pile which he made. They took large poles and lifted it up and threw
it down into the town; soon one house after the other began to burn,
and the whole town was destroyed. The Northmen slew many people, and
took all the property they could get.
Then southward along the coast the fleet sailed, until they reached a
place called by the Northmen _Hellornes_, which was probably our
Hornsea. Here a pitched battle was fought; but the men of the East
Riding were no match for the invaders, and Harold and his Northmen got
the victory.
Next the mouth of the Humber was reached. Sailing up this and up the
Ouse they cast anchor at Riccall. Here one-third of the Norwegian host
was left to guard the ships while the remainder set out on a march to
Jorvik.
[Illustration:
BATTLE OF STAMFORD BRIDGE
SEPᵀ. 25ᵀᴴ 1066.
]
But at Fulford, two miles from the city, they were met by the forces of
Morcar and his brother, Edwin of Mercia. The ensuing battle was fought
on a strip of land lying between the river Ouse and a ditch which was
‘deep, broad, and full of water.’ As at _Hellornes_, victory lay with
the North men; and so great was the slaughter of the Northumbrian and
the Mercians that the Northmen walked across the ditch ‘with dry feet on
human bodies.’ Four days later—September 24th—Jorvik surrendered, and
the Northmen moved their forces along the Roman road leading to the
Derwent, and took up their quarters at STANFORDBRYCG.
Meanwhile news of the invasion had reached Harold of England. Gathering
together what forces he could muster, Harold hurried north. Up the Ermin
Street, and round by Doncaster, Castleford and Tadcaster, he marched. On
the day on which York surrendered he was at Tadcaster; the next day he
had passed through York and had surprised the Northmen at Stamford
Bridge.
* * * * *
The battle that took place between the two Harolds was preceded by
negotiations. To his half-brother, Tostig, Harold of England sent envoys
offering peace:—
‘Harold thy brother sends thee greeting, and the message that thou
shalt have peace and get Northumberland; and rather than that thou
shouldst not join him he will give thee one-third of all his realm.’
‘Then something else is offered than the enmity and disgrace of last
winter,’ answered Tostig. ‘If this had been offered then, many who
are now dead would be alive, and the realm of the King of England
would stand more firm. Now if I accept these terms, what will my
brother Harold offer to the King of Norway for his trouble?’
‘He has said what he will grant King Harold of Norway. It is a space
of seven feet, and it is so long because he is taller than most
other men.’
Tostig’s reply to his half-brother’s terms was a noble one:
‘Go and tell my brother, King Harold, to prepare for battle. It
shall not be said among Northmen that Jarl Tostig left Harold, King
of Norway, and went into the host of his foes when he made warfare
in England. Rather will we all resolve to die with honour, or win
England with a victory.’
After the failure of these negotiations, both sides made ready for
battle. And then happened another omen boding ill-luck for the Northmen;
for their King, who was riding a black horse with a white mark on its
forehead, was thrown to the ground by the stumbling of his horse.
In Roman times the passage across the Derwent at the spot where the
battle took place had been made by a stone-paved ford; but this had, in
later times, been replaced by a wooden bridge, whence the name it then
bore—‘Stone-ford-bridge.’
At the outbreak of hostilities some of the Northmen were on the right
bank of the river, and were gradually forced back over the bridge by
Harold of England’s men. The last of them to cross was a second
Horatius, for he kept the bridge against the whole English army.
Wielding his huge battle-axe, he had slain no fewer than forty of his
enemies before he was himself slain by a soldier in Harold’s army, who
floated down the river in a tub and stabbed him with his spear through
one of the spaces between the wooden planks of the bridge.
The old Norse account of the battle reads very much like the accounts of
the battle of Hastings, which was so shortly to follow. Harold of Norway
ordered his men to take up their positions with shield against shield on
all sides. The outer rank were to press the spikes of their spears into
the ground and to point the heads against the breasts of the attacking
horsemen; the next rank were to point their spear heads against the
breasts of the horses. If all of them stood firm and took care not to
break away, Harold of England’s onset might be completely checked.
