Holford Matthew, Stringer Keith. Border Liberties and Loyalties in North-East England, 1200-1400 (ENG)
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BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES
116
the crown automatically controlled the lordship when the Cli ord heirs
were under- age.
116
e Balliol forfeiture occurred in 1296, while the liberty
was under Bishop Bek’s control, and Bek was able to seize the estates.
117
But in 1307 the lordship was con scated by Edward I and granted to Guy
Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. It, too, came to be held of the crown, and
although successive bishops fought to regain superiority over Hartness and
Barnard Castle they had no more than passing or nominal success. e
crown took control of both estates during minorities, when its o cers were
a real force within them.
118
Otherwise the pattern of lordship and service
was determined principally by the changing interests and fortunes of the
Cli ord and Beauchamp families respectively.
e Beauchamps are the more amply documented. In the early four-
teenth century, when northern England was central to national concerns,
Barnard Castle provided a useful base for Earl Guy (d. 1315), who promised
to assert active and vigorous lordship in the area. When Bishop Kellawe
wrote to the earl in November 1312, asking him to encourage the inhab-
itants of the wapentake of Sadberge to contribute to the truce- money
recently paid to King Robert I, he clearly took it for granted that Guy had
real power there.
119
A er Guy’s death, the family’s authority was disrupted
during the long minority of omas Beauchamp between 1315 and 1329.
In the 1330s, however, interest in consolidating the family’s holdings in the
area resumed: and it was probably then that attempts were made to acquire
the manor of Streatlam on Earl omas’s behalf.
120
But as the concerns of
the earls of Warwick shi ed away from the North, so does their involve-
ment in the locality seem to have diminished. By the early eenth century
the demesne lands at Barnard Castle had been farmed out, and some of
the castle defences abandoned. Perhaps it was only when Richard, duke of
Gloucester, acquired the lordship in the 1470s that the proprietary family
again become a major force in local society.
121
Following Guy of Warwick’s death, then, Beauchamp lordship in the
area was disrupted and, a er a brief recovery, became increasingly distant.
In consequence Barnard Castle came more rmly under the in uence of
116
D. Austin, ‘Fieldwork and excavation at Hart, Co. Durham, 1965–75’, AA, 5th ser., 4
(1976), pp. 72–8.
117
For the administration of the lordship under Bek, see DCM, Loc.XXI.18, m. 5 (fifteenth-
century notes from Bek’s register); RPD, ii, p. 800; CIMisc, ii, no. 240.
118
CIPM, v, no. 561; vi, nos. 247, 611; CIMisc, ii, no. 240; Northern Pets, nos. 165–6.
119
RPD, i, p. 191.
120
DCL, MS Raine 52, p. 178; Surtees, IV, i, p. 101.
121
D. Austin, ‘Barnard Castle, Co. Durham, first interim report: excavations in the town
ward, 1974–6’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 132 (1979), p. 55; A. J.
Pollard, The Worlds of Richard III (Stroud, 2001), Chapter 9.
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117
bishop and crown; and the shi is exempli ed by the changing a liations
of the Surtees family. Ralph Surtees, as has been noted, was the steward of
the Balliols in the mid- thirteenth century; and the Surtees arms derived
from those of the Balliols. But in the fourteenth century the family was
prominent among the liberty’s leading administrators. omas Surtees
(d. c. 1345) was steward from around 1330 to 1343; his son omas (d.
1378) was a justice and commissioner in the liberty towards the end of his
life. He was also sheri and knight of the shire for Northumberland, and
his father had acted with some frequency as a royal commissioner in that
county. Both men continued to reference the Balliols in their arms;
122
but
royal administration and service to the bishops of Durham came to replace
service to the lords of Barnard Castle.
Outside the wapentake of Sadberge, in the core of the liberty of Durham,
episcopal lordship was longer established and faced less competition.
Nevertheless, to concentrate in the rst instance on the thirteenth century,
it seems clear that the personal lordship of the bishops then meant little to
most of the knightly families of the liberty. Indeed, in this century, only a
few knights were involved in the liberty’s administration, and these were
more or less the only local men who had close associations with successive
bishops.
A er all, opportunities in the liberty’s administration were in many
ways limited.
