Notes on a Selection of Ancient Charters
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XI.—Notes on a Selection of ancient Charters, Letters, and other Documents from the Muniment Room of Sir John Lawson, of Brough Sail, near CattericJc, in Richmondshire, Baronet. Communicated by CHARLES SPENCER PERCEVAL, Esq. LL.D., Treasurer. Read March 28 and April 4, 1878. The extensive series of original documents exhibited on this occasion by favour of Sir John Lawson consists chiefly of ancient evidences of title to the manor and lands of Brough or Burgh, near Catterick, while in the hands of a family whose local surname during the three centuries of their possession passed through the forms of De Burgo, de Burgh, Burgh, Borough, or Borow. With these are exhibited a few documents of a later date belonging to the Lawsons, who by intermarriage in the sixteenth century with the heiress of Burgh came into possession of their estates. For the most part these family archives are in excellent preservation, and nearly all are accompanied by careful transcripts by the hand of the late Sir William Lawson, F.S.A. A few of the documents exhibited have already been published/ but the majority of them have hitherto remained undescribed. I propose to notice them in chronological order, with brief observations on their chief points of interest, appending complete transcripts wherever it may seem desirable to do so. If my remarks at times amount to little more than a " narrative pedigree " of the Burgh family, I would explain that this has arisen merely from the want of a more convenient way of connecting the various documents together, and a See Archceological Journal, vii. 56, for the contract for building Catterick Bridge (1421-2): Archwologia jEliana, N. S. ii. 10, and Archceological Journal xiv. 181, for charters with seals of Margaret daughter of William the Lion, Countess of Brittany, and of the third Eoger Bertram, Lord of Mitford. 2A2 180 Notes on Documents belonging to Sir John Lawson, Bart. from no wish to re-write that pedigree which will be found recorded with suffi- cient fullness and accuracy by Dr. Whitaker in his learned work on Richmond- shire. The manor of Burgh (hodie Brough), near Catterick, is situated in Swaledale, a few miles below the ancient town of Richmond, and within the once important honour of that name. The early descent of the manor is not very clear. In the reign of King John the manor itself, or at least lands within it, belonged to Jernegana de Tanfield, or Jernegan EitzHugh, as Dugdale and others call him, a powerful feodatory of the Earls of Richmond. He died in the second year of King John, leaving Avicia, his daughter and heir, an infant. In the sixteenth year of that reign she married Robert Marmion junior, who was the second son of the baron of that name, and had estates of his own at Winteringham and elsewhere in Lincolnshire. In right of his wife, says Dugdale, he had the manors of West Tanfield in Richmondshire, East Tanfield, Manfield, Carethorpe, Wathe, Binsow, Leming, Langton, Exilby, Melworby, and Burgh.b Avicia is named as the tenant of the bulk of these estates in Kirkby's Inquest taken (as to Richmondshire) in 15 Edw. I.0 Her possessions in the a This peculiar name, Jernegan or Jarnogon, as also the name Koald (which will presently be met with), are Breton appellatives. They occur frequently among the names of parties and witnesses to the charters of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, printed in the second volume of Dom. Lobineau's Histoire de Bretagne (for examples see pp. 170, 174, 199, 241). They were, it is needless to add, first introduced by the vassals of Alan of Brittany, lord of the honour of Richmond temp. Will. Conq. Roaldus, or Ruallus, appears to be the Latinized form of the Breton Rhiwallon. b Baronage, i. 377, citing an unidentified MS. in the Cotton Libraiy. c See Kirkby's Inquest, Surt. Soc, Preface, p. viii. and p. 148, for the reasons for assigning this survey to the fifteenth year of Edw. I. so far as Richmondshire is concerned. In the wapentake of Halykeld (p. 181) Avicia is recorded as mesne lady between Alan and Robert de Eskelby and the Earl of Richmond in respect of five carucates of land in Estkilby (Exelby) and Lemynge. In Karethorp she held, apparently in demesne, eleven carucates immediately of the earl. In East Tanfelde Robert de Clesely held six carucates of her, and she held other two, making up the entire vill, of John de Vescy, and he of the king. In West Tanfelde she held eleven carucates, the entire vill, of the earl. In Wath she held under Brian FitzAlan, who held of the earl, two carucates. In Melworby four carucates were held by the Abbat of Fountains under Avicia, who held of the earl. In the wapentake of Gilling East (p. 175) Avicia is mentioned as holding in Langton Parva four carucates of the earl. Manfield, situate in this wapentake, two miles south of Pierce Bridge, is not mentioned in the Inquest. Notes on Documents belonging to Sir John Lawson, JBart. 