Читать книгу History of Madeley including Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, and Coalport онлайн

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As the land came to be cultivated, and the population engaged in agricultural and other pursuits increased in number, the living, we imagine, improved in value, and the advowson in importance. We have shown from the commissioners’ description in Domesday what was the state of Madeley just subsequent to the Norman conquest, and Madeley being still within the limits of the forest of the Wrekin, which surrounded it on three sides, little progress was made in the way of cultivation. From the “Survey of Shropshire Forests” in 1235, it appears that the following woods, besides those of Madeley, were subject to its jurisdiction:—Leegomery, Wrockwardine Wood, Eyton-on-the-Weald Moors, Lilleshall, Sheriffhales, the Lizard, Stirchley, and Great Dawley. Forest laws were rigorously enforced, and encroachments, either by cultivation or building without royal license to do so, were severely punished.

Prior Imbert was fined for three such trespasses, in 1250, in the heavy sum of £126 13s. 4d., chiefly in connection with Madeley. In 1390 the park and meadows the prior had been permitted to enclose with those at Madeley, Oxenbold, and other manors, were estimated as barely capable of maintaining the livestock of the priory.