Meonstoke's "glittering" past by Carolyn Hughes

All the historical novelists I’ve met seem to enjoy researching their books almost as much as writing them – some even more so. Documentary sources are manifold, and what you need to use depends of course on what you need to know. Some authors need to pore over original ancient documents in libraries or archives. If you are writing a novel that depends on the accuracy of the history, or demands insight into the life of a real person, then such delving into original sources is obviously an essential part of ensuring the novel, albeit fiction, can be judged as a good, authentic representation of the times and the people.

For my own novels, The Meonbridge Chronicles, recorded history is not, for the most part, a fundamental aspect of the stories but rather a background against which they are set. Neither my setting nor my characters are real, so I am at liberty to make up everything about them. But that is not to say I don’t strive for authenticity in the way I write about the people and the time – of course I do. Research into the medieval way of life is still very important for me. And I have dozens of books to help me, acquired over the years I have been writing historical fiction. But I do use online resources too, with a suitable degree of circumspection about their likely veracity.

But one online source I do return to time and time again, not because it tells me much about my characters’ “way of life”, but because it gives access to a wealth of fascinating documents that offer all sorts of snippets of information that can feed your imagination as a novelist, is British History Online (BHO).

I first posted a version of this on The History Girls blog back in July 2017, but I thought the idea was worth reprising, for those readers who don’t know about BHO, but also because what I learned about the history of the nearby village of Meonstoke I continue to find deeply fascinating and hope you might too. Alternatively, you might want to explore what BHO has to tell you about the history of your own village, county, town or city.

Browsing the British History Online website can while away many a happy hour in a fascinating, sometimes surprising, experience. If you don’t know of it, BHO is a digital library of key printed primary and secondary sources for the history of Britain and Ireland, with a primary focus on the period between 1300 and 1800.

The website offers an astonishing number of documents. To pick at random from the catalogue index, just to show the sort of documents available…

EXAMPLE 1: Feet of Fines, Sussex

Feet of fines are court copies of agreements following disputes over property. In reality, the disputes were mostly fictitious and were simply a way of having the transfer of ownership of land recorded officially by the king’s court. The records in this series relate to the county of Sussex for the period 1190-1509. I’d need to brush up on my Latin to make sense of the Edward I volumes, although those for Edward III are in English…

‘Sussex Fines: 21-25 Edward I (nos. 1072-1118)’, in An Abstract of Feet of Fines For the County of Sussex: Vol. 2, 1249-1307,
ed. L F Salzmann (Lewes, 1908), pp. 159-169.
See British History Online [accessed 7th May 2023].

‘Sussex Fines: 11-15 Edward III’, in An Abstract of Feet of Fines For the County of Sussex: Vol. 3, 1308-1509,
ed. L F Salzmann (Lewes, 1916), pp. 88-102.
See British History Online [accessed 7th May 2023].

EXAMPLE 2: Calendar of Close Rolls - Edward III (14 volumes)

The Close Rolls record “letters close”, that is, letters sealed and folded because they were of a personal nature, issued by the Chancery in the name of a particular king or queen. They usually contained orders or instructions. These “calendars” provide summaries full enough, for most purposes, to replace the original documents. However, these particular documents are designated on the BHO as “premium content” and require a subscription to access that I don’t have, but would surely be of great interest to anyone researching into the lives of a particular monarch.

EXAMPLE 3: The Medieval Records of A London City Church St Mary At Hill, 1420-155

Edited by Henry Littlehales, these records were first published by the Early English Text Society in 1905. They are churchwardens’ accounts for the St Mary At Hill parish. The records are at their fullest for the period from 1480 onwards. The volume also has an extensive introduction, detailing the history and liturgical practice of the church, and the impact of the Reformation. Looking at this page, you’d clearly need to understand the notation used for the accounts, but it’s potentially fascinating stuff!

The Medieval Records of A London City Church St Mary At Hill, 1420-1559,
ed. Henry Littlehales (London, 1905),
See British History Online [accessed 7th May 2023].

Anyway, the part of BHO that I generally head for is the Victoria County History for Hampshire. A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 3: Edited by William Page. This covers eastern Hampshire, including Portsmouth, Southampton, Petersfield and Havant, and was originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1908. See British History Online [accessed 7th May 2023].

The Victoria County History was begun in 1899 and dedicated to Queen Victoria. Organised by county, it provides a vast and detailed record of England’s places and people over many centuries. It has been described as the greatest publishing project in English local history, and it certainly does provide a wealth of information.

The entries I return to in the Victoria County History are those for the Hundred of Meonstoke in the Meon Valley, and the Parishes of Meonstoke.

If you'd like to look them up, see: 'The hundred of Meonstoke: Introduction', in A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 3, pp. 245-246. British History Online and ‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, in A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 3, pp. 254-257. British History Online.

The information IS old, of course, written in the nineteenth to early twentieth century. It isn’t brought up to date, as far as I know. But, if the information you are looking for is about the fourteenth century or earlier, as is true for me, that really doesn’t matter.

