North East England c1200 1400

  B O R D E R

L I B E RT I E S

A N D

L O YA LT I E S

North-East England, c c

  .1200 – c c

  .1400

  

Border Liberties and Loyalties

North-East England, c. 1200–c. 1400

  

M. L. Holford and K. J. Stringer

  © M. L. Holford and K. J. Stringer, 2010 Edinburgh University Press Ltd

  22 George Square, Edinburgh www.euppublishing.com Typeset in Minion and Gill Sans by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire and printed and bound in Great Britain CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 0 7486 3278 7 (hardback) Th e right of M. L. Holford and K. J. Stringer to be identifi ed as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published with the support of the Edinburgh University Scholarly

Publishing Initiatives Fund.

  

Contents

  List of Maps and Tables v

  Preface vi Authors’ Notes viii List of Abbreviations ix List of Manuscript and Record Sources xvi Map 1 xxiv

  Introduction 1 Matthew Holford and Keith Stringer

  PART I THE ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTIES

  1. Durham: History, Culture and Identity

  17 Matthew Holford

  2. Durham: Government, Administration and the Local Community 58

  Matthew Holford

  3. Durham: Patronage, Service and Good Lordship

  96 Matthew Holford

  4. Durham under Bishop Anthony Bek, 1283–1311 138 Matthew Holford

  5. Hexhamshire and Tynemouthshire 172 Matthew Holford

BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES

  PART II THE SECULAR LIBERTIES

  6. Tynedale: Power, Society and Identities, c. 1200–1296 231 Keith Stringer

  7. Tynedale: A Community in Transition, 1296–c. 1400 291 Keith Stringer

  8. Redesdale 359

  Keith Stringer Conclusions and Wider Perspectives 413 Matthew Holford and Keith Stringer Index 433

  

Maps and Tables

  Maps

  1. Th e Greater Liberties of North- East England xxiv

  2. Th e Liberty of Durham ‘between Tyne and Tees’

  18

  3. Th e Liberty of Hexhamshire 174

  4. Th e Liberty of Tynemouthshire 204

  5. Th e Liberty of Tynedale 233

  6. Th e Liberty of Redesdale 360 Tables

  1. Swinburne of Haughton, Capheaton 356

  2. Swinburne of Haughton, Little Swinburne 357

  3. Swinburne of Knarsdale, Little Horkesley 358

  4. Umfraville of Redesdale 362

  

Preface

  Th is book could not have been written without the good offi ces of the Leverhulme Trust, which generously funded the research project on which our work is based. Th e project, entitled ‘Border Liberties and Loyalties in North- East England in the Th irteenth and Fourteenth Centuries’, was con- ducted under the joint direction of Michael Prestwich and Keith Stringer as a collaborative venture between the universities of Durham and Lancaster. It was also associated with the North- East England History Institute when it was supported as a Research Centre by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. We are indeed most grateful to all these bodies for their interest and assistance. It is likewise a pleasure to acknowledge that the publication of our fi ndings has been facilitated by an award from the Marc Fitch Fund.

  Part of the ‘Border Liberties’ project was realised in the appearance of Liberties and Identities in the Medieval British Isles (Woodbridge, 2008), which was the product of a colloquium held in Durham and edited by Michael Prestwich. In the present study, Keith Stringer focuses on the North- East’s secular liberties and Matthew Holford deals with its ecclesiastical liberties, though each writer has contributed to the other’s work. Th e Introduction and the Conclusion are jointly authored, with Keith Stringer being respon- sible for their fi nal form, and for the editing of the book as a whole. In addi- tion to Matthew Holford, two research associates, Alastair Dunn and Andy King, were employed on the project for shorter periods, and we thank them for the preparatory work they undertook. We are also indebted to Dauvit Broun, Constance Fraser, Christian Liddy, Cynthia Neville, Tony Pollard, Michael Prestwich, David Rollason and Alan Rushworth, all of whom have given welcome advice and support. Another important debt is to the cus- todians of the thirty archives we have used. Particular thanks are due to Alan Piper and Michael Stansfi eld at Durham, and to staff at Th e National Archives; Balliol College, Oxford; Castle Howard, Yorkshire; Cumbria Record Offi ce, Carlisle; and Northumberland Collections Service. We are also much obliged to Esmé Watson of Edinburgh University Press for her unfl appability and encouragement. Keith Stringer is especially beholden to University College, Durham, where his tenure of the Slater Fellowship for

  

PREFACE

  hospitable surroundings, and within close reach of major library and man- uscript resources. His chapters on Tynedale and Redesdale are dedicated to the memory of Rees Davies, who took a keen interest in the project during its initial stages, and who remains a constant source of inspiration.

  

Authors’ Notes

  1. As a rule, modern surname forms are used where they exist; otherwise surnames representing identifi able place- names are given according to Ordnance Survey spellings. Th roughout all surnames normally appear without any preceding ‘de’ or ‘of’.

  2. Knights are not styled ‘Sir’ on their every occurrence, though their status is made clear whenever it is germane to the argument, and all knights are recorded as such in the Index.

  3. Considerations of space have prohibited the inclusion of a full bibliog- raphy of relevant printed material, but the key publications consulted are listed in the Abbreviations.

