A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE
Navenby, and Boothby, had belonged to the king at the time of Domesday, the church of Wellingore then belonging to the church of St. Peter in Lincoln.[1] We have therefore good evidence that Roger's Domesday fief had been augmented by additions from the royal demesne between 1086 and 1094.[2] All the places named in this important charter afterwards belonged to the honour of Lancaster,[3] except Weekley in Northamptonshire, and that also appears to have passed to Stephen of Blois, but as a member of the honour of Mortain and not of Lancaster.[4] As regards this county it cannot be doubted that the whole was in Roger's possession in 1102 and passed in its entirety to Stephen. If doubt exists as to every region of the county having been in Roger's possession, it would be in reference to Furness; but even this uncertainty is set at rest by a charter of John of Mortain which refers to Furness Fells as having been held by Roger of Poitou, and afterwards by Count Stephen.[5] Four great manors of Leicestershire which were crown lands in Domesday[6] belonged to the count of Mortain when the Leicestershire survey of 1124—9 was made.[7] It is impossible to say whether these were given to Roger of Poitou by Rufus or to Stephen of Blois by Henry I.; nor is there any certainty when Thorp Constantine in Staffordshire, Kirkby in Kesteven and some other Lincolnshire manors, Anston in Yorkshire, and Drakelow in Derbyshire, were added to the honour.[8] The same uncertainty exists as to the exact period when Roger's three Essex manors, some part of his Suffolk possessions, Willoughby in Nottinghamshire, Lound and 'Blanghesbi' in Derbyshire, passed from his honour.
Two facts which may possibly have some bearing upon the early history of the honour call for notice here: (1) Towards the end of Stephen's reign Ranulf Gernons, earl of Chester, confirmed Howick, in the parish of Penwortham, to the monks of Evesham, to enjoy it as fully as they had held it 'tempore comitis Rogeri Pictavensis et tempore Rannulfi comitis patris mei.'[9] This assertion that Ranulf Meschin had held the land between Ribble and Mersey at some period between 1102 and 1118, in the absence of any confirmatory evidence, should be received with caution. (2) In 1176 the sheriff of Lancaster accounted for the farm of half the manor of Marton in Amounderness as an escheat of the fee of Peverel.[10] In 1199 the sheriff claimed allowance, when accounting for the farm of the honour, 'for £10 which he was wont to receive yearly by the hand of the sheriff of Nottingham towards the farm of the county of Lancaster,' this sum representing the third penny of the counties of Notts and Derby which John had given to William Ferrers when creating him earl of Derby.[11] The inclusion of the
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- ↑ Dom. Bk. i. 337b.
- ↑ The Lindsey Survey shows that Stephen of Mortain also held in Lincolnshire 11 bovates in Waddingham which had been crown land and land of the king's thegns in 1086, 4 bovates in Clisby and 4 bovates in Howsham, which had been crown land in 1086.
- ↑ Testa de Nevill (Rec. Com.), 325b, 326.
- ↑ V. C. H. Northants, i. 387.
- ↑ Coucher of Furness, Chetham Soc. (New Ser.), vols. 9 and 11, pp. 63, 419.
- ↑ Dom. Bk. i. 230.
- ↑ Round, Feudal England, 202-3.
- ↑ For details of other manors which were members of this honour—not held by Roger of Poitou—cf. Lanc. and Ches. Rec. Soc. vol. 48, pp. 99-114.
- ↑ Chartul. of Evesham, Cott. MSS. Vesp. B. xxiv. fol. 75b; Farrer, Lancs. Pipe R. 319. The monks had received Howick from Roger of Poitou. Harl. MSS. No. 3,763, fol. 58.
- ↑ Farrer, Lancs Pipe R. 31. 'The vills of Ashton (near Preston) and the two Martons (in Amounderness) are escheats of the king of the honour of Peverel. The earl of Ferrers holds them. The same Earl William holds Blackrod of the same honour.' Exch. K. R. Kts. fees, 19, m. 4.
- ↑ Farrer, Lancs. Pipe R. 104-5, 108; Tait, Mediæval Manchester, 179n.
