Act 8

The Pathfinders

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Our Pioneer ancestors who left Farndale but took its name to settle in new places

 

 

The family story continues as individuals left the dale called Farndale, but kept its name, and founded the modern family.

 

The Pathfinders Podcast

This is a new experiment. Using Google’s Notebook LM, listen to an AI powered podcast summarising this page. This should only be treated as an introduction, and the AI generation sometimes gets the nuance a bit wrong. However it does provide an introduction to the themes of this page, which are dealt with in more depth below.

 

 

 

 

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Scene 1 - New Lands

By 1301 the inhabitants who stayed in Farndale were no longer calling themselves by the name of the dale. The community had grown by then and they were all inhabitants of Farndale, so if they all called themselves after that place, conversation would have been confused. The 1301 Subsidy for Farndale therefore listed no one who was called Farndale by name, but rather the folk there took their names from more specific locations within the dale, or by their occupation.

It was the individuals who left Farndale, and settled in new places, who took the name Farndale with them, to define themselves as individuals.

When William left Farndale and travelled to the Danby in the Wapentake of Langbaugh he called himself de Willelmo de Farndale to distinguish him from other Williams. So when he appeared in the same 1301 Subsidy but in Danby, he was the one to call himself William of Farndale.

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De Willelmo de Farndale

c1265 to c1335

A relatively wealthy tenant who had left Farndale for Danby in the North York Moors but adopted its name

 

Danby

Danby at the turn of the fourteenth century

 

Similarly De Johanne de Farendale was in Egton in 1301. John seems to have moved on to Rosedale by about 1314, and was back in Farndale, perhaps as its second miller, by about 1320.

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De Johanne de Farndale

c1273 to c1345

John left Farndale for Egton and Rosedale and was probably the ancestor of those who settled in York

 

It was those pioneers who had left Farndale for other places, who would first adopt its name to describe themselves.

On 21 September 1320 Commission of Oyer and Terminer was ordered to John de Doncastre, John de Barton and Adam de Hoperton touching on appeal in the County of York by Agnes, late wife of John de Maunby against Adam de Farndale for the death of her husband. Maunby is a village south of Northallerton and this might suggest Adam, the son of the relatively wealthy Simon the miller of Farndale, had interests well outside Farndale, though he was in the midst of the poaching crowd by about 1323.

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Perhaps more significantly, on 24 May 1328 a pardon was granted at York to Hugh de Faulkes of Lebreston on condition he join an expedition against the Scots for the death of Walter de Farndale of Cayton.

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Walter de Farndale had settled in Cayton, where he was murdered or killed in some encounter, in 1328. This was a time when Yorkshire was being ravaged by the Scots after their success at Bannockburn in 1314. The north of England was relatively defenceless and faced raids from Scotland and destruction of crops and seizing of animals. Edward II’s military failures against France and Scotland marked his unhappy reign. There was discontent, which focused on his close relationship with Piers Gaveston, a Gascon knight, who he made Earl of Cornwall. The Great Famine followed bad weather and poor harvests. There was widespread unrest, crime and infanticide. Robert Bruce, a descendant of the Yorkshire nobility, rode through Yarm and nearly captured Edward II at Byland Abbey. Rievaulx abbey was damaged. The long wars with the Scots, involving the people of Yorkshire, ended with an invasion by David II of Scotland in 1346, encouraged by the French. David II reached York, but failed to take the city. Archbishop de la Zouche rallied Yorkshiremen to resist the invasion and a crushing defeat was inflicted at Neville's Cross. David was imprisoned.

These were chaotic times.

It is possible that Walter was another of the younger sons of Nicholas de Farndale. Perhaps he had set off from Farndale with his brothers William and John sometime before 1301, dispersing to find new opportunities.

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Cayton and Lebberston are two villages only two kilometres apart just south of Scarborough. However there is also another place called Cayton, where there was a medieval village, about ten kilometres north of Harrogate. The prioximity of Cayton and Lebberston, south of Scarborough suggests that this is where Walter had settled. However Walter’s probable grandson became associated with a number of locations around the Harrogate area, so it may be that the murdered Walter came from the medieval village of Cayton, north of Harrogate.