181 vill of Burgh as noted in this record were but small, she being only mentioned as immediate feudal superior of the Abbat of Jervaulx, who had one carucate of land there, from the time of King John; the rest of the vill (seven carucates in all) being held of Roaldus, son of Roaldus, the Constable of Richmond Castle, who held immediately of the earl. If we are to understand that Avicia was surviving and was the actual tenant when the Inquest was taken, she must have been a very old woman, for from the second year of King John (A.D. 1200), when her father died, to the 15th of Edw. I. (1286-7) is 86 or 87 years. She certainly survived until the 8th or 9th year of the king, as she was then summoned to show by what warrant she claimed free warren at Tanfield and Wathe ;a but according to the editor of the Inquest, for the Surtees Society (p. 182), she founded in the 10th of Edw. I. a chantry in Tanfield church, and died not long after. Her son and heir was William Marmion, who was succeeded by his son John, whose charter, the earliest of the documents under notice, may thus be abstracted:— Charter of John Marmyon. whereby he gives to William, son of William de Burgo, in fee, a toft and croft in the vill and territory of Burgh (de Burgo), which he has,—of the gift of the master of the Hospital of St. Giles of Brompton Bridge by the assent of the brethren and sisters of the hospital, and with his (John's) own consent, in exchange for one toft and croft which the Master, brethren and sisters had of the gift of the said William. To hold of the chief lords of the fee by, the services thereof due. Witnesses: Thomas de Magneby, Walter de Berden, John de Hunton John de Waldeby, Robert Longspy of Appeltone, Alexander de Burgo, William Laverd de Tonstal, and others. The seal to this deed is circular (in green wax), one inch in diameter. The subject is a plain shield, bearing: Vair, a fess. Legend, ^ s. lOpIS . PILII- WIL[LELMI] This deed must be dated (from the habendum) after 18 Edw. I., 1290, when the Statute of Quia JEmptores was passed forbidding subinfeodations, but it is probably not much later. In another charter of about the same date (which I do not abstract) Richard de Latun gives other lands in Burgh with the advowson of the Hospital of St. Binsow I cannot identify. In Hang wapentake (p. 162) Avicia was mesne between the Abbat of Jervaulx for one carucate only in Burgh, held of Koaldus de Richmond, who held of the earl. a Plac. de quo Warr. p. 201. 182 Notes on Documents belonging to Sir John Lawson, Bart. Giles above-mentioned to this William de Burgh. Alexander de Burgh again appears as a witness and as son of a Thomas de Burgh. The village of Brompton-upon-Swale lies about two miles and a half by road E.S.E. of Richmond. It is connected with the parish of Catterick by a stone bridge over the Swale, now known as Catterick Bridge, but which formerly took its name from Brompton. Judging from the direction of the great Roman road from York (via Aldborough or Boroughbridge), which here crosses the Swale and proceeds to Pierce Bridge, the bridge must always have occupied its present position or very nearly so. The existing bridge, as we know, was built in 1422, and was placed, according to the contract/ between a then existing timber bridge and an old stone bridge, not impossibly of Roman work. The Ordnance Map shows the position of the ancient Cataractonium sufficiently near to the bridge to have served as a tete de pont. The bridge at this spot, whether Roman or not, was known as the Bridge of Brompton in 1276; for in that year there is a presentment against the men of Catterick and Kirkby Fleetham (the next parish southwards) for a " purpresture " in appropriating a portion of the king's highway, clearly the old Roman road, a league long and eight feet wide between Kirkby and "the Bridge of Brompton."11 The Hospital of St. Giles, according to Clarkson,0 was founded, as is supposed, by Henry PitzRandolph, of Ravenswath, the progenitor of the FitzHugh family. It seems more likely that Jernegan FitzHugh (de Tanfield) or some other ancestor of Avicia Marmion was the founder, as the arms of Marmion are on the hospital seal appended to the deed of 1376, presently to be noticed.