A “hundred” was a division of the shire. Hundred boundaries were independent of both parish and county boundaries, though they were often aligned, so a hundred could be split between counties, or a parish could be split between hundreds. The Meonstoke Hundred contained a number of parishes and some tithings that were part of other parishes.

The setting for my Meonbridge Chronicles is not actually Meonstoke, but I have a sense that “Meonbridge” lies broadly in the area occupied by Meonstoke and its neighbouring villages, so I was interested to read what the History could tell me about these villages and their development over time. I don’t necessarily use much if any of what I’ve learned in my novels, but research is a thrill in its own right, isn’t it? Just reading this kind of stuff can be a delight.

Various things drew my interest…

For example, the way the structure of the hundred changed over time. At Domesday, Meonstoke consisted of ten parishes, and a tithing from another parish/hundred but, by 1316, it was down to four parishes – Meonstoke, Soberton, Warnford, and Corhampton – plus three tithings from three other and different hundreds (‘The hundred of Meonstoke: Introduction’, Paragraph p3).

Then there is the way that the names of places changed over time, or perhaps were simply recorded with different spellings. So, for example, Meonstoke was Menestoche in the 11th century, Mienestoch or Mionstoke in the 12th; Manestoke or Menestoke in the 13th; Munestoke, Munestokes, Maonestoke or Moenestoke in the 14th (‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, Paragraph p1).

But perhaps what really drew my attention about Meonstoke were the names of some of the owners of its manors – including both illustrious and notorious individuals – which give Meonstoke a seemingly glittering past that sits somewhat strangely with the rather peaceful, out-of-the-way, “backwater” it might appear to be…

The “glitter” derives perhaps from the fact that Meonstoke was always part of the king’s demesne. It formed part of the lands of King Edward the Confessor, and, at the time of the Domesday Survey, being part of the crown’s demesne, it was not assessed. But, in the reign of Henry III, it was divided into three portions and, from then until the 14th century, there were three manors of Meonstoke – Meonstoke Tour, Meonstoke Ferrand and Meonstoke Waleraund (later Meonstoke Perrers), each with a distinct history (‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, Paragraph p4).

Effigy of William Edington in Winchester Cathedral.
By Ealdgyth [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Meonstoke Tour was land granted by Henry III to one Geoffrey Peverel but, in 1240, it was back again in the hands of the king, who then granted it to his serjeant Henry de la Tour. The manor remained in the hands of the de la Tour family from then until 1353, when it was sold to no less a personage than William de Edendon (or Edington or Edyngton – medieval spelling was not consistent!), the Bishop of Winchester. In 1366, the then king, Edward III, wanting to reward William for his long service, tried to appoint him Archbishop of Canterbury, but William was already in failing health and he declined the honour. He died in the October in nearby Bishop’s Waltham, and is buried in Winchester Cathedral. The new bishop was William of Wykeham (a Meon Valley man, born in Wickham, and one of the area’s most illustrious sons), who bought the manor from de Edendon’s executors and merged it and the other two manors back into a single “Meonstoke” manor (‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, Paragraph p7).

Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain and Bishop of Winchester, William of Wykeham (1320-1404).
Engraving by Charles Grignion (1754-1804).
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. 

Meonstoke Ferrand’s land was granted by Henry III to his Gascon crossbowman Ferrand in about 1233. A Ferrand then held the land until 1305, when it was sold to John de Drokensford, who was bishop of Bath and Wells. For the next fifty years, Drokensfords held the manor, until it seems to have been sold as part of a larger transfer of messuages (dwellings with their adjacent buildings and lands), other land and mills by one Maurice le Bruyn. The buyer we have met already – William de Edendon (Edyington, Edington…), the bishop of Winchester. After his death, Meonstoke Ferrand was also bought by his successor, William of Wykeham, who merged it with the other manors (‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, Paragraph p6).

And so we come to Meonstoke Waleraund, or Meonstoke Perrers, as it later became. And this is the story in the BHO that particularly intrigued me because of its second name… It is first mentioned as a separate manor in 1224, and was held briefly by a de Percy but, in 1229, Henry III granted it to one Fulk de Montgomery. But, two years later, Fulk sold it to Sir John Maunsell, who obtained a grant of a weekly Monday market in Meonstoke and a yearly fair on the “vigil, feast, and morrow” of St. Margaret, and, two years later, also a grant of free warren (permission from the king to kill certain game within a stipulated area) in all his lands in Hampshire.

Sir John was a favourite of the young King Henry III and is thought to have obtained vast numbers of benefices all over the country, perhaps more than any other clergyman, including the provost of Beverley, in 1247, the livings of Howden, Bawburgh and Haughley, the prebendaries of South Malling, Tottenhall, Chinchester [sic – I assume Chichester], the dean of Wimborne, the rector of Wigan, and the chancellorship of St. Paul’s, London, as well as papal chaplain and chaplain of the King. He also served as the Lord Chancellor of England. A powerful man indeed!