  4. While we have benefi ted from earlier prosopographical writings on the medieval North- East, especially on its offi ce- holders, it has not been practicable to provide regular citations for basic biographical details. Th e chief works for Durham are C. H. H. Blair, ‘Th e sheriff s of the county of Durham’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th ser., 22 (1944), pp. 22–81; C. M. Fraser, ‘Offi cers of the bishopric of Durham under Antony Bek, 1283–1311’, ibid., 35 (1957), pp. 22–38; and, most recently, M. L. Holford, ‘Offi ce- holders and political society in the liberty of Durham, 1241–1345 (part 2)’, ibid., 5th ser., 37 (2008), pp. 161–82. Th ose for Northumberland are W. P. Hedley, Northumberland Families (Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1968–70), and the following studies by C. H. H. Blair: ‘Members of Parliament for Northumberland, 1258–1327’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th ser., 10 (1933), pp. 140–77; ‘Members of Parliament for Northumberland, 1327–99’, ibid., 11 (1934), pp. 21–82; ‘Th e sheriff s of Northumberland’, ibid., 20 (1942), pp. 11–90; ‘Knights of Northumberland, 1278 and 1324’, ibid., 27 (1949), pp. 122–76.

  

Abbreviations

  AA Archaeologia Aeliana Acta 1153–95 English Episcopal Acta 24: Durham

  1153–1195, ed. M. G. Snape (Oxford, 2002)

  Acta 1196–1237 English Episcopal Acta 25: Durham 1196–1237, ed. M. G. Snape (Oxford, 2002)

  Acta 1241–83 English Episcopal Acta 29: Durham 1241–1283, ed. P. M. Hoskin (Oxford, 2005)

  Bek Recs Records of Antony Bek, Bishop and Patriarch, 1283–1311, ed. C. M. Fraser (SS, 1953)

  BF Th e Book of Fees commonly called Testa de Nevill (London, 1920–31)

  BL British Library Bodl. Bodleian Library, Oxford Brand, Newcastle J. Brand, Th e History and Antiquities of

  . . . Newcastle upon Tyne (London, 1789) Brinkburn Cart. Th e Chartulary of Brinkburn Priory, ed. W. Page (SS, 1893)

  CChR Calendar of the Charter Rolls, 1226–1516 (London, 1903–27)

  CCR Calendar of the Close Rolls (London, 1892–)

  CCW 1244–1326 Calendar of Chancery Warrants, 1244–1326 (London, 1927)

  CDS Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, ed. J. Bain, G. G. Simpson and J.

  D. Galbraith (Edinburgh, 1881–1986) CFR Calendar of the Fine Rolls (London,

BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES

  Chron. Lanercost Chronicon de Lanercost, ed. J. Stevenson (Bannatyne Club, 1839)

  CIMisc. Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (London, 1916–)

  CIPM Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem (London, 1904–)

  CPL Calendar of . . . Papal Letters (London, 1893–)

  CPR Calendar of the Patent Rolls (London, 1891–)

  CR Close Rolls of the Reign of Henry III (London, 1902–38)

  CRO (Carlisle) Cumbria Record Offi ce, Carlisle CRO (Kendal) Cumbria Record Offi ce, Kendal CRR Curia Regis Rolls (London, 1922–) CWAAS Cumberland and Westmorland

  Antiquarian and Archaeological Society

  Davies, Lordship and Society R. R. Davies, Lordship and Society in the March of Wales, 1282–1400 (Oxford, 1978)

  DCL Durham Cathedral Library DCM Durham Cathedral Muniments (now housed in Durham University Library,

  Archives and Special Collections) DCRO Durham County Record Offi ce, Durham ‘Durham assize rolls’ ‘Two thirteenth- century assize rolls for the county of Durham’, ed. K. C. Bayley, in Miscellanea II (SS, 1916)

  EHR English Historical Review FA Inquisitions and Assessments relating to Feudal Aids, 1284–1431 (London,

  1899–1920) Fasti Dunelm. Fasti Dunelmenses, ed. D. S. Boutfl ower

  (SS, 1927) Foedera Foedera, Conventiones, Litterae, ed. T. Rymer, new edn by A. Clark et al. (Record Commission, 1816–69) FPD Feodarium Prioratus Dunelmensis, ed. W.

  

ABBREVIATIONS

  Fraser, Bek

  C. M. Fraser, A History of Antony Bek, Bishop of Durham, 1283–1311 (Oxford, 1957)

  G&B W. Greenwell and C. H. H. Blair, Catalogue of the Seals in the Treasury of the Dean and Chapter of Durham, fi rst published in AA, 3rd ser., pp. 7–17 (1911–20), and then separately (1947)

  GEC Th e Complete Peerage by G. E. C[okayne], revised by V. Gibbs et al. (London, 1910–59) Gesta Dunelm. ‘Gesta Dunelmensia, A.D. MCCC’, ed. R. K. Richardson, in Camden Miscellany XIII (Camden Th ird Series, 1924)

  Gibson, Tynemouth W. S. Gibson, Th e History of the Monastery Founded at Tynemouth (London, 1846–7)

  Greenwell Deeds Th e Greenwell Deeds, ed. J. Walton (Newcastle, 1927)

  Hartshorne

  C. H. Hartshorne, Feudal and Military Antiquities of Northumberland and the Scottish Borders (London, 1858), Appendix III, ‘Iter of Wark’ [the 1279–81 Tynedale eyre roll]

  Hatfi eld Survey Bishop Hatfi eld’s Survey, ed. W. Greenwell (SS, 1857) HC Th e House of Commons, 1386–1421, ed.

