Superior Lordship in Cumbria VCH CUMBRIA Legal fiction
Superior Lordship in Cumbria VCH CUMBRIA
Legal fiction - the King ‘owns’ all the land in England so all the land is held of him ‘Tenants in chief’: lords of the baronies Mesne Lords: Has no direct relationship with the king but is the immediate lord of the land. People who actually lived on and worked the land
Process of granting feudal tenures to followers = subinfeudation Knight’s fee = amount of land to support one knight The tenant performs ‘homage’ and so becomes the lord’s ‘vassal’
Types of Feudal Tenure Knight-service: military service for 40 days Socage: payment of rent or non-military service E. g. Cornage = fixed rent based on number of cattle pastured Serjeantry tenure: personal/official service Frankalmoin: religious service (church)
Liber feodorum. The book of fees, commonly called Testa de Nevill
Feudal Incidents Expectations and rights claimed by the lord: Military aid, counsel, attendance at lord’s court Escheat: land reverts (escheats) to Crown due to lack of heirs or felony Relief: payment in return for right to inherit (from 12 th century) Aids: ransom the lord if he were taken prisoner; to make the lord's eldest son a knight; marriage of lord's eldest daughter Wardship: lord gets profits from lands if the heir is a minor Marriage: right to control the marriage of (unless bought off), the tenant’s heiress, heir (if a minor) and his widow
Things get complicated…. Manor of Hensingham c. 1200 King Lord of Copeland William of Lancaster, baron of Kendal Roger, brother of William Alan of Pennington Subinfeudation creates more and more layers, making it hard for tenant-in-chief to claim rights and reducing income Statute of Quia Emptores 1290 Replaces subinfeudation with substitution (buying and selling land). Stops vassals creating sub fees; direct swap of obligations. Younger sons + divided inheritance via heiresses = moieties of manors and fractional fees
Creating Superior Lordships Honours and baronies: § Large collection of manors and estates held ‘honourably’ of the king. §Often geographically compact in the north of England. § Hundredal or antecessorial succession? § Centred around a caput – castle and administrative centre. § Granted for life at first but inheritance becomes the norm.
Post Conquest Cumbria South of red line • Considered as part of Yorkshire and Lancashire in the Doomsday Survey of 1086 • Earl Tostig Godwinson’s lands divided between Roger the Poitevin and Ivo Taillebois c. 1086 -91. North of red line • Under Scottish control. • 1092 William II seizes territory from Dolfin. • William II appointed Ivo Taillebois as lord of Copeland ‘Westmaringaland’ • Ivo’s widow Lucy, later marries Ranulf de Meschin (d. 1129), who takes control of northern Cumbria; lordship centred on Appleby.
Early 12 th Century K Furness: honour of Lancaster; 1127 half given to Furness Abbey; other half held by Michael the Fleming Kendale: Ivo Taillebois in c. 1091; de Lancaster family from 1150 Appleby: in Ranulf le Meschin’s possession by 1112 Burgh-by-Sands: to Robert de Trivers Liddel: to Turgis Brandos Greystoke to Lyulph Allerdale: to Waltheof / Waldeve son of Gospatric Kirklinton given to Ranulf’s sheriff Richard de Boivill Dalston: de Dalston family Gilsland: native lord, "Gille" son of Boite remains Copeland (a. k. a. Barony of Egremont): to William le Meschin; William enfeoffs Waldeve with ‘manor of Cockermouth’ and Wigton; creates lordship of Millom in c. 1120 s
Royal Involvement after 1135 Scottish control 1139 -1157: David I grants Appleby to Hugh de Morville snr (d. 1162) Post 1157 ◦ ◦ ◦ 1157/8 Henry II gave Gilsland to Hubert de Vaux Dalston resumed into Inglewood forest; newly formed barony granted to bishops of Carlisle in 1230 Liddel to Nicholas de Stutevill by 1174 c. 1160 independence of Cockermouth from Egremont; descended with Allerdale 1158: Appleby to Hugh de Morville jnr; escheated 1174 31 March, 1203, Appleby and Brough and the “bailiwick of Westmarieland” to Robert de Vipont (d. 1228) "to keep during the king's pleasure”; 28 October 1203 grant in fee simple, for 4 knight's fees; made sheriff of Westmorland for life. ◦ 1237: honour of Penrith created by Henry III for King of Scotland by the treaty of York; resumed by English crown in 1296; comprised Penrith, Castle Sowerby, Langwathby, Great Salkeld and Scotby.
