son

to his son Henry, who, in 1249, obtained licence for a market and fair,1 and confirmation of his father's grant in 1258;2 in 1260, he conveyed the manor to his cousin Henry, ninth Lord Percy, in the elder line of descent. By marriage with Isabel Bruce, Henry 3 of Agnes and Joceline acquired the manor of Kirk Levington, to which was attached the curious service of taking to the Christmas Mass the lady of Skelton Castle, and afterwards dining with her. The manor of Pocklington, obtained in 1294 by the abbey of Meaux from Edward I, in exchange for Miton and Wick where the King wished to found the port of Hull, came to the Percies in 1303, by exchange with the abbey for the advowson of the church of Nafferton. William, eighth Baron Percy, married Joan, fifth daughter of William Briwere, who brought to him the manor of Foston in Leicestershire, and many other lands, principally in the southern counties.5 Foston, with Tadcaster and Pocklington, was settled by Henry de Percy second Lord of Alnwick, on his son upon his marriage with Mary daughter of the Duke of Lancaster ; at the same time, the seisin of large estates held in fee simple was converted to fee tail by means of conveyance through John de Creik, parson of Spofforth. After the death of Joan Briwere, William de Percy married Ellen daughter of Ingelram de Balliol, and thus acquired Dalton Percy in Durham; the manor the manor was granted by Ellen, when a widow, to her son Ingelram de Percy, and at his death, in 1262, was divided between his brothers William, canon of York, and Walter; William granted his moiety to Walter for the rent of a pair of white. gloves at Midsummer.8

Many conveyances are of small pieces of land which pass from hand to hand until they are finally released

1 No.XI.

2 No. XLVII.

3 No. CCXXXV.

4 Nos. CCCCLXX. and LXXVIII.
5 Nos. Mc. and CCCCLXI.

6 No. MXXVIII.

7 No. DLXII.

Nos. DCCCLXXIX. and XVI.

to the lord, or are exchanged for other land in order to increase the demesne or enlarge a park. No fewer than thirty deeds concern holdings of the Agillum family in Leckonfield, only one being as large as four acres and one of three; these lands were all sold directly to Richard de Percy, who, for one piece of land of two acres, gave a tunic and surcoat, worth half a mark.1 A ploughland and toft in Spofforth were leased in 1240 for the picturesque rent of two garlands of primroses at Easter, of roses at Midsummer, and of sunflowers at Michaelmas, one for the lord and one for the lady, and at Christmas a pair of furred gloves or sixpence.2

4

The principal religious houses which occur in the volume are the great Cistercian abbeys of Fountains and Sawley. The only notice of a grant to Whitby, the chief burial-place of the house of Percy till the end of the twelfth century, is a mention of a rent to the infirmary, of 5s. at Martinmas from land in Ayton.3 The earliest notice of Fountains is in 1182, when the monks owe to Agnes de Percy a rent of 12s. for the grange of Marton. During most of the thirteenth century disputes were carried on between the Percies and the abbey, chiefly relating to pasture and hunting-lodges in Langstrothdale and the enclosure of Creybeck. In 1219, the abbot of S. Mary of York, the dean of York, and eight others were arbiters between the abbot of Fountains and Richard de Percy, and Richard's nephew, William, with whom he was continually at variance.5 One of the provisions agreed upon was that William should not take the abbot's sheep against the charter of King John. This charter, with its important protection of the flocks so valuable to the Cistercians for their trade in wool, was granted in 1199 after the King's persecution of the Order, which ended in his founding their house of Beaulieu. In 1294, Henry de

1 No. CCCXLVIII.

2 No. CCLXX.

3 No. CVII.

4 No. XXII.

5 No. c.

Percy granted to Fountains the manor of Litton with Littondale, reserving, as usual, hunting rights; two foresters were to be provided by the monks, who restored the pasture in Buckden acquired from William, Henry's grandfather, in 1241. The abbey of Sawley was founded by William de Percy in 1147, and refounded when in great poverty forty years later, by his daughter Maud, Countess of Warwick, who gave to it the church of Tadcaster; in the next century, the abbey surrendered her gifts of demesne land in Catton to Richard de Percy her nephew, and of land in Linton and Wetherby to William de Percy; and granted to William the free customs of the chapel of his court of Tadcaster. William de Percy, who died in 1245 and was buried at Sawley, gave to the abbey the manor of Gisburn for the soul of Ellen de Balliol his wife, to maintain six monks in priest's orders; subject to a rent of twenty marks of silver to be paid to Sandon Hospital, in Surrey, the burial-place of Joan Brie were his first wife, where his own heart was afterwards laid. This rent was remitted to Sawley by the first Earl of Northumberland, in whose time the profits of the manor were not sufficient to provide for the six priests and also supply the rent. For the soul of Joan, Percy gave to the Premonstratensian canons of Coverham the chapel of S. Oswald of Hubberholme, with a chamber and garden for a priest."