123
Appointment to o ce was at the bishop’s pleasure, and
there seems to have been little pressure for the annual, or even regular,
replacement of o cers. Coroners and foresters were o en appointed for
life; while stewards and sheri s might serve for considerable periods: John
Malton was probably sheri , and Guichard Charon steward, from 1274 to
1283. As a result there were relatively few openings in local administration,
and opportunities for laymen were also curtailed by the important role
played by clergymen in local governance. Clerics supplied almost all the
liberty’s thirteenth- century treasurers and chancellors, as well as most of
the constables of Durham castle; and many stewards were ecclesiastics. For
example, John Romsey, steward under bishops Poore and Farnham, and
still a man of importance in episcopal circles under Bishop Kirkham, was
rector of Easington; John Bell, steward in 1257, was rector of Sprotbrough
(Yorkshire); Bek’s stewards, William Boston and Peter Mauley, were both
senior clergymen.
124
Many churchmen were also appointed justices in the
122
DURH 3/30, m. 9–9d; CPR 1330–4, pp. 202, 528; 1340–3, pp. 151, 432. For Surtees arms,
see G&B, nos. 2346–8.
123
The following analysis is based on ‘Office- holders’, i, pp. 99–100, 102–3.
124
For Bell, see Acta 1241–83, p. xlvi.
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BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES
118
bishopric. Other o ces, as has been seen, were held by men from outside
the liberty, who are best described as professional administrators, retained
by bishops or attracted by the prospects of episcopal service. Finally, as has
also been seen, a signi cant proportion of other local o ce was held by lay
incomers who belonged to the bishops’ domus.
For all these reasons, the involvement of local laymen in the administra-
tion of the thirteenth- century liberty was relatively minimal. Admittedly
such involvement is not always easy to assess: several o cers, both lay and
clerical, are obscure gures. Silvester Darlington (sheri in the 1240s) and
Lawrence Lintz (sheri in c. 1271–4) were, to judge from their names, local
men; but the backgrounds of many other sheri s are a total mystery.
Again,
the scarcity of thirteenth- century records means that we are perhaps liable
to underestimate the administrative roles of local men: in 1253, for instance,
John and Gilbert III Hansard, who are not otherwise recorded in the liber-
ty’s administration, seem to have been involved in a orcing a session of the
bishop’s court.
125
Nevertheless the available evidence presents a reasonably
coherent picture, especially for the upper echelons of the liberty’s govern-
ance, and it is one in which only a small number of local laymen were
appointed to greater o ces. In the 1250s and 1260s there was John Gilet
of Egglescli e, steward, sheri and justice; in the 1260s there was Richard
Chancellor of Bra erton, steward and justice.
126
ese were the only stew-
ards, in the second half of the thirteenth century, whose interests are known
to have centred on the liberty; and it is likely that both men could boast some
administrative expertise: Chancellor also served as the steward of Durham
Priory; while Gilet rst comes to light as an attorney in 1236, and acted as
baili under a royal keeper of the liberty in 1240. ey were sometimes
joined as liberty justices by Marmaduke Fitzgeo rey, omas Herrington
and Robert Burnigill (if indeed the last was a layman).
127
Herrington, or
perhaps a father of the same name, was constable of Norham in 1261, and
Fitzgeo rey’s son, John Fitzmarmaduke, was constable of Norham in 1275.
Otherwise, however, the knightly families of the liberty played little role in
its administration: the great majority of ‘the knights of the liberty’ in about
1300, men like Hugh Burdon, Jordan Dalden, Richard Harpin, Gilbert
Heworth, Walter Washington and Richard Yeland, held no major o ce;
125
BL, MS Stowe 930, f. 81v.
126
Chancellor is apparently to be identified with the ‘Sir Richard Chancellor dwelling at
Brafferton’ named in the list of Durham knights: see Holford, ‘“Knights of Durham”’,
p. 214.
127
Hoskins, on uncertain authority, describes Burnigill as Stichill’s chaplain (Acta 1241–83,
p. l). He was styled clerk in 1258 (DCM, 1.3.Spec.22); and he, or perhaps a namesake, was
married by 1260: Greenwell Deeds, nos. 38, 40.
