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fasting and confession. Canute, the Dane, in compensation for the atrocities of his countrymen, continued the reform by still newer ecclesiastical laws, and ordered many churches and houses which had been destroyed, to be repaired.

With the accession of Edward the Confessor to the throne of England, the Saxon line of monarchs was restored. This king, like his predecessors, possessed manors in divers parts of the kingdom. Between the Mersey and the Ribble he had various lands distributed among its five districts, named Hundreds. It is also expressly stated, in the Dom-Boc, that "King Edward held Salford."

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It has been shewn that the older of the two churches commemorated in the Norman survey, was that of Saint Michael, situated in Alport, either within, or adjoining the Roman station of Mancunium, subsequently named Castle-field. When the Dom-Boc was compiled, both the castle and the older church were in a process of decay. It must be recollected, that for upwards of a century, the Danes had made Manigceastre the constant scene of their devastation and slaughter; and when they had nearly destroyed the town and fortress, it would be very natural for the Saxon natives, amidst the encouragements held out to them by their revived line of Saxon monarchs, to avail themselves of a stronger position afforded by the immediate vicinity of Mancastle, where another town, and even fortress, might be built. Such a superiority the confluence of the Irk and the Irwell would promise, independently of the convenience which it would possess of commanding the chief and best ford of the river, namely Salford, or the safe ford. Hence may be explained the reason why the town was removed to the ground which it subsequently occupied, about a mile north of the more ancient site of Alport. As Saint Michael's Church, therefore, would be at an inconvenient distance from the newer town, another church arose, which was dedicated to Saint Mary.

§ 6. THE NEWER CHURCH OF SAINT MARY. With regard to the site of the kirk and kirkyard of Saint Mary in Manigceastre, it lay to the south or south-west of the present market-place. According to the tradition which has been collected by Mr. Whittaker, it stood at the termination of Saint Mary's-gate, formerly a narrow avenue, at its eastern end. It is also stated by the late Mr. Gresswell, that an ancient stone arch had been discovered on the easterly and south side

of the present Saint Mary's-gate, the remains of which were to be seen in a wine vault, formerly in the occupation of Mr. Ridings.

Remains of the cemetery, attached to the kirk, are said to have been indicated at the time when the present church of Saint Ann's was built. Vast quantities of bones were dug up, deposited in their cells, and discovered everywhere as the foundations were carried along, about two yards deep in the ground. [History of Manchester, 4to., vol. ii, p. 412.]

The late Mr. Barrett has also stated, that when the floor of a bookseller's shop, on the site of the present new Exchange, was taken up, he saw a brick vault in which human bones had been deposited.-[See his MSS. in the Chetham Library.]

In the year 1742, a similar discovery was made during an excavation at the eastern termination of Saint Mary's-gate, on the south side of the street, west of Byrom's-court. The workmen went through seven or eight feet, and then came to evident graves.

These observations attest the great extent of the original church-yard of Saint Mary; which, in a general manner, may be considered as having occupied the present area of Saint Ann's-square, Exchange-street, and an easterly portion of Saint Mary's-gate.

§7. THE CARUCATE OF LAND GRANTED TO THE

CHURCHES OF SAINT MARY AND SAINT
MICHAEL.

The donation of a carucate of land to the two churches of Manigceastre was in pursuance of the practice of Charlemagne, at the end of the eighth century. He ordered, that there be given to each church, under the name of "Mansus Ecclesiasticus," a "metairie," free from all kinds of charges and of imposts.

In Manigceastre a carucate of land was given to the two churches of Saint Mary and Saint Michael. The carucate has been supposed, with good reason, to have been the hamlet, and tract of land annexed to it, of the "Kirkman's Hulme," which had been devoted by some Saxon thegn to the support of the "kirkman," or "persona ecclesiæ" of the Saxon town of Manigceastre; who, from this donation of land, would acquire the rank of a mass-thegn; a term then used in contradistinction to a "world-thegn," who, among other military services, was required to furnish one miles for every five hides of land, and to serve his sovereign two months upon each requisition. The estates of the mass-thegn, on the contrary, were exonerated from military and all other services.

