Читать книгу History of the Fylde of Lancashire онлайн

28 страница из 82

Lidun (Lytham), two carucates.

Michelescherche (St. Michael’s-on-Wyre), one carucate; Pluntun (Wood Plumpton) five carucates; Rodecliff (Upper Rawcliffe), two carucates; Rodecliff (Middle Rawcliffe), two carucates; a third Rodecliff (Out Rawcliffe), three carucates; Eglestun (Ecclestons), two carucates; Edeleswic (Elswick), three carucates; Inscip (Inskip), two carucates; Sorbi (Sowerby), one carucate.

All these vills belong to Prestune (Preston); and there are three churches (in Amounderness). In sixteen of these vills[18] there are but few inhabitants—but how many there are is not known.

The rest are waste. Roger de Poictou had [the whole].

When we read the concluding remark—“The rest are waste,” and observe the insignificant proportion of the many thousands of acres comprised in the Fylde at that time under cultivation, we are made forcibly cognizant of the truly deplorable condition to which the district had been reduced by ever-recurring warfare through a long succession of years. There is no guide to the number of the inhabitants, excepting, perhaps, the existence of only three churches in the whole Hundred of Amounderness, and this can scarcely be admitted as certain evidence of the paucity of the population, as in the harassed and unsettled state in which they lived it is not very probable that the people would be much concerned about the public observances of religious ceremonials or services. The churches alluded to were situated at Preston, Kirkham, and St. Michael’s-on-Wyre. The parish church at Poulton was the next one erected, and appears to have been standing less than ten years after the completion of the Survey, for Roger de Poictou, when he founded the priory of St. Mary, Lancaster, in 1094, endowed it with—“Pulton in Agmundernesia, and whatsoever belonged to it, and the church, with one carucate of land, and all other things belonging to it.”[19] The terminal paragraph of the foundation-charter of the monastery states that Geoffrey, the sheriff, having heard of the liberal grants of Roger de Poictou, also bestowed upon it—“the tithes of Biscopham, whatever he had in Lancaster, some houses, and an orchard.” It is difficult to determine whether a church existed in the township of Bispham at that date or not, but as no such edifice is included in the above list of benefactions, we are inclined to believe that it was not erected until later. The earliest mention of it occurs in the reign of Richard I., 1189 to 1199, when Theobald Walter quitclaimed to the abbot of Sees “all his right in the advowson of Pulton, with the church of Biscopham.”[20]