  J. S. Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliff e (Stroud, 1992)

  Hexham Priory Th e Priory of Hexham, ed. J. Raine (SS, 1864–5)

  HN J. Hodgson, A History of Northumberland (Newcastle, 1820–58)

  JBS Journal of British Studies Laing Chrs Calendar of the Laing Charters, ed. J.

  Anderson (Edinburgh, 1899) Lapsley, Durham

  G. T. Lapsley, Th e County Palatine of Durham (New York, 1900)

  Lucy Cart. Lucy Cartulary (xvi cent.), Cockermouth Castle, Cumbria, D/Lec/301

BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES

  NAR Th ree Early Assize Rolls for the County of Northumberland, ed. W. Page (SS, 1891)

  NCH A History of Northumberland (Northumberland County History Committee, Newcastle, 1893–1940)

  NCS Northumberland Collections Service, Woodhorn (formerly Northumberland Record Offi ce, Gosforth)

  NDD Northumberland and Durham Deeds from the Dodsworth MSS., ed. A. M. Oliver (NRC, 1929)

  NER Th e Northumberland Eyre Roll for 1293, ed. C. M. Fraser (SS, 2007) Neville, Violence

  C. J. Neville, Violence, Custom and Law: Th e Anglo- Scottish Border Lands in the Later Middle Ages (Edinburgh, 1998)

  Newcastle Deeds Early Deeds relating to Newcastle upon Tyne, ed. A. M. Oliver (SS, 1924)

  Newminster Cart. Chartularium Abbathiae de Novo Monasterio, ed. J. T. Fowler (SS, 1878)

  NH Northern History NLS Th e Northumberland Lay Subsidy Roll of 1296, ed. C. M. Fraser (Society of

  Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1968)

  Northern Pets Northern Petitions Illustrative of Life in Berwick, Cumbria and Durham in the Fourteenth Century, ed. C. M. Fraser (SS, 1982)

  Northumb. Fines, i Feet of Fines, Northumberland and Durham, ed. A. M. Oliver and C. Johnson (NRC, 1931) Northumb. Fines, ii Feet of Fines, Northumberland, A.D.

  1273–A.D. 1346, ed. C. Johnson (NRC, 1932)

  Northumb. PDBR Northumbrian Pleas from De Banco Rolls [1272–80], ed. A. H. Th ompson (SS, 1950)

  Northumb. Pets Ancient Petitions relating to Northumberland, ed. C. M. Fraser (SS, 1966)

  

ABBREVIATIONS

  Northumb. Pleas Northumberland Pleas from the Curia Regis and Assize Rolls, 1198–1272, ed. A.

  H. Th ompson (NRC, 1922) Notts. Archives Nottinghamshire Archives, Nottingham NRC Newcastle upon Tyne Records Committee NYCRO North Yorkshire County Record Offi ce,

  Northallerton ‘Offi ce- holders’, i M. L. Holford, ‘Offi ce- holders and political society in the liberty of Durham,

  1241–1345 (part 1)’, AA, 5th ser., 36 (2007), pp. 93–110

  ‘Offi ce- holders’, ii M. L. Holford, ‘Offi ce- holders and political society in the liberty of Durham, 1241–1345 (part 2)’, AA, 5th ser., 37 (2008), pp. 161–82

  Parl. Writs Parliamentary Writs and Writs of Military Summons, ed. F. Palgrave (Record Commission, 1827–34)

  Percy Cart. Th e Percy Chartulary, ed. M. T. Martin (SS, 1911) PQW Placita de Quo Warranto, ed. W.

  Illingworth (Record Commission, 1818) PROME Th e Parliament Rolls of Medieval

  England, 1275–1504, ed. C. Given- Wilson (Woodbridge, 2005)

  PSAN Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne

  Raine, North Durham J. Raine, Th e History and Antiquities of North Durham (London, 1852)

  Reg. Corbridge Th e Register of Th omas Corbridge, Lord Archbishop of York, 1300–1304, ed. W.

  Brown (SS, 1925–8) Reg. Giff ard Th e Register of Walter Giff ard, Lord Archbishop of York, 1266–1279, ed. W.

  Brown (SS, 1904) Reg. Gray Th e Register, or Rolls, of Walter Gray, Lord

  Archbishop of York, ed. J. Raine (SS, 1872) Reg. Greenfi eld Th e Register of William Greenfi eld, Lord Archbishop of York, 1306–1315, ed. A. H.

  Th ompson (SS, 1931–40)

BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES

  Reg. Langley Th e Register of Th omas Langley, Bishop of Durham, 1406–1437, ed. R. L. Storey (SS, 1956–70)

  Reg. Melton Th e Register of William Melton, Archbishop of York, 1317–1340, ed. R.

  M. T. Hill et al. (Canterbury and York Society, 1977–)

  Reg. Melton Register of Archbishop William Melton of York (1317–40), Borthwick Institute, York, Reg.9A–B

  Reg. Neville Register of Archbishop Alexander Neville of York (1374–88), Borthwick Institute, York, Reg.12

  Reg. Newark Th e Register of Henry of Newark, Lord Archbishop of York, 1296–1299, ed. W.

