Anglo-Saxon-Scandinavian Kirkdale
Kirkdale from the beginning of the
Scandinavian period in about 800 CE to the Norman Conquest in 1066
Then a short summary of its history
after 1066
Scandinavian
disruption
It had been
suggested that the minster fell into ruin, perhaps as a result of Danish raids,
long before the sundial tells us that Orm Gamalson rebuilt it. Recent
interpretation suggests this was not the case.
There is
little evidence from the period of transition from the Anglo Saxon to the Anglo
Scandinavian period. However the archaeologists have found the presence of
graves which appear to be from the early Anglo-Scandinavian period.
There may
well have been unrest, disruption to religious observance and bursts of
violence during the early Anglo Scandinavian period. Yet Kirkdale was nested
away at the edge of the dales, far from the places where Viking upheaval is
known to have occurred. It is possible that there was a relatively smooth
transition in culture and leadership at this time. It seems possible that the
church at Kirkdale might have assumed greater responsibility for a dispersed
population around it, while a larger concentration at the settlement of
Kirkbymoorside may have become disconnected from the inhabitants around
Kirkdale.
There was
certainly a process of sub dividing previously extensive estates into smaller
units and Kirkdale’s place in that process is not
known. The ninth century was a period of fresh feudal ownership by a new elite
and the gradual reestablishment of settlements focused on manors.
When the
Scandinavian government was exercised from York,
Kirkdale might have found itself in more regular contact with York. The elite
associated with Kirkdale in time acquired property in York. This was likely to
have increased its connection to York.
|
The
Scandinavian centre of northern England |
The
Scandinavian dominance was the beginning of a period of more profound change.
It began a new sense of northern-ness, as a counterpoint to the southern
English court.
Fears for
the end of the world
Whilst
Kirkdale might have escaped the worst ravages of the early Scandinavian period,
by the turn of the first millennium in the Common Era, there was a widespread
heightened anticipation and fear of apocalypse. As the year 1000 passed, the
anticipation did not wither, only the uncertainty about the precise date when
it would occur.
Wulfstan was
appointed Archbishop of York in 1002 during
the turbulent times of fresh waves of settlement from the wicinglas,
the people of the fjord settlements. By the end of the tenth century, England
had become a sophisticated state on the European stage. Wulfstan assumed a
sophisticated model of society. However 1014 was a year of crisis. King Aetheraed had been driven into exile, expelled by Sweyn
Forkbeard who was accepted as King of the English before dying in 1014. His
young son Cnut then became King.
Wulfstan had
long served in Aethelraed’s administration. It was in this context that he
wrote his sermon to the English people, Sermo
Lupi ad Anglos (Lupi being the Latin for wolf, Wulfstan’s pen name).
The sermon provided a contemporary definition of morality and foreboding.
The sermon
began with a sense of foreboding. Beloved people, know that this is true. This
world is in haste and it approaches its end. And so, because of the nation’s
sins, things must of necessity grow far more evil before Antichrist’s advent:
and then indeed they shall be appalling and terrible widely throughout the
world.
It continued,
the devil has too much led astray the nation. If we are to expect any cure,
then we must deserve it of God better than we hitherto have done. God’s houses
are too cleanly despoiled. Nor has anyone been faithful in thought towards
another as duly he should. People have not very often cared what they have
wrought by word or by deed.
He then
recounted that there was a historian in the days of the Britons called
Gildas, who wrote about their misdeeds, how they by their sins so overly much
angered God that in the end he permitted the army of the English to conquer
their lands and destroy withal the Britons power.
He therefore
continued and let us do as our need is, submit to what is right and in some
measure abandon what is not right.
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Archbishop Wulfstan’s Sermon to the English People
Wulfstan’s
ominous warnings as the Millennium turned. |
Kirkdale
in the late Anglo Saxon period
The archaeologists
suggest that St Gregory’s minster might have reached its most extensive size
before it was rebuilt in about 1055. However the nave, the central part of the
church which accommodates most or all of the congregation, was not larger, so
this does not necessarily mean that there were more parishioners. It probably
continued in its original Anglo Saxon form and not Anglo Scandinavian in form.
