VCH Leicestershire Texts-in-progress Kirby Bellars Author: Alan Fox MANORS AND OTHER ESTATES Before the Norman Conquest, Leofric son of Leofwine had held the lordship of the settlement then known as Kirby.1 Although he died in 1057, this may have been Leofric, Earl of Mercia, whose lands in Shropshire and Warwickshire are still recorded under his name in Domesday Book.2 In the Domesday Book of 1086 Kirby and seven other ‘parishes’ were part of the overall Manor of Melton held by Geoffrey de Wirce.3 There were 24 carucates (c. 3000a.) in Kirby and Geoffrey held 17 of these directly, sub-letting the other seven to Ralph. 4 When Geoffrey de Wirce died his estate was divided between Robert de Mowbray and Nigel de Albini.5 Robert was imprisoned for many years for taking part in a revolt against William II, and ended his life as a monk. Nigel de Albini became the sole lord of Melton and its manor of eight attached ‘parishes’. He had two sons: the elder, Roger, took the surname Mowbray, as he was connected with that family on his 1 A. Williams and G.H. Martin (eds.), Domesday Book: A Complete Translation (London, 2002), 643, 644. 2 Ann Williams, ‘Leofric, earl of Mercia (d. 1057)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16470 accessed 30 Sept 2013]; New Minster Winchester, Charter S. 1420; R. R. Darlington, P. McGurk & J. Bray, The Chronicle of John of Worcester (1995,) 582-3. 3 Domesday, 643, 644. 4 Ibid. 5 D. Greenway (ed.), Charters of the Honour of Mowbray 1107-1191 (1972). 1 mother’s side, and the younger son, Hamo(n), took the surname Beler.6 The Mowbrays were to continue as overlords of Melton and most of the surrounding area through much of the rest of the medieval period, although there was an interruption between 1322 and 1327, when they forfeited their estates to the Despensers.7 A branch of the Belers became dominant at Kirby. The Nomina Villarum of 1316 lists five main landholders in Kirby: Robert Rampayn, Roger Beler, John of Houby, Roger Zouche and the prior of Kirk(e)by i.e. Monks Kirby in Warwickshire.8 The latter manor had also been held by Geoffrey in 1086.9 Some members of this list may have been tenants of others, for example, in 1323 Beler and the Prior of Monks Kirby both held messuages (houses with land) of Robert Rampayn, who held of the master of the leper hospital at Burton Lazars, who in turn held directly of the king, as the Mowbrays had forfeited their holdings at this time.10 Archaeological evidence suggests that there could have been have been two manors in the thirteenth century, as indicated by the presence of two moated sites close to the present village.11 The northern manor The moated site to the north of the church possibly stems from a gift by Nigel de Albini, the overlord of Kirby, to Robert D’Ayvill. Although documentary evidence for this gift has not been found, Nigel de Albini gave land in Egmanton (Notts.) to 6 British Library, Cotton Ms, Nero cxii. 7 TNA, SC 8/36/1763: petition, 1322-6?; Cal. Close 1327-1330, 52. 8 Feudal Aids, 5, 186. 9 Domesday, 668. 10 TNA, C143/152/9: Inquisition ad quod damnum, 1323. 11 Hartley, Medieval Earthwork, 30. 2 Robert D’Ayvill.12 In 1199, Juliana d’Ayvill, widow of (a later) Robert d’Ayvill,13 granted to three sisters and their husbands a half-share of five carucates ‘towards the shade’ (i.e. to the north) in Kirby for the service of 1/4 of a knight’s fee.14 She also granted a capital messuage (manor house) there as well as a half-share of the advowson of the parish church, keeping the other half-share of the land to herself as well as the other half-share of the advowson, and the mills and meadows. In 1242-3 Robert de Deyvill held 3/4 of a knight’s fee in Kirby of Roger de Mowbray, who was the superior lord and tenant-in-chief (i.e. he held directly of the king).15 The three couples in the above agreement were William de Verdun and his wife Alice, Philip de Wasteneis and his wife Amphilisa, and Simon de Sancto Mauro and his wife Yseuda. The sisters claimed the d’Ayvill tenancy had been held by their parents Robert and Dina de Morley. The holding had come to Dina from her father Robert, son of Hardulph of Osgathorpe. A charter, from shortly after 1199, shared out all the tenancies between the three couples and the Kirby holding was given to Philip and Amphilisa de Wasteneis.16 The Sancto Mauro family reappears in Kirby in 1228 when Almaric de St Amando was granted a holding of William de Ovill (D’Ayvill) that had escheated.17 This capital messuage (manor house) was almost certainly located within the square moated site immediately north of the churchyard. Modern Ordnance Survey maps name this as the location of Kirby Priory,18 but this site does not accord with 14th 12 J. Throsby, Thoroton’s History of Nottinghamshire: Republished with Large Additions by John Throsby, 3 (1796), 216-19. 