Thursday, August 3, 2017

Henley family of Henley in medieval Dorset

Henley family of Henley in medieval Dorset

Niall C.E.J. O’Brien

History is often the recounted stories of the great and the good or sometimes not so good. The famous leave vast records of their life to dazzle the humble reader. The great estates of medieval England, often stretching across several counties and even countries, command the economic history of the time and influence the political. Underneath this greatness were the ordinary people, the ancestors of the majority of modern people even if genealogists try their best to provide people with connections back to medieval royalty.

One such ordinary family lived at Henley in the manor of Buckland Newton where the Dorset downs slope down steeply to the Blackmoor Vale. Henley is about ¾ of a mile south-east of Buckland Newton which is itself 9 miles south of Sherborne. The family also had property at Knoll which is a hamlet a half miles east of Buckland.  

Buckland Newton church

Knoll of Knoll

In about 1220 Ralph de Knoll the younger and his wife, Isabel, granted to Ralph’s brother William de Henley one virgate and 3½ acres in Henley (Dorset) for a yearly rent of 1lb of cumin or 2d. Ralph also allowed William to have 12 beasts, 100 sheep, 2 bulls and 10 pigs on Ralph’s pasture. That number of animals was not a small farmer but somebody of comfortable means. For this grant William paid Ralph 20s.[1] It is interesting that two brothers would have different surnames but that was common before the fourteenth century. Knoll and Henley were two different places within Buckland manor in Dorset. 

Because Ralph de Knoll is described as Ralph de Knoll the younger this suggests that his father was Ralph de Knoll senior. This would imply that the Henley family of Henley began life as the Knoll family of Knoll and in the first quarter of the thirteenth century one of the family, William de Henley, moved to Henley.

Henley of Henley

Sometime before 1254 William de Henley made a grant of one croft and six acres at Henley to Henry de Alton for a rent of 1s. In about 1254 Walter de Henley confirmed the grant of his late father, William de Henley, of this property to Henry de Alton. Walter de Henley also remitted the rent of 1s per year on the land and gave Henry de Alton a further seven acres at Henley. In return Henry de Alton was to pay Walter de Henley a rent of a pair of gloves or 1d at Easter time.[2]

In about 1255 Henry de Alton, clerk, made a grant of the croft and thirteen acres at Henley to Geoffrey de Waiet, vicar of Buckland Newton, in return for a pair of gloves or 1d rent at Easter time. For this grant Geoffrey gave Henry de Alton ten marks.[3]

Meanwhile Alice de Henley had remarried after the death of her first husband, William de Henley. Her new husband was Hugh le Grenger. Sometime before 1255 Hugh le Grenger and Alice de Henley made a grant to Abbot Michael of Amesbury (1235-52) and Glastonbury abbey of her dower lands at Henley.[4]

In about 1255 Hugh le Grenger and Alice made a grant to Abbot Roger Ford and Glastonbury abbey of all the land they held at Henley including Alice’s dower lands of seven acres and a garden. Walter de Henley, her son, agreed to the grant.[5] As a widow was entitled to a third of her husband’s property this dowry would mean that William de Henley originally had twenty-one acres at Henley.
Later in about 1265 Alice de Henley confirmed her grant to Glastonbury of all her rights in Henley.[6] By 1265 Alice de Henley was in her second widowhood as Hugh le Grenger had died. As a result, Alice de Henley made a further confirmation in about 1265 to Glastonbury of all the property rights previously granted to Glastonbury by Hugh le Grenger.[7]

In about 1255 Walter son of William de Henlegh granted three acres at Henley to Geoffrey de Waiet, vicar of Buckland Newton, for the rent of a pair of gloves or 1d at Easter time.[8]

Also in about 1255 Walter de Henley made a quitclaimed to Abbot Roger Ford and Glastonbury abbey of his entire holding in Henley within Buckland manor. This quitclaimed included the services of Geoffrey de Waiet, vicar of Buckland, and the services of 3 ½ acres in West Field and 2 acres in East Field. Walter de Henley at the same time confirmed the grants by his step-father, Hugh le Grenger and his mother Alice de Henley had previously made to Abbot Michael of Glastonbury.[9]

Glastonbury Abbey

Walter de Henley, the agriculturist  

It is interesting to know why Walter de Henley gave up his entire property when his step-father was still alive and his mother was still alive in 1265. It would seem that the Henley family left no immediate descendants as the Dorset lay subsidy of 1327 mentions to person with a surname of Knoll, Henley or Grenger in the hundred of Buckland Newton.[10] In the opinion of Dom Aelred Watkin, editor of the Great Chartulary of Glastonbury, this small farmer from Dorset entered the religious life as a Dominican and later in 1280 wrote a famous treatise on agriculture called Le Dite de Hosebondrie, which until the early sixteenth century was treated as one of the great works on agriculture.[11] The treatise is a work on the management of a medieval manor. It is written as an old man giving advice to a grandson on the prudence management of an estate. The writer says that little by little people become rich but also little by little people become poor. To achieve best results a lord needed to have personal knowledge of his estate and know best husbandry for his animals and crops.[12]

At Buckland Newton the lord of the manor was the Abbot of Glastonbury as it was since the Domesday Book of 1086 and beyond into Anglo-Saxon England.[13] Glastonbury used Buckland Newton mainly to send wheat to Glastonbury while sheep, cattle and pigs were also sent, mainly by the tenants. To help better breeding Glastonbury brought sheep from its Wiltshire estates to Buckland Newton to increase the quality of the Buckland sheep.[14] Walter de Henley would have approved of this good husbandry.

In a Cambridge manuscript Walter de Henley was described as originally a ‘chevalier’ who joined the Order of Preachers (the Dominicans).[15] The Dominicans were otherwise known as the Black Friars. Thus what began as a study of a country farming family in Dorset, far from the great and the good, ends up recounting the deeds of one of the greats of medieval England. History research is like that - you start from a known position and then the story takes on a life of its own and you never quite know where it will end up and that is what makes it such fun.


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[1] Watkin, Dom A. (ed.), The Great Chartulary of Glastonbury (Somerset Record Society, Vol. LXIV, 1956), Vol. III, p. 620, no. 1153
[2] Watkin (ed.), The Great Chartulary of Glastonbury, Vol. III, p. 618, no. 1148
[3] Watkin (ed.), The Great Chartulary of Glastonbury, Vol. III, p. 617, no. 1146
[4] Watkin (ed.), The Great Chartulary of Glastonbury, Vol. III, pp. 618, 619, no. 1149
[5] Watkin (ed.), The Great Chartulary of Glastonbury, Vol. III, p. 619, no. 1150
[6] Watkin (ed.), The Great Chartulary of Glastonbury, Vol. III, p. 620, no. 1151
[7] Watkin (ed.), The Great Chartulary of Glastonbury, Vol. III, p. 620, no. 1152
[8] Watkin (ed.), The Great Chartulary of Glastonbury, Vol. III, p. 617, no. 1145
[9] Watkin (ed.), The Great Chartulary of Glastonbury, Vol. III, pp. 618, 619, no. 1149
[10] Rumble, A.R. (ed.), The Dorset Lay Subsidy roll of 1327 (Dorset Record Society, No. 6, 1979), pp. 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79
[12] Hone, N.J., The manor and manorial records (London, 1925), p. 353
[14] Bettey, J.H., Wessex from AD 1000 (Oxford, 2014),
[15] Hone, The manor and manorial records, p. 353

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