  Brown (SS, 1917) Reg. Romeyn Th e Register of John le Romeyn, Lord Archbishop of York, 1286–1296, ed. W.

  Brown (SS, 1913–17) Reg. Th oresby Register of Archbishop John Th oresby of York (1352–73), Borthwick Institute,

  York, Reg.11 Reg. Wickwane Th e Register of William Wickwane, Lord Archbishop of York, 1279–1285, ed. W.

  Brown (SS, 1907) Reg. Zouche Register of Archbishop William Zouche of York (1342–52), Borthwick Institute,

  York, Reg.10 RH Rotuli Hundredorum, ed. W. Illingworth

  (Record Commission, 1812–18) RLC Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri

  Londinensi Asservati, ed. T. D. Hardy (Record Commission, 1833–4) Rot. Scot. Rotuli Scotiae in Turri Londinensi . . .

  Asservati, ed. D. Macpherson, J. Caley and W. Illingworth (Record Commission, 1814–19)

  Royal Letters Royal and Other Historical Letters Illustrative of the Reign of Henry III, ed.

  W. W. Shirley (RS, 1862–6)

  

ABBREVIATIONS

  RPD Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense: Th e Register of Richard de Kellawe, Lord Palatine and Bishop of Durham, 1311– 1316, ed. T. D. Hardy (RS, 1873–8)

  RS Rolls Series Scriptores Tres Historiae Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres, ed.

  J. Raine (SS, 1839) SS Surtees Society Stevenson, Docs Documents Illustrative of the History of

  Scotland, 1286–1306, ed. J. Stevenson (Edinburgh, 1870)

  Storey, Langley R. L. Storey, Th omas Langley and the Bishopric of Durham, 1406–1437 (London, 1961)

  Surtees R. Surtees, Th e History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham (London, 1816–40)

  TCE Th irteenth Century England TCWAAS Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and

  Archaeological Society TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical

  Society Tynemouth Cart. Tynemouth Priory Cartulary (xiv cent.),

  Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, MS D.XI.1

  VCH Victoria History of the Counties of England

  YASRS Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series

  

Manuscript and Record Sources

  National Repositories

  

Th e National Archives: Th e Public Record Offi ce

  (Unless otherwise specifi ed, all unpublished sources cited in this book are housed in Th e National Archives.) Admiralty ADM 75 Royal Greenwich Hospital: Deeds Chancery C 1 Six Clerks Offi ce: Early Proceedings C 44 Common Law Pleadings, Tower Series C 47 Miscellanea C 49 Parliamentary and Council Proceedings C 54 Close Rolls C 66 Patent Rolls C 67 Supplementary Patent Rolls C 76 Treaty Rolls C 81 Warrants for the Great Seal, Series I C 133–9 Inquisitions Post Mortem C 143 Inquisitions Ad Quod Damnum C 145 Miscellaneous Inquisitions C 146 Ancient Deeds, Series C C 241 Certifi cates of Statute Merchant and Statute Staple C 255 Miscellaneous Files and Writs C 260 Recorda Common Pleas CP 25/1 Feet of Fines CP 40 Plea Rolls CP 52 Brevia Files

MANUSCRIPT AND RECORD SOURCES

  Duchy of Lancaster DL 27 Deeds, Series LS DL 29 Accounts of Auditors, etc.

  Exchequer E 32 Justices of the Forest E 36 Treasury of the Receipt: Miscellaneous Books E 40 TR: Ancient Deeds, Series A E 42 TR: Ancient Deeds, Series AS E 43 TR: Ancient Deeds, Series WS E 101 King’s Remembrancer: Accounts Various E 122 KR: Customs Accounts E 142 KR: Extents, etc., of Forfeited Lands E 149 KR: Escheators’ Files E 159 KR: Memoranda Rolls E 179 KR: Subsidy Rolls E 198 KR: Feudal Tenure and Distraint of Knighthood E 199 KR and Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer: Sheriff s’ Accounts, etc.

  E 202 KR: Writs, Original Series E 210 KR: Ancient Deeds, Series D E 326 Augmentation Offi ce: Ancient Deeds, Series B E 329 AO: Ancient Deeds, Series BS E 358 Pipe Offi ce: Miscellaneous Enrolled Accounts E 359 PO: Account Rolls of Subsidies and Aids E 368 LTR: Memoranda Rolls E 372 PO: Pipe Rolls Itinerant Justices JUST 1 Eyre Rolls, etc.

  JUST 3 Gaol Delivery Rolls King’s Bench KB 9 Indictments Files, etc. KB 27 Coram Rege Rolls Palatinate of Durham DURH 3 Chancery Court: Cursitor’s Records DURH 13 Assizes and Court of Pleas: Plea and Gaol Delivery

  Rolls

BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES

  Special Collections SC 1 Ancient Correspondence SC 6 Ministers’ and Receivers’ Accounts SC 8 Ancient Petitions Other Sources

  IND Indexes to Various Series PRO Domestic Records of the Public Record Offi ce

  (including transcripts)

  British Library

  Additional Charters Cotton Roll XIII.8 Earl of Northumberland’s Retinue- list, 1385 Egerton Charters Harley Charters MSS Additional 8835 Wardrobe Book, 1303–4 28024 Beauchamp Cartulary, xv cent. MSS Cotton Claudius D.IV Durham Priory: Historical Collections, xv cent.

