Act 11
The Vicar of Doncaster
The story of the Family of William
Farndale, the Fourteenth Century Vicar of Doncaster
Having left Farndale and crossed the Vale
of York to York and Sheriff Hutton, our family next found themselves in
medieval Doncaster. For two centuries the direct ancestors of the modern family
seem to have lived there, shifting their centre of gravity a little north into
Barnsdale Forest and Campsall, a place with deep historical links to the legend
of Robin Hood
Scene 1 – The Vicar of Doncaster
Medieval
Doncaster
Modern
Doncaster is strongly characterised by its industrial past. However the Doncaster to which we now turn
our attention was a very different place. It was the place of the significant
Roman Fort of Danum. After the Norman Conquest, Nigel Fossard had built
a Norman Castle. By the thirteenth century, Doncaster was a busy town. In 1194
Richard I had given the town recognition by bestowing a town charter. There was
a disastrous fire in 1204 from which the town slowly recovered.
In 1248, a
charter was granted for Doncaster Market to be held in the area surrounding the
Church of St Mary Magdalene, which had been built in Norman times. But over
time the parish church was transferred to the church of the old Norman castle,
the castle which by then was in ruin. The new parish church was the original
Castle Church of St George.
During the
14th century, large numbers of friars arrived in Doncaster who contrasted to
the settled monks by their itinerant lifestyles. In 1307 the Franciscan friars
(Greyfriars) arrived, as did Carmelites (Whitefriars) in the mid-14th century.
William
Farndale
It is in
this setting that we meet William Farndale.
We first see his name in a grant of land in Latin by Walter de Thornton, the
vicar of Doncaster, and William de Farndell, his chaplain on 11 April 1355.
Perhaps
William may have been about twenty then, so perhaps he was born in about 1335. The Black Death had ravaged Doncaster
from about 1349, and its population had been reduced to about 1,500. So William
must have survived the Black Death. Perhaps it was his survival of those
horrors that was his path to the church.
We then spot
William of Doncaster again in the patent
rolls of 7 December 1368, when Robert Ripers
transferred five acres of land at Loversall,
just south of Doncaster, to Sir William Farndale, still a chaplain. The term
‘sire’ was used as an address to religious men such as priests. It doesn’t
denote a knight.
William
Farndale then became the Vicar of Doncaster from 8 January 1397, aged about 61,
to 31 August 1403, aged about 68, when he resigned.
So William
was the vicar of the impressive early Church of St George’s at the end of the
fourteenth century. Whilst not yet of the stature of the impressive Doncaster
Minster of St George’s, which was rebuilt on the site after a fire destroyed
the early church in 1853 and which was given Minster status in 2004, it was
even by then an impressive church.
William
transferred his land at Loversall to John Burton in 1402. “‘Know men present
and to come that I, William Farndalle, Vicar of the
Church of Doncastre, have given, granted and by this
present charter confirmed to John Burton of Waddeworth,
his heirs and assigns 5 acres of land with appurtenances lying in the fields of
Loversall. Viz, those 5 acres of land which I had as gift and feoffment of
Robert Ryppes of Loversalle
and which extend from the meadows of the Wyke to the Kardyke
as the charter drawn up for me by Robert Ryppes more
fully sets out. To have and to hold the said 5 acres of land with appurtenances
to the said John Burton, his heirs and assigns from the chief of the lords of
the fee by the services thence owed and customary by right. And I William Farndalle and my heirs will warrant the said 5 acres of
land with appurtenances to the said John Burton, his heirs and assigns against
all men for ever. In witness whereof I have affixed my seal to this present
charter. These being witnesses; John Yorke of Loversalle,
Robert Oxenford of Loversalle, William Ryppes of the same, John Millotte
of the same, William Clerk of the same and many others. Given at Loversalle 6 April 3 Henry IV. (6 April 1402).”
In 1403 we
see the installation of William Couper as the vicar of Doncaster, on William
Farndale’s resignation.
Scene 2 – The Vicar’s Brother
Peasants
Revolt
At about
this time, Nicolaus
de ffarndale, whose wife was Alicia, paid 4d in
the second of three impositions of a poll tax in 1379 at Doncaster. It was
these three poll taxes imposed in the early reign of Richard II (the son of
Joan the Fair Maid of Kent of Stuteville
descent, and the Black Prince) that led to the Peasants Revolt in Kent and
Brentford in 1381. In reality this was the revolt of a new middle class
disgruntled at barriers to their aspirations. It seems likely that Nicholaus
was William’s brother.