At what time the grant of a carucate of land

was made to the church, or churches, of Manchester, is perfectly uncertain. Mr. Whittaker has supposed, without any proof, that it originated in an early Saxon period, with the first thegn of the district! We find no mention of the grant, however, until the time of Edward the Confessor; the record first appearing in the Domesday survey.

With these remarks our inquiry into the origin of the two Saxon churches of Saint Michael and Saint Mary is terminated. At the remote epoch At the remote epoch of their foundation, so intimately were spiritual and temporal interests interwoven with each other, that it was found impossible to disunite the history of holy kirk from that of the manor, of which it formed a component part. It was shewn that the lands of the Anglo-Saxons were essentially feudal; that is, they were distributed into a number of distinct fiefs, which were held under the obligation of military service. Monarchy, however, which was opposed to the feudal tyranny of thegnage, had succeeded, amidst the clashing interests of local influences, in centralizing its dominion, and in exercising over the whole a salutary jurisdiction. While monarchy accommodated itself to the principles and forms of feudalism, it obeyed the immediate wants of society at large, by assuming the right of interfering with the privileges of thegns, for the purpose of protecting the feeble against the strong. Thus, the king was the superior judge, and received appeals from every court of judicature. Eoldermen, sheriffs, boroughreeves, and judges, alike held offices at his pleasure, and were at once removable by a royal fiat. And, in the meantime, the church assisted the views of monarchy, by an appeal to the moral and religious principles of feudal society, even to the mitigation of the hard condition of the slave, or bondsman.

Part Second.

THE INTERVAL DURING WHICH ROGER DE POICTOU BECAME POSSESSED OF THE LANDS BETWEEN THE RIBBLE AND THE MERSEY.

We now draw nigh to one of the most interesting epochs of English history. On the 14th of October, 1066, William of Normandy, by the decisive battle of Hastings, doomed the whole of England to a change of masters.

Among the few Norman lords who had been favoured with extensive grants, was Roger, the third son of Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Belesme. To Roger de Poictou, or Pictavensis, was assigned, along with various manors in other parts of the

kingdom, an extensive and compact district, which included the shires, or hundreds, of Amounderness, Furness, and Lonsdale, together with the large tract of country lying between the Ribble and the Mersey, among which was the hundred of Salford. The grantee was at the same time invested with the rank and functions of an earl, or eolderman, of the Saxon period,-of one who led the vassals of his shire to battle, who presided, with the bishop, in the county courts, who enforced the execution of justice, and paid a portion of his rents and fines into the treasury of the king.

Roger de Poictou soon found the difficulty of his position. He had taken possession of a large tract of country which he had no means of occupying, or of preserving from the invasion of neighbouring feudal proprietors; as, for instance, from those of Mercia on the south, or of Westmoreland and Yorkshire on the north and east, who might detach certain portions of territory lying contiguous to their respective domains, or might even establish themselves in the province at large as usurpers. In fixing his own seat, therefore, in the strong-hold of the castle of Lancaster, he assigned to a select number of barones comitatûs, various stations commanding the frontiers of his province. By these adherents Roger de Poictou, in his new royalty, was surrounded, and with these faithful allies he acted in assembly and concert.

In the next place, as the barones comitatûs had severally tenants, or vassals, of their own, Roger de Poictou acknowledged, to a certain extent, their feudal independence, and allowed their jurisdiction within their respective domains to exercise itself with efficiency. At the same time, he placed himself above all local powers established within his territorial circumscription, assuming the right of listening to appeals, and thus of controlling the acts and decrees of his barons, with the view of preventing feudal divisions, of defending the weak against the strong, and of punishing all such as took delight in desolating towns, or in destroying churches. This superior control which Roger de Poictou was called upon to exert, constituted THE HONOUR OF LANCASTER, as the new and enlarged jurisdiction began to be named; which "Honour" extended itself to all the manors and lordships, with all their appurtenances, comprehended within the new county palatine of Lancaster.

At the close of the Conqueror's reign, Roger de Poictou had the temerity, during a dispute with his liege sovereign, to declare his defection from the royal cause. This failure of duty incurred the usual penalty incidental to feudalism. The fief became liable to forfeiture, either for a limited

time, or for life, or for ever. In the succeeding reign, however, of William Rufus, the possessions of De Poictou were restored to him, so that, during several years, he re-established his jurisdiction with splendour.

