HISTORICAL NOTES THE MANORS OF CRICK - 4 Crick and the Domesday Book - 3 As we have seen, the first Norman lord of the manor of Crick was Geoffrey de la Guérche, who held it as part of his baronial estates as a tenant-in-chief of William the Conqueror. He originated from a family of some considerable rank, for his father Silvestre was lord of la Guerche and Pouence, both being towns near Rennes on the border of Brittany and Anjou. Silvestre was Chancellor of Brittany, but after the death of his wife, he entered the Church, and in 1075 was consecrated Bishop of Rennes. Geoffrey was known in Brittany as de Pouence, but after coming to he changed his title to de la Guerche. It is by no means certain, but quite probable that in fact he held a command in William's invading army of 1066, for a count of Brittany named Alan Fergant provided and led a third of the entire force. Since these men were Bretons, Geoffrey could well have been amongst them. His social rank alone would have hardly qualified him otherwise for the extent of his estates afterwards awarded to him by William. It is easy, and indeed customary, to regard a village at the time of the Domesday Survey - and, for that matter, in the succeeding centuries as an isolated entity having an independent place in history. The reality was very much otherwise. Every village was part of a group, large or small, which made up the estate of a tenant-in-chief, and thus Crick was but one manor amongst the considerable number held by Geoffrey de la Guerche. In his own right or in that of his wife Alveve, he held manors and land in a total of 68 named vills, besides having the custody of 6 others. In comparison with the several hundreds of manors of some of the greatest baronies, Geoffrey's was a modest holding, but it was above the average for most tenants-in-chief. His manors were distributed over 6 counties, effectively grouped round four centres :- in east , including some manors in the Guilsborough hundred of Northamptonshire; Melton Mowbray in ; Epworth in the Isle of Axholme, and Gainsborough in Lincolnshire. The villages in these main groups are shown in the three maps, being respectively of Leicestershire, Warwicks with Northants, and Lincolnshire with the Isle of Axholme. Some of the more important main roads in use at the time are shown, although today some parts of them have long been out of use and are not easily traced on the ground. The symbols used are explained in the table on the back of the last map, but some of these will not be referred to until the next chapter on the Saxon manor. The details of numbers, hidage and values of his manorial holdings are given in the following table, which also includes the numbers of houses which Geoffrey had in the towns, and leased to tenants. (see following page) As the map shows, there was a high concentration of manors round Melton Mowbray, then known as Medelton, or Middleton, in Leics., and the group hidage and values accounted for half of the total for the county. Melton was the 'caput' or chief seat of Geoffrey de la Guerche, and it was from there that the affairs of the entire barony were controlled. On the Isle of Axholme the main manor was at Epworth, and the fact that the Isle could be effectively administered from there is a testimony to the strength of the Norman occupation in view of the intransigent, fierce and independent nature of its inhabitants, not easily to be subdued. Even after another 800 years, Samuel Wesley's father Charles could bear witness to their continued truculent independence. Outside Axholme, Gainsborough was the chief manor in a loosely scattered group in the Lindsey division of Lincolnshire.

Manors and land consisting of County Complete vills Half vills Part vills Total Northants. 2 1 2 5 with 4 houses in Northampton. . Warwicks. 11 1 12 with 1 house in . Custody of the manors of Count Aubrey de Couci in Warwicks. 2 2 2 6 Leicestershire 13 3 12 28 with 2 houses in Leicester. Isle of Axholme 13 - - 13 Lincolnshire 4 - 4 8 with 11 houses in Stamford. Notts. 1 - - 1 Yorkshire 1 - - 1

County hidage Value Northants. 11 £6-10s. Warwicks. 67 £46-5s. (Monks Kirby) (8) (£5) Count Aubrey 17 £16-5s. Leics. 160 car. £54-16s. (Melton) (75 car.) £5-10s. Axholme 44 1/2 car. £24-11s. Lincs. 12 car. £5 Notts. 1 car. £1-10s. Yorks. 2 car. £4-10s. (car. – carucates; very approximately 1 car. - 5/6 hide) In Warwickshire, the most substantial manor was then called Kirkeby, now Monks Kirby, which included 6 vills not separately listed in the Domesday Survey; , Brockhurst, , Stretton under Fosse, Walton and Easenhall. It was rated at 8 hides, which is double the assessment for a standard manor, and it seems to have been the local administrative centre for the Warwicks. and Northants. manors. It was of sufficient importance to Geoffrey for him to have the church there, which had become badly dilapidated, rebuilt and equipped, and on July 1st, 1077 it was dedicated to the honour of the Virgin Mary and St. Denis. At the same time, Geoffrey established there a priory cell for 6 monks of the Benedictine monastery of St. Nicholas in Angers, the principal city of Anjou in his part of