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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