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Walter might have been the father of another Walter de Farndale, born in about 1300. He might also have been the father of Nicholas de Farndale and John de Farndale, both referred to in the records as sons of Walter.

 

Scene 2 - The Ecclesiastical Wanderings of Walter de Farndale the Younger

By 1338 Walter de Farndale the Younger was a vicar at Haltwhistle, near Hexham, Persons admitted to Holy Orders in 1334-1340; Walter of Farnedale, vicar of Hautwesile. Unlike his uncles Richard and Thomas, or his cousin John, who were excommunicated from the church, Walter seems to have joined the church, and with it came a different means for adventure and opportunities for travel.

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In 1340 it is recorded that Collation of Walter of Farnedale to Leysyngby (Leysonby) Wardship. Layzonby is a place about eight kilometres southeast of Carlisle. In 1341 he was promoted, Collation of Walter de Farndale to be Master to the Chapel and manor of Leysingby. Layzonby was held by the Stutevilles in the twelfth century, so may have had associations with the family homeland. The church of Lazonby was given by Sir Hugh Morvill to the Priory of Lanercost, and in 1272 appropriated to that monastery. Lanercost Priory is about five kilometres northeast of Carlisle. Thomas de Hexham was the Prior of Lanercost from 2 December 1354, until he died in July 1355, so there may also have been some link between Hexham and Lanercost. Thomas of Hexham’s predecessor as prior was John de Bewcastle, elected in 1338, who resigned with a pension in 1354, so he must have been prior at the time of Walter de Farndale. Lanercost and Lazenby were subjected to regular raiding in the early fourteenth century. Robert the Bruce set up his headquarters with a large army at Lanercost in August 1311, and David II had ransacked Lanercost in 1346. One of the priors was taken prisoner by the Scots in 1386, and set at ransom at a fixed sum of money and four score quarters of corn of divers kinds. This was unlikely to have been a restful posting.

In 1342 came the appointment of Walter Farnedale as Master of Illis-haghe Hospital. It is not clear where that was.

Walter appeared again in the records of Bishop Bury’s Visitation on 1 June 1344. And the rest of the monks of the same church and cells, who had been guarded and summoned, but did not appear at all, waited until the next day to do and receive in the same business according to the force and effect of the summons made to them in this part before, each and every one remaining in the same state in which they were, on the aforesaid Thursday, to the venerable and discreet men present there, Master John de Aton and the master William de Hemyngton aforesaid, and Master William Legat, Chancellor of the said Lord Bishop, and Walter de Farnedale, clerical witnesses specially called to the premises and when asked. But the same day the morrow viz. On the twentieth day of February aforesaid, between the first and third hours of the same day, in the year of the aforesaid consecration and pontificate, the same Lord Bishop was personally appointed in the very house of the Chapter, with John de Aton, William the legate, and brother John de Butterwyk, and I, Simon de Cherryngge, the undersigned public notary, whom he had with him. , the said Lord Bishop, in the act of the aforesaid visitation, objected to the prior aforesaid certain things found and discovered in the visitation mentioned against him, and having regard to the same answers of the aforesaid Lord Bishop, the aforesaid Lord Bishop continued the same day and made corrections of this kind, and extended it again and again until the next day after the next day, which with the continuation and by prolonging the subsequent days until the final campaign of corrections of this kind, the aforesaid prior and all the other monks then gathered there, appointed and assigned that they should appear before him in the said chapter-house on the morrow to be made and received further in the said business of corrections as justice suggested, and that they should have done and received in this part on the twentieth day of the month of February aforesaid. Whatever monks of the aforesaid church and cells were absent at that time, and having the aforesaid twentieth day from the continuation or prefixation of this kind, he waited until the aforesaid day to morrow to do and receive in business of this kind that was right.

On 7 February 1347, At Eltham. Walter de Farendale, parson of Upmeadon Church acknowledges that he owes Richard de Levetun of Tykhill £8; to be levied in default of payment of his lands and chattels and ecclesiastical goods in the County of Sussex. So by 1347 he had moved to the south of England. Eltham is a suburb to the southeast of modern London.

