Long Preston’s tithe holders, and what their records tell us about the history of the township

It is fortunate for our understanding of Long Preston’s history that two institutions, Bolton Priory and Christ Church College, Oxford, held Long Preston’s tithes for over 500 years. The tithe holders were entitled to 10% of the agricultural output of Long Preston parish, and their records provide unique insights into agricultural practices of not only Long Preston but also, by inference, many other North Craven townships for which similar records do not survive.

Long Preston in the monastic period

Bolton Priory acquired the tithes of Long Preston in 1304 (Figure1). Bolton Priory’s account book, its compotus¹, which survives for the period 1296-1325 and the single year 1377-1378, shows the prior incurring travelling expenses of £98-15s-8d in 1302² in making the case for the priory to appropriate Long Preston church. Probably because Gilbert de Clare, the heir to the manor of Long Preston, was a minor and in the guardianship of the king, the compotus shows a payment of £50 to the royal family in 1303 to confirm the appropriation, £45 to the king and £5 to the queen³ . The appropriation, which was finally agreed in 1304, was strategically important to the priory, and the compotus records a festival in Long Preston in that year⁴. As shown in Figure 2, Long Preston church, its vicarage and tithe barn were in close proximity to one another at the southern end of the village. The tithes were sometimes taken to the priory, for example when the harvests were poor, but at other times were sold for cash in Long Preston. From 1304 until its dissolution in 1539 the priory nominated the Long Preston vicars; Long Preston tithes provided the priory with one of its most important sources of income. It is not, therefore, surprising that there should have been close links between the township and the priory, or that the last prior, Prior Moon, should have been born in Long Preston. In addition to purchasing the parish tithes, the priory also purchased 8 oxgangs of land in Long Preston in 1304 (around 100 modern acres), which it donated to Long Preston church as glebeland. When the Lord of the Manor, Henry de Percy, died in 1314, his Inquisition Post Mortem⁵ shows the township sub-tenanted to the Earl of Gloucester, Gilbert de Clare, and comprising 6 carucates of land (48 oxgangs). The earl and the priory appear to have been the only landowners in the township at the time, making a total of 56 oxgangs under the plough in 1314⁶, the same figure as revealed by a township survey of 1579⁷. We should not be surprised by this lack of change in the agricultural landscape, since most of England’s field systems had been fully developed by the beginning of the 14th century⁸. Long Preston is, however, the only North Craven township for which we have documentary evidence to show the full development of the field systems by the beginning of the 14th century.

The compotus recorded the Long Preston tithe returns to Bolton, or their cash equivalent, of oats, barley (for brewing ale), lambs and wool and, because we know the amount of land under cultivation, this would appear to gives us some of the best quantitative information about North Craven’s agriculture for any period in history⁹. The records for the period 1310-1320 are particularly interesting, since they show the effects on agricultural output of what is thought to have been the most extended period of extreme weather in the millennium. Long Preston’s oats yields fell from around 8 bushels per acre (one bushel=8 gallons) in 1310 to about half that level for much of the decade. Not surprisingly, Figure 3 shows the price of oats trebling as the yields fell.

So short was the priory of grain of all kinds from its own demesne estates in 1316 (1275 quarters (one quarter=8 bushels) compared with 2261 quarters in 1310), that the Long Preston tithes of 65 quarters of oats¹⁰ and 19 quarters 11 bushels of barley¹¹ were taken to Bolton rather than sold in Long Preston, as had previously been the case. These compotus records enable us to calculate that around 87% of Long Preston’s arable land was devoted to oats production and 13% to barley⁹. There was considerable starvation throughout the country at this time, a record from Durham noting that … ‘people were forced to hide their children with all imaginable care to avoid their being stolen and eaten … prisoners in gaols devoured each other in a barbarous fashion … such numbers died every day that hardly could the living suffice to bury the dead¹².’ The extreme weather conditions also led to high mortality among animals, and the tithe returns to Bolton show Long Preston without a flock for the period 1314-18.

