figures to settle matters, and their activities that were recorded therefore in charters. There is a question, then, about the degree to which this kind of activity underlies other dispute settlements: whether clashes apparently between two lords were driven by the actions of more minor individuals. The shorter vignettes of miracle stories from Abbot Geoffrey’s own day warn more broadly about damage to the church’s people or possessions. A rich man (diues homo) on his way to visit the king threatened to carry off the abbey’s peasants (rustici) from a village he passed.90 On his way home his body was 90

Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, c. 50, 208–9.

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‘borne past the village cold on his bier’: another explicit link between unjust taking of rustici and untimely death. Another very wealthy man (prediuitus vir) who oppressed the church died soon after.91 A tenant who wished to do harm (malum faciebat) to the abbey drowned in a flood. Others who perjured themselves to steal land from the monastery went mad, lost their money, or died suddenly.92 The message is hammered home by Geoffrey repeatedly: attacks on the abbey, its land, or its rights over people led to sudden death or ruin at the hands of the saint. Nevertheless, alongside these dire warnings, we see more collaborative and supportive relationships between the abbey and its neighbours. Robert de Ferrers received a regrant of land in Ticknall which his father Henry had previously held, for 10s. per year and that Robert and his people (suos) should love and maintain the abbey as friend and protector (sicut amicus et tutor).93 Nor does this seem to have just been a formality. A seeming dispute in 1126x33 between the abbey and their liegeman Andrew of Field, of sufficient moment to for a king’s writ (breve) to be obtained, was settled in part per considerationem et consilium domini Roberti de Ferrariis.94 In his grant of resources for the abbey’s kitchen, Abbot Nicholas I (1187–97) assigns a grant of 20s. from Earl William de Ferrers, although it is unclear whether this was a revenue that the earl was paying to the abbey for a tenure. Like secular landlords, Burton Abbey was using its landed resources to form clientage relationships with powerful local magnates. The practice of controlling allegiance of lower-level individuals to regulate relationships with neighbours does not seem to have been unique to the abbey, moreover. The well-known conuentio drawn up between the earls of Leicester and Chester of c.1149x53 ended hostilities between the two over lands in the north Midlands.95 They were both clearly nervous about the activities of William de Launay, a man of the earl of Leicester: And if Earl Ranulf makes a claim upon William de Launay, the earl of Leicester will have him to right in his court so long as William shall remain the earl of Leicester’s man and hold land of him, so that if William or his men shall have withdrawn from the earl of Leicester’s fealty on account of the destruction of his castle or because he refuses to do right in the earl of Leicester’s court, neither William nor his men will be received into the power of the earl of Chester to work ill [ad malum faciendum] against the earl of Leicester.96

91 Ibid.

92 Ibid.,

c. 50, 208–11. BL Add. MS 89169, fo. 38r; Modwenna, ed. Bartlett, appendix no. 4, xlvii. 94 BL Add. MS 89169, fos 39–39v; Bartlett, Modwenna, appendix no. 13, lvi–ii. 95 Crouch, English Aristocracy, 138–40. 96 BL, MS Cotton Nero C. III, f. 178, printed in Stenton, First Century, 250–3, 286–8, quotations at 252, 287. 93

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William seems to have set himself up as a ‘robber-baron’, in David Crouch’s words, from his powerbase at Ravenstone castle (Leics.).97 The earls were concerned that the destruction of this powerbase would cause William to break his allegiance to Robert and seek revenge through supporting Ranulf. Ranulf thus agreed to not receive William as his man as a means of maintaining peace between the two earls. Again, the implication is that subtenants had the potential to cause trouble between their lords and the latter’s neighbours. Collaboration and presumably negotiation between neighbours was necessary to manage lower-level figures.

Conclusion The abbey of Burton-upon-Trent demonstrates the ways in which categories of landlord, religious house and developing urban centre could overlap. These both fed into one another and supported one another. The abbey’s role as a religious house meant that it had more moral authority and the threat of a vengeful saint to help to keep neighbours and tenants in line, as well as other resources like burial and fraternity to create positive links. The rich records of the abbey show something of the house’s strategies in managing lordship and relations with subtenants and servants of neighbouring lords. For many grants of fee-farm in the first two-thirds of the twelfth century, the abbey recorded the type of homage which a recipient had performed. Some of these were ‘liege’, that is, a form of homage that prioritised service to the abbot above all else, except for service to the king. Those individuals who held in this way generally seem to have held solely of the abbey, and seem to have held small holdings. A bond of liege homage, according to the twelfth-century normative sources, should create a closer personal bond, but in practice for Burton this does not seem to have prevented serious disputes between abbey and liege homager, or to have terminated the relationship. The records of liege homage may have been a means of trying to prevent disputes arising with neighbouring lords over service owed by shared tenants: the abbey also records one instance noting that another lord was to take priority of the man’s service. In a similar way to its recording of liege lordship, Burton’s miracle stories reveal something of the abbey’s concern to pre-emptively avoid dispute with its neighbours. Some of the most lurid and detailed ones warn about disputes that arise over the actions of servants and peasants. These recognise the role that lower-level people and dispute between lords over their services and actions could play in the shaping of relationships between neighbours.