But what the English would be unable to do in the battle to come, the
Northmen were unable to do at Stamford Bridge. They broke their lines in
pursuit of the English, and the battle was lost. Harold Hardrada rushed
hither and thither dealing such blows with his battle-axe that ‘neither
helmet nor coat of mail could withstand him; he went through the ranks
of his foes as if he were walking through air, for all who came near him
fell back.’ But to no purpose, and an arrow which struck him in the
throat brought him his death-wound. Soon afterwards fell Jarl Tostig,
and though the Northmen who had been left in charge of the fleet at
Riccall hurried to the battle, they were not able to prevent the
‘Land-Waster’ from falling into the hands of Harold of England.
When darkness had set in, the victorious army was on its way back to
York. Thither came Olaf, the son of Harold Hardrada, and the Jarls of
Orkney to swear peace and give hostages. And thither also came at full
speed a messenger who brought news that William of Normandy had landed
with his army on the southern coast of Harold’s kingdom.
XI.
HOW THE NORMANS CAME TO
YORKSHIRE.
The tale of the Northmen’s invasions of England could be matched by the
tale of their invasions of the northern coasts of France. Early in the
tenth century a Viking known among his people as Rolf the Ganger[20]
made a descent upon Rouen and entered into a treaty with Charles the
Simple, King of Paris, by which a large tract of land around Rouen was
ceded to him and his followers, in return for their aid against Charles’
enemies.
Footnote 20:
To ‘gang’ meant to walk, and Rolf the Ganger was given this nickname
because, being extra tall, he found it more comfortable to walk when
on land than to ride one of the small ponies of his native country.
Such was the beginning of the province of Northern France known in later
history as Normandy. After forty years of sea-roving Rolf settled down
to rule his new and fertile dukedom; and as with the Northmen in
England, so with him and his men in France. The Northmen married wives
of their new country, and their children grew up to speak the mother’s
tongue rather than the father’s. Thus the descendants of heathen
Northmen became Christian Frenchmen.
To Rolf the Ganger’s dukedom there succeeded in turn William Longsword,
Richard the Fearless, Richard the Good, Robert the Devil, and William,
whom his enemies called William the Bastard—‘the Tanner’s Grandson’—but
who was destined to become famous as William the Conqueror of England.
How Harold of England, after hearing of William’s landing on the coast
of Sussex, marched southward to his death at Hastings, and how William
of Normandy was crowned King in his stead at Westminster on Christmas
Day in the same year, does not concern us here. But what we are
concerned with is the course of events that led to William’s coming
north to the city of York.
* * * * *
The events of the last three months of the fateful year 1066 by no means
proved that England was a conquered country. True, the Witena-gemōt had
accepted William as their king; but that was only because there was no
one else fit to lead the Saxon forces, and because Anglo-Danes and
Saxons mistrusted each other. Edwin of Mercia and his brother Morcar
submitted to William and were allowed to retain their earldoms. Oswulf,
who now ruled Northumbria, did not submit, so William appointed a
certain Copsige[21] to supplant him. Copsige came north to dispossess
Oswulf, and was immediately slain.
Footnote 21:
Pronounced _Kóp-si-ga_.
In 1067, during William’s absence in Normandy, rebellions broke out in
the south and west of England; and when the King returned, he began the
conquest of the western portions of the country. Exeter submitted after
a siege lasting eighteen days, but no sooner had the western rebellion
been subdued than Mercia and Northumbria were in revolt.
Next year the King marched north and reached York, the inhabitants of
which rather unexpectedly surrendered their city; and on William’s
departure he left William de Malet, one of his Norman knights, in charge
of it. But after a few months the men of York again rose in revolt and
Malet was hard pressed, although he succeeded in holding out till
relieved by the King.
All over England these rebellions were going on. But none was more than
partly successful; and for the reason that ‘Englishmen could not agree
to act together. One district rose at one time and one at another. Some
were for Sweyn, some for Edgar, some for the sons of Harold; Edwin and
Morcar were for themselves. So there was no common action against
William, and the land was lost bit by bit.’
In the autumn of 1069 it seemed as if there really was to be made in the
North of England a united effort to throw off the yoke of the Frenchmen.
Sweyn Ulfsson, King of Denmark, sent a large fleet of ships into the
Humber under the command of Jarl Asbiorn, his brother. Outside the walls
of York the Danish shipmen were joined by Edgar the Aetheling, by
Gospatric, the dispossessed successor of Oswulf, and by Jarl Waltheof,
Siward’s son.
