FIELD SYSTEMS AND PLACE NAMES
OF OLD KNOTTINGLEY
SOME FACTS AND THEORIES
by TERRY SPENCER B.A.(Hons), Ph D.
INTRODUCTION :
BEGINNINGS : DOMESDAY : PORT OF
KNOTTINGLEY :
MANORIAL RE-ORGANISATION :
GAZETTEER
DOMESDAY, KNOTTINGLEY:
The entry in the Domesday Book refers to the manorial vill as
Notingeleia or Notingelai which prior to the Norman Conquest twenty
years earlier, was under the lordship of an influential Saxon, Barthr,
who also held several neighbouring manors. (11) At the time of the
survey the vill contained four carucates of taxable land valued at £4.
A carucate was the amount of land a yoke of eight oxen was capable of
ploughing within the space of a single year. The carucate, also known as
a ploughland, had gradually replaced the hide as the standard unit of
land measurement throughout Yorkshire during the eleventh century and
became the unit of tax assessment in the post Conquest period. The
caracute was, however, of variable acreage according to the system of
tillage and could be as little as 80 or as large as 144 acres. (12)
Nevertheless, a formula of 10 acres per caracute appears to have been
the norm and on this basis the total area of arable land at Knottingley
may be calculated as 320 acres with half that amount in use at any given
season and an equal area lying uncultivated or fallow. (13) The acreage
is confirmed by the Domesday reference to four ploughs in the pre
Conquest period. However, a considerable decline had occurred in the
taxable value of the land during the two decades following the Conquest
and although it has been suggested that the vill may have been spared
the worst excesses of the harrowing of the North in 1070, the Domesday
Survey reveals that the monetary value of the land had fallen from four
pounds in the time of King Edward the Confessor to forty shillings. (14)
Not all the manorial land was entered into the Domesday Book, merely that
which was profitable and therefore suitable for payment of tax. In
addition to the areas of arable, woodland, pasture and meadowland which
were recorded, giving a total of 480 acres, were further tracts of
wasteland and common, making the vill about 1,481 acres in extent. (15)
By 1086 the lordship of the honour of Pontefract had been granted to
Ilbert de Lacy, a liegeman of William the Conquerer, who as the tenant
in chief had replaced Barthr by one Rannulf Grammaticus as the
undertenant of the manor of Knottingley. (16) At the time of the Survey
the lord of the manor held a plough and a half with a further plough and
a half being owned collectively by the two bordars resident within the
manor. As a result the total area of cultivable land had reduced to 240
acres. (17)
Of the size of the local population the Survey gives little indication,
listing only the two bordars or smallholders who held land of the
manorial lord and undertook services in lieu of their holdings, and six
villains, virtual slaves, being mere chattels. On this basis, Forrest
adjudges that at Notingeleia there were only nine families resident.
However, not every member of the community held land in the common
fields, the allotment of which was dependant upon ownership of the
component part of an ox-gang. There was often a residual element of the
manorial population which was unrecorded in Domesday, being restricted
to their crofts and customary rights of grazing, pannage, turbary, etc.,
for subsistence. (18)
Terry Spencer
INTRODUCTION :
BEGINNINGS : DOMESDAY : PORT OF
KNOTTINGLEY :
MANORIAL RE-ORGANISATION :
GAZETTEER
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