97 Crouch,

Beaumont Twins, 80–1, quotation at 81. See also H.A. Cronne, ‘Ranulf de Gernons, earl of Chester, 1129–1153’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 20 (1937), 103–34, esp. 130–3.

CONCLUSION

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his book’s focus has been on the practice and impact of multiple lordship in twelfth-century England through a study of a region of the north Midlands. Its aim has been to show that multiple lordship was relatively common and was integrated into how contemporaries approached socio-legal relationships. Recognition of the frequency of multiple allegiance brings with it a number of implications for how we should approach twelfth-century society. Some have been addressed in this book; some have fallen outside the scope for this research but would reward further investigation. As argued in Chapter 1, multiple lordship was widespread from the first generation after the Conquest. Out of 194 minor lordly families identified in sufficient detail for study, around a third of those visible at any one time clearly had land from or other relationships with multiple lords. This is a similar proportion to those families who had only a single lord. The patterns of regional landholding, even in an area containing a mixture of consolidated and scattered lordships, are therefore more common than has previously been recognised. These proportions seem to have remained relatively stable through the twelfth century, demonstrating that multiple lordship in itself was not a symptom or cause of the breakdown of the honour, but a normal part of regional society. Moreover, the study demonstrated that vicinity was important in multiple lordship. Honours which were geographically coherent were more likely to show higher numbers of single lordship. Those lords with scattered lands were more likely to have more multiple tenants. Chapter 2 explored these patterns in more detail through a series of prosopographical studies of single and multiple tenants. Single tenants seem to have been generally less wealthy and more geographically limited than multiple ones. Nor were they particularly rewarded for their adherence, either with more lands or with positions of trust. Multiple tenants often seemed to have been more prominent: they were generally wealthier and operated over a larger geographical scale. Some families collected land around a single focal point and bolstered their control in a localised region through construction of small fortifications or religious houses. Others seem to have been polyfocal or to have picked up scattered lands wherever they were able, a pattern sometimes seen in connection with royal or seigneurial service. Some

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multiple tenancies seem to have happened incidentally, by acquisition through marriage or inheritance for instance. Generally, multiple lordship seems to have provided opportunities that single lordship did not, both for tenants and for lords. Tenants could extend the scope of their patronage and build up larger portfolios of lands. Lords could benefit from their men’s expertise and networks or could perhaps weaken rival lords by drawing their tenants away from them. Nor do multiple tenants seem to have been less trusted: we see them in the centre of seigneurial retinues, or even managing honours while their lords are away on crusade. All of this indicates that contemporaries regarded the practice as normal and its practitioners as an accepted part of regional society. Although a lord’s honour could provide a focus, minor lords pursued their own concerns throughout this period. In a period where we are largely reliant on charters to illuminate the lesser aristocracy, identifying the latter’s concerns can be challenging. One way into this is through study of their religious endowments, which seem to preserve something of their choices or the areas, individuals, or institutions to which they felt connected. Chapter 3 addresses these patterns and demonstrates that, in almost all cases, influences of lordship, kinship and locality were operating. These could combine to draw patronage in one direction, spread endowments over a range of institutions, or cause individuals with significant interests elsewhere to direct their patronage outside the honour. Even on a geographically cohesive honour like that of the Ferrers, there was a sizeable group that did not involve itself with the main seigneurial foundation. Kin connection to a house, either through the founder’s family or through marriage, could draw considerable patronage. Locality, too, was a crucial factor. This could coincide with the lord’s honour for a seigneurial house such as Tutbury, but grants commonly crossed honorial, hundredal and county boundaries, suggesting that neighbourhood was more significant than political boundaries. Attachment to a local religious house could bring considerable benefits both tenurially and spiritually, and connection to a proximate one seems to have been particularly desirable. From these patterns, we can see that although a lord and his actions could influence his men, the latter worked within a web of other interests that could be instrumental. Nor were these patterns of acquisition and endowment limited to rural areas. Chapter 4 addressed the minor ‘aristocracy’ of towns and their seigneurial relationships. Burgesses and minor lords built up their own property portfolios in and around towns, and there was some cross-over in personnel between the lesser elite of urban and rural areas. Because of the difference in customs of tenure in towns and a seemingly looser seigneurial structure, this did not however cause urban landholders to accrue lords as in rural areas. Despite this, the dynamics of single and multiple lordship still operated in urban areas, albeit more as a more distant kind of overlordship. Where one lord was largely in control of property, judicial and political rights, as in Leicester, it seems to have been he who dominated and directed

