DOMESDAY SURVEY
record shows that he was in possession. Some writers have stated that Roger temporarily lost his English fief in 1077, during one of the quarrels between William I. and his eldest son Robert Curthose, when Robert of Belesme, eldest brother of Roger, was one of the duke's strongest supporters,[1] and Roger a probable associate. But the reference to manors in Yorkshire being 'now' in the hands, honour, or castelry of Roger, appears to preclude the supposition of a temporary forfeiture so far back as the year 1077. In the absence of any reference in the chronicles to this event it does not appear at all certain that any such forfeiture occurred, and a possible explanation is to be found in a voluntary surrender or exchange of these estates. The evidence that Lonsdale formed part of Roger's fief lies mainly in the fact that within this region he gave the church of Lancaster, the manors of Aldcliffe and Newton, the churches of Melling, Bolton-le-sands, and Heysham, and tithes of Middleton, Overton, Skerton, Slyne, Bare, and Stapelterne to the church of St. Martin of Sées in the year 1094.[2] He also made gifts of churches and tithes within his demesnes in Amounderness, Leyland, Salford, and West Derby. No places in Cartmel or Furness are mentioned in any of his charters, an omission which possibly indicates that these two regions with part of Kendal were the king's land, and had not been included in Roger's fief, although they had formed part of Tostig's pre-conquest estate within these regions. At the same time it is possible that Furness, if not also Cartmel and part of Kendal, was included in Roger's fief before 1086, and that it was resigned by Roger with other manors in or before 1086, preparatory to an exchange of lands; for in a charter of John, count of Mortain, restoring Furness Fells to the monks of Furness, these 'Montana Furnessii' were granted 'per omnes divisas quas Rogerus Pictavensis vel Comes Stephanus .... plenius et integrius tenuerunt.'[3]
To identify the knights who held of Roger of Poitou at the time of the survey is by no means an easy task. If we are right in supposing that 'Geoffrey,' the knight who held two hides and half a carucate in the hundred of West Derby in 1086, was the predecessor of Godfrey, the sheriff, we can trace the greater portion of this fee by his successor's gifts to Shrewsbury Abbey in 1093—4 of the church of Walton-on-the-hill with the lands belonging to it, and the vill of Garston, which had formed part of the royal demesne in this hundred before the conquest.[4] In Amounderness he gave the church of Kirkham, and in 1094 he gave to St. Martin of Sées tithes of Bispham and houses, an orchard and lands in Lancaster, and the land which he had in 'Little' Lancaster.[5] His chief lord also gave to Shrewsbury Abbey the vills of Woolston and Poulton, in the parish of Warrington, with the moiety of a fishery in Mersey, tithes of his demesne of Newton-in-Makerfield, and in Amounderness the chapel of Bispham.[6] In the extra half-carucate of Geoffrey's fee we seem to trace the glebe of Walton church. This fee reverted to the chief lord at or before Count Roger's banishment in 1102. In the person of 'Roger' holding a hide and a half in West Derby hundred and 2 carucates in Leyland hundred we seem to recognise Roger de
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- ↑ Ordericus Vitalis, book v., ch. x.
- ↑ Reg. of the Abbey of Sées, f. 103b; Reg. of Lanc. Priory (Chetham Soc., N.S. vol. 26), pp. 8-10.
- ↑ Coucher of Furness (Chetham Soc. N.S. vol. ix.), p. 63; vol. xi. 419.
- ↑ Reg. of Salop Abbey, No. 371.
- ↑ Reg. of the Abbey of Sées, f. 105.
- ↑ Reg. of Salop Abbey, Nos. 35, 36 and 337.
