Blackburnshire
Coordinates: 53°44′56″N 2°29′06″W / 53.749°N 2.485°W
Blackburnshire was a hundred, or ancient division of the county of Lancashire, in northern England. It was centred on Blackburn, and covered an area approximately equal to modern day East Lancashire.
The shire probably originated as a county of the Kingdom of Northumbria, but was much fought over, and by the time of the Domesday Book it and other hundreds in between the Ribble (which at the time represented the border with Scotland) and Mersey rivers (called "Inter Ripam et Mersam" in the Domesday Book[1]) were included with the information about Cheshire, though it cannot be said clearly to have been part of Cheshire.[2][3][4] The area may have been annexed to the embryonic Kingdom of England following the 930s Battle of Brunanburh.
At the time of Domesday the area was predominantly woodland, known as the great forest of Blackburnshire. Domesday states the Woodland to be 6 leagues long and 4 leagues wide, which could be as much as 216 square miles (559 km2). It also shows that the land was held directly by King Edward,[5] After the Norman conquest of England, much of the great forest was established as royal hunting grounds, and divided into the four forests of Accrington, Pendle, Trawden and Rossendale.[6]
In 1102, King Henry I granted of the whole of Blackburnshire and a part of Amounderness to Robert de Lacy, the Lord of Pontefract, while confirming his possession of Bowland.[7] These lands formed the basis of the Honor of Clitheroe. Subsequently most of the parish of Ribchester, except the township of Alston-with-Hothersall, and in the parish of Chipping, vills of Aighton and Dutton and part of the forest of Bowland belonging ecclesiastically to the parish of Great Mitton were annexed to Blackburnshire.[6]
The separateness of the district was reinforced when it became a royal bailiwick in 1122. In 1182, it became part of the newly-created county of Lancashire.
By 1243 it is believed that there were 57 manors in the hundred.
Those held in demesne [6] were Colne, Great and Little Marsden, Briercliffe, Burnley, Ightenhill, Habergham, Padiham, Huncoat, Hapton, Accrington, Haslingden, Downham, Worston, Chatburn and Little Pendleton
Those held by thegnage [6] were: Twiston, Chipping, Thornley, Wheatley, Ribchester, Dutton, Dinckley, Henthorn, Wilpshire, Clayton-le-Dale, Salesbury, Osbaldeston, Samlesbury, Read, Simonstone, Oswaldtwistle, Livesey, Birtwistle, Church, Cliviger and Worsthorne
Those held by knight's service[7] were: Little Mitton, Wiswell, Hapton, Towneley, Coldcoats, Snodworth, Twiston, Extwistle, Aighton, Great Mearley, Livesey, Downham, Foulridge, Little Mearley, Rishton, Billington, Altham, Great Harwood, Clayton le Moors, and Walton in le Dale
Over time, the term fell out of use, but it remained a hundred until the abandonment of that system in the early nineteenth century.
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Morgan (1978). pp.269c–301c,d.
- ^ According to Harris and Thacker (1987); p. 252:
Certainly there were links between Cheshire and south Lancashire before 1000, when Wulfric Spot held lands in both territories. Wulfric's estates remained grouped together after his death, when they were left to his brother Aelfhelm, and indeed there still seems to have been some kind of connexion in 1086, when south Lancashire was surveyed together with Cheshire by the Domesday commissioners. Nevertheless, the two territories do seem to have been distinguished from one another in some way and it is not certain that the shire-moot and the reeves referred to in the south Lancashire section of Domesday were the Cheshire ones.
- ^ Phillips and Phillips (2002). pp. 26–31.
- ^ According to Crosby, A. (1996); p. 31:
The Domesday Survey (1086) included south Lancashire with Cheshire for convenience, but the Mersey, the name of which means 'boundary river' is known to have divided the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia and there is no doubt that this was the real boundary.
- ^ "Domesday Book Online". Domesday. http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/lancashire1.html#blackburn. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
- ^ a b c d Farrer and Brownbill (1911). The Victoria History of the County of Lancaster Vol 6. Full text at archive.org. pp. 230–234.
- ^ a b Farrer and Brownbill (1906). The Victoria History of the County of Lancaster Vol 1. Full text at archive.org. pp. 281,303–304.
[edit] Bibliography
- Crosby, A. (1996). A History of Cheshire. (The Darwen County History Series.) Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN 0850339324.
- Harris, B. E., and Thacker, A. T. (1987). The Victoria History of the County of Chester. Volume 1: Physique, Prehistory, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Domesday. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0197227619.
- Morgan, P. (1978). Domesday Book Cheshire: Including Lancashire, Cumbria, and North Wales. Chichester, Sussex: Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN 0850331404.
- Phillips A. D. M., and Phillips, C. B. (2002), A New Historical Atlas of Cheshire. Chester, UK: Cheshire County Council and Cheshire Community Council Publications Trust. ISBN 0904532461.
[edit] External links
|
|||||
