A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



their lands at will, or build houses where they pleased." After his accession 

 to the crown John confirmed this charter in return for a fine of 200 pounds 

 of silver. 



The capacity to pay such a sum as this in addition to the county 

 farm and the especially heavy feudal aids of the period, may be taken as a 

 proof of the beginning of economic expansion on the manorial holdings of 

 Lancashire during the Angevin period. The increase of cultivated area 

 implied by the number of ' assarts ' compounded for, as well as the numbers 

 of cattle pasturing in the forest, suggests more labour on the land, more herds- 

 men tending the stock, more mouths to feed and bodies to clothe, and more 

 corn grown to afford food supplies. But land acreage and stock would only 

 be increased in proportion to some definite demand for an additional supply ; 

 therefore we are reasonably justified in supposing that a distinct and marked 

 increase in population may be inferred from the payments offered by the 

 county for its widely distributed trespasses upon forest lands at the close of the 

 twelfth century. 



During the hundred years following the Conquest, the numbers of tiny 

 manorial groupings had become so considerable that there was a general 

 sprinkling of ' vills,' or small manorial settlements, throughout the county." 

 Besides the twenty-five demesne ' vills ' of the honour of Lancaster," the roll 

 for the fifteenth year of Henry II refers to the contribution from the ' vills ' 

 (if Lonsdale wapentake. Among these Lancaster, as the site of the castle and 

 capital of the honour, had a distinguished pre-eminence. We know from a 

 later entry that the king had houses there, by which may have been meant 

 something similar to the king's Houses of Westminster, either attached as 

 part of the castle buildings, or a separate hostel in the town, set apart for the 

 accommodation of the royal suite when the king was in residence. Possibly 

 here were lodged the itinerant justices who visited the county in 1 166.'"' A 

 certain number of small freeholders, many of them holding by the petty 

 serjeanty of works to be done at the castle," dwelt in and about the town, 

 which was surrounded by fields and forest, and except for a small weekly 

 market and regular cattle fairs was not, strictly speaking, commercial. 

 Cloth would come there from the neighbouring town of Kendal, and wool 

 would be offered for sale from the prior's sheep-farms. But, generally 

 speaking, the character of Lancaster in these early days would be rather that 

 of a strong military bulwark against the northern raiders than that of a 

 convenient market. In point of actual mercantile importance it was out- 

 stripped by Preston, which was at this time the most prosperous township 

 not merely of its own hundred of Amounderness, but perhaps of all Lancashire." 

 Preston owed its rapid advance to its happy situation at the junction of a 

 Roman road and a navigable river, advantages of site which appealed strongly 

 to the Danish spirit of commercial enterprise.'* The Normans, like the 



" P.R.O. Duchy of Lane. Forest Proc. bdle. i, No. 7, quoted by Farrer, op. cit. 418-19. See the 

 article ' Forestry,' below. Certain libertie;; of hunting were likewise accorded by this charter. 



" Farrer, Lana. Pipe R. Introd. p. xiv. The preceding statements as to fines paid for assarts, &c., point 

 to an increase alike of population and cultivated area. 

 " Mag. Rot. Pip. 3 John (i 200-1), R. 47, m. 20. 

 " Ibid. 2 John (1 199-1200), R. 46, m. 17. «Etin Reparatione Domorura Regis de Lancastra ' 



Ibid. 13 Hen. II (R. 13, m. 10 d.). 

 " The commercial importance of Manchester at this time cannot be determined. 

 ^ Cunningham, Growth of Industry and Commerce. 



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