YORKSHIRE CHARTERS BEING A COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS ANTERIOR TO THE THIRTEENTH CHARTULARIES, ROGER DODSWORTH'S MANUSCRIPTS EDITED BY WILLIAM FARRER, HON.D.Litt. EDITOR OF "THE LANCASHIRE PIPE ROLLS AND EARLY CHARTERS," PRINTED FOR THE EDITOR BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO., EDINBURGH PREFACE THE present volume is occupied to a large extent with the charters of the Lascy and Albemarle fees in Yorkshire. The caput of the Lascy barony was at Pontefract, and that of the Albemarle fee for all England was nominally at Skipsea in Holderness. Brixworth in Northamptonshire may at first have been the caput of William Meschin's fee, but Skipton held that position later in the twelfth century, when Brixworth was included in the pourparty of William de Curci. It is this latter pourparty which has for convenience been denominated the "fee of Meschin" in the present volume; the Skipton charters will follow in their due order. The honor of Lancaster arose when the fee of Roger the Poitevin was conferred on Stephen of Blois about the year 1113. Part of the honor of Eye in Suffolk, which had been Robert Malet's, was also given to Stephen, but the Eye charters here printed are included in the Malet fee. This heading embraces lands held by Robert Malet in 1086; after his death or forfeiture most of his lands in Yorkshire were severed from the honor of Eye and given to Nigel de Aubigny, thus becoming part of the Mowbray fee. With regard to the difficult problem raised by Vescy's succession to certain Yorkshire manors included in the Domesday fief of Ralf de Mortemer (pp. 486-8), Mr. J. H. Round informs the editor that the Pipe Roll of 1187 (33 Henry II) -to which he is writing an introduction-contains, on p. 93, evidence that Wintringham and Knapton, North Ferriby, with Swanland and Braithwaite, and Newsholme, with Brind, Wressel and Gribthorpe, were then in the king's hands through the minority of William de Vescy. Part of the holding of Ralph de Mortemer in 1086 in Lincolnshire, together with all that in Yorkshire, was clearly granted to a predecessor of Eustace Fitz-John, possibly Ives de Vescy, but the service of Eustace for that fee seems to have been given to Nigel de Aubigny. Still it is not clear whether Aubigny was tenant in chief and Mortemer mesne, or vice versa. A discussion of the matter will be found under n. 1877. The Hallamshire fee was chiefly formed of lands once held by Earl Waltheof and the Countess Judith his wife, niece of the V |