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119
nor had their ancestors. Indeed, Robert Neville (d. 1282), who represented
one of the liberty’s most powerful families, occurs only once as a justice,
during the eyre of 1279–80.
128
It thus seems likely that the key factors deter-
mining appointments in the thirteenth- century liberty’s administration
were personal connections with successive bishops, and administrative and
legal experience, rather than landed status.
Service to the bishops in informal capacities is naturally much harder to
be certain about; but witness- lists to episcopal charters do not suggest close
links between the thirteenth- century bishops and the majority of greater
local families. A small number of knightly witnesses appear very frequently,
a few attest persistently but infrequently, and most occur only occasion-
ally. For example, in Bishop Stichill’s charters of the 1260s and early 1270s
we can readily identify the stewards Richard Chancellor and Geo rey
Russell, together with the justices Marmaduke Fitzgeo rey and omas
Herrington, as particularly frequent witnesses. Similarly, of thirty- two wit-
nessed charters from Lisle’s episcopate (1274–83), almost all were attested
by his steward Guichard Charon; the other regular lay witnesses were John
Fitzmarmaduke and omas Herrington. is suggests that only a few local
families, with other links to episcopal service and administration, enjoyed
close associations with the thirteenth- century bishops. omas Herrington
and Marmaduke Fitzgeo rey were also among the relatively few local
knights in receipt of episcopal grants in the thirteenth century.
129
Our
knowledge of patronage is, as always, incomplete: nevertheless the absence
of most of the liberty’s greater gentry from the list of the bishops’ known
bene ciaries is striking.
ese gentry were nevertheless ‘the bishop’s knights’, and he was still
their lord.
130
e authority of episcopal lordship was undoubtedly rec-
ognised by local knights. It was, for example, in Bishop Stichill’s court at
Durham that William Layton rati ed an exchange of land with Durham
Priory in 1268. at the lands to be exchanged were of equal value was to
be ensured by a committee of seven arbitrators: on William’s part were
Alexander Biddick, Robert Burnigill and the clerk John Plessy. e superior
arbitrator agreed by both sides was omas Herrington.
131
Layton later
128
Cf. Offler, North of the Tees, Chapter 13, pp. 14–15. See GEC, ix, pp. 495–6, for the offices
in Yorkshire and Northumberland to which Neville was appointed by the crown.
129
Acta 1241–83, passim, with the following charters or references to grants omitted from
that volume: H. E. Bell, ‘Calendar of deeds given to the Society by Lord Ravensworth’,
AA, 4th ser., 16 (1939), no. 11; DCM, Misc. Ch. 1816; Lancashire Record Office, DDTO
E 4/25; NYCRO, ZBO MG/1–3; RPD, ii, p. 1197.
130
Cf. Acta 1241–83, no. 92: Bishop Kirkham’s charter of 1259 to Gilbert III Hansard, ‘dilec-
tus et fidelis miles noster’.
131
FPD, pp. 188–90. For a similar example, see DCM, SHD 3/7.
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BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES
120
witnessed Bishop Lisle’s charters, but does not seem to have been closely
associated with Stichill; here, nevertheless, Layton was represented by men
prominent in Stichill’s administration. Biddick was sheri , and Burnigill
may well have been constable of Durham, while Herrington, as noted
above, was a close episcopal associate. e bishop’s o cers gave security
to the transaction, as they may also have done when, at other times, they
witnessed private local charters. Similarly, on several occasions, the threat
of distraint by episcopal o cers o ered security for property transactions
in the liberty; and from Beaumont’s episcopate (1317–33), and probably
before, a number of the liberty’s inhabitants had their debts enrolled on
the bishop’s chancery rolls, empowering the liberty’s o cers to distrain
in case of default.
132
ere can be little doubt that throughout the period
local society normally trusted in, and had frequent recourse to, the coercive
powers of the liberty’s o cers. Nonetheless this was not the personal lord-
ship of the bishops themselves. In the twel h century, it is possible that the
bishops had enjoyed closer relations with their knights.
133
In the liberty of
Ely, any close personal association between the bishop and his knights had
largely waned by the thirteenth century, as administrators were recruited
from other, more professional sources, and as the honour court gave way to
the liberty court.