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the town’s development, permitted and protected development under him, and took profits from its activities. Even in towns such as this, lords had to work around the bottom-up power of growing communal institutions such as guilds and burgess groups – although their actions could be circumscribed to some degree by the lord. Where seigneurial control over property and other rights was more scattered, as in Derby and Stafford, these communal institutions seem to have been acting with some degree of ‘independence’ in managing their affairs and protecting communal interests. Where Chapter 2 addressed some of the benefits for a lord in taking on men already bound to other lords, Chapter 5 explored this theme in more detail through a case study of how the abbey of Burton-upon-Trent managed its tenants. The house used two methods. First, by carefully noting the form of homage done by their tenants, they were able to record whether the house or a different lord should take priority of an individual’s service. Second, they used their saint’s miracle stories as a warning to those who might seek to infringe on the abbey or unjustly take its people. These demonstrate the importance of maintaining relations with neighbours, and the extent to which these relations could be thrown into difficulty by disputes over service or the actions of those at a subtenant level or below. The house seems to have tried to pre-emptively avoid such disputes emerging. Although it is impossible to know to what extent these methods were used by other lords, it shows how one at least sought to manage the complex web of regional obligations. Taken overall, several important findings emerge from this research. First, that multiple lordship does indeed seem to have been usual, not just in frequency, but in how it was perceived in twelfth-century England. What records we have show lords accepting and maintaining those tenants who held of other lords as well, trusting these tenants, and taking on new ones as it seemed beneficial. Ambitious families and individuals deliberately established these kinds of relationships and benefited from them. Their descendants maintained these relationships and retained the lands associated with them across generations. Contemporaries tried to pre-emptively establish hierarchies of service in order to avoid potential disputes. A sliding scale of services is suggested by the records. Individuals or families could be particularly close to a lord, serve in his retinues, attend his courts and so forth, but failure to do so did not necessarily break the lordship bond. Instead, there were seigneurial requirements, such as paying necessary rent, and desirable activities. One of the central tenets of the feudal model, that of the centrality of the bond between one lord and one man, does not stand up to close scrutiny. Similarly, the appearance of multiple lordship ties across honours was not the cause or symptom of honorial decline. The assumption that one must mean the other is again predicated on the model that lordship could only properly function when singular. Multiple lordship relationships were, however, present from the first generation after the Conquest, and certainly by the time of Domesday Book. They coexisted alongside the honour throughout

224

Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century

its lifespan. Instead of being a necessarily personal bond, lordship was more flexible and could accommodate plural and simultaneous relationships. Despite this flexibility of the honour, it was only ever one of several centres of loyalty, power and patronage that could influence minor lords. Plural lordship, kinship, and vicinity seem to have been some of the strongest forces that contemporaries navigated, and the third of these is particularly important. Additional lords seem to have been acquired in many places due to proximity: the man could thereby acquire lands that bordered those that he already held, whether or not this crossed hundredal or shire boundaries. The deeper reasons for this must lie in the importance of face-to-face contact, the desire to avoid petty boundary disputes, and the pragmatics of land management that made contiguous expansion more desirable. In talking of locality, however, I am not seeking to make a case for local ‘communities’ in this period. We can occasionally see groups of families that frequently witness one another’s land transactions and that are endogamous – such as the Ferrers honour, or where pockets of good charter survival allow us to see names recurring together around a certain vill. Pragmatically, geographically proximate families of a comparable level of wealth and influence must have commonly formed loose, shifting groups through attendance of local seigneurial courts, and those of the hundred and shire. Intermarriage must have occurred, along with subinfeudation of lands, thereby tying in kinship concerns. These could create dense webs of ties, drawing individuals strongly in a particular direction, or requiring them to navigate through scattered claims on their attention. The formation of a gentry class has been the subject of much historiographical discussion and is often linked to the development of a self-conscious class whose focus is more on the locality than on a particular lord. The themes explored in this book demonstrate that this supposed switch from the seigneurial to the local from the later twelfth century has been overstated. From the earliest days of the post-Conquest settlement, minor lords were building their own local networks that coexisted with seigneurial ties, and seem to have been both forming their identities and making decisions based on a nexus of factors. While the formation of self-conscious ‘county societies’ was still in the future, loose and shifting ties based on vicinity and nodes of power in the landscape were present and strengthening throughout the period under study. Similarly, the idea of ‘bastard feudalism’ as a period where lords had to attract service from clients rather than relying on his tenants seems to be overstating the shift.1 Even from their tenants, lords in the twelfth century could not automatically claim service but had to negotiate and work around the claims of their neighbours. While a switch from rewarding with lands to rewarding with cash may be significant, the idea of attracting retinues and service was long-established.2

1 2

K.B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England (Oxford, 1973), xx–xxii. See Crouch, ‘Stenton to McFarlane’, 194.

