A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



the customs which Ranulf Meschin ever had in Carlisle and in all his 

 land of Cumberland.' * The land of Cumberland, as the name for the 

 district south of the Solway, is a singular admission to be found in a 

 Scottish document of that date. At a later period, when David was 

 sovereign of Carlisle, there is nothing remarkable in his address to his 

 faithful sheriffs and justices of all Cumberland (totius Cumberlandie) or 

 in the gift to the see of Glasgow of certain royal perquisites of his 

 courts throughout Cumbria (per totam Cumbrian!}? That the Scots 

 claimed the province as far south as Stainmore everybody admits. The 

 wise men who made the famous Inquest of David 3 about 1 120 entered 

 a feeble protest that the prince of Cumbria was not the ruler at that time 

 of the whole of the Cumbrian region, though they were unable to point to 

 a single bit of property south of the Solway ever possessed by the see of 

 Glasgow, in the diocese of which the land was said to have been. 



There is no mistaking the English appropriation of Cumberland as 

 a territorial designation. The name came into informal use at an early 

 period after the conquest of 1092. When Henry I. endowed the 

 canons of Carlisle with the churches and lands of Walter the priest he 

 directed his writ to all his barons of' Cumbreland and Westmarialand.' 4 

 The same division was recognized in the Pipe Roll of 1 130 under the 

 titles of 'Chaerleolium ' and ' Westmarieland.' 5 These names had been 

 floating about from time immemorial as indicative of territorial areas. 

 Gaimar relates that the Picts baptized by Ninian were ' Westmaringiens,' 8 

 and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has recorded under 966 the wasting of 

 ' Westmoringa-land ' by Earl Thored, 7 or ' Westmereland ' as Gaimar 

 called it in his account of the foray. But a long period elapsed after 

 1092 before the names of Cumberland and Westmorland were adopted 

 by the English Exchequer as definite fiscal areas. Throughout the 

 reign of Henry I. there had been a county of Carlisle 8 which at first 



1 Nat. MSS. of Scotland, i. No. xix. Rec. Com. J Reg. Epls. Glasg. i. I ^, Bannatyne Club. 



3 This famous document, entitled ' Inquisicio per David, Principem Cumbrensem, de terris ecclesie 

 Glasguensi pertinentibus facta,' was dated in 1116 by Mr. Cosmo Innes, but it is probably later, in 

 1 1 20 or 1 122. In it we have Cumbria described as ' regio quedam inter Angliam et Scotiam sita ' ; 

 David as ' Cumbrensis regionis principem (non vero toti Cumbrensi region! dominabatur) ' ; and the 

 diocese of Glasgow as ' Cumbrensis parochia.' The inquest was made and witnessed by some well 

 known magnates on both sides of the frontier. It is printed in facsimile in Reg. Epis. Glasg. i. 37, 

 Bannatyne Club. 



* This charter has been printed under the section of ' Ecclesiastical History.' 



Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I. pp. 140-3, ed. J. Hunter. 



6 'Ninan aveit ainz baptizi les altres Pictes del regne ; ces sunt les Westmaringiens ki done 

 esteient Pictiens" (Man. Hist. Brit. p. 776). 



7 ' Her Thored Gunneres sunu forhergode Westmoringaland.' This Thored is described in the 

 Chronicle under 992 as 'Thored Eorl.' It was conjectured by Mr. E. W. Robertson that he was 

 Earl of Deira or Yorkshire (Scot, under Early Kings, ii. 441-2), to which Mr. Freeman gives his assent 

 (Norm. Conq. i. 646). Gaimar noted the event : ' Fors sul Torel, ki revelat : Westmereland sur lui 

 preiad ' (Man. Hist. Brit. p. 808). 



The foundation charter of the priory of Wetheral, one of the earliest documents relating to the 

 district in existence, was addressed by Ranulf Meschin to ' Richerio vicecomiti Karlioli et omnibus homi- 

 nibus suis, Francis et Anglis, qui in potestate Karlioli habitant ' (Reg. ofWetherhal, pp. 1-2). Arch- 

 deacon Prescott has dated the deed between 1092 and 1112, but the witnesses seemed to agree 

 better with the Inter date. Though there can scarcely have been a fully equipped county at so 

 early a date, the mention of a sheriff of Carlisle is very significant. On the relation of a sheriff to a 

 county, see Pollock and Maitland, Hist, of Engl. Law before Edw. I. (and ed.), i. 533-4. 



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