134
Much the same may have happened at Durham.
In many ways the situation in the fourteenth century was similar.
135
Clergy
continued to supply many of the liberty’s chancellors, treasurers and even
stewards. Two of Beaumont’s stewards, John Lisle and Robert Brompton,
were ecclesiastics; so was omas Haswell under Bury; so, later in the four-
teenth century, were William Westley, Alan Shitlington, Hugh Westwick
and William Bassingham under Bishop Hat eld. As in the thirteenth
century, many o cers, including Adam Bowes and John Meneville, were
administrators or men of law with origins outside the liberty. Others were
drawn from the episcopal household: the sheri s Nicholas Sutton (1320,
1323) and John Hanby (1327), both Yorkshiremen, were probably familiars
of Bishop Beaumont. And several o cials with roots in the liberty were
episcopal servants, or semi- professional administrators, of comparatively
low status. Personal service or administrative talent probably explains the
appointment of some relatively minor men as sheri , including John Birtley
132
RPD, iv, p. 358; BL, Additional Ch. 66337; NCS, ZSW/5/1; DCM, 1.5.Spec.45; DURH
3/29, passim; and cf. DCRO, D/Sa/D360; above, Chapter 2, p. 95, n. 195. Private deeds
witnessed by the liberty’s stewards, sheriffs and justices are too numerous to list.
133
Cf. Scammell, Puiset, pp. 222–6.
134
E. Miller, The Abbey and Bishopric of Ely (Cambridge, 1951), pp. 194–8.
135
Cf. ‘Office- holders’, i, pp. 99–100, 103.
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(c. 1311), Richard Stanley (1316), and William Walworth, a burgess of
Darlington, who was sheri for much of Beaumont’s episcopate (1317–33).
So it was that the involvement of the liberty’s gentry in local government
remained pretty slight. Remarkably, only one of the liberty’s sheri s in the
rst half of the fourteenth century was a knight: John Creppings, whose
interests lay mostly outside the liberty, and who was appointed during a dif-
cult and untypical period in Bishop Bek’s administration.
136
Furthermore,
although there were undoubtedly some commissions of array in the early
fourteenth century, the liberty is not likely to have seen an ‘explosion of
commissions’ comparable with that seen elsewhere in the kingdom as a
result of the growing military- scal demands of the crown.
137
Nor was there
any comparable explosion of judicial commissions. Commissions of oyer
and terminer were issued to small groups of justices, buttressed in excep-
tionally important cases by local magnates such as Ralph Neville or the prior
of Durham; but, as was also the case in the eenth century, ‘gentry partici-
pation was slight’.
138
ere was thus a real contrast between the liberty and
other parts of England, where it was usual for a high proportion of the gentry
to be involved in local administration. ese ‘county gentry’, it has been
argued, emerged as a class united by their role in royal service, with identi-
ties increasingly based on the shire, the arena in which their royal service
usually took place.
139
Nothing similar is likely to have happened in Durham;
and many men focused their ambitions instead on local knights and mag-
nates. Simon Esh, for example, proclaimed through the heraldry of his seal
his desire for advancement through neighbouring families: Cli ord, Harpin
and probably Allenshields. John Allenshields was a retainer of Robert Hilton
of Hilton (d. c. 1310) and of his grandson Robert. Some of the liberty’s gentry
even sought o ce beyond the bishopric: John Farnacres was a justice in
Tynemouthshire, for example, while John Allenshields was under- escheator
of Northumberland around 1311.
140
e lack of openings in the liberty’s
government probably made service with other lords, o en outside the
liberty, particularly attractive, although it was only in the last quarter of the
fourteenth century that men with signi cant interests in the liberty, notably
omas Surtees (d. 1378), Bertram Monboucher (d. 1388) and Ralph Eure
(d. 1422), played major roles in the administration of Northumberland.
136
Fraser, ‘Officers’, p. 30; C. Moor, Knights of Edward I (Harleian Society, 1919–32), i, p.
247.
137
P. Coss, The Origins of the English Gentry (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 165–201. RPD, iv, pp.
512–13, refers to the bishop’s array of 500 footmen from the liberty in 1314.