Conclusion

225

To what degree are the conclusions in this book unique to this small region? As noted in the Introduction, there are some characteristics of the area that make it good for a study of its minor lords, particularly its varied honorial geography and good number of long-lived gentry families with their roots in this period. None of these factors are unique, however, and none make multiple lordship likely to be more common in the area. Studies from elsewhere in England, such as Mortimer’s on the honour of Clare, or Holt’s and Thomas’ work on Yorkshire, indicate that the patterns studied in this book may be found in England more broadly.3 The incidence of multiple lordship on the Continent also suggests that the framework of flexible lordship and service, priority of allegiance, and the coexistence of seigneurial and other ties, are dynamics found more widely across medieval Europe. Finally, what do the findings in this book mean for ‘feudalism’ as a model? I have tried to show the limitations of the feudal model as an explainer for twelfth century England. More care is needed in recognising and questioning the historiographical baggage that the term ‘honour’ brings. As discussed in the Introduction, it risks blurring together the problematic assumptions of ‘feudalism’ with the historical fact of the honour, and risks allowing the former to obscure the latter. Although individuals with a singular tie of lordship could and did exist, multiple ties of this kind were common and could be beneficial for both man and lord. There were also important ties that existed alongside or outside the honour, particularly those of kinship and vicinity, which seem to have shaped behaviour as much if not more than lordship did. We should not be too quick to assume that a man’s relationship with his lord was his overriding imperative, just as we should not assume that all of a lord’s men would follow him unquestioningly. Each existed in a web of overlapping obligations and negotiations. By addressing society from the level of minor lords, we also see that sources of power and authority were more diverse than the baronial and royal. Influence in a locality was drawn from those lower in society than the tenants-in-chief and was subject to strong influence from geography. Both suggest potential directions for further development towards a more diverse understanding of twelfth-century England, and away from the constrictive model of ‘feudalism’. In the twelfth century, we are undeniably in a world in which lordship, service and possession of land were important. Chroniclers refer to them as key motive forces for events, and considerable effort was taken to record them in administrative documents. In approaching this period and this society with a feudal model in mind, however, is to be constantly struggling against its assumptions. Rather, there is a need to clear away the remaining feudal frameworks still active in historiography and let the period’s ideas and practices be studied on their own terms.

3

See above, 6–7.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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INDEX Abetot, family Jordan de  55 William de  55 Abingdon abbey  8, 15 n.88, 19 n.111, 104, 105 n.209 Alsop, Ranulf de  56 and n.42 Alton (Staffs.)  41, 71 n.46 Angevin legal reforms  4–5, 9, 60 Anslow, Ralph de  206 Appleby Magna  30 n.193, 54, 78 de Appleby family  13 Robert de  54, 70 Walerand de  48, 54, 70 Appletree wapentake (Derbys.)  27, 31, 35, 64, 65, 66, 148, 150 Ashbourne  32, 35 n.208, 38, 41, 91 Audley, family Adam de  69 Robert de  56 Bacun, family Richard 71 Roger 71–2 William 71 Bagot family Bagot I  107 Bagot II  107 Hervey fitz Bagot  107, 115 Hervey fitz Hervey  107–9, 115 John 109 Philip 109–10 Robert 109 Simon 109 William  108–9, 178 Bakepuiz family Aelez  104, 105 John  66, 105 nn.207, 210 John II  106 Ralph  90, 104–5 Robert 104–5 Robert II  105–6 Bakewell (Derbys.)  35, 49 Barton Blount (Derbys.)  65, 104 Basset, family  50, 116 Richard  32, 99

Beauchamp, William de  55 Bellefoi, Robert de  54, 66 Belvoir priory  123 Bois, Arnolds de  103, 127, 191 Boscherville, John de  70 Bradley (Derbys.)  67, 91 Brailsford, family Alfinus de  105 n.210, 139 Henry de  66, 90, 139 Nicholas de  53, 139 Robert de  53 Breedon-on-the-Hill priory (Leics.)  97, 123 Brewood forest  36, 111 Buildwas abbey (Shrops.)  78 n.71, 140 Buron, Roger de  116, 140–1, 149, 172 Burton-upon-Trent abbey (Staffs.) 197–220 abbots of Bernard (1160–75)  202, 208–9 Geoffrey II (1114–50)  81, 85, 201, 203, 206, 210, 213–14, 216–18 Nicholas I (1187–97)  219 Nigel (1094–1114)  83–4, 85, 203 Robert (1150–9)  81, 208–9 Roger Malebraunch (1178–82)  204 agreement with Robert I de Ferrers  79, 89, 97, 216–18 burial rights  83–4, 126 n.27, 205 cartularies  38, 200–1, 204 corrodies  208, 214 fee-farmers 25–6 foundation of  122 geography of lands  35, 70 grants made to  56, 80, 197–9 liege lordship  202–10 loss of lands by  80, 81, 218–19 miracle stories  210–20 services required by  25–6, 86, 202–3, 205–9 surveys  85, 200, 207, 213 tenants of  54, 58, 67, 68–70, 78, 82–92 211–14 witnesses to charters of  52, 54, 55, 65, 69–70, 81