Statue of Simon de Montfort on the Haymarket Memorial Clock Tower in Leicester.
By NotFromUtrecht [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

But when Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, grew in power, King Henry was forced, apparently against his will, to deprive Sir John of his possessions, granting them to Simon in 1263. Although, another story says that it was after the battle of Lewes in May 1264, when de Montfort defeated Henry and took power, that he deprived Sir John of all his lands. Whether the “deprival” included Meonstoke I am not clear, but perhaps it was at one time owned by the notorious de Montfort.

However, after the battle of Evesham in 1265, when de Montfort himself was defeated, Sir John was already dead, and Meonstoke passed to another de Percy. But, only three years later, he sold it to Robert Waleraund, and the manor remained in the hands of Waleraunds or their descendants until perhaps 1370 or thereabouts, when the manor escheated (was returned) to the king, Edward III. And he then granted it to trustees for the use of his mistress, the famous, or infamous, Alice Perrers, at which point the manor came to be called Meonstoke Perrers.

Detail of an imagining of Alice Perrers and Edward III by Ford Madox Brown (1868),
showing Chaucer reading to the king’s court.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Whether or not Alice ever visited her new manor of Meonstoke Perrers I have no idea, as I believe she had many manors to choose from to rest her head, but it is nice to imagine that she might have spent a night or two at least in the lazy backwaters of the Meon Valley…

However, in 1376, the “Good” Parliament banished Alice and deprived her of her possessions, although in the following year, the “Bad” Parliament reversed the decree and she regained them. But then, in the first Parliament of Richard II, the sentence against her was reconfirmed, and Meonstoke escheated once more to the crown. The manor was put into the hands of stewards until 1379, when the sentence against Alice was yet again revoked, and the manor was granted to her husband, William de Windsor. But, only months later, he sold it to our friend William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester (and also chancellor to both Edward III and Richard II), who merged it with the two other Meonstoke manors and eventually granted it to his foundation, Winchester College (‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, Paragraph p5).

This must have been the lot of hundreds of manors throughout the country – this toing and froing between owners as their status soared and dived at the whim of those in power. One wonders what the tenants thought of it all? Probably nothing. It was no concern of theirs. They undoubtedly just kept their heads down and got on with their work. I suppose, in many cases, tenants scarcely knew their “lord”, if he or she was of the absentee type, as I am sure all of those I have mentioned here must have been. As far as tenants were concerned, their masters were the reeve and steward or bailiff, and their own lives were lived with no connection to the, possibly illustrious, person who actually benefited from the results of their labours.

Most of this information is pretty “random” and, as it happens, has proved of no use to me in my novels. But that doesn’t stop me finding it hugely fascinating. I have explored the histories of other villages around this part of Hampshire, with some equally intriguing, if not necessarily such “glittering”, results.

If you are interested in the history of old England, you might too find something to intrigue you in British History Online.

The complexity of medieval Soberton (2) by Carolyn Hughes

In this second part of my story of the manorial structure of Soberton parish, in the Meon Valley, I continue my discussion of the various manors distributed across the parish. If you would like to read part 1, which includes an introduction to the purpose of my investigation into Soberton’s medieval past, click here.

Last month, I discussed the principal manor of Soberton, located, I presume, around the site of the existing village. But within the parish of Soberton there were (eventually) six other manors: Longspiers, Flexland Englefield, Wallop’s Manor, Russell Flexland, Bere, and East Hoe. 

Bensted is identified in the Domesday Book, as Benestede, although it is attached to the Droxford Hundred rather than the Meonstoke Hundred, as Soberton is. The Victoria County History, however, doesn’t mention such a place at this location. I am interested in it largely because of its proximity to the other Soberton manors, especially Bere, and I have found another source of information to fill in the History’s gap.

This sketch shows the likely positions of the
various Soberton manors.  © Author

Longspiers

A large part of the estate held, in 1086, by Herbert the Chamberlain was, in the 13th century, held by a Thomas de Windsor, and throughout the 14th by the de Winton family. This manor is possibly, though it isn’t at all clear, the same manor as one called Longspiers. However, according to the Victoria County History, nothing is known after 1384 about this manor of the de Wintons, unless it is indeed the same as either Longspiers, or another manor held by the Fawconer family for the following three centuries. (Exactly where Longspiers or this Fawconer manor were located is unclear. Confusing!) However, in the late 15th century, a manor called Longsperys, with lands in Soberton and Flexland (for more about Flexland, see below) was sold to the John Newport we met briefly in last month's post, the lord of Soberton manor.

In 1544, as already noted in relation to Soberton manor, Longspiers was sold, along with the manors of Soberton and Flexland Englefield, to Walter Bonham who, five years later sold them all on to the Earl of Southampton.

And I presume it was these three manors, Soberton, Longspiers and Flexland Englefield, that were purchased, probably in 1714, by the same Thomas Lewis who had married Anna Curll in 1678.

The combined manors ultimately passed into the possession of Humphrey Minchin of County Tipperary in Ireland, who was a member of Parliament, first in Okehampton, Devon and later in Bossiney in Cornwall. In 1791, the manor that was Longspiers was referred to in a document as Faulkner’s Pleck or Pluk or Pluck, but that name subsequently disappeared. Although it does appear as one of those lordship titles on the Manorial Counsel website I referred to earlier, but then so does “Longspiers”, so it’s hard to know whether Longspiers and Faulkner's P are the same manor or two different ones!

