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A TRANSLATION OF THAT PORTION’ OF Domesday Book which relates to LINCOLNSHIRE AND RUTLANDSHIRE.
by CHARLES GOWEN SMITH.
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MAARSHALL, & CO.; MANCHESTER: JOHN HEYWOOD.
LINCOLN: J. WILLIAMSON~ AND GEORGE GALE.
CAISTOR: GEO. PARKER.
BOSTON: J. M. NEWCOMB, Ash 1. MORTON.
xxxv. INTRODUCTION
This is followed by a long list of the lands he had control over.
by CHARLES GOWEN SMITH.
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MAARSHALL, & CO.; MANCHESTER: JOHN HEYWOOD.
LINCOLN: J. WILLIAMSON~ AND GEORGE GALE.
CAISTOR: GEO. PARKER.
BOSTON: J. M. NEWCOMB, Ash 1. MORTON.
xxxv. INTRODUCTION
As the reader will see by the following pages, the mill was a valuable appanage to a Manor, and highly profitable to the Lords in whom their toll or rent or both were vested. The amount they annually yielded is nearly always stated, and even the mere sites, where mills had formerly existed, are mentioned continually as valuable capabilities, The mills in nearly every instance belonged to the Lords of Manors ; and at these and these only were the tenants permitted to grind their corn, oats, barley, and so forth—a circumstance which at once explains their great number and the reason why they were such a source of profit.
At Stamford, for instance, one mill alone yielded 30:. yearly—an immense sum in those days—equal to the rent of a farm of one or two hundred acres of land! Well might those who had the right to have a mill build one even where none had existed before, as did that grasping “son of perdition,” Ivo Tallibois (see account of him pp. 84, 85, 86) at Croxby, notwithstanding that he had two there already, and that by the erection of the third he prevented William Blunt from having there a garden or orchard to which he was entitled ; and about which, as will be seen by the clamore:, or claims, at the end of the volume, he was so much aggrieved that he laid the matter before the jury of the Riding for settlement.
Whether mills are as valuable to their proprietors now as in days of yore is a question not for me to enquire into, but long after Domesday was compiled they were sources of immense profit. As an instance of this it may be mentioned that, in the year 1291, the Bishop of Worcester had in Stratford-upon-Avon, the birth-place of Shakspeare, two carucates of land (that is, two hundred and forty acres) rated at 20:. and one mill yielding 100:. ; and eight years afterwards we are told that he let in the same place “eleven score acres and a half of arable land at 51!. per acre yearly ; twenty-seven acres of meadow at 2:. 6d. per acre yearly; and seven acres of pasture for 17s.
; while his mill or mills there he let for 91. per annuml”
‘Dom. Orig. tom i. fol. 376
At Stamford, for instance, one mill alone yielded 30:. yearly—an immense sum in those days—equal to the rent of a farm of one or two hundred acres of land! Well might those who had the right to have a mill build one even where none had existed before, as did that grasping “son of perdition,” Ivo Tallibois (see account of him pp. 84, 85, 86) at Croxby, notwithstanding that he had two there already, and that by the erection of the third he prevented William Blunt from having there a garden or orchard to which he was entitled ; and about which, as will be seen by the clamore:, or claims, at the end of the volume, he was so much aggrieved that he laid the matter before the jury of the Riding for settlement.
“In Crosbi (Croxby) debet habere Willielmus Blundus unam hortum in term Ivonis Tallebosc, sed impeduit propter Molendinum quod non fuit ibi T. R. E.*
* ‘Dom. Orig. tom i. fol. 376.
* ‘Dom. Orig. tom i. fol. 376.
Whether mills are as valuable to their proprietors now as in days of yore is a question not for me to enquire into, but long after Domesday was compiled they were sources of immense profit. As an instance of this it may be mentioned that, in the year 1291, the Bishop of Worcester had in Stratford-upon-Avon, the birth-place of Shakspeare, two carucates of land (that is, two hundred and forty acres) rated at 20:. and one mill yielding 100:. ; and eight years afterwards we are told that he let in the same place “eleven score acres and a half of arable land at 51!. per acre yearly ; twenty-seven acres of meadow at 2:. 6d. per acre yearly; and seven acres of pasture for 17s.
; while his mill or mills there he let for 91. per annuml”‘Dom. Orig. tom i. fol. 376
XlV.~—THE LANDS OF IVO TALLIBOIS.
Ivo Tallibois was the chief of the Angevin auxiliaries of William's army of adventurers.