254 Calke priory (Derbys.)  80, 114 n.260, 123 n.9, 134, 143 Callow (Derbys.)  56, 86 n.118, 87 Calwich priory (Staffs.)  51 n.18, 142 n.92 Cannock forest (Staffs.)  36, 41, 76, 80, 178 Castle distribution  40–3 Chaldwell, family David de  51, 70 John de  51, 70 Ralph de  51 Charnwood Forest (Leics.)  32, 41, 127, 185 Charters as a source  29–30, 128–9, 217–18 cartularies 129 distribution 38–41 single lordship  64–5 survival rates  128–9 women 30 Chester, bishops of  36–8, 73, 76 see also Coventry, bishops of tenants of  110–12, 144 Chester, Earl Ranulf II (1129–53)  71 activities in Stephen’s reign  31, 98, 112–14, 219–20 deathbed bequests  76, 80–1 grants to tenants  113–14 relationship with Robert II earl of Leicester  79, 184, 219–20 Chester, Earl Ranulf III (1181–1232) adherence to royalists  114–15, 116 foundation of Dieulacres abbey 125–6 Chester, Earl Richard (1101–20)  79 Chester, earldom  58 Lands  32, 35, 54, 78 Tenants of  53, 64, 71–2, 73, 79–81 Chetwynde, family Adam de  145 John de  145 Clare honour, Suffolk  6, 121, 225 Clinton, Geoffrey de  51 n.18, 126 n.25, 140, 142 n.92 Coleville, Thomas de  116 Combermere Abbey (Cheshire)  88 Costentin, Geoffrey de  90 Courts hundred and wapentake  26 seigneurial 24–5 shire 26–7 suit of  24, 25–6, 202, 205, 206

Index Coventry, bishops of  52, 58, 77–8, 111, 144, 158, see also Chester, bishops of tenants of  177 Coyne, family Alan 145 John  57, 145 Thomas 57 Walter  57, 145 Croxton abbey (Staffs.)  47 n.4 Curcun, Richard de  66 Dale abbey (Derbys.)  125, 142–3, 146, 148, 150, 173–4 Darlaston (Staffs.)  67, 81 Darley abbey  38, 53, 157–74 Abbot Albinus of  80, 171 cartulary  138 n.71, 154, 157–8, 164–5, 194 foundation of  137, 158–61, 170–1 grants by  168–9 grants to  49, 128 n.36, 138–9, 140–1, 148, 149, 167–8, 157–74 rights  127 n.35 Denston, Henry de  66, 112 Derby  139, 152, 155–74 burgesses  164–70, 195 coinage  155–7, 161, 165 mills  95 n.157 Nunnery of St. Mary de Pratis  54, 172 Oratory of St. Helen’s  158, 165, 171 records for  155–8, 194 Derby, Goda and Walkelin de  141, 149, 161, 164, 165–70, 172 Augustine, son of Peter  168–9 Henry magister, son of Peter  163, 168–9 Peter son of Goda  166 Peter son of Peter  168–9 Petronilla 168 Robert magister, son of Goda  166, 167–8 Walkelin, son of Peter  168–9 Derby, Hugh, dean of  159–60, 170–2 Henry son of Hugh, dean of  171 Peter, son of Henry  171 Robert magister, son of Hugh of  171 Derbyshire 198–9 as focus of study  30–1, 32, 34–5 Derwent, river  35, 148, 155, 168 Dieulacres abbey (Staffs.)  125–6 Donisthorpe  30 n.193, 74 n.56, 82, 180 Dove, river  35, 83, 199

Index Drakelow (Derbys.)  73–4, 76 n.67, 78, 79, 211–15 Dun, family  98 Hugh de  55 Jacob de  55 Matilda de  125 n.20 Robert de  55, 171 Economy 27 inflation 27–8 multiple lordship  28 religious houses  128 Edingale (Staffs.)  100–102 English survivors  88–9, 100–103 Ettington (Warks.)  94 n.155, 140 Fee-farm Tenure by  23 Ferrers 58 caput (see also Tutbury Castle)  27, 161 court  27, 35 honorial geography  31, 64, 200 lands 54 religious patronage on the honour 130–9 tenants  52, 53, 55, 65–7, 92–100, 104–6 Ferrers, Henry de (d. 1088) lands  32, 35, 36–8, 78, 183 patronage  130, 162 tenants  73–6, 78–9, 89, 104 Ferrers, Robert I de (1088–1139)  97, 103, 157 grants to tenants  106, 113 relationship with abbot of Burton  79, 89, 97, 206, 207, 216–8 religious patronage  140 Ferrers, Robert II de  56, 78–9, 87 activities in King Stephen’s reign  98 as donor to religious houses  105, 136 household officials  103 n.195 relationship with Derby  158–61 Ferrers, William I de  54, 66–7, 79, 157 donations to religious houses  128 n.36, 162–3 household officials  102 out of royal favour  98, 161–2 tenants 142 Ferrers, William II de  56, 87, 90 donations to religious houses  162–3 household officials  79, 90, 102 relationship with the king  99, 114–15