Anyway, the manors remained in the Minchin family at least until the early 20th century.

Flexland Englefield

A modern reproduction of
mediaeval falconry gloves

So, we already know something of Flexland Englefield. At Domesday, this appears to have been part of the Soberton estate owned by Herbert the Chamberlain, which he later granted to his daughter on the occasion of her marriage into a member of the de Venuz family. But it was not referred to as Flexland until the beginning of the 13th century, when it was still held by a de Venuz, Robert. When Robert died, his widow Constance gave to her son John a third of the rents from the estate, which she was holding in dower, in exchange for rents of de Venuz estates elsewhere. When John died, he was succeeded by his brother Thomas, whose daughter Agnes, in 1249, granted one carucate (the land eight oxen could plough in a single annual season) of land in Flexland to William de Cobham, for the rent of a pair of white gloves or 1d. at Easter. How charming!

In the same year William bought more land in Flexland and, thirty years later, his daughter Joan passed the manor to an Agnes de Cobham (what relationship Agnes had to Joan is not mentioned – aunt, perhaps?) to hold for life for the rent of a chaplet of roses. Charming, again! By this time, the manor was called Flexland Cobham.

Some years later, Joan’s sister, Mary, laid claim to the manor (presumably against her relative, Agnes) and by 1316 she succeeded. Nine years later, Mary granted a portion of the land and a pound of pepper to a Roger de Englefield. Twenty years after that, Roger obtained a licence from the bishop of Winchester to celebrate mass in the oratory of his house in Flexland. When Roger died in 1361, the ownership of the land, rents and facilities of his Flexland property seems to have been divided between the king (Edward III), Beaulieu Abbey and a Sir Maurice le Bruyn. Sir Maurice granted the custody of his portion of the lands in Flexland Cobham to a Geoffrey Dene of Chidden (5.5 miles to the north west) to hold during the minority of Maurice’s son and heir. However, Constance, Roger de Englefield’s widow, subsequently forcibly ejected Geoffrey and was prosecuted by him for doing so in 1364. What the outcome of the dispute was I don't know. 

This seems to be the last mention of the manor of Flexland Cobham, its name thereafter changing to Flexland Englefield or Inglefield. Its history then becomes obscure until 1544 when, as we have already seen, it was purchased by Walter Bonham, along with Soberton and Longspiers. 

So, in this story of Flexland Englefield, we have Constance, Agnes, Joan, Mary, and another Constance, all inheriting property and dealing with it in a way that suggests they had considerable control over their own affairs. And a couple of them sound decidely ruthless!

The site of the manor is today marked by Ingoldfield Farm, which apparently has early 13th century origins.

Wallop’s Manor

The estate called Wallop’s Manor was probably in origin the manor which Henry the Treasurer held at the time of the Domesday Book. The Wallop family held a manor here from very early times. In the 13th century the overlord was the abbot of Hyde, and the manor was held by a Richard de Wallop but, in the 14th century, the overlordship changed to the bishop of Winchester. However, three centuries later, the manor was still in the Wallop family, being held by Sir Robert Wallop, whose principal estate was at Farley Wallop near Basingstoke. Robert made a very good marriage, to Anne Wriothesley, daughter of Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton.

But Robert was one of the judges at the trial of King Charles I and, although he did not actually sign Charles I’s death warrant, at the Restoration of the monarchy in the 1660s, Parliament denied Robert receipt of any benefit from his estates, and sentenced him to be drawn upon a sledge to and under the gallows of Tyburn with a halter round his neck, and to be imprisoned for life. The sentence was carried out in 1662. He died intestate in the Tower in 1667, and was buried at Farley. In 1661 the king had granted Robert Wallop’s property in Soberton (and perhaps elsewhere?) to Thomas Wriothesley, the fourth Earl of Southampton, and others, empowering them to sell the whole or part of the premises for the benefit of Lady Anne, sister of the earl and Robert’s wife, and of their son and heir, Henry. 

At the beginning of the 18th century, the manor was sold, probably to Thomas Lewis, the lord of the chief manor of Soberton, who was adding to his property in the parish. He was now in possession of the best part of Soberton’s manors.

The site of this manor is marked by Wallop’s Wood Farm, which apparently has its origin in the early 13th century.

Russell Flexland

John de Drokensford,
Bishop of Bath and Wells (1309-1329)

The manor of Flexland or Russell Flexland was originally a dependent of the main Soberton manor belonging to Beaulieu Abbey. In the 15th century, it was held from the Abbey for the rent of a pound of pepper. However, in the 13th century it was held by a Ralph Russell, and remained in the Russell family until the early 14th century, when it passed to Sir John de Drokensford (Droxford), who was the bishop of Bath and Wells from 1309-1329.

In the 1370s, Sir Maurice le Bruyn pops up again, with his wife Margaret, who was probably the sister and heir of John de Drokensford’s grandson, also John. The le Bruyns’ holding of the manor was entailed in two parts on Margaret’s two daughters by a previous husband, both apparently called Margaret (?). But, in 1405, it was the husband of (the younger?) Margaret, Sir Peter Courtenay of Devon, who held the whole manor on behalf of Margaret. She passed it to her grandson, William, Lord Botreaux, and his heir was his daughter, another Margaret.