On 9 April 1349, at Langley, there was a presentation of Walter de Farndale as Warden of St Margaret’s, Chelmerford in the Diocese of London to the mediety of the Church of Turvey in the Diocese of Lincoln in the King’s Gift by reason of the Priory of St Neots being in his hands on account of the war with France on the exchange of benefices with Thomas de Dersyngton. Chelmsford is northeast of London. St Margaret’s is a Grade II listed building in Margaretting, Essex in the district of Chelmsford. It was almost completely rebuilt in the fifteenth century. Turvey is now in Bedfordshire. Turvey's Parish Church is called All Saints and has Saxon origins. It is the largest church in the deanery of Sharnbrook and was in the Diocese of Lincoln until it was transferred to the Diocese of Ely in 1837.  St Neots Priory replaced a small Anglo-Saxon monastery at Eynesbury in which were housed the bones of Saint Neot, a revered Cornish monk who died around 877 CE. St Neots Priory became a Benedictine monastery founded in about 974 CE by Earl Aelric and his wife Aelfleda. Because it was dependant on a French mother-house, it suffered whenever there were hostilities between France and England, and particularly during the Hundred Years' War. Its property was continually seized for this reason, until like certain other alien priories it was eventually given its independence from Bec in 1409. The prior of St Neots in 1349 was William de Beaumont who was elected that year.

In August 1354, To Thomas de Clopton, priest, Rehabilitation on account of his having, when in his twenty-second year, obtained the church of Wickham, in the diocese of London, and after holding it for seven weeks, obtained a sinecure chapel in the bishop's palace in the city of London, which he exchanged with Walter de Farndale for the church of Blendeworth, which is to be resigned. Wickham is in Hampshire, northwest of Portsmouth. Blendworth is north of Portsmouth. This was confirmed in another record, Villeneuve by Avignon, To the archdeacons of Winchester and Colchester, and the chancellor of Salisbury. Mandate to induct Thomas de Clopton, priest, of the diocese of Worcester, into the church of Blendeworth, in the diocese of Winchester, which he has held for five years, he having first resigned the same, which he obtained by way of exchange, when in his twenty-second year, with Walter de Farndale for a chapel in the episcopal palace in the city of London, which he obtained after resigning that of Wickham, in the diocese of London, which he, in ignorance of the law, had obtained and held for seven weeks, taking no fruits therefrom.

Walter might have lived to about 1370.  We can’t be sure that Walter was from the same family as our family’s ancestors, but it seems possible that he was the son of the murdered Walter of Cayton.

It seems to be a possibility that he was the father of William Farndale, born about 1332, a few years before the recorded ecclesiastical wanderings of Walter, who would become the founder of a line of the family who settled in Sheriff Hutton.

Ordinary folk were starting to use descriptions beyond Christian names by the early thirteenth century. However these names tended to fluctuate until about the fourteenth century. If for instance William of Farndale moved from Danby to York, he might have started to call himself William of Danby. However by the fourteenth century, such names started to become fixed, and to be passed down as hereditary names. We can see this happening in the Farndale history. From about 1310, we see the ‘de’, ‘of’ starting to being dropped. This tends to suggest folk no longer defining themselves as ‘of’ a place, but using a name, with more permanency.

As you drive south from the North York Moors to the York ring road and on to Doncaster, the land is flat and richly agricultural, albeit with rivers and floodplains. Doncaster was previously the Roman city of Danum, at the crossing on the Rover Don. So it’s not surprising the find the Farndales of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries drawn in the direction of York and Doncaster. Although our history from 1500 will be firmly rooted in Cleveland, to the north of the moors, at this stage the dominant evidence of a significant number of Farndale ancestors to be found in the medieval records, evidences that it was to this southern agricultural region that the family generally first moved.