Year	wool tithe (stones)	lamb tithe	estimated flock size	estimated number of ewes	estimated lambs/ewe
1310-11	28	72	2613	871	0.82
1311-12	20	28	1866	622	0.45
1312-13	17.5	62	1633	544	1.13
1313-1314	15	37	1400	466	0.79
1314-18	0	0	0	0	N/A

Table 1 Bolton Priory’s wool and lamb tithes from Long Preston

The average weight of a fleece for this period was about 1½ lb¹³ enabling us to make the estimates of the Long Preston flock shown in Table 1. During the late medieval period flocks were kept mainly for wool, and Fountains Abbey records for 1455/1456 show that only around a third of the flocks whose wool was collected at its Kilnsey grange were ewes¹⁴. Assuming that the Long Preston flock had a similar proportion of ewes, Table 1 suggests that the Long Preston ewe fecundity varied between 0.45 and 1.13 lambs per ewe, similar to the variation reported in the literature¹⁵.

Following their success at Bannockburn in 1314 the Scots mounted a series of destructive raids into northern England. The compotus recorded Long Preston’s tithe valuation being reduced in 1317 on account of a Scottish insion¹⁶, whilst in 1318 Newton, a separate township in the parish of Long Preston, was recorded as suffering destruction by the Scots¹⁷. By legend, the men of Gargrave are said to have perished at the hands of the Scots not very far from Newton¹⁸. The largest raid is thought to have been in 1319, when the Scots travelled down the eastern side of the Pennines during harvest time, and returned home by way of Skipton and North Craven, the compotus recording widespread damage to property. The lack of compotus records for 1319 was a result of the priory being abandoned, the canons taking refuge in Skipton castle. Long Preston itself would appear to have been visited by the Scots, the compotus recording repairs to the Long Preston tithe barn in 1320/21¹⁹. The priory’s finances were seriously affected by the Scottish raids, possibly explaining the loss of 2 of its 8 oxgangs of glebeland in 1321²⁰. Long Preston church was re-dedicated in 1321, keeping the 6 oxgangs of glebeland until the priory was dissolved in 1539. Although no records appear to have survived to show who acquired the two lost oxgangs, it would appear to have been Fountains Abbey, the Fountains lease book recording two of its tenants each paying a rent of 6s-8d for a Long Preston oxgang in 1361 and 1496²¹. One of the Fountains tenants of 1361, John Denneson, appears in the Poll tax of 1379, paying 4d ²². This is an important record for, although the Poll Tax records the occupations of many Craven residents who paid 6d and more, this is the only record of the occupation of someone paying the lowest rate of 4d. The importance of the Denneson entry is that it confirms that an oxgang holder of 1314, from whose ranks the yeomen emerged in later centuries, paid a tax of 4d. The records for the single year 1377/8 show the Long Preston tithes of 175 quarters of oats and 63 quarters of barley²³ being taken to the priory that year. The threshing costs were respectively 1d per quarter for oats and 2d per quarter for barley, and the Long Preston steward was paid 51s-6d for collecting, stacking and carting the tithes²⁴. What clearly emerges from the compotus is that Long Preston was by far the priory’s most important holding outside its demesne estates, and that it paid its steward accordingly. While other stewards were paid a stipend of 2s or 2s-4d the Long Preston steward was paid 10s²⁵. The first record of the names of the Bolton priory tenants in Long Preston was in 1473²⁶, when Thomas Clerk, Thomas Knolls and Thomas Moone held the 6 oxgangs of glebeland. The dissolution accounts of 1539 show the glebeland in the hands of the same families as in 1473, and this was still the case in the township survey of 1579⁷, by which time the Earls of Cumberland had acquired the former monastic oxgangs in Long Preston (in addition to the lordship of the manor). The survey of 1579⁷ records that the former monastic tenants and their heirs had been given 300-year leases on extremely favourable terms in August 1545 for property described as ‘late parcels of the possessions of the late dissolved monastery of Bolton in Craven’. Astonishingly, and perhaps because of these favourable 300-year leases, descendants of the monastic families still held the former monastic land in Long Preston when a Deeds Registry was opened at Wakefield in 1704. Early deeds registered at Wakefield by the descendants of the monastic tenants even refer to the fact that they held land by deeds of August 1545, and provide the names of the fields associated with the former monastic land. It is only from these early 18th century deeds registered at Wakefield that we are able to identify the location of the glebeland purchased by Bolton Priory in 1304 as a block of land lying on the west of the village, between Back Lane and Sourdale Lane⁹. The location of the crofts associated with these oxgangs, the monastic crofts, are also highlighted in Figure 2. A re-used cruck in a barn built in 1708 on the Moon family holding has recently been dendro-dated to the last decades of the monastic period. This cruck may previously have been part of the fabric of the home of the Moon family, the family into which the last prior of Bolton, Richard Moon, was born.