255

Feudalism  1, 225 Anglophone historiography  3–5 bastard feudalism  10–11, 224 definitions  1, 2 Francophone historiography  1–2 problems in historiography  5–6, 15 Fidelitas, fides 19–21 Findern, Derbys.  55, 56, 88 Fitz Brian family  Gerard 177 Helen daughter of Gerard  177 Matilda daughter of Gerard  177 William son of Gerard  177 Fitz Noel family  48, 57 n.46, 110–12 Adam 145 Alice 146 Celestria, wife of Noel  110, 144 n.102 John  111, 144 Noel  110, 144 Richard  111, 144 Robert 110–12 Thomas  110, 144 Thomas fitz Robert  145, 146 William the clerk  111 Foremark  74 n.56, 82 Garendon abbey (Leics.)  114 n.260, 127, 128, 142 n.95 Gentry  11–12, 224 Glanvill  18–21, 204 Grandmesnil, Hugh de  32, 161, 163, 183–4 Ivo de  181, 184 Grendon family  142–3 Margaret, wife of Serlo  142–3 Roger de  142 nn.94, 95 Serlo  142 nn.94, 95 Serlo II de  67 William de  90, 142 n.95 Gresley, Castle (Derbys.)  51, 74 n.61, 80, 82, 212 Gresley, Church (Derbys.)  74 n.61, 81–2, 212 Gresley family  31 n.194, 73–82, 142, 213–14 Engenulf fitz William de  81 Geoffrey de  79, 108 Henry fitz William de  81 Nicholas de  51 n.18, 142 Nigel fitz William de  81, 213 Ralph fitz William de de  66, 67, 125 n.20, 130 n.48

256

Index

Robert fitz William de  51, 67, 76 n.67, 78, 81 William fitz Nigel de  76–82, 102, 142 William fitz Robert de  76 n.67, 79, 81 William fitz William de  81 Gresley priory (Derbys.)  81–2, 142 Halum, Walter de  66, 174 Handsacre family  78, 110–12 Hubert de  111, 144 Robert de  111, 144 William de  111, 112, 144 Harcourt family  103, 128 n.38, 185 Richard de  146 William de  146 Hatton (Derbys.)  66, 94 n.152 Haughmond Abbey (Shrops.)  57, 143 Henry I, King of England  26, 190, 201, 206, 213, 217–18 Henry II, King of England  102, 166, 209–10 Heriz family  116 Ivo de  141 Robert de  141 William de  116, 140–1, 166–7, 168 Homage 18–24 and burgage tenure  153, 195–6 creation of bond  18 evolution of term  19–21 liege 203–10 rural tenure  20–24 ‘simple’ homage  204–6 women 20 Honorial baronage  26, 114 Honours Anglophone historiography  3–9 geography  31, 118 models of decline  4–5, 9–10, 58–60, 122, 223–4 problems in historiographical model of  5–11, 13–15 religious patronage within  129–41 Hoon (Derbys.)  94 n.152, 97 n.166, 136 Ilam (Derbys.)  67–8, 83 Ilam, family de  67–8 Henry de  68 Turgis de  67–8 John, King of England  79, 99, 114–16, 163 n.58, 176, 190

Kenilworth Priory (Warks.)  51 n.18, 123 n.10, 140, 142 n.92 Kinship 62–3, see also Younger sons illegitimacy 70–2 religious patronage  122, 136–7, 141–3 Knighthood  12–13, 211–12 tenure by knight’s service  22–3 Kniveton, family  91–2 Henry fitz Matthew de  53 Humphrey fitz Haslac de  92 Matthew fitz Humphrey de  92 Matthew fitz Matthew de  92 Kniveton cartulary  91 Landgable  152, 153 Lapley priory (Staffs.)  102, 122 Launay, William de (Alneto) 219–20 Lead mining  35 Leake, family de  113–14 Adam 113 Alan  70, 113–14 Harold 113 Richard  51, 113 William  70, 113 Leges Henrici Primi  9, 17–20, 23 and n.149, 24, 27, 51, 204 Leicester  41, 152, 181–95 burgesses  187–91, 195 castle  182, 185, 186, 191 merchant guild  187–90 records  154, 186–7, 194 Leicester Abbey (St. Mary de Pratis)  38, 187, 191 foundation 191 patronage of  192–3 Leicester, Amice countess of  185 Leicester, earls of  32, 58, 181 tenants of  103 Leicester, Earl Robert I (1107–18)  184 relationship with burgesses of Leicester 189 Leicester, Earl Robert II (1118–68) 184–7 activities in Stephen’s reign  98, 112–13, 219–20 agreement with Ranulf II earl of Chester  79, 219–20 relationship with burgesses of Leicester 189–90 religious patronage  127, 191–2 Leicester, Earl Robert III (1168–90)  185 religious patronage  192