The manor then seems to have been subdivided and settled on several different people: a William Warbleton and his wife Margery; William's aunt, Elizabeth Syfrewast; and three of his cousins, Agnes Skulle, Margaret Breknok and Sybil Rykys, all Elizabeth's daughters. When William died in 1469, his heirs included a male cousin, but also his cousins Margaret Breknok and Sybil Rykys, and his second cousin William, son of Agnes Skulle. And it was this William to whom Russell Flexland descended. 

The history of this manor for some time after this is obscure, but it eventually fell into the hands of the William Dale of Soberton, whom we have met before, and at length the manor was sold to Thomas Wriothesley, the first Earl of Southampton (again!). 

The site of the manor is marked by Russell’s Farm, which apparently has its origins in the 13th century, and Russell’s Wood, in the east of the parish. It is extraordinary, in a way, that the manor continued to be called “Russell”, and that the farm maintained that name, despite the Russell family holding it for less than a century…

Bere

The remains of Soberton Mill © Author

From early times the Wayte family held the manor of Bere in the extreme west of the parish and to the north of the Forest of Bere. They held it from the bishop of Winchester, and it had a mill, later called Soberton Mill, which still has a turning wheel, though it is not a functioning mill.

In 1561, William Wayte, who owned extensive lands throughout Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, died leaving six daughters and coheirs, Eleanor, Mary, Honor, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Susan, and, I presume, no son. The manor of Bere passed to Elizabeth, and from her to her son, Sir Richard Norton. When Richard died in 1612, Bere is referred to only as a “messuage” (a dwelling with its adjacent buildings and lands) rather than a manor, even though it included 100 acres of land, and it does seem that “manorial” rights, if Bere had them, had by this time lapsed.

The site of the manor is marked today by Bere Farm.

East Hoe

In the reign of Edward the Confessor, the crown manor of East Hoe was held by Ulward (or Wulfward) but, by the time of Domesday, it had become another of the many possessions of Hugh de Port. It continued with the de Ports until, in the 12th century, it passed to the Hoe family. 

In 1302 there is a record of another charming (and rather curious) form of rent, when half the manor was granted to a Roger Launcelevee and his wife Joan for the rent of one rose annually on the feast of St. John the Baptist (June 24th).

In the late 14th century, the lord of the manor of East Hoe was Sir Bernard Brocas, who was a prominent commander in the English army during Edward III’s French campaigns of the Hundred Years War. He was also a close friend of both the Black Prince and William of Wykeham, who became the bishop of Winchester. 

Bernard married an heiress, Mary des Roches, who brought him a residence at Roche Court (now a private school) near Fareham in Hampshire, though the Brocas’ main residence was Beaurepaire, also in Hampshire, and they owned another manor at Clewer Brocas in Berkshire. Presumably, then, Bernard didn’t spend much time, if any, in East Hoe. Apparently, he was a great patron of Southwick Priory, which is six or so miles to the south of East Hoe. The Priory was founded by Henry I in 1133 for Augustinian canons, originally within the walls of nearby Porchester Castle, although it had moved to Southwick by 1153. In 1385, Bernard granted his East Hoe manor to the Priory, in return for the canons praying daily for the benefit of the king, Richard II, of Bernard himself and his wife Katherine while they lived, and for their souls after death, and for the souls of the late king, Edward III, Mary des Roches, Bernard’s previous wife, and the parents and ancestors of Bernard and Mary.

East Hoe manor continued to be the property of Southwick until the Dissolution, when Henry VIII granted it to a Thomas Knight, and it continued in the Knight family until 1619.

A century later, East Hoe was sold to the same Thomas Lewis we have met before, lord of the chief manor of Soberton, and by this time the owner of nearly the whole parish.

The Victoria County History suggests that the site of East Hoe is marked by Hoegate Farm, but an East Hoe Manor still exists, which is presumably the actual site of the original manor. Hoegate Farm is about two miles to the south, closer to the putative manor of Huntbourn(e) (according to the lordship title indicated on the Manorial Counsel website), but which has no record in either Domesday or the History.

Bensted

Finally, I am including mention of Bensted, despite it not being part of Soberton parish, because it sits on the boundary of Soberton – the River Meon – about a mile and a half from Soberton village, and its ownership as a manor includes many of the names we have already met: the bishop of Winchester, Hugh de Port, the Waytes, Richard Newport and (of course) Thomas Lewis…

My information about Bensted has come from a document written for the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society, The manor of Bensted St Clair.

In the 10th century, the place was known as Bienestede, and was a possession of the bishop of Winchester. At Domesday, it was still in the bishop’s possession, but the manor was held, again, by Hugh de Port. Although there is scarcely any settlement now at this location, in 1086 it was a fairly significant estate. According to Domesday, the estate had six tenant households and six slave households, so perhaps 50 or so people. Interestingly, the manor was among a minority in Domesday where the demesne lands (the lands farmed for the lord's personal benefit) were much larger than tenants’ lands and, until the 16th century, the manor was worked almost entirely for the demesne.