After the death of those brave young Anglo-Saxon nobles, Edwin and Morcar, the sons of Alfgar and brothers-in-law of King Harold, who refused to submit to the Norman yoke, their sister Lucy was left the last of her race in England. She resided at Deeping in Lincolnshire, or thereabouts. Thus left alone and unprotected, she shared the fate of all other Englishwomen similarly situated. She was disposed of in marriage by William to Ivo Tallibois, probably the very man of all the Normans she most detested. Along with her the Conqueror gave to lvo all the lands and ancient domains of her father, Earl Alfgar; the bulk of which were situated about Spalding~ towards the borders of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, in the division of Holland, not many miles from the “ Camp of Refuge," in the Isle of Ely.
Ivo Tallibois settled here, and built himself a great mansion at Spalding. His estates being large
he was a power in the realrii. In Holland he became for the farmers of that ancient domain what in the Saxon language was called hlaford by contraction, the 1ard of the land. This ancient name or title ordinarily signified loaf-giver, distributor of bread, and in old England designated the head of a large house, him whose table fed many men. But at the Conquest, other ideas, ideas of dominion and servitude, were substituted for this honourable signification, when the men who obtained the lands received from the natives the title of lord:. So it was in the case of Ivo Tallibois, Lord of Holland.
This foreign lord was a severe master ; the inhabitants of the domain trembled in his presence and approached with fear and terror his manor or ball, as the Saxons termed it ; an abode once most hospitable, whose door was ever open, whose fire was ever lit ; but after the conquest was fortified, walled~ embattled, garrisoned with men-at-arms and soldiers—at once a citadel for the master and a prison for the
LINCOLNSI-IIRE. 85
people over whom he was lord. “Thus," says Ingulf in his History of Croyland Abbey, while speaking of ivo, “ all the people of the district of Holland honoured him with the greatest attention, and supplicated him as their lord on bended knees. Although they bestowed upon him all the honours they possibly could, and all the services they were bound, still he did not, repaying that confidence, show any love for them ; but tortured and harassed, worried and annoyed, imprisoned and tormented them, every day loaded them with fresh burdens, and, by his cruelty, compelled most of them to sell their property, and seek other countries.
But against our Monastery and all the people of Croyland, he was, by the instigation of the devil, aroused to such an extreme pitch of fury, that he would follow the various animals of the people of Croyland in the marshes with his dogs, drive them to a great distance, drown them in the lakes, mutilate some in their tails, others in the ears ; while often, by breaking the backs and the legs of the beasts of burden, he would render them utterly useless. . . . .
Against our cell [at Spalding] also, and our brethren, his neighbours, the prior and his brother monks, who lived within the gates thereof, and dwelt the whole day in his resence, he raged with such tyrannical and frantic fury, that he would many a time lame their cattle, oxen as well as horses, would daily impound their sheep and poultry, and frequently strike down, kill, and destroy their swine and pigs ; while, at the same time, the servants of the prior were oppressed in the earl‘s court with insupportable exactions, and often assaulted in the highways with swords and staves, and sometimes killed."
The prior and monks, by entreaties and innumerable presents, tried to appease his wrath towards them, but the only result was increased malice and hatred; and at length they left the priory, and shaking the dust from off their feet against this son of fire eternal, returned to Croyland. This was in the year 1074, two years after Ivo's marriage with Lucy, the beautiful Saxon heiress—a marriage, says the chronicler, which elated him “ beyond measure against God and his Saints, and our Monastery of Croyland."
After the death of the Conqueror, and having a friend in his successor William Rufus, Ivo seems to have vomited forth all his malice against Croyland, and rapaciously seized into his own hands all its possessions lying in his demesne, namely, Whaplode, Spalding, Pinchbeck, and Algarkirk, and the churches and chapels therein; expelling the priests and monks, and intruding Norman clerks of his own province. - he result was a lawsuit between Ingulf, Abbot of Croyland, and himself, which terminated in favour of the former, who was accordingly reinstated in the possessions.
Some two or three years after this, Croyland Monastery was consumed by fire, caused by accident, and Ivo, hearing that the title deeds, &c., by which the abbot and monks held their lands had been destroyed in the conflagration, caused them to be cited into the sheriff's court, held at Spalding, to show by what right they held the lands which lay in his demesne.
He was however disappointed, for Trig, the proctor of the Abbot, produced, as required, the documents which Ivo heard and hoped had been burnt; and thus having no case, he had recourse to raillery and abuse, saying the barbarous Saxon writing was only worthy of laughter and derision.