Long Preston in the post-monastic period

After the dissolution of Bolton Priory Henry VIII gave the Long Preston tithes to Christ Church College, Oxford, as an endowment. The college archives provide some of our best insights into the progress of the Agricultural Revolution of the 18th century in North Craven, when an influx of Scottish droving cattle led to nearly all North Craven land still in arable cultivation being converted to meadow and pastureland. The tithe returns to Christ Church show Long Preston arable land reducing from 199 acres in 1765, to 173 acres in 1775 and 6 acres in 1817. Because Christ Church also had a right to 10% of Long Preston’s fleeces, it recorded the size of the Long Preston flock, which stood at 690 sheep in 1817. This flock would have eaten the hay from approximately 115 acres of meadow during winter, leaving around 518 acres to overwinter the township cattle. This suggests that around 82% of Long Preston’s meadow was devoted to cattle and 18% to sheep, not greatly different from percentages revealed by late 17th century North Craven wills transcribed by Gordon et al. and analysed in Stephens ²⁷. After the Napoleonic Wars there was increasing resistance to payment of tithes. While the Christ Church archives show their tithes, which were based on the grain harvest, falling to a fraction of their former value, the hay tithe due to the vicar should have increased considerably, as arable land was converted to meadow. However, in a letter to Christ Church in 1821, the Rev. Kempson complained that he had already incurred legal charges of £1500 in trying to establish his right to new tithes. A particular difficulty for the Rev. Kempson was that a third of Long Preston residents were Dissenters, Methodists or Baptists, and did not see why they should pay tithes to an Anglican vicar who was not even resident in the village. An MA of Christ Church, Rev. Kempson had been installed as vicar of Long Preston in 1809, but lived in Brewood in Staffordshire where he was the Headmaster of the grammar school. He ran Long Preston Parish with a curate, who was paid only a small fraction of the amount drawn by the absent vicar in tithes. It was only in 1841, when he retired, that the vicar wrote to Christ Church that ‘he had some thoughts of residing in Long Preston’. Rev. Kempson actually moved to the township in 1842, 33 years after being appointed its vicar!

Possibly because of his absence in Staffordshire, the vicar may have failed to observe that the chancel, which had been re-roofed during his incumbency in 1812, had fallen into a dangerous state. Only in 1842 did he tell the college that the chancel pillars were 16 inches out of true, and the east window was leaning to the east. He had considered but rejected the option, shown in Figure 6, of strengthening the chancel with tie rods, since such a solution would ‘disfigure the church and postpone the necessity of rebuilding’. It was found that under the terms of Bolton Priory’s re-dedication of the church in 1321, Christ Church had the responsibility for the maintenance of the chancel, the side chapels being the responsibility of the descendants of those who held them in 1321. Not unsurprisingly, the 19th century owners of the chancel side chapels were less than enthusiastic about responsibilities inherited from the 14th century. After much haggling, Christ Church agreed to contribute £650 towards a rebuilding cost of £1400 in 1866-69, a three-day Ladies Grand Bazaar in 1868 raising most of the rest of the funds needed²⁸.

Figures 5 and 6 suggest that the builder of 1812 had little understanding of the basic principles of structural engineering. A low-pitched roof, of only 22 degrees, generated enormous lateral loads, which the inadequate buttresses were unable to resist. The placement of the collar beams high in the roof space meant that they too were unable to restrain the lateral spread of the chancel walls. Such a design might have been adequate for a light agricultural building, but was totally inadequate for a low-pitched roof with an estimated weight of 32.5 metric tonnes. When the chancel was rebuilt in 1866-69 by Messrs Healey of Bradford, it was to a much more satisfactory structural design than in 1812. The external buttresses were considerably increased, as was the pitch of the roof, and the schematic of Figure 7 shows that the roof was now supported by wooden trusses which were designed to impart only vertical forces to corbels built into the walls.