By 22 June 1381, Richard II was showing no sympathy for the
rebels. You wretches
detestable on land and sea, you who seek equality with lords are unworthy to
live. Give this message to your colleagues: rustics you were, and rustics you
are still; you will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher.
For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your
misery will be an example in the eyes of posterity. However, we will spare your
lives if you remain faithful and loyal. Choose now which course you want to
follow.
The
emergence of the Robin Hood legends
at about this time was likely to have been inspired in part at the general
grievances of the new aspiring middle class which led to the peasant’s revolt.
The Farndales were after all descendants of the poachers of
Pickering Forest.
The record
in Doncaster then goes silent until 1564, and there is more research to be done
in Doncaster local records.
Scene 3 – Barnsdale Forest
Campsall
Our radar
warms up again on 29 October 1564 when a wedding took place between a William Farndell and a
Margaret Atkinson in the Church of St Magdalene in the village of Campsall, which
is only a few miles north of Doncaster.
It seems
very likely that William Farndell who married in 1564 just north of Doncaster
came from the same line of Farndales as William Farndale,
the vicar of Doncaster two hundred years earlier. There must have been a
generation or two between them. It seems quite likely that William the Younger
was descended from William the Elder’s brother, Nicholaus de ffarnedale.
So it seems
reasonable to suppose that there was a family of modern Farndales’ ancestors
living around Doncaster back to William the Vicar’s time, whose centre of
gravity moved a little north of Doncaster to Campsall or its
environs by the sixteenth century.
We see the
names William and Nicholas continue to be used by the main family line from the
sixteenth century. William was an extremely common name, but the continuity
with the environs of Doncaster and the continued use of the names Nicholas and
William adds to the evidence that it was from this Doncastrian
family that modern Farndales descend.
Campsall is
a town which was then dominated to the west by the inaccessible and waterlogged
marches of the Humber levels and to the west, by Barnsdale Forest, an area
closely associated with the legend of Robin
Hood.
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
earliest references to Robin Hood are more associated with Barnsdale Forest than
Sherwood. 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.
This is
where we remind ourselves of our more distant ancestors who were outlaws in
Pickering Forest, reminiscent at least of the
Robin Hood stories. Robin Hood is largely a creature of ballads composed
from the fourteenth century at the time of William Farndale,
the vicar. A map showing the geographical locations associated with Robin
Hood reveals that Campsall is in its
heart. Campsall was a centre of teaching
from the thirteenth century and quite likely to have been associated with the
recording of traditional stories.
The famous
fifteenth century ballad A Gest of Robyn Hode suggests that Robin Hood
built a chapel in Barnsdale that he dedicated to Mary Magdalene - ‘I made a chapel in Bernysdale,
That seemly is to se, It is of Mary Magdaleyne, And thereto wolde I
be’. Given the location of the Church of St Mary Magdalene at Campsall,
this church has long been associated with the church of Robin Hood repute, and
it was here in 1564, that William Farndell married Margaret Atkinson.
So the
Farndale family found itself at the place associated with the fourteenth
century ballads which told of the
exploits of Robin Hood, which must have been strongly influenced by the
tales such as those of our own Farndale ancestors, who outmanoeuvred the
sheriffs of Yorkshire in the forest of Pickering. There have been many
suggestions that the legend of Robin Hood may have its real roots in Yorkshire.
Our family
story finds associations both with those who must have inspired the Robin Hood
stories, and those who started to tell those stories from the fourteenth
century.
|
How do William Farndale, Nicholaus de ffarnedale and his wife Alicia relate to the modern
family? It is not possible to be accurate about the early family tree, before the recording
of births, marriages and deaths in parish records, but we do have a lot of
medieval material including important clues on relationships between
individuals. The matrix of the family before about 1550 is the most probable
structure based on the available evidence. If it is accurate, the Doncastrian
Farndales were related to the thirteenth century ancestors of the modern
Farndale family, and might have been related to the York Line. Nicholaus’
own family settled in Doncaster, with his brother William Farndale the Vicar of Doncaster, and
he and his wife Alicia might be on the direct ancestral line of the modern Farndales. |
or
Go Straight to Act 12 – Arrival
in Cleveland