138
Pollard, North- Eastern England, p. 163.
139
Coss, Origins of the English Gentry, passim.
140
Holford, ‘Esh family’, pp. 231–2; Greenwell Deeds, no. 273; below, Chapter 5, p. 214;
Northumb. Pets, no. 20.
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122
at said, however, the patronage and opportunities in the bishop’s gi
remained considerable, and some of the liberty’s knightly families did play
a greater part in the bishopric’s government from around the beginning
of the fourteenth century. John Fitzmarmaduke may have acted in some
o cial capacity in the liberty in the 1290s, perhaps as the collector of an aid
or subsidy: with two other men, one of whom was Bek’s receiver, he was
said to owe the bishop £800.
141
John’s son, Richard Fitzmarmaduke, was
steward of the liberty under Bishop Kellawe. In the 1290s Robert Hilton
may have been constable of Durham castle, in one of the rare periods when
this o ce was not held by a clerk; and Robert’s grandson and namesake was
a keeper of the peace in 1312. Ralph Fitzwilliam was a justice of the liberty
under Bek, who also appointed him constable of Barnard Castle; he like-
wise served under Kellawe as a keeper of the peace.
142
omas Surtees (d. c.
1345) was steward under Beaumont and Bury; and from Bury’s episcopate
onwards, an increasing number of the liberty’s sheri s and justices were
local gentry: men like Roger Esh (justice c. 1334–45), Simon Esh (sheri
1334–9 and 1342–3, and justice c. 1336–41); Roger Blakiston (justice from
c. 1343) and William Blakiston (sheri 1345); and the sheri s Robert Bowes
(1350–5), William Claxton (1358–63) and William Meneville (1364–70).
Many of these changes are to be explained by war. e defence of the
bishopric, a er the outbreak of Anglo- Scottish hostilities in 1296, required
the expertise and authority of the liberty’s knights; and force and authority
were also necessary to contain the problems of law and order that arose in
the early fourteenth century, largely through war. As bishops increasingly
required the services of local men to serve under them in war, or for the
protection and governance of the liberty, their interrelationships inevitably
became both closer and more formalised. us not only were members of
the liberty’s greater families appointed to more posts in local administra-
tion, but there is increasing evidence of their being retained. ey also
appear more frequently as witnesses to episcopal charters, and they increas-
ingly become the recipients of episcopal largesse and patronage.
e pace and extent of these developments are not easy to gauge. But
although John Fitzmarmaduke had acted as constable of Norham castle
under Bishop Lisle (1274–83), his relationship with Bek does seem to have
been di erent. It is not certain that John, styled ‘bishop’s bachelor’ in a
charter he received from Bek, was retained by that bishop; but the grant
itself is an indication of changing relationships. In the thirteenth century, as
141
Bek Recs, no. 39.
142
Fraser, ‘Officers’, pp. 27–8; RPD, i, pp. 180–1; ii, pp. 1181–2; DCM, Loc.VII.45, no. 27;
Loc.XXI.18, m. 5; DCRO, D/St/D13/1/2, pp. 36–7.
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123
we have seen, few knightly families secured important grants. Marmaduke
Fitzgeo rey received from Bishop Kirkham only licence to make a park.
John Fitzmarmaduke, however, obtained from Bek the manor of Wheatley,
a property forfeited by a Scottish landholder who had refused allegiance to
Edward I, and also forfeited land in Norhamshire.
143
In the event, because
of the vicissitudes o en a ecting forfeited land, neither grant stood; but
there was nevertheless a signi cant break here with thirteenth- century
traditions.
Kellawe’s episcopate (1311–16), when the Scottish wars posed a more
immediate threat to the security of the liberty, saw a signi cant increase in
the formal bonds between bishop and local knights, even if the chronicler
at Durham Priory was probably exaggerating when he said that the bishop
retained ‘almost all the knights and serjeants- at- arms of the bishopric’.
144
Richard Fitzmarmaduke was retained, at a fee of twenty marks p.a., to
counsel the bishop in all matters and to help to keep the peace in the liberty.