  Faustina A.VI Durham Priory Register, xiv cent. Nero C.VIII Wardrobe Accounts, 1310–37 Tiberius E.VI St Albans Abbey Register, xiv–xv cent.

  Vitellius A.XX Historical Collections, xiii cent. MS Harley 4843 Durham Priory: Historical Collections, xvi cent. MSS Lansdowne 397 Durham Priory: Miscellaneous Collections, xiv cent. 902 Transcripts, xviii cent. MSS Stowe 553 Wardrobe Book, 1322–3 930 Durham Priory Register, xiii–xiv cent.

  Other Repositories

  Alnwick Castle, Northumberland

  MS D.XI.1 Tynemouth Priory Cartulary, xiv cent.

MANUSCRIPT AND RECORD SOURCES

  

Balliol College, Oxford

  E.4 Stamfordham and Heugh

  

Bodleian Library, Oxford

MSS Dodsworth 45, 78, 94, 149 Transcripts, xvii cent.

  MS Eng. c. 7032 Towneley Papers, xvii cent. MS Laud. Misc. 748 Durham Priory: Historical Collections, xv cent.

  MS Tanner 197 Wardrobe Accounts, 1311 MS Top. Yorks. e. 8 Transcripts, xviii cent.

  

Borthwick Institute, York

  Reg.9A–B Register of Archbishop William Melton (1317–40) Reg.10 Register of Archbishop William Zouche (1342–52) Reg.11 Register of Archbishop John Th oresby (1352–73) Reg.12 Register of Archbishop Alexander Neville (1374–88)

  

Castle Howard, Yorkshire

  A1 Dacre and Greystoke

  

Cockermouth Castle, Cumbria

D/Lec/301 Lucy Cartulary, xvi cent.

  

Cumbria Record Offi ce

  (a) Carlisle D/Ay Aglionby D/HA Hough, Halton and Soal of Carlisle D/HC Howard of Corby D/HGB Blencow of Blencowe D/Lons/L Lowther of Lowther, Earls of Lonsdale D/MBS Mounsey, Bowman and Sutcliff e of Carlisle DMH Mounsey- Heysham D/Mus Musgrave of Edenhall

BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES

  D/Wyb Wybergh MS Machell 5 Transcripts, xvii cent. (b) Kendal WD/Crk Crackanthorpe of Newbiggin WD/Ry Le Fleming of Rydal Hall

  Durham Cathedral Library MS Raine 52 Transcripts, xix cent.

  MSS Randall 3, 5 Transcripts, xviii cent.

  Durham County Record Offi ce, Durham

  D/Gr Greenwell Deeds D/Lo Londonderry Estates D/Sa Salvin of Croxdale D/Sh.H Sherburn Hospital D/St Strathmore Estate

  Durham University Library, Archives and Special Collections

  (a) Palace Green HNP/N Howard Family: Northumberland SGD 54 Littleburn, Holywell and Naff erton (b) 5 Th e College Durham Cathedral Muniments Original Deeds, etc.

  Elemos. Elemosinaria Finc. Finchalia Haswell Deeds Loc. Locelli Misc. Ch. Miscellaneous Charters Pont. Pontifi calia Reg. Regalia Sacr. Sacristaria SHD Sherburn Hospital Spec. Specialia

MANUSCRIPT AND RECORD SOURCES

  Other Sources Bursar’s Accounts Cart. I–IV Cartularia, xv cent.

  Cart. Vet. Cartuarium Vetus, xiii cent. Reg. II Priory Register, xiv–xv cent. Reg. Hatfi eld Register of Bishop Th omas Hatfi eld

  (1345–81) Rep. Mag. Repertorium Magnum, xv cent.

  Essex Record Offi ce, Chelmsford

  D/DBy/T27 Miscellaneous Deeds

  Guildhall Library, London

  MS 31302 Skinners’ Company

  John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester

  Latin MS 236 Accounts of Queen’s Household, 1357–8 PHC Phillipps Charters

  Lancashire Record Offi ce, Preston

  DDTO Towneley of Towneley

  Levens Hall, Cumbria

  Medieval Deeds

  Lincolnshire Archives, Lincoln

  Dean and Chapter Muniments Dij/62/iii Lincolnshire Churches

  Merton College, Oxford

  Stillington Deeds

BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES

  Northamptonshire Record Offi ce, Northampton

  Stopford- Sackville Muniments

  Northumberland Collections Service, Woodhorn

  324 Blackett- Ord of Whitfi eld SANT/TRA Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne:

  Transcripts of Records Waterford Charters ZBL Blackett of Matfen ZMI Middleton of Belsay ZSW Swinburne of Capheaton

  North Yorkshire County Record Offi ce, Northallerton

  ZAZ Hutton of Marske ZBO Bolton Hall ZIQ Meynell of Kilvington ZQH Chaytor of Croft

  Nottinghamshire Archives, Nottingham

  DD/4P, 6P Portland of Welbeck, 4th and 6th Deposits DD/FJ Foljambe of Osberton

  Nottingham University, Manuscripts and Special Collections

  PL/E11 Dukes of Portland: Northumberland Estates

  St George’s Chapel Archives and Chapter Library, Windsor Castle

  XI.K. Ancient Deeds

  Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford- upon- Avon

  DR 10 Gregory- Hood of Stivichall

MANUSCRIPT AND RECORD SOURCES

  Society of Antiquaries, London

  MS 120 Wardrobe Book, 1316–17 MS 121 Wardrobe Book, 1317–18

  York Minster Library and Archives MS XVI.A.1 Cartulary of St Mary’s Abbey, York, xiv cent.

