Zig's Online Business & Community Directory for the Holsworthy Area
I have been giving three lectures on the Church and Parish, and I hear that some people would like to have the outlines in print for reference, so I intend to put them into the magazine, if I can find space in the next few months, and anyone who is interested can thus have at any rate some notes on the subject, though probably I shall not find room enough to be as discursive on general Church History as when giving the lectures. ▲
First. How and whence have I gathered the story ?
Some people have the idea that there are lots of documents dating from the early times, giving information about the whole history of any parish. This is not so. The early story is scrappy in the extreme and the scraps have to be picked up wherever one can and pieced together like a patchwork quilt with far more gaps than patches.
1. William the Conqueror's Domesday Book is the cupboard where one first searches. It was a survey made for Taxing purposes. Date 1087.
2. Then there are later (but still early) Taxing papers of various dates, such as the Black Book of the Exchequer, Pipe Rolls, Feudal Aids, Taxation of Pope Nicholas, Testa de Nevil. These have been published by the Devon Association.
3. The Heralds’ Visitations give some personal details.
4. The Exeter Bishops’ Registers are being published and they give many odds and ends of interesting facts about Devon and Cornish parishes. Unfortunately, those before 1257 A.D. are missing.
5. Our own Parish Registers begin in 1559.
6. The Churchwardens’ accounts begin in 1663. Previous ones are lost.
7. Some old Deeds and Wills. Possibly there are others existing that would give interesting information, but are now lying in fusty peace in some lawyers’ offices, unopened for years, perhaps for centuries.
8. Various County Historians, who, how ever, have gleaned their knowledge for the most part from the sources I have mentioned.
9. Then the Actual Church Building brings evidence of various kinds. Memorial Stones, Styles of Architecture, Material, Heraldic Shields, all tell their tale.
10. Lastly, Tradition and Deduction. You may call the last word guessing if you will, but all writers about past times have to use it more or less; you can’t sew your patches together without needles and cotton and as long as the deductions are sober and careful they help the story and indeed are necessary. I promise to tell you when I make any very long stitches. I mean to begin the actual story next month.
Before the Conquest the land of England was divided into Village Estates under a limited ownership of some Saxon noble or thegn (squire we should call him now). After the Conquest these Village Estates were turned into Manors under the feudal system and given to various followers of William.
The word Parish was at first an ecclesiastical term, sometimes a parish consisted of one such estate or manor, sometimes of two or even more. Ashwater parish consisted of Eise and Hindefort. Eise contained the bulk of the parish, Henford as we now call it, contained Henford, Larkworthy and probably West Venn and a bit of Blagdon as the Henford stream seems to have been the boundary.
It is not known when these two manors joined to form one Ecclesiastical Parish. The Parochial system took a long while to cover the whole country completely and West Devon was a Late Saxon settlement, but it seems likely that the union was made before the Conquest.
The Conquest made a great difference to everything and everybody. William Ι gave Esse to the Bishop of Coutances, a Norman, and Henford to Jukel, a Briton who had a large number of Manors given him, both were prominent supporters of the Conqueror.
When the Taxing Commissioners came to Ashwater they reported (Domesday Book 1087) as follows -
1. The Bishop of Coutances has (one) a Manor which is called Aissa, which Alwin held on the day
when King Edward ♦ was alive and dead and it paid tax for one hide. They can plough XX carucates.
There the Bishop has 1 Virgate and 2 Carucates and the villains have 3 Virgates and 17
Carucates.
There the Bishop has 4 Villains and 12 Bordars and 6 Slaves and 42 head of cattle and 3
pigs and 161 sheep and 30 goats and 15 acres of wood and 100 acres of meadow and 200 acres
of pasture and it pays £7-10s- and when the Bishop received it, it had the same value.
2. Jukel has a manor which is called Hindefort which Bron
held on the day when King Edward
was alive and dead and it paid tax for one Virgate.
Ralph de Pomeroy holds this of Jukel and they can plough it by 3 ploughs.
and Ralph has half a Virgate in Demesne and 1 plough and the three villains have the half
of a Virgate and 1 plough.
There Radulf has one villain and eight Bordars and one slave and 5 head of cattle and 2
pigs and 18 sheep and 15 goats and 15 acres of wood and 15 acres of meadow and pasture half
a league in length and in breadth. And this Manor is worth by the year 15 shillings and when
Jukel received it, it was worth 12 shillings.
Villains were farmers who paid rent by working on the Demesne Farm (which was the farm that the owner kept in hand ) and by so many days of military srvice.
Bordars were Cottagers and possibly included Smiths, Millers etc.
The Manor on Demesne Farms were Ashwater Barton and Henford Barton.
One would like to know what became of Alwin and Bror the first dwellers in Ashwater whose names we know.
Geoffrey Mowbray, Bishop of Coutances seems to have held this Manor of Esse himself by means of a
bailiff, whilst Jukel let his Manor to Ralph or Radulf de Pomeroy.
Aissa is the latinized form of Esse.
A Carucate is supposed to be about 120 acres and a Virgate about 30. A Carucate is sometimes called a “plough” because a team of eight oxen with their plough were supposed to be able to plough it in a year. But terms used for measures varied much in different parts of the country.
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