France, and he appointed two priests in charge, named Frano and Osgot. By the terms of the charter setting up the priory, Geoffrey, with the consent of his wife Alveva, granted to the priory the entire vill of Copston Magna with all its revenues, together with various tithes from the manors of Wappenbury, Newbold-on-Avon, Lawford, Hampton in Arden, Melton, Axholme and Crick. The dues from Crick were half of the tithes of grain and beasts, all the tithes of wool and of cheese, together with the whole tithes from the mill, and in common with the other manors mentioned, toll-free grazing for the monks' pigs in all woodland. Geoffrey appointed a man from St. Nicholas' monastery to Crick for the purpose of collecting and managing the tithes, and he was granted the same customary rights of any other man in the kingdom. He likewise placed a man for the same purpose in each of four other manors, Newbold, Hampton in Arden, Melton and Axholme. The values of the tithes were obviously enough to warrant the maintenance of collectors in these manors, living at a standard appropriate to their official position. It is very likely that these imported Bretons were not very welcome in the villages, the more so as tithe payments themselves were always unpopular. About half of the total number of manors were let by Geoffrey to subtenants, some of them Saxons, some Norman knights, but the other half were kept as demesne manors under the direct management of his household for its benefit. Six of the Warwickshire manors, and Crick in Northants, were kept in demesne. Their overall control was in the care of a seneschal, but he delegated surveyance on each manor, or in some cases a group, to a resident bailiff. He was responsible for running the demesne, presenting his accounts to the seneschal, and was usually well housed. His house was not a hall or 'manor house', but it had to be large enough to accommodate the seneschal or even the tenant-in-chief on occasion. Thus, Crick would have had no hall at this date, but a good bailiff's house. In the course of his duties, the seneschal had to travel widely between manors, so that much of his time was spent on the road. This called for good communications, and contrary to popular belief, there was a considerable network of well-used roads in existence from well before the . The Roman roads were not greatly in use; for example the and Ermine Way were effectively by-passed for much of their length. The Fosse-Way was an exception, but it was a Romanised route making use of a much earlier road dating from at least 500 BC. The native roads connected with as many places as practicable, whilst the Roman ways, military in origin, covered long distances between towns as directly as possible. Crick can be seen lying on the Oxford road leading to Leicester through Lilbourne, Swinford and Aylestone; Melton was directly reached from Leicester; and Gainsborough and Axholme were on the Newark road which passed through Langtoft, Geoffrey's only manor in Notts. The cross-road from Cambridge through Northampton via Lilbourne to gave access from Crick to the Avon valley manors and the other Warwicks. estates, especially with Monks Kirby. Minor ways giving access to the main roads are not shown on the maps, but altogether it is clear that even in 1085, the country was criss-crossed by a busy network of roads which, as will be shown, was already old by that date. The prosperity of Crick cannot easily be judged from the Domesday figures. The basis of the annual values attributed to the manors in the survey has so far not been discovered, there being no apparent relation to the hidage, or plough-teams or population figures. However, if the value does reflect the state of the manor, then Crick, assessed at ~4-10s, was quite a thriving place when comparison is made with other manors. It is well above the £3 for Welford and its associated land in Elkington, Cold Ashby and Sulby, and on a par with most of those Warwickshire manors which included only one vill. In the case of Monks Kirby and its six satellite vills, the value was ~10 per annum, the hidage assessment of 15 hides reflecting the larger size of the estate. In the Guilsborough hundred, the total hidage rating was broken down into 4-hide units for ease of calculation and collection, and so to the 3 3/4 hides for Crick was added 1/4 hide from Yelvertoft (almost certainly relating to Shenley) to make up the regular 4 hides. On the Warwickshire side, units of either 4 or 5 hides were used, and we find the figure of 15 hides for Monks Kirby being made up of 3 units of 5 hides each. In 1084 when William imposed a geld of 6 shillings to the hide, Crick with Shenley had to pay 24s., compared with 90s. from Monks Kirby, both very large sums for those days. (to be continued) E. W. TIMMINS Please note: These notes incorporate the results of a considerable amount of original research, not previously published, and the writer would be grateful for proper acknowledgement by anyone wishing to use the material. If any part is to be reproduced in print, a request for permission would be appreciated. Copied by J Goodger in 2005 from Crick News Summer 1980