A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



north-west, the river Ribble forming the boundary, and was afterwards sub- 

 ject in many feudal respects to the honour of Clitheroe. The supposition 

 that Robert de Lacy received these territories from Roger of Poitou in the 

 reign of Rufus is further strengthened by the fact that after Roger's fall in 

 1 1 02, Henry I. granted by charter to Robert five carucates of land, which 

 had previously belonged to Warin Bussel's fee of Preston, or perhaps of Pen- 

 wortham in Chippingdale, Aighton, and Dutton, three manors lying adjacent 

 on the south-western border of Bowland.^ By charter dated in the court at 

 Pontefract, on the feast of St. Clement, 3 Henry L (23 November, 1102), 

 Great Mitton, within the region of Bowland and Aighton, one of the three 

 manors comprised in the last-recited gift of Henry I., was granted with 

 other lands in the honour of Clitheroe to Ralph le Rous by Robert de Lacy, 

 to hold by knight's service.^ This charter is of two-fold importance, for it 

 not only testifies that Robert was at this time in possession of Clitheroe, 

 Bowland, and lands in Amounderness hundred, west of the Ribble, but it goes 

 some way towards contradicting the statement of the monk of St. Evroul, 

 which is also at variance with later evidence, that Robert was brought 

 to trial in 1102 for participation in the rebellion of Duke Robert of 

 Normandy, and condemned in the king's court to forfeit his honours and 

 depart the realm.' 



In 1325 several royal charters in favour of Robert de Lacy, besides those 

 already cited, were preserved at Pontefract Castle. In one of these Henry I. 

 gave him all the lands which remained out of his possession belonging to his 

 castellary of Pontefract, which the king had deraigned against him, to hold in 

 fee and inheritance with soke and sake.* In the reign of Rufus, Robert de 

 Lacy founded a house of Cluniac monks at Pontefract and endowed them with 

 lands and churches in his fief of Pontefract,^ and early in the reign of Henry I. 

 he gave to certain Austin canons the site upon which was afterwards built the 

 abbey of St. Oswald of Nostell, and land in Hardwick." After Robert's for- 

 feiture and banishment, Henry I., whilst the castle and honour of Pontefract 

 were in his hands, gave to the canons there established the woodlands which 

 lay around the site of their church, and twelvepence a day out of his farm of 

 Yorkshire.^ But this was some years after the king's accession, for in the 

 latter part of the year 1 109, we find Robert de Lacy attesting the royal con- 

 firmation charter in favour of the church of St. Cuthbert of Durham, granted 

 at a great council held at Nottingham.* Somewhat later he attested an 

 agreement made by Archbishop Thomas II. (1109-1114), by which the 

 clerks of St. Oswald released to the monks of Charite at Pontefract and to the 

 priest of Featherston the parochial rights of the monks over the land of Nostell 

 and Hardwick.' Of about the same date, viz., 11 12, was his charter to 

 the monks of Pontefract, made by the advice of Archbishop Thomas and with 

 the king's consent, of his demesne of Dodworth." But shortly after these acts 



1 Farrer, Lanes. Pipe R. 382. This grant, like that of Bowland, was found among the records preserved 

 at Pontefract Castle in 1325, when a calendar of them was made by the order of Edw. II., which is now pre- 

 served amongst the Duchy of Lane, records in the Public Record Office. (Misc. Ptf 1. No. 36.) 



2 Towneley MSS. vol. H.H. penes W. Farrer, No. 3896, from the Gt. Coucher of the Duchy of Lane. ; 



Lanes. Pipe R. S^S- . t-> 1. rr ii,r- n r ■ ^, ^ 



s Ordericus Vit. x. c. xviii. ; xi. cc. i. and 11. * Duchy of Lane. Misc. Ptf. 1. No. 36, m. i. 



6C-5^r/«/.efi'<'«/€^^^/(yorks.Rec.Soc.), 17. I ^"'i^''^nJ'- ^-^ o c • 



7 Ti • J ° Durham Chart. 1. 59 ; Sur/ees Soc. 1. p. xxxii. 



9 CAartu/. ofPonUfratt (Yorks. Rec. Soc), ii. p. bt. i" Ibid. i. 25 ; also No. ii. p. 18. 



3H 