Over time, Bienestede became the manor of Bensted St Clair, then Seyntcleres Court, and eventually St Clair’s Farm. The change of name came from the family of St Clair (or Seyntcler, Sencler, Sinklar, Sinkles – there are many variations), which held the manor from about 1160 until the end of the 14th century. It seems to have last been referred to as Bensted in 1558, after which the name disappeared.

What of those other Soberton people who had an interest in Bensted St Clair?

During the 14th century, associations grew between the St Clair family and the Waytes, from Bere manor, a short distance across and down the river, and it seems likely that the Waytes were tenants of the Bensted fulling-mill, shown as Sinkles Mill on Taylor's 1759 map. The mill was located a little over half a mile downstream from the manor house, here shown simply as Sinkles.

From the 1759 map of Hampshire by Isaac Taylor.

In 1450, Richard Newport, the then holder of the chief Soberton manor, was appointed firmarius (a sort of farm manager) of Bensted manor.

Finally, in the early 18th century, Thomas Lewis, by then the lord of almost the whole of Soberton parish, extended his holding still further by acquiring St Clair’s farm under a lease from the bishop of Winchester.

The manor of Bensted St Clair is marked today by St Clair’s (Sinkles) farmhouse, a 17th century building.

The picture I have drawn of Soberton's manors is not, perhaps, as lucid as I would like. I might of course obtain further clarification by reading more widely but, for now, I feel I have learned enough to sate my immediate curiosity. To get a fuller, clearer picture of the manorial structure of Soberton, I could explore other, contemporary, documents. The Victoria County History’s information is detailed but, as I have said, at times confusing. But to be honest I don’t need more, well, not right now. I wanted to gain a general picture of the shape of mediaeval Soberton, and perhaps to discover some of the people involved, and I’ve done that. I have learned, at any rate, that, by the early 18th century, after all that complicated toing and froing of ownership, one man – Thomas Lewis – held nearly all the manors in the parish. However, he died in 1736 and whether he passed his great holdings on to his heirs I haven't discovered.

But, to finish, a couple of thoughts occur to me about Soberton’s manors...

Firstly, I do wonder again – for I have mentioned it in previous posts – what the ordinary Soberton inhabitant made of all the toing and froing of ownership, or indeed whether it even affected them very much. I suspect “not much”, in either case. I imagine it was largely of little concern to them who their “lord” was. They probably just kept their heads down and got on with their work... I suppose, in many cases, tenants scarcely even knew who their lord was, especially if the lord was of the absentee variety. As far as tenants were concerned, their masters were the reeve and steward or bailiff, and their own lives were lived with little or no connection to the individual who actually benefited from their labours.

Secondly, there do seem to me to be quite a lot of manors here in Soberton within a relatively small area. I wonder to what extent they were successful economic units? Presumably they must have been reasonably lucrative otherwise wealthy men would not have been so eager to acquire them. But what I also suspect is that the Soberton manors were, for many of the owners, not their main, or even a major, source of income. To what extent the owners, especially those higher up in the social hierarchy, spent any time in their little Soberton manors is anybody’s guess. One suspects that the answer is, not much!

Although I do like to think that perhaps Thomas Lewis might have been the exception… 

The complexity of medieval Soberton (1) by Carolyn Hughes

When, several years ago, I embarked upon writing the first of the "Meonbridge Chronicles", I read a lot of books in preparation. Most of the books were filling in the gaps in my knowledge of how ordinary people lived in the 14th century: their homes and clothes, their food and tools, what they did and what they thought. What, I now realise, I didn’t much investigate, was how the manorial society in which they lived was managed.

Of course, I knew something – I knew about the feudal system and that it was already beginning to break down by the time of the Black Death. I knew about lords and tenants, and manorial obligations. So in the first "Meonbridge Chronicle", Fortune’s Wheel, I imagined that my fictional Meonbridge had a “lord of the manor” (Sir Richard) and a couple of hundred tenants before the plague halved the population, all living together in a state of sometimes more or less harmonious equilibrium, sometimes uneasy tension. What I didn’t really think about was how Sir Richard had acquired his ownership of Meonbridge (and his many other estates across the south of England). Did he hold it (them) from an overlord, such as the king, or some ecclesiastical overlord, such as the bishop of Winchester or Beaulieu Abbey? Or perhaps he held it from his own “liege lord”, a fictional Sussex earl? I hadn’t worked that out, and, from the point of view of the story, it didn’t matter all that much.

But the third "Meonbridge Chronicle", which I am currently drafting, addresses matters of inheritance, and so it is interesting to consider how manors were held and passed on in the Middle Ages. So I’ve done a bit more reading…

My reading has been mainly confined to two sources: the Domesday Book, and one of my favourite resources, the Victoria County History (accessed from the British History Online (BHO) website, about which I have waxed lyrical on The History Girls before.