Index Leicester, Earl Robert IV (1190– 1204)  116, 185, 186 relationship with burgesses of Leicester 190–1 Leicestershire  30–2, 33, 41 in Domesday Book  31–2 Leicestershire Survey  31, 32, 99 Lichfield  76 n.66, 154, 177–8, 199 Liege lordship Burton Abbey’s estates  89, 202–10 king as liege lord  17, 19–20, 202–4, 206, 209–10 liege homage  203–10 recognition of other lord as liege  203, 206 Lincoln, bishop of  181, 183, 184, 185–6 Linton (Derbys.)  30 n.193, 74, 82 Livet, family Robert de  53, 134 Roger de  53, 134 Locality  62–3, 224 administrative boundaries  30–1, 91, 148, 224 association  8–9, 114–17 charter witnessing   51 definition  53 n.26 impact on religious donations  122, 135–9, 143–50 lordship  44, 58, 66–7, 91–2, 118 Longford, Margaret de  51 n.18, 142 n.92 Lordship, see also Homage, Multiple Lordship, Service definitions 16 religious patronage  129–50 single  11–12, 63–72 Luvetot, Richard de  80, 142 n.95 Markeaton (Derbys.)  35, 139 Marmion, family  50, 115, 142 n.94 Matilda, Empress  98, 112, 159–60 Matilda, queen, wife of Henry I (1100–18)  201, 214 Matlock  41, 98 n.168, 116 Mauduit family  116 Mayfield (Derbys.)  86 and n.117, 148 Measham (Leics.)  30 n.193, 51 Melton Mowbray  41 Merevale Abbey (Warks.)  67, 78, 82 n.100, 102 n.187, 125, 137 Merle, Herbert and Margarita de  56, 90 Minor lords archaeology of  30, 38–41

257

burial  126, 178 definition 12 education  92, 167–8 entering religious houses  114 n.260, 208 management of land  28, 98–9 marriage  98–9, 104–6 non-landholding  15, 30 relationship with peasants  28–9 religious donations  121–2, 124–50 royal service  99–100 women’s power  98–9 Modwenna, St, patron saint of Burtonupon-Trent Abbey  198, 201, 210–20 Vita  201, 210–20 Montfort, Simon de  116, 185, 199 n.11 Montgomery, earls of Shrewsbury Roger de  100 and n.182 Montgomery, de, family  65–7 Ralph de  65 Robert de  65 Walter de  65, 67 Walter II de  65, 66, 67, 88 William de  65, 66, 70, 88 Multiple lordship  72–118 Anglophone historiography  6–7 beneficial to lords  103, 119–20 beneficial to tenants  8 damaging to the honour  7–10, 223–4 Francophone historiography  1, 2 predatory lordship  113–14 service  89, 100–3 towns 194–6 Mungay, Serlo de  67 Mutton, family Ivo de  178, 180 Nicholas de  180 Ralph de  180 Needwood forest (Staffs.)  36, 79, 89, 97, 198, 199, 200, 216–18 Nostell priory (Yorks.)  97, 123 Okeover (Derbys.)  50, 68, 69, 82–6, 88, 148 cartulary 83 Okeover family  13, 67–8, 82–91 Andrew, son-in-law of Orm  85, 207, 219 Geoffrey de  66, 87, 90 Hugh I, fitz Ralph de   50, 54, 66, 67, 86, 87, 90, 148 Hugh II, fitz Robert  68

258 Orm de  82–91 Ralph fitz Orm de  65, 87 Richard de  88 Roger de  83 Orreby family  49 Parish churches  40–3 Peak District  32, 36, 38, 41 Peasantry  28–9, 200, 211–15 Peverel, honour of  52, 58, 99, 113 Peverel, William  35,80 Pipard, family Gilbert 69 Peter 69 Poitevin, Count Roger the  74, 211–15 Portmanmoot  152, 165, 167, 189, 190, 191 Potlock, Derbys.  54, 69, 70 Putrell, Roger and Margaret  66, 87–8 Ranton priory (Staffs.)  127, 143–8 cartulary  110 n.240, 143 n.101 donations to  57, 144–8 foundation of  110, 111–12, 143–5 Ravenstone (Leics.)  74 n.55, 219–20 Religious houses, distribution  40–3 Repton (Derbys.)  74, 78, 199 Repton priory (Derbys.)  56, 57, 123 Ridel, family  50 Geoffrey  142 n.94 Matilda  98–9, 136 Ridware family  88, 100–3 Azelin 100–2 Roger de  90 William de  102 William II de  90, 102–3 Ridware cartulary  102 Rocester Abbey (Derbys.)  71, 80 Rosel, family Margaret 140 Patrick  140, 149 Rydeware see Ridware St Albans, abbey  79 St Albans, family Albreda 207 Reginald de  70, 207–9 William de  207–9 St-Pierre-sur-Dives abbey (Calvados)  130 nn.44, 48, 131 n.49 St Werburgh’s abbey (Cheshire)  80 Salicosa Mara, Matilda de  125 Salisbury Oath  16