§ 1. MANCHESTter, and ITS VICINITY, DURING

THE TIME OF ROGER DE POICTOU.

To the aggregate of Hundreds comprised within the Honour of Lancaster, the name of "Lancashire" began to be given.

In the Salford Hundred, within which Mamecestre, or Manchester, was included, the names of five milites, or knights, infeoffed by Roger de Poictou, appeared in the Dom-Boc. These were Nigel, the founder of the baronial house of Widness and Halton, who held three hides, and half a carucate of land; while the other four, named Warin, another Warin, Goisfrid, and Gamel, possessed among them six carucates and a half. That the manor of Manchester was held by one of the said milites, or knights, has been affirmed, rather than proved. There is, at least, equal room for the conjecture, that Manchester had undergone no transfer whatever from the immediate domination of Roger de Poictou. This chieftain would stand in the same relation to the royal and inferior thegns occupying lands in the vicinity of Manchester at the time of the Conquest, as was possessed by Edward the Confessor, whom he succeeded as lord paramount of the territory between the Ribble and the Mersey. This is proved by the peculiar tenures of thegnage and drengage, enjoyed by numerous possessors of the soil in the vicinity of Manchester, even to a late period of the feudal history of Lancashire.

The tenure of thegnage appears to have involved in it the principle of relief, namely, that a fief had fallen by the death of an inheritor of lands, and that a heir, or successor, must relieve it in order to regain possession. In other words, the lord paramount claimed the power of disposing of a benefice, or fief, after the death of a tenant, and even of controlling the distribution of other possessions belonging to his vassal. If a tenant, therefore, felt anxious to obtain the confirmation of his superior, that the lands which he enjoyed should be inherited by his heir and successor, he would provide, by will, for the payment, at his death, of the Saxon heriot, or of the Norman relief. Thus, for instance, as the Dom-Boc proves, the thegns under King Edward, in the hundreds of Salford and Leyland, are said to have respectively paid two ores of denarii for two carucates of land, and, it is added, when any one wished to withdraw from the

king's land, he gave forty shillings, and might then go where he would; and if any one, at the death of his father, wished to succeed to the land, he was required to pay a relief of forty shillings; but, if he was not so inclined, the land and all the money of the deceased parent fell to the use of the king.

Such, it may be presumed, was the nature of thegnage, by which numerous petty Saxon proprietors, in the vicinity of Manchester, had been allowed by De Poictou to retain their estates.

Other ancient, yet lesser, proprietors, who, it may be suspected, held allodial lands, that is, lands free from any feudal obligation, were induced, from motives of policy, to convert them into fiefs, in order to enable them to fulfil the requisition of the state, that every man should have a superior, to be answerable for his conduct. In this case, the allodiarii chose their own lords. During the turbulent times, so fatal to Saxon freedom, which succeeded to the Norman conquest, an additional motive influenced such proprietors to convert their allodial land into fiefs. They had need of protectors, which they immediately obtained, by creating a superior to their lands, either in the person of the lord paramount himself of the Honour of Lancaster, or of some powerful baron of the class of barones comitatûs. This policy was agreeable to the feudal principle, that every superior was under the obligation of securing his free tenant in the undisturbed enjoyment of his infeftment.

In the next place, some of these Saxon proprietors appear, in feudal records, under the name of "drenges;" a designation which has much puzzled antiquaries. Drenges appear to have held manors before the coming in of the Normans, but, at the same time, they held them from such thegns as were of an inferior class, or subordinate to principal or royal thanes, equivalent in later, or Norman times, to the barones comitatûs. Hence, by the term drengage, might have been implied the service which the holder of a fief or manor owed to some lesser thegn, who, on his part, was held in homage by some feudal superior of a more advanced rank. In this feudal sense, a drenge, when compared with Roger de Poictou, the lord paramount, who held all the lands between the Ribble and the Mersey, was a landed proprietor of the last degree of inferiority, subordination, or infeft

ment.

But this view is, perhaps, the best illustrated by the Dom-Boc itself. The royal thegns of the hundreds of Salford and Leyland did not, after the manner of less privileged or inferior thegns, build the king's hall, or houses, or reap one day in August, or make the hays, or stands in the woods. Their services, during a chivalrous age, were mili

tary, and, consequently, more noble. Hence, by a parity of reasoning, the obligation of drenges, infeft by these inferior thegns, must have been of a still more servile, or ignoble character.