In that blog post, I talked mostly about Meonstoke, which lies about halfway along the length of the River Meon and is, in my mind, the village that “Meonbridge” aligns to most closely. What I read of Meonstoke’s manorial history was interesting and reasonably straightforward. This time, however, I chose to read about Soberton, a couple of miles downstream of Meonstoke, and the picture I have gained is no less interesting, but far less clear. The results of my reading have been both enlightening and confusing. I wanted to gain a general insight into Soberton’s medieval manorial structure and to discover some of the people who held, and disposed of, the manors. I have achieved that, more or less, but it is a complex picture.

This is the first of a two-part post about what I have learned of Soberton’s manorial arrangements. Because the picture is rather complicated, I have more information than I can possibly include in one month’s post. But I think it’s interesting enough to warrant telling all!

The parish of Soberton and Newtown is apparently one of the largest, geographically, in the United Kingdom. Today, the parish is still largely rural, or semi-rural, with several working farms, a few horticultural and industrial enterprises, and a population of about 1600. Its main church, St. Peter’s, was begun in the 12th century. A second church, in Newtown, was built in the 19th century, as was a Methodist Chapel in Soberton Heath (now a private home). The southern part of the parish (Soberton Heath/Newtown) contains a good area of the Forest of Bere, once a vast area of royal woodland stretching from Romsey, south towards Southampton, east to beyond the Sussex border, and as far north as Winchester. It is presumed that the Norman kings used Bere Forest for hunting, as well as the New Forest to the west in Dorset, and it is reputed that Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Charles I all hunted here. The oak woods provided timber for building, including warships and bridges, from the 13th to the 19th centuries. I have written more about the Forest in the wider context of “industry” in the Meon Valley, in an earlier History Girls post.

Most, though not quite all, of the modern parish lies within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park.

One of the constituents of the BHO website, the Victoria County History for Hampshire, provides extensive and fascinating information about the historical ownership, as well as the important buildings and features, of Hampshire’s manors. As I said in my earlier post about the BHO, it is intriguing to see how the ownership of quite small manors, or parts of manors, sometimes rested with quite famous individuals, like the bishops of Winchester, or the (in)famous third Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley.

Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton,
portrait attributed to John de Critz [Public domain]

In the Meon Valley, many of the estates were originally owned by the Crown or by some illustrious ecclesiastical institution. But, as I have discovered, many of these estates were in practice held by aristocratic or knightly families, some of whom retained their manorial holdings for generations and centuries, although sometimes manors were subdivided to provide for multiple heirs, or sold off to meet liabilities. Families such as the Waytes, the  Newports, the de Venuz’s and the Wallops were long-standing “lords of the manor” in Soberton. In the case of Soberton, too, I have noticed how relatively often women seemed to inherit and hold – or dispose of – manors, giving the impression that, for several centuries at least, women had more power over their property than one might have thought.

I have discovered, too, how fascinating it is to see – or to try to fathom – how locations named in earlier centuries align with what we have now. I don’t know quite why I find this so absorbing… Perhaps it’s something to do with what I also said in one of those earlier posts: “It’s somehow wonderful, and somehow humbling, to remember, in these places where I take my walk, and where I sometimes stop to stand and stare, how very many men and women have been here in the centuries before me.” It’s about wanting to understand the shape of our ancestors’ lives.

According to the Domesday Book of 1086, Soberton (attached to the Meonstoke Hundred) had four main “estates”, which together had a population of about 35 households, or perhaps 150 or so people. There is also an entry in Domesday for [East] Hoe, which lies within the eastern boundary of the parish, with another nine households. Domesday also tells us of a place called “Benestede” (or Bensted), with 12 households, which lay on the western boundary of the parish of Soberton (the River Meon), though it no longer exists under this name. I am including a reference to it in this post largely because of its geographical proximity to the Soberton manors and it shares some of the same personalities.

The Domesday entries for Soberton "proper" show that two of the four estates belonged at that time to the king, William I. A major part of Soberton had, at the time of the Conquest in 1066, formed part of the estates of Godwin, Earl of Wessex. His son, King Harold Godwinson, made his father’s a crown estate. Domesday says:

“Harold took it from him and put it in his revenue; it is so still.”

These estates remained in the overlordship of the king.

The entry in the Domesday Book that refers to the estates once owned by Godwin.

A third Soberton estate at the time of the Conquest had belonged to “Wulfnoth”, who I assume was either Godwin’s father, Wulfnoth Cild, who held vast estates in Sussex and was possibly the thegn of South Sussex, or another Wulfnoth Godwinson, Godwin’s sixth son and Harold’s younger brother. By the time of Domesday, the estate was in the hands of Herbert the Chamberlain, who was chamberlain of the Winchester treasury.

The fourth Soberton estate was crown land in 1066 but, by Domesday, it belonged to Henry the Treasurer (about whom I know no more). 

[East] Hoe was again crown land in 1066 but, by Domesday, it had been transferred to Hugh de Port, a French-English Norman aristocrat who accumulated a great number of estates, perhaps as many as 53 by 1086, most of which were in Hampshire.

Bensted, which was located just outside Soberton parish, was owned by the bishop of Winchester both prior to and after Domesday, but the wealthy Hugh de Port held it (or part of it) in 1086.