  

Map 1 The Greater Liberties of North-East England

  

Introduction

Matthew Holford and Keith Stringer

  his book is the first full- length modern study of lordship and society in the North- East of England in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-

  T

  turies. In part it explores the workings of political life in the English Borders in ways that may usefully advance research into the structures and dynamics of medieval frontierlands. More particularly, by address- ing the institutions and political cultures of medieval England beyond its metropolitan heartlands, it aims to achieve fresh perspectives on the real- ities of power and politics that underlay Westminster- centred orthodox- ies about the English experience of ‘state- making’. And, above all, it seeks to illuminate the significance of the greater north- eastern liberties – that is, largely self- regulating territorial jurisdictions – for local authority and governance and for socio- political cohesion and identification. Similarly, while the North- East had its own setting and history, we hope that our findings will have a wider bearing on the relevance of medieval England’s liberties for people’s lives and loyalties, and will thereby contribute to the mainstream of ongoing debates about ‘state’, ‘society’, ‘identity’ and

  1 ‘community’.

  It is a commonplace that in our period England consolidated its position as the most centralised ‘state’ in the medieval West. Indeed, even by about 1250 the authority of the English monarchy was ‘ubiquitous and, on its

  2

  own terms, exclusive’. Yet a closer look at how power was distributed and asserted in the mid- thirteenth- century kingdom is instructive. Much local government was exercised not solely by the crown and its offi cers, but in ₁ diff erent degrees through power- structures enjoying so- called ‘franchisal

  

For a broader conceptualisation, see K. J. Stringer, ‘States, liberties and communities

in medieval Britain and Ireland (c. 1100–1400)’, in M. Prestwich (ed.), Liberties and

₂ Identities in the Medieval British Isles (Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 5–36.

  

R. R. Davies, The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles, 1093–1343

BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES

  3

  rights’. Th us liberties of various sorts (ignoring hundredal and lesser juris- dictions) peppered the countryside from the English Channel to the Scottish Border. Th e most typical were those with ‘return of writs’, which allowed liberty- owners to execute all the normal duties and powers of the king’s sheriff s, and to hold courts equivalent to county courts, whose competence was much inferior to that of full royal courts, but much superior to that of ordinary honour or manor courts. Several earls and many bishops claimed this prerogative, as did numerous religious houses such as the abbeys of Abingdon, Chertsey, Cirencester, Evesham, Waltham and Westminster. Return of writs was likewise a routine perquisite of privileged boroughs – in 1255–7, for example, no fewer than twenty- two towns received royal con- fi rmations of this right – and it could also be held over large areas, including the Isle of Wight, the Soke of Peterborough, Holderness, Richmondshire,

  4

  and most of Cambridgeshire and Suff olk. All fraunchise, as Chief Justice Scrope was to state in 1329, ‘is to have jurisdiction and rule over the

  5

  people’; and such liberties had a real eff ect on the processes of local govern- ance and control. Th ey therefore provide one important frame of reference within which the operation of local power can be understood; and they were in fact so widespread that none of the king’s counties was a uniform legal and administrative unit under the sheriff ’s direct supervision. Each

  6 dissolves on examination into a jumble of jurisdictions.

  During the course of Henry III’s reign (1216–72), a select number of liberties were also formalising their rights to dispense royal justice in their own courts. Th ey claimed cognisance of the civil pleas usually tried before the king’s justices; their criminal jurisdiction covered the crown pleas withdrawn from the king’s sheriff s by Magna Carta of 1215. Most of these liberties were located at ecclesiastical centres such as Battle, Beverley and Ripon; and in some cases, as at Bury St Edmunds, Ely, Glastonbury and Ramsey, no crown offi cer took any part in the hearing of pleas. Even these latter examples, however, did not represent the highest level of local autonomy and authority: justice and administration were conducted by liberty offi cers, but oft en on the basis of royal commands; and royal writs were necessary to initiate the possessory assizes and other actions ₃ Useful surveys include S. Painter, Studies in the History of the English Feudal Barony ₄ (Baltimore, 1943), Chapter 4.

  

A key study is M. T. Clanchy, ‘The franchise of return of writs’, TRHS, 5th ser., 17 (1967),

₅ pp. 59–82.

  

Quoted in A. Harding, Medieval Law and the Foundations of the State (Oxford, 2002), p.

₆ 214.

  

See, for example, B. English, ‘The government of thirteenth- century Yorkshire’, in J. C.

