480 



On the Border Family of Papedy of Ancroft, Dunglas, 

 Manderston, and Bemvick. By James Hardy. 



Our knowledge of the family of Papedy, Papedi, or Pepdie, is 

 very meagre, being mostly derived from the names of its mem- 

 bers as appended to charters, or as participants in the benefits 

 which those documents conveyed. The family is of unknown 

 origin. The ancestor may have been a priest, A.S. papa, i.e. 

 sacerdos* Papedi, Sheriff of Norhamshire and Islandshire, occurs 

 in 1110, as an official of Ealph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, 

 1099-1128, the shrewd but reprehensible chancellor and prime 

 adviser of William Eufus.f He was probably an eminent man 

 of the land, qualified to administer justice to an Anglo-Saxon 

 population. Like many of his contemporaries, he had only a 

 single name. Bishop Ealph having bestowed on the monks of 

 St. Cuthbert in Durham, land in Allerdean and a valuable fish- 

 ing called Haliwerestelle in the Tweed, directs, by a second pre- 

 cept, Papedi, the Sheriff, to put them in immediate possession, 

 so that he might rid himself of the monks' importunities ; but if 

 he had cause for delay, Ealph, the bishop's nephew (nepos) was 

 to perform this duty under Papedi's direction. The deed of gift, 

 which is addressed to the theines and drenges (small land holders) 

 of Islandshire and Norhamshire, is in the Anglo-Saxon language, 

 which is susceptible of being with little change rendered into 

 modern English: " E. bishop greeteth well all his theins and 

 drenges of Islandshire and of Norhamshire. "Wit ye that I have 

 given to Saint Cuhtberht lands in Elredene, and all that thereto 

 belongeth, clear and strife -free,, and Haliwarestelle I have gifted 

 to St. Cuhtberht ; his own unto his church ; and whoso spoils 

 this brief, Christ him [deprive] of this life's hele (health) and 

 heofnrices mirth" [the joy of the heavenly kingdom. ]| The 

 bishop compensated Papedi's faithful services with the possession 



* "In the time of Gregory the Great, and, as some writers say, till the 

 tenth century, the title of Pope (Papa) was given to all bishops in general." 

 — Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, i., pp. 24, 25. It was not 

 till 1059 that priests who lived in wedlock were forbidden to celebrate the 

 sacred offices. — Ibid. p. 22. Synods passed decrees against the marriage of 

 priests in 1076, 1102, 1168, shewing that the practice still subsisted. — Ibid., 

 ii , pp. 147, 251, 264. 



t Raine's North Durham p. 45. 

 X Raine, ubi sup. pp. 219, 220 ; and Appendix, p. 129. 