Burgh Cockermouth/Allerdale 1 Egremont 1100 De Trivers Le Meschins Brandos 1120 Engaine Rumilly ‘de Rossedale’ Fitz Duncan Le Gros/De Lucy/Pipard De Lucy 1140 1160 Morville 2 1180 Fortibus/De Lucy/Pipard 1200 Fortibus/De Lucy 1220 De Moulton Gilsland Liddel Crown? De Vaux Appleby Lyulph/Forn Morville Stutevill Crown De Moulton of Egremont 1240 Vipont De Moulton of Gilsland 1260 William Fitz Ralph 1280 Wake 1300 1320 Clifford/Leybourne Crown 3/Lucy 4 Dacre 1340 Clifford Ralph de Greystoke Fitzwalter/Harrington/Lucy 1360 1380 Greystoke Crown Percy Fitzwalter/Harrington/Percy 1400 1420 1440 1460 1480 1500 1510 Dacre Cockermouth becomes independent from Egromont by grant of Henry II. Afterwards held with Allerdale. Simon de Morville of Burgh married the de Trivers heiress. Simon was first cousin to Hugh de Morville (d. 1162) of Appleby. Both men had sons called Hugh. [3] Fortibus share escheated to crown due to lack of heirs after the death of Isabel, countess of Aumale in 1293. [4] Anthony Lucy (d. 1343) inherited manor of Cockermouth and barony of Allerdale in 1308; he was granted in fee simple the honour and castle of Cockermouth with the manor of Papcastle in 1323. [1] [2]
Superior Lordship and the VCH v Which barony does my manor belong to? v Is my parish/township the caput of a barony? v Has it been subinfeudated? Is there a ‘mesne’ lord holding the manor of the tenant in chief? If yes: what is the nature of their tenure? Are they resident? Follow descent. v In whose name are manor courts held? v Does the superior lord have any demesne there? Farmed direct or leased? v Local impact of changes in superior lordship: division of inheritance, forfeiture (escheat), dowers and wardships.
Relations between with Lords and Tenants
Sources: Central Government Records Fine Rolls: fines paid for a privilege/concessions ◦ writs of diem clausit extremum when a tenant-in-chief died ◦ writs of livery of seisin after heirs give homage ◦ orders to sheriffs about lands in the king's hands ◦ grants of wardships and marriages ◦ assignments of dower ◦ licences to marry Patent Rolls: ◦ grants and confirmations of liberties, offices, privileges, lands and wardships ◦ licences and pardons for alienation without licence ◦ Crown leases Charter Rolls: ◦ Grants of liberties & privileges (i. e. markets and fairs) Close Rolls: ◦ orders and instructions regarding grants of land money ◦ used for writs of livery and seisin ◦ deeds of sale http: //www. medievalgenealogy. org. uk/sources/rolls. shtml
Inquisitions Post Mortem Calendars of Inquisitions Post Mortem ◦ detailed summaries of the contents of each inquisition ◦ cover 1236 to 1447 At the National Archives ◦ C 132 -142 or E 149 -150 ◦ After 1540 Court of Wards and Liveries (WARD 7)
Inquisition Post Mortem of Robert de Clifford 1314 Begins with everything held in demesne. Followed by list of lands held by free tenure (cornage)
Manorial Documents Register o Always check the MDR for your manor of interest and the superior manor(s) under which it fell…. and vice versa o. The manor you are interested in might be in a document relating to lots of manors, i. e. ‘Rental of Lonsdale manors, 1720’ o Records generated by a barony, honour or other superior lordship are entered on the MDR under the name of the superior manor. o Court rolls of a superior lordship are sometimes also entered under the names of the constituent manors to which they relate http: //www. lancaster. ac. uk/fass/projects/manorialrecords/
Manorial Records Court Rolls - swearing in of heirs to freeholds; the admission to and surrender of copyholds, Accounts – how the demesne was managed Surveys: details of each holding and of the tenants (ages, when tenancies began, deaths, previous tenants, details of family relationships). Extents: a survey that incorporated the monetary value of each element of the manor, incl. capital messuage, the demesne, meadow, pasture and woodland, mills, fisheries and warrens, money from free and unfree holdings, labour services of villain tenants and the monetary equivalent, and court revenues. Custumals: list tenants and their customary obligations, rentals, and a description of the fields, meadows and lands of the manor. Feodaries: lists feudal incidents and income derived from them, i. e. relief, wardships and marriages
Also to consider…. TNA, SC 2 Special Collections: Court Rolls ◦ Court rolls of manors and honours which belonged to the crown, or which came to the crown with forfeited lay and ecclesiastical estates. TNA, SC 11 Special Collections: Rentals and Surveys, Rolls ◦ manorial survey documents for crown lands
Secondary Sources Lots of articles in CWAAS Transactions, e. g. T. H. B. Graham, ‘The Barony of Liddel and its Occupants’, CW 2 xi (1911), 55 -83; ‘Annals of Liddel’, CW 2 xiii (1913), 33 -54; ‘The Honour of Cockermouth’, CW 2 xxix (1929), 69 -80 G. W. S. Barrow, ‘King David I, Earl Henry and Cumbria’, CW 2 xcix(1999), 118– 127. R. A. A. Brockington, ‘The Dacre inheritance in Cumbria (1569 -1601)’, CW 3 xiv (2014), 291– 298. R. Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria 1092– 1136 (CWAAS Tract Series XXI, 2006) K. Stringer, ‘Lordship and society in Medieval Cumberland: Gilsland under the Moulton's (c. 1240 -1313)’, in Keith J. Stringer (ed. ) North-West England from the Romans to the Tudors : essays in memory of John Macnair Todd (CWAAS Extra Series, 2014), pp. 123 -167 Henry Summerson, Medieval Carlisle: The City and the Borders from the Late Eleventh to the Mid -Sixteenth Century (CWAAS Extra Series, XXV, 1993)
Customary Tenant Right • ‘at the will of the lord subject to the customs of the manor’ • ancient yearly rent • tantamount to freehold • origins: probably originated in life leases granted for the life of lord or tenant • fine (or ‘gressum’) - not only on change of tenant but also on a change of lord • lords exploit fines to raise income
Structure of a Manor q Demesnes (often leased from 14 th cent) q Tenant land Freehold Customary (enfranchised 17 th cent to 1925)
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