It has been stated that, at this early Norman period, Manchester was situated in the midst of a number of Saxon thanes and drenges, who either held from the lord of the Honour of Lancaster, (not unfrequently in later times the liege sovereign himself,) or otherwise by subinfeudation, divers small tracts of land. These were to be found in many localities, such as Cheetham, Prestwich, Radcliffe, Pilkington, Middleton, &c., but they more particularly abounded in an angular tract of land, which has acquired its peculiar boundary, or outline, from the sudden bend which the Irwell makes near the ancient ford from which the town of Salford has derived its name. This semi-insulated tract was confined on the north and south by the bent course of the Irwell, and bounded on the west by the dreary waste of Ceadde's Moss, now named Chat Moss. Within this space numerous Saxon thegns and drenges had been allowed to retain their lands who were residing in the neighbourhood of Barton, Eccles, (including Trafford, on the opposite side of the Irwell,) Monton, Worsley, Clifton, Pendlebury, Pendleton, and Salford. Many of these proprietors were described in the later records of the 12th or 13th century, as holding their lands "de antiqua tenura," or, more explicitly, "in thanage," or "in drengage."

§ 2. THE HONOUR OF LANCASTER REVERTS BY

ESCHEAT TO THE CROWN.

During the course of an ensuing reign, namely, that of Henry the First, Roger de Poictou took part with his brother, Robert, Earl of Belesme, in rebellion against his sovereign. He sustained a defeat, and, having been deprived of his estates, was banished the realm. The lands which he held between the Ribble and the Mersey then reverted to the crown.

§3. THE HONOUR OF LANCASTER IS SAID TO

BE TRANSFERRED TO RANULF MESCHINES,
THE THIRD EARL OF CHESTER.

After the defection of Roger de Poictou, in the year 1102, nothing is certain regarding the duration of time when the Honour of Lancaster remained with the crown. At some unknown date, in the early part of the reign of Henry the First, the dignity was transferred to Ranulf, or Randolph Meschines, variously named De Bricasard, son of Randolph, Earl of Carlisle, by Margaret, sister of Hugh Lupus, the first Earl of Chester. Ranulf,

in succeeding to his patrimonial earldom in Cumberland, was soon afterwards induced to surrender it to Henry the First, with the view of enabling the monarch to fulfil, with the Scottish king, certain political engagements. As a compensation, therefore, for this sacrifice, he was gifted with the vast possessions and honours of the earldom of Chester, vacant by the death of Richard, son of Hugh Lupus, who had perished in his passage from Normandy to England, leaving no issue. Other concessions were also made to the newly-created Earl of Chester, among which was said to be the Honour of Lancaster, as is demonstrated in a grant to the Abbot of Evesham, which is addressed by Ranulf, "to his constable, dapifer, justiciaries, sheriffs, and bailiffs, that are betwixt Ribble and Mersey."-[A translation of the same is given in Baines' Lancashire, vol. i, p. 118.]

§ 4. THE CHURCHES OF MANCHESTER DURING

THE REIGNS OF WILLIAM THE FIRST AND
SECOND.

An acquaintance with the more general history of the church, during these two reigns, is important, as it will be found to bear upon subsequent local events.

Although bishops had a place assigned to them in the council of peers; although the superiority of spiritual interests was proclaimed over such as were temporal, of which principle the Roman see did not neglect to most unduly avail itself, by encroaching with its spiritual courts upon the civil jurisdiction of England, yet some resistance began to be made to the inordinate pretensions of the church; which impatience under ecclesiastical control, was aided by the conflicting claims of two rival pontiffs, Gregory and the anti-pope Guibert. William the First published several orders, which bore severely upon some branches of the papal jurisdiction, as that the royal consent should be necessary to confirm every papal constitution; that no national synod should be summoned by an archbishop, without the sanction of the king; and that no sentence of excommunication, or penance, should be declared against a baron, or officer, belonging to the king's court, without the royal consent.

As for William Rufus, his whole reign was a scourge both to church and state. By possessing the right of investiture, per annulum et baculum, this sovereign had been enabled to keep the benefices of the church in his own hands, and, in some instances, to dispose of them to the highest bidder.

