Campsall
The church of St Mary Magdalene in
Barnsdale forest of which the literary character of the Middle Ages, Robin
Hood, wrote I made a chapel in Bernysdale, That seemly is to se, It is of
Mary Magdaleyne, And therto
would I be.
Nearby sites associated with Robin
Hood include Robin Hood’s Well at the side of the A1
This guide
to visiting Campsall and Barnsdale accompanies the history of
Campsall.
Directions
Campsall is
approached from the A1 at the Barnsdale Bar turnoff.
As you drive
into the town you will see the church of St Mary Magdalene on the right.
Unlike many
of the Yorkshire churches, the church is kept locked. So
you will need to get in touch with the vicar in advance to see if you can
arrange a time to visit or just visit the outside of the church.
From early times the parish of Campsall consisted of six
townships or hamlets of Campsall, Askern, Fenwick, Moss, Norton and Sutton.
The
Church
By
the fifteenth century the villagers at Campsall north
of Doncaster, had formed a
fraternity, and hired their own priest to pray for the parishioners living and
the souls departed.
Over time
the Church dedicated to St Mary Magdalene at Campsall came to resemble a
collegiate church. Alongside the vicar and deacon were also chantry priests in
the vicinity who sang masses for the repose of the souls of individuals who
left endowments to the church. The chantry priests were add
ons to the parish clergy and may have been involved
in teaching. It has been suggested that the first floor
chamber above the vaulted west bay of the south aisle at St Mary Magdalene,
dating from the late thirteenth century, might have been a space used for such
a purpose.
The
emergence of the theologian Richard of Campsall (c1280 to c1350) suggests a well established tradition of
teaching in Campsall. Richard of Campsall, or Ricardus de Campsalle,
was a secular theologian and scholastic philosopher at the University of
Oxford. Richard of Campsall’s extant works include his Quaestiones super librum Priorum analeticorum (“Questions about the book Prior
Analytic”), the Contra ponentes naturam
(“Against Nature”, on universals), a short treatise on form and matter, Utrum materia possit esse sine forma
(“whether matter can exist without form”), and Notabilia de contingencia et presciencia Det
(“Remarks on contingency and presceience”), all of
which were probably written about 1317 or 1318. Campsall’s Sentences
commentary is not extant, but Walter Chatton, Adam of
Wodeham, Rodington, Robert Holcot, and Pierre de Plaout
cited him in their Sentences commentaries. In the Questions on the
Prior Analytics Richard of Campsall proposed that training in logic was the
basis for all other sciences. He discussed the concepts of syllogism,
consequences, and conversion. He argued that the crux of logical thinking was
the syllogism and knowledge of consequences and conversion was necessary for
the study of syllogism, especially for converting “imperfect” syllogisms into
“perfect” syllogisms. In the area of supposition theory, Campsall proposed
views usually first attributed to Ockham, including his distinction between
simple and other types of supposition.
This was
deep stuff. Campsall must have been the crucible of some serious intellectual
debate to have produced a person such as Richard.
Most English
writers of the fifteenth century had at least some association with the Church.
Those who captured the rymes of Robehod into the
written word were therefore likely to have had some ecclesiastical background.
The church
is almost certainly the church described in the Gest of Robin Hood.
Barnsdale
The earliest
references to Robin Hood are more associated with
Barnsdale Forest than Sherwood Forest.
Many of the
names given to geographical locations in Sherwood Forest were given in the
nineteenth century. Some names though are much older, such as Barnsdale’s Stone
of Robin Hood, about 500m north of Robin Hood’s Well, which was mentioned as a
boundary marker in about 1540 by John Leland, in his Itinery in or about the years 1535-1543.
In 1540 John
Leland described the road which followed the modern A1 near Campsall as
bandit country and on his journey from Doncaster to Pontefract, Leland wrote From
Dancaster to Causeby lesys by a mile and more, wher
the rebelles of Yorkshir a
lately assembled.
Wentbridge
is mentioned in what may be the earliest Robin Hood ballad, entitled, Robin
Hood and the Potter, which reads, "Y mete hem bot at Went breg,' syde Lyttyl
John". And, whilst Wentbridge is not
directly named in A Gest of Robyn Hode, the poem does appear to make a
cryptic reference to the locality by depicting a poor knight explaining to
Robin Hood that he ‘went at a bridge’ where there was wrestling.
The Gest
makes a specific reference to the Saylis at Wentbridge. The nineteenth century South Yorkshire
Historian, Joseph Hunter identified the site of the Saylis.
From this location it was once possible to look out over the Went Valley and observe the traffic that passed along the
Great North Road. The Saylis is recorded as having
contributed towards the aid that was granted to Edward III in 1346-47 for the
knighting of the Black Prince. An acre of landholding is listed within a glebe
terrier of 1688 relating to Kirk Smeaton, which later came to be called ‘Sailes
Close’and ‘Sayles Plantation’.
Within close proximity of Wentbridge
there are several landmarks which relate to Robin Hood. One such place-name
location occurred in a cartulary deed of 1422 from Monkbretton
Priory, which makes direct reference to a landmark named Robin Hood’s Stone
which is on the east side of the Great North Road, the A1, a mile south of
Barnsdale Bar. The historians Barry Dobson and John Taylor suggested that on
the opposite side of the road once stood Robin Hood's Well, which has since
been relocated six miles north-west of Doncaster, on the south-bound side of
the Great North Road. Over the next three centuries, the name popped-up all
over the place, such as at Robin Hood's Bay near Whitby,
Robin Hood's Butts in Cumbria, and Robin Hood's Walk at Richmond, Surrey. The
first place-name in Sherwood does not appear until
1700, suggesting that Nottinghamshire jumped on the bandwagon at least four
centuries after the event.
or
Go Straight to Chapter 11 –
the Vicar of Doncaster
Go straight to
Campsall and Barnsdale Forest