Then began a second siege of York. The French garrison, under William de
Malet and Gilbert of Gaunt, retreated to the two wooden castles which
William had caused to be erected, and set fire to the portions of the
city surrounding these in order to give themselves greater security. For
two days the flames raged, destroying many houses and the Minster of St.
Peter. Meanwhile the allies entered the city. Then the Normans attempted
a sally from their castles, but unsuccessfully. Their forces were cut to
pieces, and William de Malet and Gilbert of Gaunt were taken prisoners.
So far all had gone well with the armies of Jarl Asbiorn and Jarl
Waltheof, and had they only held the city when taken and awaited the
arrival of King William, they would have had every chance of repeating
their success. But a fatal dissension once more broke out, and Asbiorn’s
men went back to their ships and sailed first to North Lincolnshire and
then to Holderness, while Waltheof withdrew his men to the marshes
between the Trent and the Ouse.
For the third time King William marched north to York; and this time he
determined on vengeance. ‘Par splendeur Dex,’ he swore that he would
utterly root out the Northumbrian people; and in fulfilment of his oath
he carried out that ‘Wasting of the North’ which changed the fertile
Plain of York into a desolate waste. For sixty miles north of York every
town and village was sacked and burnt, every inhabitant slain or driven
out, all farming-stock and farming-implements destroyed, and nothing
spared save only what belonged to St. John of Beverley. Then, having
wreaked his revenge, William caused himself to be re-crowned at York,
and there he kept his Christmas feast.
* * * * *
The system followed out by William the Conqueror after his subjugation
of a district was everywhere the same. Lands were taken from their
English owners and given to the King’s Norman followers, while strong
castles were built to afford protection to the Norman lords.
Thus Drogo de Bevrere, a Flemish knight who had married the King’s
niece, was rewarded for his services with the _Isle of Holderness_, and
built himself a castle at Skipsea, where the earthworks of a long-dead
chieftain were still standing. No remains of Drogo’s castle now exist,
nor have we in the East Riding the remains of any Norman castle such as
those existing at Knaresborough, Helmsley, Pontefract, Scarborough,
York, and elsewhere in the other Ridings of Yorkshire.
With this parcelling out of the land among William’s Norman followers
there became fixed two principles on which the whole ‘Feudal System’ was
based:—
(1) All land belonged to the King by virtue of his conquest of the
country;
(2) All land was held in return for services rendered.
Under the Feudal System the King would make a large grant of land to one
of his followers, who thus became a _tenant-in-chief_ of the King. This
tenant-in-chief would sub-divide his land among his particular
followers, each of whom might sub-divide his portion. Thus Drogo de
Bevrere was a tenant-in-chief, and one of his tenants was a certain
Lanbert, who held lands at Sutton ‘two miles long and a half a mile
broad.’ Drogo, Earl of Holderness, was a vassal of the King; Lanbert, a
vassal of Drogo.
For these lands no regular rent was paid. Instead, there was the
obligation of military service, each holder of land being bound to serve
the King in war for forty days every year as his services were required.
This service had to be performed at the vassal’s own cost, and with
proper equipment. By this means the King could always be assured of an
army equipped at short notice, and at no cost to himself.
In addition to this military service there were money payments to be
made at certain irregular intervals. An _aid_ was due from a vassal to
his overlord on each of three occasions:—
(1) The knighting of the lord’s eldest son; (2) The marrying of
his eldest daughter; (3) The ransoming of his own person.
Of these occasions the first and second would, as a rule, occur only
once in a vassal’s life-time, while the third might not occur at all.
For all tenants-in-chief it did occur when King Richard I. had to be
ransomed from his enemy, the Emperor Henry VI., into whose hands he had
happened to fall. The monks of the Abbey of Meaux, being
tenants-in-chief, then found themselves called upon to pay, as their
share of the total ransom of 150,000 marks, the sum of 300 marks; to
raise which they were compelled to sell their stock of wool and their
church plate.
On the death of a vassal and the succession of his heir, another money
payment became due to the vassal’s overlord. This was known as a
_relief_. Again, if on a vassal’s death his heir or heiress had not yet
come of age, his estate passed for the time being into the hands of the
overlord, who managed it and took the profits. This right was known as
_wardship_, and it might be rather dangerous for the ward.