Index Sandiacre, family  52, 149, 172–4 Albreda 173 Alina 172–3 Peter de  149, 159–60, 166, 171, 172–4 Peter II de  149, 172–3 Peter III de  172–4 Richard de  172 tenants of  58 Savigny Abbey (Manche)  78 Seal (Netherseal and Overseal, Leics.)  66–7, 82, 125 n.20, 137 n.66, 142, 149 Seal, Ralph de  48, 66, 103, 131 n.48 Senlis, Simon de  181, 284 Service  22–7, 61–2, 223 agricultural  23, 25, 86, 202–3, 205 alms and freedom from service  124 carting 202–3 counsel  26, 119 escort  25, 202, 205, 208 ‘feudal’ 86 hospitality  23, 25, 202, 203, 205, 206 knight’s service  22–3 personal 26 recorded in charter  24, 86 reserved  86, 203, 206 serjeanty  23, 52, 172 suit of court  24, 25–6, 202, 205, 206 tenure 22 urban property  153 Sheen (Derbys.)  68, 87 Shirley (Derbys.)  95 n.157 Shirley family  31 n.194, 92–100 Fulcher fitz Fulcher  97 Fulcher fitz Henry  125 n.20 Fulcher fitz Saswalo de  95, 114, 136 Henry fitz Fulcher de  97, 98–9, 102, 138 n.72, 140, 149, 163 n.59 Henry fitz Saswalo de  97, 136 Hugh fitz Saswalo de, capellanus 97 patronage by  97, 136, 139–40, 150 Saswalo  94, 136, 150 Sewall fitz Fulcher de  95, 98–9 exchanges inheritance with brother Henry  95, 98–9 Sewall fitz Henry  99 Shrewsbury, Roger earl of  36 Shropshire  35–6, 38 Single lordship  11–12, 63–72, 110–12 and locality  64 in towns  181–96 Siward Barn  94 n.153, 156

Index Snelston (Derbys.)  54, 66, 86, 87, 90, 148 Snitterton, Jordan de  90, 163 n.61 Somerville, Roger de  115 Spuens mendacium, William  125 n.20 Stafford  36–8, 41, 151, 174–81 burgesses  176, 195 castle  175, 176 landholders 175 records for town  175–7, 194 Stafford, family  58 Millicent de  107–8, 115 Nicholas de  107 Nigel de  51 n.18, 73–9, 212–13 Robert I de (d.1100)  36–8, 73 n.54, 74 n.56, 100, 107, 144, 161, 176 Robert II de  78 n.71, 102, 108–9, 111 Robert III de  108 see also Gresley Stafford, St. Thomas’ Priory  38, 116, 145 n.108 donations to  177–9 foundation 177–8 records for  176–7, 194 relic of  180 witnesses for  178, 180 Staffordshire, 174–5, 198–9 as focus for study  30–1, 35–8, 41 Stanton 55 David de  55 Robert de  55 Stapenhill  69, 74 n.56, 78, 211–14 Stapleford (Derbys.)  114 Staunton, see Leake, family de Stephen of Blois, King  5, 31, 79, 80, 82, 98, 102, 112–13, 138 n.68, 143, 160, 184, 186 Stone priory (Staffs.)  109, 116, 123 n.10, 126 n.25, 176 Stretton (Derbys.)  83–5, 207–9 Swadlincote (Derbys.)  74 n.56, 82, 213–14 Swynnerton, family Adam de  115–16 Robert de  109 Tame, River  76 Tatenhill family  68–70 Geoffrey de  52, 68–70 Robert de  52, 68–70 William de  69 Tenure in alms  124 burgage  151–3, 166–7, 169–70, 195–6

259

by fee-farm  23, 202–4 and homage  20–23, 119–20 king as source of  16–17 by knight’s service  22–3 by serjeanty  23 by socage  24 Titchmarsh (Northants.)  94 n.154 Touke, family Hawise de  136 Henry de  70, 136 Humphrey 134 Jordan de  90 William de  136 Trent, river  35, 41, 75–6, 83, 100, 198–9 Trentham abbey (Staffs.)  81 Trowell, Geoffrey de  52 Tuschet, family  55, 171 see also Derby, Hugh dean of Tutbury castle  27, 35, 78, 94, 130, 161, 185, 198–9, 216 Tutbury priory (Staffs.)  38, 123, 130–7, 148 cartulary  donors to  53, 89, 97 and n.166, 105, 128 n.36, 150 foundation of  124–5, 162 possible services  86 relationship with mother-house  130 n.44 rights  127 n.35 tenants of  85–7, 94–5 Twycross (Leics.)  74 Norton-juxta-Twycross 79 Ulverscroft priory (Leics.)  127 Verdun, family  49, 116 Bertram de  68, 69, 87, 114 n.261 Norman de  32 tenants of  58 William de  69 Vernon, family  49 Wardship  20, 83, 88, 153, 192 n.251 Warwick, earls of  58, 92 tenants of  99–100, 103 Wasteneys, Philip de  115 Whitton (Lincs.)  94 n.153 William Marshal  16 William I, King of England  16, 156, 175, 176, 183, 189 William II Rufus, King of England  100, 183, 184, 203, 213

260 Willington, family Nicholas de  56 Philip de  70 Umfrey de  70 Wirksworth (Derbys.)  35, 148 soke  87, 98

Index Worcester, bishops of  52 Wulfric Spot  122, 197–8 Younger sons  51, 99–100, 106–12 as multiple tenants  107–10 as single tenants  110–12