  

Appleby and P. Dalton (eds), Government, Religion and Society in Northern England,

  

INTRODUCTION

  7

  concerning freehold estates. In contrast, the emergent ‘royal liberties’, ‘regalities’ or (ultimately) ‘counties palatine’ lay more completely outside the orbit of crown jurisdiction, and were defi ned primarily by the maxim that ‘the king’s writ does not run there’. Th us in principle they were dis- tinct self- governing entities, and in practice the king and his ministers normally recognised their independent existence. Th ey possessed their own separate ‘royal’ institutions, which were staff ed by their own person- nel and replicated in microcosm the apparatus through which the ‘state’ could assert itself. Each liberty naturally had its own shire organisation; crown and civil pleas were sued before the lord’s justices and by his own writs; and it was already assumed that ‘regal jurisdiction’ included exemption from parliamentary taxation. Th e lord himself was the main focus of rule and law within the liberty, and it was his peace, not the king of England’s peace, that was enforced locally. He also enjoyed broader powers of lordship and patronage similar to those exercised by the crown elsewhere in the kingdom; and his governmental and political authority exceeded that of all other English liberty- owners save the ‘lords royal’ of the March of Wales. Medieval England’s regalities included the earldom of Chester and the palatinate of Lancaster (1351–61 and from 1377); the other concentration was in the North- East.

  Th e various kinds of liberty just described have long attracted scholarly attention; yet, with the notable exception of Chester, the heyday of their

  8

  historiography was in the fi rst two- thirds of the twentieth century. Th e resulting studies, many of continuing value, are not easily summarised. But beginning with Gaillard Lapsley’s pioneering book on Durham, pub- lished as A Study in Constitutional History in 1900, they generally centred on institutional theory and forms; and thanks mainly to Helen Cam’s writings in the 1940s and 1950s, there was a marked predisposition to set the history of liberties fi rmly within a power- map defi ned by the English crown according to its own specifi cations. So it was that historians in essence accepted the neat- and- tidy view of the world held by thirteenth- century royal lawyers such as Henry Bracton, who took it for granted that all jurisdiction derived from the crown and was exercised exclusively in its ₇ name. Indeed, Cam wrote of ‘the king’s government as administered by the

  

M. D. Lobel, ‘The ecclesiastical banleuca in England’, in Oxford Essays in Medieval History

(Oxford, 1934), pp. 122–40; and, most recently, A. Gransden, A History of the Abbey of

₈ Bury St. Edmunds, 1182–1256 (Woodbridge, 2007), Chapter 20.

  

Recent work on medieval Cheshire, especially its administrative history, amounts to a

small industry. See, for example, P. H. W. Booth, The Financial Administration of the

Lordship and County of Chester, 1272–1377 (Chetham Society, 1981); D. J. Clayton, The

Administration of the County Palatine of Chester, 1442–1485 (Chetham Society, 1990); P.

BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES

  greater abbots of East Anglia’: liberty- owners were thus to be regarded as royal surrogates and servants, while their offi cials were also characterised

  9

  as ‘the king’s ministers and bailiff s’. Likewise something of a Bractonian consensus emerged that medieval ‘state- formation’ depended not on any dynamic of governmental pluralism but on the integrating force of central authority and institutions. Accordingly a paradigm was constructed of the linear expansion of crown power and centralisation, so that even ‘royal liberties’ were relegated to the historical sidelines on the grounds that they became much like standard counties. ‘Th eir infl ated reputations’, Jean Scammell observed, ‘falsify many assessments of the eff ectiveness of mon- archy and the possible extent of immunities in medieval England’; and she went on to conclude that Durham should be seen as little more than ‘an

  10

  enormous estate situated in a remote part of England’. In similar vein, James Alexander categorised Chester, Durham and Lancaster as ‘puny local quasi- autonomies’, and believed that, so far as Edward I and Edward III

  11 were concerned, ‘the reality of power they shared not’.

  Th is was a far cry from the view of Robin Storey (echoing Lapsley) that the bishops of Durham ‘exercised an authority equal in its scope to that of

  12

  the King elsewhere in the realm’. Rather, liberties of all types were merely

  13 ‘cogs’ in the ‘magnifi cent machine’ of medieval English royal governance.

  Or, as Eleanor Searle argued in her work on Battle, a liberty’s place in the

  14 local governmental and political order was decided by the king’s decree.

  Th ere was thus much less interest in the actual powers of liberty- owners over those whom they might call their ‘subjects’; or in how a liberty’s insti- tutional and political frameworks might have benefi ted local society and shaped its behaviour, values and loyalties. And traditional approaches have indeed cast a long shadow. Robert Palmer, for instance, set his analysis of the relationship between the jurisdictions of county courts and liberty ₉ courts largely within the context of their integration into a single ‘national’

  

H. M. Cam, Liberties and Communities in Medieval England, new edn (London, 1963),

pp. 183–204, and her ‘Shire officials: coroners, constables, and bailiffs’, in J. F. Willard et

al. (eds), The English Government at Work, 1327–1336 (Cambridge, MA, 1940–50), iii, p.

₁₀ 149.

  

J. Scammell, ‘The origin and limitations of the liberty of Durham’, EHR, 81 (1966), pp.

  

452, 473. Cf. R. B. Dobson, Church and Society in the Medieval North of England (London,

1996), p. 89: ‘the capacity of the bishops . . . of Durham to play an autonomous role on the

₁₁ Anglo- Scottish Border was virtually non- existent’. ₁₂ J. W. Alexander, ‘The English palatinates and Edward I’, JBS, 22 (1983), p. 22. ₁₃ Storey, Langley, p. 52; cf. Lapsley, Durham, p. 76. ₁₄ Cam, Liberties and Communities, pp. 207, 216.