Thus, in the early years of the thirteenth century, Thomas, the parson
of Routh, held certain lands under William de Stuteville, the lord of
the manor. Thomas died, and the lord of the manor claimed wardship over
his young daughter Agnes. But before Agnes had come of age, William de
Stuteville died also, and the wardship passed into the hands of his
widow Cecilia. Unfortunately for Agnes her new guardian was not
overburdened with principles of honour; for, having two daughters of her
own—who were, we may suppose, not sufficiently good-looking to find
husbands readily—she offered with them as dowry the lands of Agnes. Thus
two lucky bridegrooms, Stephen of Pokthorpe and Henry of Hutton, were
enriched by Dame Cecilia, each with one-half of the lands of Agnes, the
parson’s daughter. And poor Agnes never succeeded in getting her lands
back, though she tried her best.
* * * * *
The various money payments due to a vassal’s overlord depended as to
their amount on the value of the estate held. Therefore, in order that
the King should know exactly what sums were due to him from his
tenants-in-chief, he caused a great survey of England to be made. The
vastness of the undertaking may be gauged by the fact that each estate
in all the counties of England except Northumberland, Cumberland,
Westmorland, Durham, and Monmouth—which last was then reckoned as a
Welsh county—was to be reported on by the King’s officers, who were
instructed to make enquiries as to its value and to record the result of
their enquiries.
These officers were to set down the area of each estate, great or small,
the area of that part of it which was ploughed land, the area of that
part which was grass land, the name of its holder, the name of its
holder in the last year of the reign of King Edward the Confessor, the
amount of stock and of farming-implements on it, the number and
condition of the people living on it, its annual value in the time of
King Edward, and its annual value at the time of the investigation—the
last two items being the most important of all.
In this manner was constructed what is known as THE DOMESDAY BOOK—the
book by which a judgment could be made as to the amount of the money
payments due to the King from each of his tenants-in-chief. The work was
planned at the Witena-gemōt held at Christmas 1085, and was carried out
during the following year.
* * * * *
The Domesday Book is one of the most valuable historical records
possessed by the nation, and much information as to the England of 1086
has been gleaned from its parchment leaves. The entries in it are of
course in Latin, and the following translation of the portion dealing
with the manor of Patrington will serve as an example of the facts
recorded in it.
LANDS IN HOLDERNESS.
LAND OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK.
In _Patrictone_ with the four berewicks _Wistede_, _Halsam_, _Torp_,
_Toruelestorp_, there are thirty-five carucates and a half, and two
oxgangs and two parts of an oxgang to be taxed. There is land to
thirty-five ploughs.
This manor was, and is, belonging to the Archbishop of York.
There are now in the demesne two ploughs and eight villeins and
sixty-three bordars, having thirteen ploughs. There are six sokemen
with two villeins and twenty bordars, having five ploughs and a
half. There are thirty-two acres of meadow there. Two knights have
six carucates of the land of this manor; and two clerks two
carucates and three oxgangs, and the third part of an oxgang. They
have there four sokemen and five villeins, and three bordars with
five ploughs.
In the time of King Edward the value was thirty pounds, at present
ten pounds and five shillings.
Arable land three miles long and one mile and a half broad.
All this reads very strangely to us living in the twentieth century. Put
into present-day language it would read something like the following:—
The manor of Patrington, with the neighbouring hamlets of Winestead,
Halsham, [Welwick] Thorp, and Tharlesthorp,[22] measures 4300 acres,[23]
and its thorough cultivation would provide work for thirty-five teams of
oxen, reckoning eight oxen to each team.
Footnote 22:
Tharlesthorp is one of the ‘lost towns of the Humber.’ Its probable
site is marked on the map on the opposite page.
Footnote 23:
A ‘carucate’ was the amount of land that a team of eight oxen could
plough each year. It varied in size according to the nature of the
soil, but may be roughly taken as being equal to 120 acres. An oxgang
was one-eighth of this.
It belonged to the Archbishop of York in the reign of King Edward the
Confessor, and is still held by him.