But it is time to confine ourselves to events of a more local interest, regarding which, unfortunately,

little is recorded. In the Conqueror's reign, A.D. 1075, Peter, Bishop of Lichfield, within which diocese Mamecestre was contained, removed his see to Chester, but his successor, Robert de Livesey, transferred it to Coventry, from which, not long afterwards, it returned to Lichfield, yet so, that the remaining bishops were styled of Lichfield and Coventry.

As for the church, or churches, of Manchester, the only record concerning the same bears a reference to the impost of Dane-geld.

In the time of Charlemagne, as we have pointed

of the Greslet family, possessing the patronage and influencing the destinies of the church, or churches, of Manchester.

CHAPTER I.

ECCLESIASTICAL EVENTS DURING THE BARONIAL
SWAY OF ALBERT GRESLET, LORD OF MAN-
CHESTER.-TEMP. Henr. I.

In the course of this chapter it will be shewn, that while the town and wapentake of Salford were gifted to William Peverel, lord of Nottingham, certain lands forming the whole or part of the lordship of Manchester, were granted to Albert

Greslet.

GIFTED ΤΟ WILLIAM PEVEREL, LORD OF

NOTTINGHAM.

out, the mansus ecclesiasticus was free from all kinds of charges and burdens; while, among the Anglo-Saxons, the estates of the mass-thane were exonerated from military and all other services. Thus, in the present instance, the land possessed by the priest, or "Kirkman" of Manchester, named § 1. THE TOWN AND WAPENTAKE OF SALFORD Kirkman's Hulme, was not, in the time of the Saxon monarchs, burdened with any Dane-geld whatever. This imposition, which owed its origin to Danish plunderers, as a compensation for their forbearance, was in the reign of Edward the Confessor remitted. If, therefore, it be recorded in the DomBoc as a charge to which the glebe of the Kirkman was rendered liable, its revival and perpetuation are due to Norman avidity. "The churches of Saint Mary and Saint Michael," says the Doomsday survey, "held in Mamecestre one carucate of land, free from all duties, or rents, except Dane-geld."

Part Third.

ECCLESIASTICAL EVENTS DURING THE BARONIAL
SWAY OF The GresleTS, LORDS OF MAN-
CHESTER.

In entering upon this portion of our local history it may be premised, that, during the baronial sway of the Greslets, it has been found impracticable to completely separate the ecclesiastical from the feudal state of the lordship of Manchester.

Nor has the difficulty been less to detach the events of Manchester from what took place in the adjoining township of Salford. While, on the one hand, in a civil point of view, Salford held the rank of being the chief site of jurisdiction in the particular wapentake, or Hundred, within which Manchester was included; on the other hand, the church of Manchester administered to the spiritual necessity of both towns equally.

With this explanation, a series of chapters will be devoted to the annals of each successive baron

B

Although De Meschines had succeeded to the jurisdiction exercised by Roger de Poictou over the barones comitatûs inheriting lands between the Ribble and Mersey, it is not to be supposed that he was gifted with all the estates, or demesnes, within the Honour of Lancaster, which his prehave been bestowed upon William Peverel, whom decessor had enjoyed. A great share is said to some genealogists have regarded as the base son of the Conqueror, while others have affirmed, that his father, Ranulph, had wedded a concubine of William Duke of Normandy, and that the children, in consequence, were allowed to bear the name of Peverel, in common with the actual illegitimate son which this female, previous to her marriage, had borne to the Conqueror.

William Peverel had custody of the castle of Nottingham. In the time of the survey he held numerous lordships in England. In 1102 he succeeded to certain of Roger de Poictou's possessions, among which, as we are assured by Kuerden, who refers to various records examined by him, were the town of West Derby with the wapentach, the borough of Liverpool, the wapentach of Leyland, the town and wapentach of Salford, &c.[Kuerden, apud Baines, History of Lancashire, vol. iii, p. 392.]

By the term "town and wapentake of Salford," nothing more was meant than that William Peverel, along with the lands of the township, held conjointly the jurisdiction of the extensive shire, or Hundred, to which the ford across the Irwell had imparted its name: Wapentachium, nomen jurisdictionis Hundredo analogæ, in quibusdam Angliæ comitatibus occurrens; datum, ut nonnulli volunt,

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