Chapter V-VII the Ancient Lords of the Manor

HISTORICAL MIDDLETON . 45-• THE ANCIENT LORDS OF THE MANOR. .In Bainoti' " History of Lancashire," and in other accounts. only two incidents in the early 'history of Middleton are mentioned . FimUly, that in the early part of the reign of Henry III . Roger de Middleton and his son Alan (though elsewhere the canto author gives the date 1290 -to this transaction~, and, ,ccondly, it is noted that about the year 1322 the last Roger de \liddleton died, and his heiress, ~~acid or L1I• atildit, married Joint tie Burton. of Rydale, North York hire, and thus carried the estate= t•o that family . But there is no attempt at aug pedigree or history of these early families either in Baines or in any of the "Heralds' Visita- tions." and, in a search for matter to fill thief vacuity, many other members of these families anti their oumiectious, dating i nore than a cen- tury and a half further back than Baittes anti others have given account of, with some •.f their doings in those earlier days, have been brought to light . But before proceeding to complete this deficiency, in the course of which certain erroneous statements relating to the peronalties of these auccient lords -will receive incidental but important correction, it may be convenient to devote a little space to the names .by which they- were known, and which the, derived from their possessionm . The place-name Middleton itself may be rc- ferretl to Saxon times . The termination "tun" meant a settlement within an enclosure, and wa, the original form of the modern word- " town ." As to the derivation of the prefix "~fiddle," their have been various opinions . Some have regarded it as descriptive of the central position that the town occupies in the midst. of so many other towns with 'Saxon place-names . But this derivation has been doubted by others, who suggest that -tile name is more likely' to :have been derived from the hill on which the church stands, and that its original ' form was "Mid-hul-tun," the "ttin" adjacent to the "Mid-Hill ." This second idea of the origin of the name seems the most probable one . Many people know file hill on which the picturesque old church tower stands, overlooking tile high road ' -46 HISTORICAL MIDDLETON. into Yorkshire, which passes in front of he ancient inn, Old Boar's Head, and the original clearing may have been close by, or on the site of •the old manorial hall 'below . We may be sure that the " tun " would lie built as near to a copious .SUP]?] y of water as ".pcesible, and the river Irk, winch runs within two hundred yards of the hil .i . woul afford this necessary of rife and sanitation 'to the peopIe . -Other requirements, such as warmth and shelter with wood for fuel conveniently obtainable, aril immunity from the flooding of their rude - habitation,& in rainy seasons, these conditions would be most completely attained by fixing upon a site at the foot of the hill on which now stands the old church, and on that ,pot, we 'm'ay assume, . was founded the the Middleton of yore . Iii Watkin's "Roman Lancashire" is mentioned a supposed Roman road leading in a - straight line from Manchester through Black- ley, Middleton, Castleton, and Rochdale to Ltttieborough, and from Middleton to Castk'- ton the present highway and the aforesaid Roman road run close together where not n identicail lines. Another route between Man- ol:ester and Littleborough is suggested and traced on 'the map which appears in Mr. Har- trison'd " Archmological Survey of Lancashire," on the authority of Whitaker, who considers this route to be sufficiently indicated by the place-narges "Street Fold ." "Street Bridge," and " Street Gate ." But to pass through these places necessitates a great bend to the eastward, a deviation which it is quite certain would never have been approved by the road makers who surmounted the elevation at Affet- side ' adjoining the north-west of Middleton parish, or Blackstone edge, on the. Yorkshire borders, rather than ease the gradient by taking a Sweep round its base, without good and obvious reasons, either strategic or topograp'm csi, and none such being conceivable, while the route pointed by Watkin is in close conformity with the usual practice of the Romans in roil snaking, the latter may be accepted as the true route. The would form a convenient halting- place 'RomanRomart troops on the march from Manchester, and Castleton and Littleborough . on to Ilklev, and the still more frequent movements eastward=, in the communications main- tained some three or four hundred years fo* the building and upkeep of the equipment of tha "Great Wall," to repair the waste arising from deaths, and to give occasional changes CE station to the troops fiv movements between the Roman capital at York and the military Strong- hold at Chester. Small communities of Brito- HISTORICAL MIDDLETON . 