PARISH HISTORY - Desertion
1. Ownership and absentee landlords
The Normans
The entry for Stanton St Gabriel in Domesday Book of 1086
In case your Latin is a bit rusty, here’s what William the Conqueror’s Domesday surveyors had to say about Stanton St. Gabriel in 1086:
Alfred holds ½ a hide in `STANTON [St Gabriel]' from the Count. Edwy held it before 1066. Land for 6 ploughs. In lordship 2½ ploughs; 5 serfs; 3 villeins and 8 bordars with 3½ ploughs. Meadow, 24 acres; pasture, 2½ leagues; woodland, 2 furlongs. The value was and is 60s. ^[The holder of this land before 1066 held it freely]^
Let’s expand on that a little, because ownership was notoriously complicated. Before the Norman conquest, Stanton St Gabriel belonged to Edwy, who we know also owned some 83 other manors from Ipswich in the east to the Lizard in Cornwall in the west. We can assume that Edwy almost certainly didn’t live at Stanton.
By 1086, at the time of The Domesday Book, Stanton St. Gabriel belonged to Robert, Count of Mortain. Robert was the half brother of William the Conqueror, who granted him Stanton St Gabriel (as well as more than 500 other manors across England) after the invasion in 1066. Robert quite possibly never visited Stanton St Gabriel (though he did build a castle at Montacute, not far away in South Somerset) and Stanton was held on his behalf by Alvred Pincerna (Alfred the butler).
‘Pincerna’ is often translated as ‘Cupbearer’ and was an honorary title (like Chamberlain) of high importance. It’s unlikely that Alvred would have carried Robert’s cup except at a coronation or state occasion. Alvred himself held land from Robert of Mortain in nine counties, as far apart as Yorkshire and Cornwall, and he probably never lived in Stanton St. Gabriel either, though he would almost certainly have visited from time to time.
Unusually, Alvred was a Saxon and, according to the Domesday entry above, he held at Stanton 2½ ploughs or leagues – about 8 miles – of pasture, 5 serfs (effectively slaves), 3 villeins and 8 bordars (smallholders who belonged to their feudal lord but who could farm their own land and who were free to choose whom to marry).
Being an absentee landlord, Alvred must have delegated affairs at Stanton St Gabriel to someone lower down the feudal chain, who would have collected the money due to Alvred and generally maintained law and order.
Alfred holds ½ a hide in `STANTON [St Gabriel]' from the Count. Edwy held it before 1066. Land for 6 ploughs. In lordship 2½ ploughs; 5 serfs; 3 villeins and 8 bordars with 3½ ploughs. Meadow, 24 acres; pasture, 2½ leagues; woodland, 2 furlongs. The value was and is 60s. ^[The holder of this land before 1066 held it freely]^
Let’s expand on that a little, because ownership was notoriously complicated. Before the Norman conquest, Stanton St Gabriel belonged to Edwy, who we know also owned some 83 other manors from Ipswich in the east to the Lizard in Cornwall in the west. We can assume that Edwy almost certainly didn’t live at Stanton.
By 1086, at the time of The Domesday Book, Stanton St. Gabriel belonged to Robert, Count of Mortain. Robert was the half brother of William the Conqueror, who granted him Stanton St Gabriel (as well as more than 500 other manors across England) after the invasion in 1066. Robert quite possibly never visited Stanton St Gabriel (though he did build a castle at Montacute, not far away in South Somerset) and Stanton was held on his behalf by Alvred Pincerna (Alfred the butler).
‘Pincerna’ is often translated as ‘Cupbearer’ and was an honorary title (like Chamberlain) of high importance. It’s unlikely that Alvred would have carried Robert’s cup except at a coronation or state occasion. Alvred himself held land from Robert of Mortain in nine counties, as far apart as Yorkshire and Cornwall, and he probably never lived in Stanton St. Gabriel either, though he would almost certainly have visited from time to time.
Unusually, Alvred was a Saxon and, according to the Domesday entry above, he held at Stanton 2½ ploughs or leagues – about 8 miles – of pasture, 5 serfs (effectively slaves), 3 villeins and 8 bordars (smallholders who belonged to their feudal lord but who could farm their own land and who were free to choose whom to marry).
Being an absentee landlord, Alvred must have delegated affairs at Stanton St Gabriel to someone lower down the feudal chain, who would have collected the money due to Alvred and generally maintained law and order.
The Post-Normans
|
For the next 200 years, Stanton was owned by a succession of absentee landlords. According to the National Trust’s own history of the Golden Cap estate, these included Joan, Queen of Scotland, the sister of Henry III. (That's her on the right.) Joan held:
“… one hundred and twelve acres and a half in Stanton… with the villeins and all that goes with them being William Attebrigg, Richard Sebern, William West, Thomas Dalket, Richard Prikes, Robert Eleyne, Gilbert Wet, Roger Dispensar, Gilbert Brid, Richard Slibern and Martin de Staunton and twenty two croftmen and a meadow at Hilton and twenty nine acres of meadow in the marsh of Staunton to the west, and fifteen acres of meadow in Hay to the west…”[i] According to a charter of 1237, Joan granted the whole lot to the “abbess of the Blessed Place upon Tarent and the nuns there”. This was the Cistercian Nunnery at Tarrant Kaines, which received many grants during Henry III’s reign until, by 1291, it had an annual income of £126.16s.4½d (which by some calculations would be worth about £70,000 today). It seems likely that the nunnery held Stanton until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1539 [i] The extract is from the Calendar of the Charter Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office (1906). Note that two of the villeins, Richard Sebern and Richard Slibern, have very similar names. Either this is an early typographical error or there was occasional confusion in the village about the two Richards. |
|
Let's come on to more recent times
Also in 'Parish History':
Vikings ~ Fishtrap ~ Desertion ~ Recent times ~ Saddening agents ~ Digory Gordge ~ Buildings & Archaeology ~ Old photos
Vikings ~ Fishtrap ~ Desertion ~ Recent times ~ Saddening agents ~ Digory Gordge ~ Buildings & Archaeology ~ Old photos