  

E. Searle, Lordship and Community: Battle Abbey and its Banlieu, 1066–1538 (Toronto,

1974), p. 222: ‘for the franchise to be . . . maintained, it had constantly to be reinterpreted,

  

INTRODUCTION

  15

  justice system. More recent work by legal historians has tended, directly

  16

  or indirectly, to endorse such formulations and conclusions. Th ey like- wise sit easily with some current interpretations of the late- medieval English constitution. Th us, to cite Helen Castor, ‘the hierarchies of govern- ment, both formal and informal, depended fundamentally on the universal

  17 and universally representative authority of the crown’.

  Admittedly conceptions of this sort have not gone unchallenged. Rees Davies urged us to recognise that medieval government was everywhere less uniform and unipartite than étatist story- lines presuppose. ‘We should’, so we learn, ‘beware of reifying the state, of accepting its own

  

18

  defi nition of, and apologia for, itself.’ For later medieval England, Gerald Harriss has made clear the complexities of the interplay between the ‘public’ and the ‘private’ aspects of local power, and how the ‘private’ could

  

19

  mesh with, parallel or rival the ‘public’. More particularly, some historians of England’s liberties have explicitly called into question the homogenising capacity of the crown’s superiority and control. Edward Miller cautioned against the notion that the thirteenth century saw ‘a taming of liberties,

  20

  a harnessing of their machinery to the machinery of the state’. We have also been reminded that individual liberty- owners might jealously defend their prerogatives against royal encroachment by insisting that they were independent local rulers, who enjoyed a lawful jurisdiction ‘from time

  21

  out of mind’. Nor did Simon Walker doubt that John of Gaunt, as duke of Lancaster, was ‘the only source of justice and patronage within his palatinate’, or that his lordship was ‘almost unrestrained by the exercise

  22

  of royal power’. Even lesser liberties, in Rodney Hilton’s opinion, were signifi cant nodes of local governance since what mattered in ‘an inevitably

  23 ₁₅ decentralized state’ was the law as administered by the immediate lord.

  

R. C. Palmer, The County Courts of Medieval England, 1150–1350 (Princeton, 1982),

₁₆ Chapter 9.

  Compare, for example, the important review of A. Musson and W. M. Ormrod, The

Evolution of English Justice (London, 1999), by C. Donahue, Jr, in Michigan Law Review,

₁₇ 98 (2000), pp. 1725–37. ₁₈ H. Castor, The King, the Crown, and the Duchy of Lancaster (Oxford, 2000), p. 306.

  

R. R. Davies, ‘The medieval state: the tyranny of a concept?’, Journal of Historical Sociology,

₁₉ 16 (2003), p. 289.

G. Harriss, Shaping the Nation: England, 1360–1461 (Oxford, 2005), especially pp.

  ₂₀ 163–75. ₂₁ E. Miller, The Abbey and Bishopric of Ely (Cambridge, 1951), p. 242.

  

For example, A. Gransden, ‘John de Northwold, abbot of Bury St. Edmunds (1279–1301),

₂₂ and his defence of its liberties’, TCE, 3 (1991), pp. 91–112.

  

S. Walker, The Lancastrian Affinity, 1361–1399 (Oxford, 1990), p. 179, and his ‘Lordship

₂₃ and lawlessness in the palatinate of Lancaster, 1370–1400’, JBS, 28 (1989), p. 328.

  

R. H. Hilton, A Medieval Society: The West Midlands at the End of the Thirteenth Century

BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES

  New work has gone a stage further by powerfully disputing the concept of an inexorable growth of crown regulation and administrative uniformity over the long duration. Th us important studies of Cheshire and Durham by Tim Th ornton and Christian Liddy have highlighted the continued governmental vitality of these liberties, the extent to which the monarchy respected their status as entities distinct from the rest of the kingdom, and the resilience of regional autonomy as a potent and enduring idea into the

  24 early modern era.

  Moreover, some scholars have pointed directly to the roles liberties might play in moulding common attitudes, interests and allegiances. When Nigel Saul referred to fourteenth- century Sussex as ‘a county of communi- ties’, and Tony Pollard found in fi ft eenth- century Yorkshire ‘“counties” within the county’, they based their assessments on brief if revealing analy- ses of how each county’s ‘rapes’ or ‘shires’ infl uenced its social and political

  25

  structures. Robert Somerville took the view that Lancashire’s palatinate courts created a deep and abiding sense of local attachment because they

  26

  were prized sources of speedy and familiar justice. Majorie McIntosh’s study of the hundredal liberty of Havering in Essex, and Andy Wood’s long look at privileged mining communities such as that of Alston Moor in Cumberland, have stressed the signifi cance of relatively minor jurisdictions

  27

  for socio- legal solidarities. Relatedly, Alan Harding has argued for the importance of ‘franchises’ as sources of people’s rightful customs and per- sonal freedoms, so that ‘the meaning of liberties [shift ed] from the powers

  28

  of the prelates and barons to the rights of individual subjects’. No less pro- ₂₄ foundly, Th ornton’s work on Cheshire, and Liddy’s on Durham, have sug-

  

Thornton: Cheshire and the Tudor State, 1480–1560 (Woodbridge, 2000); ‘Fifteenth-

century Durham and the problem of provincial liberties in England and the wider ter-

ritories of the English crown’, TRHS, 6th ser., 11 (2001), pp. 83–100; ‘The palatinate of

Durham and the Maryland charter’, American Journal of Legal History, 45 (2001), pp.