Attached to the lands of the manor-house there are eight serfs who have
among them sixteen oxen, and sixty-three cottagers, who own 104 oxen.
There are also six small farmers who have under them two serfs and
twenty cottagers, and work forty-four oxen. Parts of the manor lands are
held by two knights and two parsons. The former are tenants of 720
acres, the latter of 290 acres. On their lands there are four small
farmers, three cottagers and five serfs, possessing among them forty
oxen.
[Illustration:
HOLDERNESS IN THE DOMESDAY BOOK
]
The land on which wheat, barley and oats are grown measures three miles
by one and a half miles, and there are thirty-two acres of meadow land.
In King Edward’s time the annual value of the manor was £600, but is now
only £205.[24]
Footnote 24:
The value of money was in 1086 approximately twenty times its value at
the present day. The Domesday ‘pound’ meant, not a coin, but a pound
weight of silver.
The value of the manor of Patrington was, in 1086, only just over
one-third of its value twenty-five years earlier. This is one example of
the results of the ‘Wasting of the North.’ Others are to be found in the
records given of the manors of Burstwick and Kilnsea, each of which had
been worth fifty-six pounds, but was then worth only ten pounds. The
manors of Withernsea and Hornsea had similarly decreased in value from
fifty-six pounds to six pounds. All these belonged in 1086 to Drogo de
Bevrere, Lord of Holderness. The manor of Beeford had experienced a
still greater decrease in value; for it had sunk from twenty pounds to
ten shillings. Others again, such as estates at Barmston, Drypool,
Routh, and Sigglesthorne are recorded by the ominous word ‘waste.’ Such
entries tell a very sure tale of the effects of King William’s
vengeance.
On the map on page 93 are shown most of the manors and a few of the
hamlets recorded in that part of the Domesday Book which deals with the
Holderness division of Yorkshire. In many cases the spelling is very
quaint; but most of the names are recognisable if we remember that U and
V are different forms of the same letter, and that our letter W was then
what, according to its name, it ought still to be. We must remember also
that the men who took down the records were Frenchmen, who found it
difficult in many cases to pronounce the names they heard the English
witnesses use, and who had to spell these names as best they could
according to their sound.
* * * * *
For more than nine hundred years the Domesday Survey remained the only
survey made of English lands as a whole, and not till 1910 was an
attempt made to compile the second Domesday Book. In that year
commissioners started on the same task as was performed by the King’s
officers in the year 1086; and the task has been undertaken for the same
purpose—to enable the King’s taxes to be gathered in correctly.
XII.
HOW OUR ANCIENT PARISH CHURCHES
WERE BUILT.
In these days of bicycles most of us have experienced the pleasure of
seeing, over the tree-tops in the distance, the spire or the
square-capped tower of one of our village churches. For us on that
occasion, perhaps, it marked the goal of a long journey, and we
therefore hailed it gladly. Then probably we thought no more about it.
Yet that village church was worth a few minutes of our thoughts. To one
who knows how to see it was worth walking round, and worth also looking
into. For it had a tale to tell—a tale that stretches back into the
centuries long past, a tale of the joys and sorrows of the people whose
places we now fill, a tale which ought to make us realise that we of the
twentieth century are not the only clever people who have lived in the
East Riding of Yorkshire.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] [_C.W. Mason_
A Norman Font in Kirkburn Church.
]
Let us learn how to read the tale aright. In the first place we must
know the names of the different parts of a church. If it is small, it
will be simply a rectangular building, running east and west, and
divided by an open arch or by a woodwork screen into two parts, a _nave_
and a _chancel_. The former is, on service days, occupied by the
congregation of worshippers, the latter by the clergy and the choir. At
the east end of the chancel is the _altar_ or _communion-table_, at the
east end of the nave are the _lectern_ and _pulpit_, at the west end of
the nave is the _font_.
If the church boasts a _tower_, this will be at the west end, where also
will probably be the main entrance door. This may, however, be on the
south of the nave near the west end. On the south of the chancel may be
another smaller door, once the _priests’ door_; and by it in the wall
may be the _sedilia_, or priests’ seats, three in number. Close to these
may be the _piscina_, or drain, at which the holy vessels were once
washed; and in the wall on the opposite side may be the _aumbry_, or
cupboard, in which the holy vessels once stood.