As individuals who started to use the name Farndale, and to appear outside the dale, it becomes obvious from the records that there are some geographical groupings of Farndales in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries around Sheriff Hutton. which would become the territory of the Nevilles, during the Wars of the Roses; at York, the metropolitan centre from its origin as Roman Eboracum; and at Doncaster, another Roman centre of Danum. Perhaps there is some interrelationship between these three families. Those who settled in Doncaster by 1335 might have been linked to the York family. And it seems that these families who left Farndale by the early fourteenth century but used its name, were middle class folk of some wealth.

 

Scene 3 - The Farndales of Sheriff Hutton

So it may be that William, born in about 1332, was the son of Walter, the vicar who travelled across England. Walter’s father, also Walter, was murdered or killed in 1327 and we have already debated whether the elder Walter had lived in Cayton near Scarborough or the medieval village of Cayton, near Harrogate. The Harrogate Cayton was a monastic grange, with a speciality in fish farming. In common with much of the north of England, the grange was devastated by attacks by the Scots in the early part of the fourteenth century. By 1363 Cayton was still in a parlous state and the abbey decided to convert it, along with eight other granges, into a secular vill and rent it out to lay tenants.

On 15 October 1358, a pardon was given by the Sergeant at Arms to William Attwode for having enfeoffed John de Banaby and William Farndale, chaplains of the Manor of Derleye, held in chief, and then re-entered into the Manor, which they quitclaimed to him without the King’s licence and grant that he shall retain the same fee.

So William Farndale was chaplain of Derleye by 1358. Derleye is probably a reference to Darley, which is a place about ten kilometres northwest of Harrogate, not so far from Cayton. There are no other places which are similarly named to Derleye in Yorkshire.

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So if William was Walter, the vicar’s son, who by 1358 was a vicar in the south of England, it is not unlikely that William, the chaplain of Darley, was his son. If his grandfather was the murdered Walter of Cayton, it would make more sense if this was a reference to the Harrogate Cayton.

On 7 May 1370, a pardon was granted to William Farndale of the King’s suite at Caleys for the death of John de Spaldyngton whereof he is indicted of any consequent outlawry. Spaldington is a place about twenty kilometres southeast of York. Caleys is more difficult to identify, but there is a location, about ten kilometres southwest of Harrogate, called Caley Hall. Since this is in the vicinity of both Cayton and Darley, this seems quite likely to be another reference to William.

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The next we hear of William is a lengthy will of 1397 from Sheriff Hutton. In the name of God Amen. I, William Farnedale, on 23 February 1398, in good memory, make my testament in this manner. Firstly, I bequeath my soul to God and the Blessed Mary and all the Saints, and my body to be buried in the Churchyard at Schyrefhoton. Item, I bequeath as mortuary payment, the best animal I have. I bequeath to be burned around my body, as candles, 8lbs of wax. Item, I bequeath to the High Altar for sins forgiven, 4s. Item, I bequeath to a Chaplain to celebrate divine services for my soul in the Parish Church of Schyrefhoton for a whole year, 100s. Item, I bequeath to the fabric of St Peter’s York, 6s 8d. Item, I bequeath to Sir John Ferriby, Robert Gyllyng and William Barneby, 6s 8d each (20s). I bequeath to the Church of Schirefhoton for putting lead on the south roof, 20s. Item, I bequeath to each Canon of the Monastery of Marton 12d. I bequeath to every Chaplain ministering on the day of my funeral, 6d. Item, I bequeath to my wife Juliana, 4li and to my son Richard, 4li. Item, I bequeath to every poor person on the day of my burial 1d. Item, I bequeath to my son Richard my small sword with all my knives. Item, I bequeath to my daughter Helen, two cows. Item, I bequeath to my daughter, Agnes 2 bullocks and two plough beasts. Item, I bequeath to Richard Batlay 2 bullocks, Item, I bequeath to Margaret Batlay 2 bullocks and 2 plough beasts. I bequeath the rest of my goods to my wife Juliana, my son Richard and my daughter Helen. And I appoint Sir John Alwent, Rector of the Parish Church of Midelham, Juliana Farndale, Richard Farndale and William Huby, my executors. In witness whereof I have set my seal. Witnesses: Sir Robert de Hoton, Prior of Marton and Sir John de Park, Chaplain and many others, date as above.