It has been suggested that we might get some idea of the church at that time by
comparing it with St Mary’s, Deerhurst in Gloucestershire.
The sundial
does not make clear how long before its rebuilding Orm Gamalson had purchased the
church. We are told that he acquired St Gregory’s Minster when it was
completely ruined and collapsed. If, as seems likely, the fire occurred
shortly before it was rebuilt, then although he appears to have been an
extensive feudal landowner including of the Kirkbymoorside estate since shortly
after the invasion of Sweyn Forkbeard and Cnut in 1016, his interest in the
church itself would have been acquired towards the middle of the century.
If the fire
occurred a little earlier than that, say in the 1020s, then Orm might have had
ownership of the church for a period of time in its late Anglo Saxon form. It
is possible he would have exercised significant patronage in the last years of
development of the ancient church. Perhaps it was the activity of extensive
rebuilding work by Orm that caused the fire.
Alternatively
the minster might already have burned down before Cnut’s invasion and before
the Orm family interest.
The
Phoenix emerges
We do know
that there is archaeological evidence of burning. The church appears to have
been destroyed by fire, most evident in excavations on its south side. The
interior fittings of wood and cloth were inflammable and it seems most likely
that the fire occurred in the early to mid eleventh
century, shortly before it was rebuilt and may just have been an accident.
When Orm
rebuilt Kirkdale minster, with its
sundial created by Hawarth, and served by the
priest Brand, this was an ancient, ruined, minster church whose cemetery was
still used by the local people for the burial of their dead.
|
The
powerful figure at the heart of the aristocracy, who rebuilt Kirkdale and put
our ancestral lands firmly onto the national political stage |
|
A unique treasure whose secrets transport us into the
world of the eleventh century upon which you can stare today, imagining
direct ancestors who did the same a thousand years ago |
Disturbed
graves at the west exterior of the church reflect the chaos of the fire and its
aftermath. The area of Trench II became a workshop for the rebuilding work.
Debris from the church was taken to this area and later components of the new
building programme were prepared within the shelter of a shed like building.
The destruction of the old church was so extensive that much of the previous
structure required to be rebuilt, but the previous church seems to have been
used as the basic template for the new foundations.
No evidence
has been found of a residence at this time, so we don’t know where the priest
lived.
What
survives of Orm's church in the existing visible fabric appears to be the
south, west, and what remains of the east walls of the nave; the archway in the
west wall of the nave (now opening into the much later west tower) which
probably formed the original entrance to Orm's church; and the jambs,
angle-shafts, bases and capitals of the arch which leads from the nave into the
chancel. The latter archway is some four centuries later than Orm's church, but
it appears that the masons who were responsible for it re-used what they could
of an earlier chancel arch. It is therefore reasonable to infer that Orm's
church had a chancel, though not all Anglo-Saxon
parish churches did. It was probably a great deal smaller than the existing
one.
Much of the
present nave in undoubtedly Orm’s building. The western entrance arch and the
responds of the chancel arch belong to that period. Old masonry including grave
slabs and crosses, was later used in the west and south walls.
It was the
Scandinavian named Orm who rebuilt the minster. Kirkdale does not appear to
have suffered Viking destruction, but Scandinavian reconstruction.
Sir
Herbert Edward Read, art historian, poet and critic was born at Kirkdale
and wrote a poem about Orm’s church in his collection, A World within a War:
|
I, Orm,
the son of Gamal Found
these fractured stones Starting
out of the fragrant thicket The
river bed was dry |
The
rooftrees naked and bleached, Nettles
in the nave and aisleways, On the
altar an owl’s cast And a
feather from a wild dove’s wing |
There
was peace in the valley; Far
into the eastern sea The foe
had gone, leaving death and ruin And a
longing for the priest’s solace |
Fast
the feather lay Like a
sulky jewel in my head Till I
knew it had fallen in a holy place Therefore
I raised these grey stones up again |
The years
after the Conquest
Although the
story of our family’s journey, of which this website tells, departs in its
direct interest with Kirkdale after the Conquest, the family shares much of its
story over the following centuries.
