232 SrRATHCLYDE AND GALLOWAY CHARTERS. 
‘1 one as Bermton and in another as Bermeton; and the 
chaplain in question seems to be the John de Bermton men- 
tioned in the Registers of that Bishop, read by the lamented 
W. N. Thompson in his edition of those Registers as Bermton 
or Berinton,2 a priest collated to Denton as rector in 1317, and 
ac 
thereafter accordingly not ‘‘ capellanus.’’ I had the same 
doubt which Thompson shows about the name, but the two 
forms set it at rest. It was evidently through the acquisition 
of Cardew that the charter came into Denton possession. 
John Denton’s account of that acquisition agrees with the 
documents. Bermeton transferred it to Bishop de Halton, 
he says, to the use of John Burdon—that is as interim feoffee. 
John Burdon gave it to his son John Burdon and his hei-s, 
and in default of these to John Denton and his wife Joan and 
the heirs of their bodies, and it remained in their possession 
till John Denton’s time who wrote the ‘‘ Accompt,’’ about the 
last days of Queen Elizabeth. 
Denton does not hint why the Bishop of Carlisle was thus 
chosen for interim feoffee, but we gain a special reason from 
Pipe Roll, Cumberland, of 14 Henry III. (1230-15), and the 
Placita de quo Warranto. The barony or manor of Dalston 
under which Cardew was held had been in the immediate 
tenure of the Crown and was given by Henry III. to William 
Mauclerk, Bishop of Carlisle, to be held by the Bishops as 
superior lords. Bermton’s transfer was simply granting for 
the time being the immediate as well as the seigniorial posses- 
sion of Cardew to-the superior lord, the Bishop, and the 
Bishop's re-grant of it could cause no question. . 
This grant of the overlordship to the Bishops of Carlisle 
iS an important point in the history of a charter so full of 
puzzles as this which need much thought. The document I 
have aforetime stated shows clear signs of being a copy of a 
lost original made by one to whom the letters and the language 
were strange, and at first, and indeed till lately, I thought it 
made much later than a very close and critical examination 
2 Episcopal Registers of Bishop Halton, ii., pp. 30 and 145. 
5 See F. H. M. Parker’s Pipe Rolls of Cumberland and West- 
morland. 
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