Ivo thus foiled, sent three of his retainers to waylay the proctor’s clerk and to rob him of the instruments as he was returning in the evening to Croyland, and as the latter was crossing the river Assendyke they sprang upon him, threw him from his horse, and after cruelly beating him and searching his wallet and the folds of his garments without finding what they were in search of, they left him covered with wounds and bruises and half dead.
Within a fortnight of this his last burst of malice towards Croyland, Ivo was proclaimed an enemy to the King, in consequence of his having joined in the conspiracy against him, headed by Odo, Bishop of Baieux; upon which he was outlawed and banished from the kingdom. He took refuge in Anion, and after a few years’ exile was allowed to return, which he did, greatly elated, to his wife the lady Lucy, who at the time was holding her court at Spalding ; here he afterwards died of an attack of paralysis, and his wife buried him in the priory of Spalding with some little sorrow on her part, but amid the loudly expressed exultations of all the neighbours.
“Hardly," writes Peter de Blois, “ had one month elapsed after his death, when she [lady Lucy] married that illustrious young man, Roger de Romar, the son of Gerald de Romar, and received real honour from William de Romar, Earl of Lincoln, the elder brother of her husband, while she entirely lost all recollection of Ivo Tallibois. Their only daughter, who had been married to a husband of noble rank, died before her father. Titus in order that his bastard slips might not take deep root in the world did the accursed line of this wicked man perish, the axe of the Lord hewing down all his offspring.
What then does it now profit thee, O Ivo ! ever most bloodthirsty, thus to have risen against the Lord? Unto the earth hast thou fallen, numbered with the dead ; in a moment of time hast thou descended to hell, a successor ot the old Adam, a frail potsherd, a heap of ashes, a lump of potter’s clay, a hide of carrion, a vessel of putrefaction, me nourishment of moths, the food of worms, the laughing-stock of those who now survive, the refuse of the inhabitants of heaven, and the avowed enemy of the servants of God ; and now, as we have reason to suppose, an alien and an exile from the congregation of the saints, and, for thine innumerable misdeeds, worthy to be sent into outer darkness."
Ivo Tallibois was the chief of the Angevin auxiliaries of William's army of adventurers.
After the death of those brave young Anglo-Saxon nobles, Edwin and Morcar, the sons of Alfgar and brothers-in-law of King Harold, who refused to submit to the Norman yoke, their sister Lucy was left the last of her race in England. She resided at Deeping in Lincolnshire, or thereabouts. Thus left alone and unprotected, she shared the fate of all other Englishwomen similarly situated. She was disposed of in marriage by William to Ivo Tallibois, probably the very man of all the Normans she most detested. Along with her the Conqueror gave to lvo all the lands and ancient domains of her father, Earl Alfgar; the bulk of which were situated about Spalding~ towards the borders of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, in the division of Holland, not many miles from the “ Camp of Refuge," in the Isle of Ely.
Ivo Tallibois settled here, and built himself a great mansion at Spalding. His estates being large
he was a power in the realrii. In Holland he became for the farmers of that ancient domain what in the Saxon language was called hlaford by contraction, the 1ard of the land. This ancient name or title ordinarily signified loaf-giver, distributor of bread, and in old England designated the head of a large house, him whose table fed many men. But at the Conquest, other ideas, ideas of dominion and servitude, were substituted for this honourable signification, when the men who obtained the lands received from the natives the title of lord:. So it was in the case of Ivo Tallibois, Lord of Holland.
This foreign lord was a severe master ; the inhabitants of the domain trembled in his presence and approached with fear and terror his manor or ball, as the Saxons termed it ; an abode once most hospitable, whose door was ever open, whose fire was ever lit ; but after the conquest was fortified, walled~ embattled, garrisoned with men-at-arms and soldiers—at once a citadel for the master and a prison for the
LINCOLNSI-IIRE. 85
people over whom he was lord. “Thus," says Ingulf in his History of Croyland Abbey, while speaking of ivo, “ all the people of the district of Holland honoured him with the greatest attention, and supplicated him as their lord on bended knees. Although they bestowed upon him all the honours they possibly could, and all the services they were bound, still he did not, repaying that confidence, show any love for them ; but tortured and harassed, worried and annoyed, imprisoned and tormented them, every day loaded them with fresh burdens, and, by his cruelty, compelled most of them to sell their property, and seek other countries.
