A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



These changes united in Roger's hands, with one slight exception," the 

 whole of the continuous territory which forms the great bulk of what we 

 now call Lancashire. At Lancaster, on the view here taken, he now first 

 fixed the seat of his power, and built the castle." The isolated part of the 

 county on the north side of Morecambe Bay, known as Furness and Cartmel, 

 and now forming the hundred of Lonsdale north of the Sands, was also part 

 of his grant, although Ivo's fief included Kendal on one side and Copeland 

 (the southern portion of the later Cumberland) on the other." There were 

 geographical and strategical reasons for associating this detached district with 

 Roger's Lancaster fief. Before the days of railways the road across the 

 Kent sands from Lancaster to Cartmel was much the nearest way from the 

 south into the region between the Duddon and the Winster. This can hardly 

 have failed to be taken into account in such an exhaustive partition of the 

 territories round Morecambe Bay as Rufus effected, especially if, as seems not 

 unlikely, this partition was dictated by military considerations. 



It is scarcely possible that it was totally unconnected with Rufus' con- 

 quest of the Scottish fief of Carlisle or Cumbria in 1092." The division of 

 the great tract of crown demesne to the south of this territory between two 

 leading Norman barons may either have paved the way for its subjugation or 

 formed part of the settlement which followed its conquest. In the former case 

 the castles of Kendal and Lancaster were probably built as outposts against the 

 Scots, in the latter as a second and third line of defence in the rear of Rufus' 

 new castle at Carlisle." In either case it would be advisable that the holder 

 of Lancaster Castle should also hold the northern end of the route across the 

 sands, which, as we know, was afterwards used by invading Scottish armies." 



The status of the nascent Lancashire while in Roger's hands has not 

 always been understood. On the strength of the regalities he is known to 

 have exercised within its limits, and of a statement of Orderic Vitalis" that 

 his father procured him a comitatus in England, some have supposed that 

 Lancaster was a palatine earldom and Roger the first earl of Lancaster. But 

 Roger was ' Comes ' in right of his wife as early as 1091, and it was contrary 

 to Norman practice to accumulate these titles. He is never called earl of 

 Lancaster, and as all his successors in the fief during the twelfth century were 

 earls or counts when they received it, the creation of a specific earldom of 

 Lancaster was deferred until the reign of Henry III. Nevertheless a con- 

 tinuous territory ruled by a ' Comes ' with powers which enabled him to give 

 it a shire organization might excusably, though loosely, be described as a 

 comitatus. Roger's fief had not indeed the unity of an old shire. It com- 

 prised districts of distinct history and character, and there was no adequate 

 guarantee that it would not split up again into these component parts — as indeed 

 it did for a time in the days of Stephen. Lancashire was still only in the making, 

 and its emergence as a recognized county was further retarded by the fact that 

 it was but part of a wider fief extending into counties as far south as Suffolk. 



" Litde Bowland and Leagram were added later. See below, p. 1 84. " See below. 



" There is no direct evidence of Roger's tenure here earlier than an allusion in a charter of King John 

 when count of Mortain and lord of Lancaster {Furness Cotuher, 63, 419), but records for the history of the 

 county in the eleventh century are so scanty that this need not cause surprise. 



" Jngl.-Sax. Chron. sub anno 1092. 



" The border character of Roger's castle seems marked by its advanced position and by the provision for 

 its ward which he made in enfeolBng his military tenants. 



" Chron. of Lanercost, 246. " Hist. Eccles. (ed. Le Provost), ii, 422. 



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