Robert Neville was retained on similar terms for £10, and Ralph Fitzwilliam
contracted to defend the liberty and uphold the peace for an annual fee
of £100 for himself and two bachelors.
145
Fitzmarmaduke, Neville and
Fitzwilliam were all frequent witnesses to Kellawe’s charters; alongside
them were other prominent knights of the liberty, such as Jordan Dalden,
Robert Hilton, Walter Washington and omas Whitworth, who were
apparently all regular counsellors of the bishop.
146
It seems that Kellawe’s successors retained less widely, but Ralph
Neville (d. 1367) received an annuity of £20 from Bishop Beaumont, who
also granted to him the manor of Evenwood for life.
147
Under Hat eld,
similarly, Neville’s son John (d. 1388) was retained for a fee of £20 p.a.
148
Perhaps surprisingly, however, the bishops of Durham did not become
leading retainers of men in the liberty or in the North- East more widely.
149
Hat eld’s fee could not compete with the £100 John Neville received from
John of Gaunt;
150
and, more generally, the scale of episcopal retaining for
143
Acta 1241–83, no. 100; Bek Recs, no. 55 (the suggested date is confirmed by the notes from
Bek’s lost register in DCM, Loc.XXI.18, m. 5); Northumb. Pets, no. 19. Fitzmarmaduke
was also granted free warren: Bell, ‘Calendar of deeds’, no. 19. For his breach with the
bishop in 1300–1, see below, Chapter 4, p. 154.
144
Scriptores Tres, p. 94
145
RPD, ii, pp. 1169–70, 1181–2.
146
See especially ibid., pp. 1125–1312.
147
E 326/6095 (which may suggest that Beaumont retained Neville for life); DCM, Reg. II, f.
102r.
148
DURH 3/31, m. 2. Surtees, ii, p. 272, wrongly attributes this retainer to Bishop Bury.
149
Much the same was true in the fifteenth century: Pollard, North- Eastern England, p.
123.
150
Walker, Lancastrian Affinity, p. 276.
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most of the fourteenth century seems to have been limited. e absence of
accounts makes certainty impossible; but a receiver- general’s account of
1385–6 lists only eight men retained by Bishop Fordham ‘for counsel’ or ‘in
peace and war’.
151
is could hardly compare with the twelve knights and
twenty- four esquires retained by omas Berkeley (d. 1361), or the seven
knights and forty esquires in the fee of the earl of Devon in about 1385.
152
e changing relationships between magnates and knights and the bishops
in the fourteenth century should not, therefore, be exaggerated, and cer-
tainly did not compare with the changes that occurred in the same period
between magnates and the crown, or gentry and the crown.
153
Episcopal
favour is unlikely to have been worth feuding over. e famous dispute
between Richard Fitzmarmaduke and Robert Neville concerning ‘which of
the two was to be the greater lord’ occurred in the context not of episcopal
patronage, but of the substantial sums paid for the protection of the liberty
against the Scots during the vacancy of 1317–18.
154
e greatest opportunities resulting from war lay outside the liberty, not
within it. It was crown service that was largely responsible, for example, for
the increasing importance in the liberty of the Washingtons of Washington.
For most of the thirteenth century they had been of no more than local
prominence, on the margins of knighthood.
155
But in about 1290 Walter III
Washington began to witness Bek’s charters with some frequency, and he
was styled knight from around 1299. His descendants were also knighted,
and witnessed charters of bishops Kellawe, Beaumont and Bury.
156
Walter
III had served in Scotland under Bek in 1296; his son William was a king’s
esquire or yeoman in 1314, and served in Scotland in 1315–16, and Walter
himself was on campaign there in 1317. William was again on royal service
151
Hatfield Survey, p. 267. They were John Conyers, Gilbert Elvet, William Lambard, John
Neville (retained for counsel); William Blakiston, William Bowes, Walter Hawick,
William Washington (retained in peace and war). The same men, with the exception of
Hawick, and without the distinction between ‘counsel’ and ‘peace and war’, were feed in
c. 1384–5: DURH 20/114/8.
152
N. Saul, Knights and Esquires: The Gloucestershire Gentry in the Fourteenth Century
(Oxford, 1981), p. 69.