13 Cur. Reg. IX, 291. 14 TNA, CP 25/1/121/2-3: feet of fines, 1 John 1199. 15 Book of Fees, II, 291. 16 BL, Add. Ch. 5235; I.H. Jeayes, Descriptive Catalogue of Derbyshire Charters (1906), 215. 17 Cal. Chart. 1226-57, 67. 18 OS map 1:25000, sheet 246 (2000 edn). 3 century descriptions of the location of the collegiate chapel (see below). In 1302, William de Kirby died seised of a messuage, 2.5 virgates and rents held of John de Wasteneys for 1/4 of a knight’s fee.19 He had inherited this tenancy in 1302, on the death of his brother John of Kirby.20 As both John and his brother William of Kirby died without issue their estate came to Sir Gilbert of Houby (Hoby), the husband of their sister Maud.21 Their son John of Houby was one of the five landholders named in the Nomina Villarum of 1316. By 1319, this land appears to have come into the hands of Roger Beler, as it was given by him that year to his chantry foundation to create a collegiate chapel. The donations included the former capital messuage (manor house) and adjacent croft, which had been held by John of Houby, in the area ‘called Bromhull’ on the north side of the church. 22 This field is called Brummels today.23 Another grant to the chapel from Beler was the croft called Wasteneyscroft, perhaps once held by the de Wasteneis family, but which Beler said in 1319 ‘I had of the gift and feoffment of John of Houby’, which lay immediately on the south side of the church yard.24 Throughout the rest of the fourteenth century the Houby family tried to recover their holdings from the Beler family but without success.25 19 Cal. Inq. p.m. IV, 54. 20 W. Stubbs, Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum (2nd edn, 1897), 67. 21 Cal. Inq. p.m. IV, 54. 22 LA, Linc. Reg. III, 1319, 345; A. Hamilton Thompson, ‘Chapel of St Peter at Kirby upon Wreake’, Trans. LAHS 16 (1929-31), 166. 23 ROLLR, FNS, Frisby and Kirby Women’s Institute Field-name survey 1974. 24 LA, Linc. Reg. III, 1319, 345; Hamilton Thompson, ‘Chapel’, 166-7. 25 Cal. Close 1354-60, 75. 4 Moated site north of church: the capital messuage of John of Kirby in the 13th century The lordship of Kirby was soon after 1204 probably in the possession of the Rampaine family.26 This family donated several parcels of land to religious foundations, especially the Leper Hospital at Burton Lazars.27 They also gave, some time after 1216, seven bovates and a capital messuage to the Prior of Monks Kirby in Warwickshire.28 Both the Prior and Robert Rampayn are in the list of landholders in 1316.29 The southern manor 26 J. Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, II, (1795, reprinted 1971), 222. 27 D. Greenaway, Charters of the Honour of Mowbray, xxxiv, n. 1; British Library, Cotton Ms, Nero cxii, f.45. 28 TNA, C143/152/9: Inq. ad quod damnum, 1323. 29 Feudal Aids, 5, 186. 5 In 1318 the prior of Monks Kirby, one of Beler’s overlords, declared that Beler held Kirby (Bellars) manor and there was further confirmation in 1324.30 From this time there appears to have been only one manor in the parish.31 Beler had been involved with the rebellion of Thomas Earl of Lancaster’s party against King Edward II, but in 1318 he managed to obtain pardons for the Earl and his co-conspirators, and then went over to the king’s side.32 He was awarded Framland Hundred in November 1318.33 He also became a justice, a baron of the national exchequer in 1322 and acting treasurer in 1325, and used his position to confiscate the lands of other rebels. He became a favourite of the Despensers who deposed the Mowbrays for a time.34 It seems likely that he used his powerful position to become the sole lord of Kirby, his main residence. Roger Beler would not have been popular with many of his former co-conspirators, or perhaps with other landholders in Kirby. In 1326 he was murdered at Brooksby or near Rearsby by the notorious gang of Eustace de Folville of Ashby Folville,35 while on his way from Kirby to Leicester with a retinue of fifty in order to dine with Henry, earl of Leicester.36 It is not clear who struck the fatal blow, but Eustace de Folville and members of the Zouche family of Lubbesthorpe were implicated.37 Roger Zouche is the name of one of the five lords of Kirby in the 1316 return.38 Orders went out for 30 TNA, C143/134/14: Inq.