Late Medieval glass in Long Preston church

In some respects, the figure of St Mary shown in Figure 10 is stylistically similar to an image of St Mary in Eaton Bishop church in Hertfordshire, particularly the elegant fingers. The Eaton Bishop stained glass is thought to be of around 1330 ²⁹. However, Jonathan Cooke points out that this style changed relatively slowly over time, and that the shading around the eyes, nose and mouth of the Long Preston Mary suggests an early 15th century date. In this glass we see the advantage conferred on glass design by the invention of ‘staining’. No longer was it necessary for yellow to be a separate piece enclosed in lead; the yellow colour could now be painted onto a piece of clear glass, leading to a much less fussy design.

The Poll Tax of 1379 shows Long Preston being a poor village at the end of the 14th century, with no resident paying a tax of more than 6d - later records show a similar state of poverty compared with nearby townships in North Ribblesdale such as Settle and Giggleswick. We can be almost certain that Bolton Priory, which was responsible for the upkeep of the Long Preston church chancel, financed the installation of the glass. Keith Barley of Barley Studios near York has pointed out that it was common practice for monastic houses to represent themselves in glass in churches they appropriated. Bolton Priory was dedicated to St Mary, and the priory would therefore be representing themselves by installing her image in their appropriated church at Long Preston. The only other surviving late medieval glass in Craven is at Bolton Abbey, where the three regal figures reproduced in Figure 11 may be seen in the north aisle of the nave. The Bolton nave is thought on architectural grounds to have been built in the 14th century, and the two kings and a queen depicted are thought to represent 14th century royalty. There is a problem, however, in identifying the figures of Figure 11, since 14th century royalty tended to be represented in a stylised manner, with kings having long flowing hair and beards. This is the case for the effigy of Edward II in Gloucester Cathedral, the bronze figure of Edward III in Westminster Abbey, and many other effigies around Europe, such as the sculptures in Siena Cathedral by Pisano. We cannot be certain whether artists made kings look similar because they did actually look similar - perhaps kings felt the necessity to grow hair and beards long to give themselves a kingly mien! The Bolton figures have been the subject of much speculation by historians but, to date, no satisfactory conclusions have been reached about who the figures represent.

The regal figures at Bolton Abbey are located high in their window panes. The view of one kingly figure is partially obscured by the organ loft, and all the figures may only be viewed from oblique angles. It was not possible therefore before the advent of the digital camera to make detailed comparisons between the figures. The regal heads are surrounded by roundels and, although these appear as ellipses to the human eye, images captured using a digital camera may be stretched using computer software to render them circular. The heads inside the roundels then appear as they would be when viewed directly from the front. Carrying out this procedure reveals that the two kingly figures are almost exact mirror images of each other, only differing in minor detail such as the direction of the hair on the forehead. A glass restorer at the York Glaziers Trust suggest that this is evidence that the two kingly figures may have been made at the same time. The first image would have been placed on a flat bed in a reversed position, and the second image then traced onto a piece of glass above. The question is whether documentary sources are able to give any clues about the identities of the two kings and the queen depicted in glass. Unfortunately, although documentary sources do suggest some possible dates of manufacture the evidence is ambiguous. The Bolton compotus shows a substantial building project being undertaken at the priory between 1306 and 1313, with lead being purchased in 1311, and expenditure on glass, diverse colouring materials and payments to Willelmo the painter in 1310/11³¹ and 1312/13³². In view of the fact that Edward I had granted Long Preston church to Bolton Priory in 1304, and the Honour of Skipton to the Cliffords in 1311, there is a case to be argued for the kings depicted at Bolton being Edward I and Edward II, the son who had succeeded his father in 1307. The second possibility is that the glass depicts not Edward I and Edward II but Edward II and Edward III, and was installed in celebration of the latter staying in Skipton between 29 September and 2 October 1323. Expenses recorded in the Bolton compotus appear to be related to this royal visit ³³. In 1323 Edward III was on a ‘charm offensive’ in the north, shoring up the position of the Crown following a rebellion in 1322, when Robert de Clifford had been one of those executed for rising against the king at Boroughbridge. Edward III memorialised his murdered father in alabaster in Gloucester Cathedral, and it is possible that in 1323 the Cliffords were installing stained glass figures of Edward II and Edward III at Bolton to emphasise their fealty to the Crown. A third possibility is that the stained glass was in celebration of the marriage of Edward III to Philippa of Hainault in York in 1328, a ceremony which the Cliffords would almost certainly have attended. Unfortunately, the Bolton compotus records only survive for the period 1286-1323, so there are no records for 1328. If the stained glass was installed to celebrate the royal wedding of 1328, the queenly figure is likely to be that of Philippa of Hainault. It is unlikely that further evidence will come to light to confirm whether any of the above theories is correct. However, perhaps more important than the exact dates of the stained glass is the fact that the pieces at Long Preston and Bolton Abbey appear to be the only stained glass to survive in Craven from the late medieval period. Of the stained glass pieces at Long Preston and Bolton Abbey, one stands out aesthetically above the others - the St Mary at Long Preston. St Mary is one of the most frequently depicted figures in stained glass in Christendom but, in the author’s opinion, the stylistic simplicity of the Long Preston St Mary makes it one of the most aesthetically pleasing depictions of the saint to be found anywhere.