153
Cf. C. Given- Wilson, The English Nobility in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1987), pp.
153–9, and his ‘The king and the gentry in fourteenth- century England’, TRHS, 5th ser.,
37 (1987), pp. 87–102.
154
Offler, North of the Tees, Chapter 14. The quotation is from Thomas Gray, Scalacronica
1272–1363, ed. A. King (SS, 2005), pp. 78–9.
155
The family’s early history is best traced by W. P. Hedley and G. Washington, ‘The early
Washingtons of Washington’, TCWAAS, new ser., 64 (1964), pp. 108–23. For its sub- knightly
status, cf. Acta 1241–83, no. 119; Bell, ‘Calendar of deeds’, nos. 8, 22–3; FPD, p. 116.
156
See inter alia Bell, ‘Calendar of deeds’, no. 26; NDD, p. 15; Greenwell Deeds, nos. 115,
122, 124, 131, 197; DCM, Reg. II, ff. 76v, 102v–3r; Haswell Deeds 63–4; RPD, ii, pp. 1128,
1130, 1133, etc.; iii, pp. 284–6.
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DURHAM: PATRONAGE, SERVICE AND GOOD LORDSHIP
125
in Scotland in 1327, 1335, 1336 and 1337, on the last occasion leading
100 hobelars from the liberty to relieve the siege of Edinburgh castle.
157
Nor were the Washingtons alone in advancing their status in the liberty
through service to the crown. In the thirteenth century the Daldens of
Dawdon cannot be traced in close association with episcopal households,
but Jordan Dalden (d. 1349) witnessed several charters of bishops Kellawe,
Beaumont and Bury.
158
His family had risen in stature since the beginning
of the fourteenth century, when Jordan’s father had royal letters of protec-
tion for service in Scotland in 1301, as Jordan himself did in 1303. Jordan
is again documented in Scotland in 1318; in 1319 he was in the retinue
of Earl Robert Umfraville, warden of the march of Northumberland.
159
And another example is o ered by Robert Binchester of Binchester and
Hunwick, who rose partly through military service to the crown to become
one of the more prominent knights of the liberty under bishops Beaumont
and Bury.
160
For many of the liberty’s magnates and knights, then, episcopal lordship
was becoming both more and less important in the fourteenth century. It
must be emphasised that the surviving evidence makes it di cult to avoid
underestimating contacts between bishops and local lay society. It is as well
to bear in mind the claims of Bury’s biographer that he wished to avoid
being pestered by ‘magnates’, and that he brought up in his household the
children of the liberty’s noble families. A memorandum of 1344 suggests
that the bishop’s council was dominated by members of the liberty’s admin-
istration; but we cannot be sure that this is a representative picture. Bury
referred to Ralph Neville as his ‘very dear friend’, and it is likely that Neville
was among the bishop’s regular advisers; he was later to be described as a
councillor of Bishop Hat eld.
161
Nor should we underestimate the extent
of the bishop’s continuing power and authority in the liberty he gov-
erned, which meant that his lordship in other senses was never negligible.
Nevertheless that authority was lessened in the fourteenth century, as
157
CCW 1244–1326, p. 70; CDS, v, nos. 2112, 3095, 3117; CPR 1327–30, p. 10; E 101/15/6,
m. 1; 101/19/36, m. 3; 101/20/17, mm. 4, 5, 9; BL, MS Cotton Nero C.VIII, f. 262v.
158
E 210/11277; DCM, Reg. II, ff. 89v, 102v–3r; 4.3.Pont.11; Haswell Deeds 63–4; RPD, iii,
pp. 284–6.
159
CDS, v, nos. 2329, 2438, 3176; E 101/15/26; cf. BL, MS Stowe 553, f. 52.
160
Below, pp. 130–1.
161
Scriptores Tres, pp. 128–30; RPD, iii, p. 209; iv, p. 349. For Neville, together with John
Eure, Robert Hilton and Marmaduke Lumley, as Hatfield’s councillors, see the document
printed in Surtees, iii, p. 130, but apparently with wrong date and reference. The text is
lost, but seems to have been on Hatfield’s first chancery roll, dated 1363, as noted in BL,
MS Lansdowne 902, f. 43v.
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