Several deeds in the volume are conveyances of land made in satisfaction for acquittance from Jewish money-lenders. As the King and great monasteries, especially of the Cistercian Order, obtained land in this way from the large landowners, so the lords, in their turn, added to the number of their manors, or took into their own hands lands of their tenants who had fallen into debt. Ingelram de Percy, lord of Dalton, for acquitting Ralf de Haulay towards his Jewish creditors, received more

than fifty acres of land, and a mill and services, in Ayton, with the condition that if he ever lost by the bargain, he should be compensated with land in Covenham in Lincolnshire.1 Very small pieces of land sometimes changed hands in these transactions, and the interest charged was very high. In 1253, William, chaplain of Ayton, mortgaged two acres to Leo the Jew of Scarborough, to be redeemed on payment of 15s. and interest, together with any sum spent by Leo upon the land.2 After paying the debts of Thomas Lardener and five other of his tenants, William de Percy extracted from them a promise never again to take a Jewish loan without his consent, on pain of forfeiting their land. The only Jews mentioned by name are Leo of Scarborough, Aaron, and Manasser. The two last, to whom Ingelram de Bovington owed forty marks of silver, which his mother's dower-land in Arram had to provide, are probably Aaron of York and Manasser his son. Aaron, a Jew of great wealth, was one of the ten sureties for the sum of ten thousand marks which the King demanded from the Jews in 1236, and in the next year he was presbyter of all the Jews of England. He died in 1256, leaving two sons, Kok and Manasser.

4

Following the deeds connected with Yorkshire, are those relating to the great Northumbrian possessions of the house of Percy. The earliest of these is a charter of Henry, Earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon, son of David I of Scotland, to Eustace Fitz-John, lord of Alnwick and ancestor of the line of Vesci,5 Concerning the castle itself, there is little in the volume. In 1296, William de Vesci leased a waste piece of demesne land by the castle wall to a fuller of Alnwick, to hold in tail at a rent of 28. 8d.; this is one of the few deeds tested by the court of knights of the barony." The castle bailly is mentioned in 1373, when a tenement

1 Nos. L. and мIII. 2 No. LXXV.

3 No. CCXLVII.

4 Nos. CCXXXI. and CCCCLVI.

5 No. DCCLVIII.

6 No. DCLX.

within it is granted for life to John de Duddevyle, nuncius of Henry de Percy, afterwards the first Earl.1 The castle was strongly fortified in the twelfth century; in 1174 it was attacked with great force by William the Lion of Scotland, who was taken prisoner there on the morning on which the King of England was doing penance at Canterbury for the murder of Becket. Through the thirteenth century Alnwick was held by the family of Vesci, until in 1295 William de Vesci conveyed the barony, with the manor of Tuggal and manors in the counties of York and Lincoln, to Anthony Bek, who was said to owe his election to the See of Durham in some measure to the influence of John de Vesci, William's brother. The conveyance was made six months after the death of William's only legitimate son, in order that the bishop should keep the property for William's illegitimate little son, William de Vesci of Kildare. In 1309, however, twelve years after William's death, Bek, whose love of money was notorious, sold Alnwick to Henry, tenth Baron Percy. After the death of Vesci of Kildare at the battle of Bannockburn, there were several claimants to the Vesci possessions. Clerks were sent from the Chancery to the convents of Alnwick and Malton, which were of Vesci foundation, to search for chronicles and writings which might decide the inheritance. It was finally adjudged to Gilbert de Aton, who inherited through his great-great aunt, Margery de Vesci. In 1323, Gilbert confirmed the sale of Alnwick to Henry de Percy's son, and during the next few years several money transactions took place between them, Gilbert's son William marrying Isabel, daughter of Percy. The Percy lords of Alnwick began to strengthen the castle as soon as it came into their hands, and it was defended long and successfully against a siege by the Scots, in the time of the second Lord Percy, who was constable of Pickering and Scarborough Castles.

3

5 No. DCLIII.