Walter Espec
encouraged the founding of the Cistercian abbey at Rievaulx in 1131. These austere
monks sought detachment from the world, in contrast to the Benedictines and the
Augustinians. A breakaway group from St Mary’s Abbey in York established
Fountains Abbey and Kirkham Priory. The twelfth century boundaries of Rievaulx
suggest that Kirkdale was an island amidst abbey land. By this time
Kirkdale was clearly attached with Welburn, a section of the Kirkbymoorside
estate. Kirkdale was by then surrounded by abbey lands.
Roger de Mowbray granted the church to
Newburgh Priory, who held it until the dissolution. The field to the immediate
north of Kirkdale Church which retains prominent earthworks of ridge and
furrow, evidence that this field was in arable use by the twelfth century, although
we have already noted its arable use long before that.
At about the
same time as the
Farndale grant in 1154, Roger granted the whole of the vil
of Welburn with six bovates of land (but excepting the Church of Kirkdale) to Rievaulx. This land had been in the
possession of the Augustinian priory of Newburgh.
A scheduled
site at the farm still named Skiplam Grange, situated
above Hodge Beck not far north-west of St Gregory’s Minster, preserves an
earthworks, associated buried remains and some above-ground remains of
buildings from the grange maintained there by Rievaulx Abbey up to the date of
the Dissolution. Skiplam was part of the large grant
of land given to Rievaulx Abbey by Gundreda d'Aubigny between 1144 and 1154 and later confirmed by her
son Roger de Mowbray. This grant included some land in cultivation along with
previously unexploited land which the abbey was allowed to assart,
or improve and bring into productive use, as they wished. By the time of Abbot
Ailred of Rievaulx (1147-1167), Skiplam was operated
as a grange.
Under Pope
Nicholas’ taxation of 1292, Kirkdale was taxed at £23 6s 8d.
The
Cistercians obtained papal freedom from payment of tithes on land which they
cultivated themselves. The Cistercians tenaciously maintained their tithe
privileges.
In 1432, the
prior and convent of Newburgh brought a case in the consistory court of York
against Robert Hewlott and Richard Page for non payment of tithes of coppice wood, by virtue of their
possession by that time of the parish church of Welburn. The records of the
case provide a description of the parish church at Kirkdale at that time:
The
parish church of Welburn, otherwise known as Kirkdale, built and dedicated in
honour of St Gregory, of the said diocese, which has been canonically united,
annexed and appropriated to their said priory [Newburgh] to their own uses.
He
submits and intends to prove that for the whole periods stated above there was,
was accustomed to be, and is, in the said diocese of York, a certain parish
church with the cure of souls, universally and commonly known as Welburn or
Kirkdale. It has well known boundaries by which it is distinguished, divided
and separated from the other neighbouring parishes. It has a goodly number of
parishioners of both sexes, a baptismal font, cemetery, and other attributes of
a parish church.
He
submits and intends to prove that the right to take an enjoy tithes of whatever
kind, both personal and predial, and great and small, and especially tithes of
coppice wood issuing from whatsoever places within the parish of the said
church [of Welburn] otherwise
known as Kirkdale, and the boundaries, borders and places liable to tithe
located within the parish belonged and belongs under common law, by sufficient
legal right and praiseworthy custom, which has been observed peacefully and
inviolately, to the parish church of Welburn, otherwise known as Kirkdale, and
the said religious men, the prior and convent, and their monastery or priory in
the name of the said church.
On 23
January 1539, Newburgh was dispossessed of Kirkdale. This was no doubt part of
the Reformation redistribution.
Go Straight to Chapter 3 –
Scandinavian Kirkdale
or
If your interest is in Kirkdale then I suggest you visit the
following pages of the website.
· The community in Anglo Saxon Times
· The church in Anglo Saxon Times
· The Kirkdale
Anglo Saxon artefacts
· The community in Anglo Saxon Times
You will
find a chronology, together with source material at the Kirkdale Page.