47 ,[Celts would doubtless he encouraged to gather at such halting-piaces, under the supervision of .their conquerors, for the accumulation of com- missariat stores, &c ., and for the services of tho ."inhabitants in the multifarious kinds of lwbour incident to a military halt . Such I take to :have been the inception of ancient Middleton, ..and the long period of the Roman occupation would afford ample time for development . Turning now from the "tun" to its ancient -lords . I would observe that in attempting to deal with the hietorv of any farnily in the .Salford Hundred, a few words on the original .Norman chief barons and their subfeudatories and the relations existing between the two .classes, may be considered appropriate . When the conquest of England had betas -completed William the Bastard, his favour- ites and military followers had their expecta- tions gratified b~• the greater part of the land being parcelled out amonnat them, while he , dispossessed Saxons were dealt with in various ways, according to their social condition . The lower classes, the working bees, were not seri- . ously disturbed ; they were required for future use ; but those who were possessed of property worth appropriating were driven from their homes, to perish, or to survive to a scarcely better fate, as good or evil fortune determined . though, as we shall see further on, many .,f .the Saxon underlords managed, by propitiating the intruders, or in other ways, to remain ui- disturbed in or be restored to their holdings . The inhabitants of this district, or indeed of this portion of the kingdom, had taken no part in the battle of Hastiii a. The two great. chiefs of Northumberland . Edwin and Mortar, after their defeat at Fulford by Harold Har . drada and Tostig, rendered little, if any . aid to Harold at Stamford Bridge, and held them . selves entirely aloof from him at Senlac, although he had on a very recent occasion sacri- ficed the interests, and thereby incurred the deep resentment, of his brother Tostig, in order to do them justice . He had also married their sister Aldwyth in the further endeavour to con- ciliate them and attach them to his fortunes . but to no purpose. They never moved to help Harold, or to hinder William . until long after the latter had been crowned in London. It would be after William's suppression of the third and last great northern rebellion ; after his atrocious harrying of Northumber land, " When men bowed their necks for bread in the evil days" (an euphemism for selling themselves into slavery) ; after his great march from York . via Leeds, over the hills, and prob- ably through Middleton and Manchester, amid 'the snows of February, 1070 . and onward to 48 HISTORICAL MIDDLETON . the capture of Chester ; after his wasting of" Cheshire and the ad,~'oining counties of Derby and Stafford ; and after his return to London on the successful accomplishment and comple- tion of hese acts of brutality. that he found . 'himself 'at leisure to effect the first settlement of the lands of Lancashire . Prior to this . "The lands of Eadwine and Markere and 'Waitheof and Copsige lay in regions to which . William's arms hail not. yett reached, and to which, if lie insisted on such an extreme stretch of severity (a:s confiscation) it might never reach ." And again . " No soldiers of William hal as vet, set foot in Northumberland or northern .Mercia." " The whole of northern England was simply left as it was before ; the old rulers, -the old proprietors. wero undisturbed ; not a single castle had been built to keep Northumberland and northern Mercia in check." "It is not. necessary to suppose that every rood of ground was actually seized, and . either kept by the king, or granted out to his foreign followers . There is distinctt evidence tha6 the actual oceupiers of the soil, here as in other part .: of England, largely retained possession. Sonietimner4 . when a great estate was confiscated . the widow and children of the former owner obtained a grin: of -onto por tio:t of their heritage . In otlu •r cases the widow or daughter of the former owner was . constrained to give herself and her lands .to a foreign 'husband. In some cases Englishmen of high rank contrived to win William's per- sonal favour, and to koep their lands and even their offices. A crowd of smaller thegns anal of well-to-do cluirl . seem to have been left undisturbed ." As to the question whether Middleton WAS one of the places whose owners were left 'n .possession some light is thrown on this sub- : "Though . ject b y Mr. Harland, -a- ho says it is impossible to identify the localities or names of the twenty-one bercwicks mentioned in Domesdav as belonging, to the -hundred cf Salford in the time of King Edward the Con- fewer, then hold as Manors by as many Saxon thanes .

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