Des Moutiers.

17

seen that Mortimer or Boothroyd not only suppressed the fact that the knight had a surname, but has interpolated the groundless statement that the enemy had broken down the bridge, and the improbable if not contradictory one, that the river was "at that time swelled," and yet fordable, at or near Pontefract. As the passage of Ordericus Vitalis is by no means without its interest, we transcribe it at length from Bohn's translation.

"It was again reported that the brigands had gone to York, to celebrate the feast of the Nativity, and to prepare for battle. The King was hastening thither from Nottingham, but was stopped at Pontefract, where the river was not fordable, and could not be crossed by boats. He would not listen to those who advised him to return; and to those who proposed to construct a bridge, he replied that it was not expedient, as the enemy might come upon them unawares, and take the opportunity of their being so engaged, to inflict a loss upon them. They were detained there three weeks. At length a brave knight named Lisois des Moutiers, carefully sounded the river, searching for a ford, both above and below the town. At last, with difficulty, he discovered a place where it was fordable, and crossed over at the head of sixty bold men-at-arms. They were charged by a multitude of the enemy, but stoutly held their ground against the assault. The next day Lisois returned and announced his discovery, and the army crossed the ford without much further delay. The

acquainted with the whole of the proceedings of these first years of the Conquest.-Bohn's translation, of which we have made use, is from the modern French text of Ordericus Vitalis, which has been formed by a collation of all the known early copies.

18

Lisois; not Lacy.

road now lay through forests and marshes, over hills and along valleys, by paths so narrow that two soldiers could not march abreast. In this way they at last reached the neighbourhood of York.”*

We should mention that Duchesne, in his edition of 1619, styles Lisois, de Monasteriis, † and that we obtain a confirmation of the belief that this was really his name, from the Great Roll of the Pipe of 31 Henry I. (1131), which names Lisois de Monasterio (probably the grandson of the Lisois of Ordericus) as owing xxiiijli and upwards, "pro terra patris sui,” for his father's land, thus showing clearly that sixtyfive years after the Conquest a Lisois de Monasterio had a footing of inheritance in this district with a personality entirely distinct from that of the Lacies.

Whether, therefore, the ford was at Knottingley, at Ferrybridge (the Fereia of Domesday Book), or at

*Boothroyd's account, on the authority of Mortimer, is that this occurrence took place in 1070, that the enemy had broken down the bridge over the Aire at Ferrybridge, and that the waters were swelled.-Having already given above a translation of the original, we now note that Mortimer is responsible for the error in date, and for the unauthorised additions about the swelling of the waters and the breaking of the "bridges"; while it was Boothroyd himself who, rejecting Mortimer's plural, gave a locality to the suppositious and previously anonymous bridge.-To anyone who knows the locality, and the impossibility when the river is swollen of using any ford between Knottingley and Castleford, the utter absurdity of Mortimer's statement, as endorsed by Boothroyd, is sufficiently manifest.

The sentence as found in Duchesne is, 66 Denique, Lisois audax miles, quem de Monasteriis agnominabant, flumen summopere attentabat, et vadum supra infraque quæritabat."-(At length Lisois, a brave soldier, whom they surnamed De Monasteriis, carefully sounded the river, and sought a ford both above and below.)

Tateshale in 1086.

19

Castleford, there is nothing in this statement to lead to the assumption either of the identity of Ilbert de Lacy with Lisois, or that Pontefract received its name from this circumstance related of Lisois; but on the other hand, in direct contradiction to it, we know, as we have already mentioued, that in Domesday Book (compiled in 1086, seventeen years afterwards), the place still retained its Saxon name of Tateshale.

There was yet another theory that we must mention, that the name Pontefract originally belonged to Castleford, and that when Castleford decayed, the inhabitants came here and brought the name of Pontefract with them. But no evidence whatever is advanced, or pretended to be advanced, in favour of a most extraordinary liberty with easily ascertainable facts.

And recently the Rev. S. F. Surtees, the learned and ingenious Rector of Sprotborough, has endeavoured with considerable plausibility, to prove that the Battle of Stamford Bridge (1066) did not take place at the village of that name on the Derwent ; but that its scene was the Standing Flat Bridge, where the Great Northern Road, the Roman Rig, the Watling Street, crosses the river Went (la rivière d' Went); and that Pontefract was so called in memory of the passage over that bridge having been defended against Harold's army by a Norwegian, who, with his battle-axe, through a hole in the broken bridge, killed forty of the English and stayed the advance of

20

Bubwith Bridge.

their whole army for hours. From which circumstance he thinks that Pontefract, seventy years (that is, two generations) subsequently, in order to commemorate the great victory, received from the descendants of those who conquered the victors, its name of Pontefract, or Broken Bridge. We fear that there is more plausibility than truth in so large an assumption.

But there is still one derivation given of the name, which we have left till the last, as it appears to us to be more probable than either of the others. And although we must confess that, like its fellows, it is not supported by irresistible proof, yet, we can maintain that, unlike them, circumstantial evidence is thoroughly in its favour. As the Standing Flat

Bridge, which Mr. Surtees considers to have been the scene of the Battle of Stamford Bridge, is the extreme south of the ancient parish of Pontefract, and is the boundary between the parishes of Ackworth, Badsworth, and Pontefract; and as it is across Standing Flat Bridge that the parish is entered from the south, that is, by the main road from Doncaster to London; so Bubwith Bridge, nearly in the centre of the old ecclesiastical parish, is the boundary between the townships of Pontefract and Ferrybridge, and it is across Bubwith Bridge that the borough of Pontefract is entered from the north, from the east, or from the river Aire, in ancient times the only open line of communication with the coast.

The Wash.

21

Now this diminutive "bridge," although it retains so sounding a name, is of very small dimensions indeed, and may be passed by most people without their having any notion that they are crossing the united waters of two streams which, taking their rise respectively to the north and south of Pontefract, pass round its opposite sides, and join at the extreme east of the town, flowing on by the side of the highway for about a quarter of a mile from their point of junction, to the boundary of the borough, where they cross the road diagonally under this Bubwith Bridge. But in Saxon and Norman times the small bridge was a veritable Pons, and Leland, writing about 1536, says, "The ruines of such a bridge yet ys seene, scant half a mile est owt of old Pontfract." Moreover, by an inquisition mentioned rather indefinitely by Camden as having been taken "in the reign of Edward II" (1307-1327), one John Bubwith held the eighteenth part of a Knight's Fee "juxta veterem Pontem de Pontfract" (close to the Old Bridge of Pontfract); which would, if verified, tend to show that in the early part of the fourteenth century a bridge existed there, which even then was an old one.

But all the physical features of that part of the township immediately adjoining this bridge, show that within very recent times the face of the country thereabouts has undergone considerable changes. For instance, east and west are two immense beds of freshwater sand, in which have been found Roman