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William was clearly a wealthy man by his death in 1397. And we know a lot about him. His wife, was Juliana and he had a son, Richard, and two daughters, Helen and Agnes. There was another William of Huton who held three bovates of land at Gowthorpe, about twenty kilometres southeast of Sheriff Hutton in 1428 and he was probably another son of William, though not mentioned in his will, perhaps because he had set up for himself somewhere else.

We are therefore able to build a picture of the son of a vicar, William, who became a chaplain near Harrogate by 1358, was pardoned when living at Caleys for the death of John of Spaldington in 1370, just as the killer of his grandfather Walter had been pardoned in 1327 at Cayton, who settled in Sheriff Hutton after 1370, in the heart of the Neville lands, where he seems to have become wealthy.

We know more about this family since his son Richard, also left a will when he died on 20 December 1435. Richard was a veteran soldier who fought in France and in Scotland with the armies of Richard II and Henry V, and we shall meet him soon in Act 10. Richard himself had three daughters, Margorie, Agnes and Alice, who lived in the lands of the Nevilles through the Wars of the Roses.

We are therefore able to compile a family tree with some accuracy of the Farndale line of Sheriff Hutton. This line were not ancestors of the modern Farndale family, but they were a part of the family’s medieval history.

The History of Sheriff Hutton to 1500

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A history of Sheriff Hutton which will take you to the lands of the Nevilles and Richard III during the Wars of the Roses

 

 

William Farndale

c 1332 to 1397

A chaplain, who was pardoned for killing John of Spaldington and later established his family in Sheriff Hutton, where he was a person of some wealth

 

Richard Farndale

c 1357 to 20 December 1435

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A veteran soldier of the armies of Richard II and Henry V who fought in the French and Scottish Wars

 

Sheriff Hutton Church

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The Church of St Helen and the Holy Cross and the Chapel of St Nicholas, the heart of the Neville lands, and place of the alabaster effigy of the young son of Richard III

 

 

 

Scene 4 – Wider Wanderings

The Merchants of York

It was probably the descendants of Johanne de Farndale of Egton and Rosedale, who we have already met, who settled in York. His son, Johannis became a saddler and was made freeman of York in 1363. His grandson’s William and Nicholaus moved further south to Doncaster, while his third grandson Johannis stayed in York where he inherited his father’s freemanship of that city. His great grandsons through the York family were probably three brothers, John, Henry and William, who were archers in the Scottish Wars. His great great grandson was John Fernedill, a butcher who became freeman of York in 1408, who probably traded in the Shambles, the medieval street where butchers operated. The Farndale Merchants of York traded there in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and were the York Line of Farndales. This line too were not ancestors of the modern Farndale family, but their brothers who moved on to Doncaster, probably were.

We will return to the merchants of York in Act 9.

 

The Farndales of Doncaster

William and Nicholaus may have been sons of Johannis, the saddler of York, and they moved further south to Doncaster, a medieval melting pot in the place of Roman Danum where the Roman road north had crossed the river Don over a millennium previously. William became chaplain and then vicar of Doncaster Parish Church and a person of influence there. He survived the Black Death and held lands at Loversall, south of Doncaster. His brother, Nicholas, paid the 4d Poll Tax of 1379 which sparked the middle class Peasant’s Revolt. The story of the Doncaster Farndales, to whom we shall turn our attention in Act 11, leads to the story of the modern Farndales. Two centuries after William and Nicholaus, a family emerged at Campsall, north of Doncaster, in the heart of Barnsdale where the Robin Hood legends grew, and that family moved north of the North York Moors into Cleveland, where the modern family became established.

 

The Early Pioneers

So those who first described themselves as de Farndale, were those adventurous and pioneering soles, who ventured out from Farndale to new places. As we are introduced to our later pioneer ancestors, who ventured to Australia, Ontario, Newfoundland, Alberta, USA and New Zealand from the nineteenth century, we might reflect that we come from a stock of pioneers and adventurers from the Middle Ages. It must have been just as bold a move for the thirteenth and fourteenth century Farndales to venture across the Vale of York, as for the nineteenth century Farndales, who later emigrated across the world.

 

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