So, that was the situation in 1086. But, in the decades and centuries that followed, it seems that the, perhaps initially quite clearly delineated, estates referred to in the Domesday Book became divided and subdivided, according to the practice of “subinfeudation”, by which tenants who held land from an overlord, including the king, sub-let or alienated part of it to heirs or others. As a result, says the Victoria County History, it became difficult to trace the subsequent history of some of the estates. The results of the “subinfeudation” in Soberton made its manorial structure really rather complex, and I have enjoyed trying – while not entirely succeeding – to tease out the details.

The manors of Soberton shown in relation to the existing settlements.
The dotted line is the parish boundary. © Author

From the information in the History, the five Domesday estates in Soberton parish were divided (eventually) into about seven manors:

•   Soberton
•   Longspiers
•   Flexland (Englefield)
•   Wallop’s Manor
•   Russell Flexland
•   Bere
•   East Hoe 

The History doesn’t mention a Bensted at this location at all.

[As an aside, on a website called Manorial Counsel Limited, I have found that lordships of the following manors exist: Soberton, Russell Flexland, Wallop’s Manor, Bere, Longspiers, East Hoe, but also Faulkner’s Pluck and Huntbourne. None of these titles are available for sale (which is partly the function of the website), so whether this means someone actually still owns them all, I really don’t know!]

Soberton

The Clere family held “a” (rather than “the”) manor of Soberton from the king from early times. In the reign of Edward III, the abbot of Beaulieu Abbey purchased “a” manor of Soberton. It seems unclear exactly where this manor (if indeed it was the same manor) was located, but perhaps it was where Soberton village is now, to the north of the parish, and maps to the two estates identified as belonging to the king in 1086? I can’t tell this from my reading of the History, but I suppose it is a reasonable conjecture.

Anyway, as early as 1229, the forests in Soberton that belonged to the Abbey were extensive enough to justify the king ordering the abbot to supply the royal navy with five hundred wickerwork baskets (cleias) and two hundred bridges. In 1359, the Abbey was granted free warren in Soberton, and in 1393 the king confirmed the right of common of pasture within the Forest of Bere for the animals of the tenants of Soberton. About this time, the Abbey began what seemed to be a common practice for overlords, to farm out the manor, and it was let to various tenants from then onwards. 

In 1411, the manor was leased to a Richard Newport and his heirs for two hundred years. This lease seems to have been equivalent to a sale, for no annual rent was mentioned in the indenture. In 1477, the manor was said to be the property of Henry Stafford, the second Duke of Buckingham, who was married to Catherine Woodville, sister of Elizabeth, the wife of King Edward IV.

Later in the 15th century, the manor and other premises in Soberton were passed to John Dale and Richard Kingsmill, apparently as trustees, rather than owners. Richard Newport’s grandson, John, who had inherited the manor, died in 1521 with no children to succeed him. John’s widow, Elizabeth, died six years later. They were buried together inside St Peter’s church, in a marble tomb that can still be seen in what was once called the Lady Chapel, and now the Curll Chapel. Elizabeth left fifty sheep, two cattle and ten marks in money to the church, and 3s. 4d. (about £70 or 5 days  wages for a skilled tradesman) to each of her Soberton tenants.

In 1544, William Dale, presumably a son or grandson of John Dale, and still a “trustee”, passed the manor of Soberton, together with those of Longspiers and Flexland Englefield (see next month’s post), to a Walter Bonham who, five years later, sold them to Thomas Wriothesley, the first Earl of Southampton. The earl died a year later. His grandson Henry, who inherited Soberton at the age of eight on the death of his father in 1581, became the infamous third Earl. Towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign, Henry was drawn into the Earl of Essex’s conspiracy and was sent to the Tower when the plot failed. In 1601 he was convicted of treason (and presumably deprived of all his estates). However, Elizabeth’s Secretary of State, Sir Robert Cecil, had Henry’s sentence commuted to life imprisonment. But in 1603, he was released by the new king, James I, who also restored to him his Soberton manor (among many others, I presume!) and, four years later, granted him free warren, view of frankpledge, assize of bread and beer, and various other privileges. When Henry died on the king’s service abroad in 1624, his heir was his son Thomas, then aged sixteen.

Walter Curll, Bishop of Winchester (1632-1647)

However, within the next few years, Soberton was sold to Dr. Walter Curll, who was bishop of Winchester from 1632 to 1647. When, in 1645, the Parliamentary forces under Oliver Cromwell captured Winchester, Walter went into exile to his manor in Soberton. It was said that he “led a retired life there in a sort of obscurity for a year and a half or thereabouts in a declining state of health. He was brought up to London for advice, but died 1647 about seventy two”. After his death, the manor was taken from the family but, in 1651, Walter’s widow and his son petitioned for its restoration. It was restored, and passed eventually to Walter’s grandson, another Walter. Then, in 1678, this Walter’s daughter, Anna, married Thomas Lewis, and brought the manor to her husband. 

And it wasn’t long before Thomas became the owner of nearly all the manors of Soberton parish.

I will continue Soberton’s manorial story in next month’s post.