A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 
about nine feet high, and inscribed with the date 1088, has been taken 
as independent confirmation of the foundation of the Benedictine 
house. But the date on the stone is a seventeenth century addition, 
and there is no trace of the right of sanctuary at this place. Other 
documents have been cited to illustrate the history of the district at this 
period. In the Register of Wetheral there are two charters,’ which, if 
genuine, would carry us back to the time of Rufus, and fix the date of the 
foundation of the priory in his reign. One of these is a palpable forgery, 
though Dugdale? thoughtlessly adopted it as the record of a grant from 
William the Conqueror. The other charter is of a different character, being 
nothing less than the foundation charter of the priory, by which Ranulf 
Meschin, the founder, gave the manor of Wetheral to the abbey of St. 
Mary’s, York, for the soul of his lord, king William or king Henry, 
according as we accept the alternative version. As the oldest transcript 
of the charter, which is attributed to the fourteenth century,’ is prac- 
tically valueless in settling the correct reading, later copies which 
mention the name of king William must be treated with extreme 
suspicion, when we remember the incurable propensity of the monks to 
antedate their charters with the view of strengthening their territorial 
titles. Indeed, the fact that the charter has been tampered with at the 
critical word may be taken as conclusively in favour of the later king. 
Two letters of William king of England to his lieges in Carlisle and 
the parts beyond Loedria, urging them to accept Christianity from the 
bishop of Durham and his archdeacon, do not carry on the face of them 
the usual evidence of authenticity. Dugdale* has ascribed them to the 
Conqueror, but in view of the disputes about the ecclesiastical jurisdiction 
of the district of Carlisle before the foundation of the See, the king’s 
alleged usurpation of archiepiscopal functions may be looked upon as 
doubtful. At the present moment not a single genuine charter, relating 
to the county of Cumberland, is known of a date anterior to Henry I. 
When William Rufus set about the reconstruction of Carlisle and 
the organization of the district, two figures loom out of the darkness of 
the time in dim distinctness in connection with his work. It is said that 
he placed a certain Walter, a Norman priest who had come to England 
with the Conqueror, in charge of the rebuilding of the city, and that he 
committed the custody of the district to a distinguished soldier, Ranulf 
Meschin,” or Ranulf de Briscasard, a cadet of the house of Bayeux in 
1 Register of the Priory of Wetherhal, pp. 1-5, 391, ed. J. E. Prescott. 
2 [bid. p. 391 3 Monasticon, i. 397, old edition. 
3 Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Archeobgical Society, xv. 285. 
4 Monasticon, i. 241. 
5 The title of ‘Meschin’ has been applied to several members of this family, and means ‘younger.’ 
Its usage resembles our word ‘junior,’ to distinguish from an older person of the same name. Ranulf, 
in his charters to the priory of Wetheral, and William and other members of his family, in their 
charters to St. Bees, invariably used it. ‘The same rule applies, for the most part, to their signatures. 
‘Meschin’ had been also adopted, about this time, by the families of Brus and Percy ; for instance, 
Robert Brus Meschin witnessed the great charter of David king of Scots to the abbey of Melrose 
(Facsimiles of National MSS. of Scotland, No. xvij.), and Alan de Perci le Meschin is enumerated among 
the early benefactors of the abbey of Whitby (The Whitby Chartulary, i. 4, Surtees Society). Other 
instances of the same usage might be given; for instance, Osbern Meschyn (Monasticon, ii. 387) and 
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