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

• Archie, M., 1994. Stained Glass, Pitkin
• Dinsdale, J.M., 1966. The history of the Church and Parish of St Andrews, Gargrave, Dixon and Sells,
• Kershaw, I. 1969. Bolton Priory Rentals and Monastery accounts 1473-1539., Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series (YASRS), 132
• Kershaw, I., and Smith, D.M., 2000. The Bolton Compotus 1286-1325, YASRS 154
• Michelmore,D.J.H.(ed). 1981. The Fountains Abbey Lease book, Leeds University Press
• Proud, K., 1990. The Prince Bishops of Durham, Keybar
• Ryder, M.L., 1983. Sheep and Man, Duckworth
• Speight, H., 1892. The Craven and North West Yorkshire Highlands, Elliott Stock
• Stephens,T., 2009. Yeomen, Monks, Drovers and Handloom weavers - 800 years of Long Preston’s history, Long Preston Heritage Group
• Stephens,T., 2011. Landscapes and Townscapes of North Craven, Long Preston Heritage Group
• Stephens, T. and Jones, G., 2013. Victorian Long Preston, Long Preston Heritage Group
• Thirsk, J. (ed.),1988. The Agrarian History of England, Vol. 2 1042-1350, Cambridge University Press
• Watkins.P., 1989. Bolton Priory and its church, Watmoughs

References

• 1. Kershaw, 2000
• 2. Kershaw, 2000: p148
• 3. Kershaw, 2000: p164
• 4. Kershaw, 2000:p177
• 5. TNA C134/41/8
• 6.Stephens, 2009: p6
• 7. YAS DD 121/24/2
• 8. Thirsk, 1988
• 9. Stephens, 2009, p36-38
• 10. Kershaw, 2000: p433
• 11. Kershaw, 2000: p432
• 12: Proud, 1990
• 13: Ryder, 1983 p449
• 14. Ryder, 1983 p452
• 15. Ryder, 1983: p448
• 16. Kershaw, 2000: p438
• 17. Kershaw, 2000: p465
• 18. Dinsdale, 1966
• 19. Kershaw, 2000: P483
• 20. Kershaw, 2000: p495
• 21. Michelmore, 1981:p24/5
• 22. Speight, 1892 p48
• 23. Kershaw, 2000: p566
• 24. Kershaw, 2000: p567
• 25. Kershaw, 2000: p562
• 26. Kershaw, 1969
• 27. Stephens, 2011, p7
• 28. Stephens & Jones 2013, p78
• 29. Archie 1994 p9
• 30. Watkins 1989 p15
• 31. Kershaw,2000:p315
• 32. Kershaw 2000: p364
• 33. Kershaw 2000: p530