But against our Monastery and all the people of Croyland, he was, by the instigation of the devil, aroused to such an extreme pitch of fury, that he would follow the various animals of the people of Croyland in the marshes with his dogs, drive them to a great distance, drown them in the lakes, mutilate some in their tails, others in the ears ; while often, by breaking the backs and the legs of the beasts of burden, he would render them utterly useless. . . . .
Against our cell [at Spalding] also, and our brethren, his neighbours, the prior and his brother monks, who lived within the gates thereof, and dwelt the whole day in his resence, he raged with such tyrannical and frantic fury, that he would many a time lame their cattle, oxen as well as horses, would daily impound their sheep and poultry, and frequently strike down, kill, and destroy their swine and pigs ; while, at the same time, the servants of the prior were oppressed in the earl‘s court with insupportable exactions, and often assaulted in the highways with swords and staves, and sometimes killed."
The prior and monks, by entreaties and innumerable presents, tried to appease his wrath towards them, but the only result was increased malice and hatred; and at length they left the priory, and shaking the dust from off their feet against this son of fire eternal, returned to Croyland. This was in the year 1074, two years after Ivo's marriage with Lucy, the beautiful Saxon heiress—a marriage, says the chronicler, which elated him “ beyond measure against God and his Saints, and our Monastery of Croyland."
After the death of the Conqueror, and having a friend in his successor William Rufus, Ivo seems to have vomited forth all his malice against Croyland, and rapaciously seized into his own hands all its possessions lying in his demesne, namely, Whaplode, Spalding, Pinchbeck, and Algarkirk, and the churches and chapels therein; expelling the priests and monks, and intruding Norman clerks of his own province. - he result was a lawsuit between Ingulf, Abbot of Croyland, and himself, which terminated in favour of the former, who was accordingly reinstated in the possessions.
Some two or three years after this, Croyland Monastery was consumed by fire, caused by accident, and Ivo, hearing that the title deeds, &c., by which the abbot and monks held their lands had been destroyed in the conflagration, caused them to be cited into the sheriff's court, held at Spalding, to show by what right they held the lands which lay in his demesne.
He was however disappointed, for Trig, the proctor of the Abbot, produced, as required, the documents which Ivo heard and hoped had been burnt; and thus having no case, he had recourse to raillery and abuse, saying the barbarous Saxon writing was only worthy of laughter and derision.
Ivo thus foiled, sent three of his retainers to waylay the proctor’s clerk and to rob him of the instruments as he was returning in the evening to Croyland, and as the latter was crossing the river Assendyke they sprang upon him, threw him from his horse, and after cruelly beating him and searching his wallet and the folds of his garments without finding what they were in search of, they left him covered with wounds and bruises and half dead.
Within a fortnight of this his last burst of malice towards Croyland, Ivo was proclaimed an enemy to the King, in consequence of his having joined in the conspiracy against him, headed by Odo, Bishop of Baieux; upon which he was outlawed and banished from the kingdom. He took refuge in Anion, and after a few years’ exile was allowed to return, which he did, greatly elated, to his wife the lady Lucy, who at the time was holding her court at Spalding ; here he afterwards died of an attack of paralysis, and his wife buried him in the priory of Spalding with some little sorrow on her part, but amid the loudly expressed exultations of all the neighbours.
“Hardly," writes Peter de Blois, “ had one month elapsed after his death, when she [lady Lucy] married that illustrious young man, Roger de Romar, the son of Gerald de Romar, and received real honour from William de Romar, Earl of Lincoln, the elder brother of her husband, while she entirely lost all recollection of Ivo Tallibois. Their only daughter, who had been married to a husband of noble rank, died before her father. Titus in order that his bastard slips might not take deep root in the world did the accursed line of this wicked man perish, the axe of the Lord hewing down all his offspring.
What then does it now profit thee, O Ivo ! ever most bloodthirsty, thus to have risen against the Lord? Unto the earth hast thou fallen, numbered with the dead ; in a moment of time hast thou descended to hell, a successor ot the old Adam, a frail potsherd, a heap of ashes, a lump of potter’s clay, a hide of carrion, a vessel of putrefaction, me nourishment of moths, the food of worms, the laughing-stock of those who now survive, the refuse of the inhabitants of heaven, and the avowed enemy of the servants of God ; and now, as we have reason to suppose, an alien and an exile from the congregation of the saints, and, for thine innumerable misdeeds, worthy to be sent into outer darkness."
This is followed by a long list of the lands he had control over.