Again apologies for break in service – changing to Windows 10 plus bad bought of sickness followed by chest infection.
Following the last blog about Hessle Local History Society another article of interest was printed in the latest edition of Landscape History (the twice yearly journal of the Society for Landscape Studies) – interesting because it deals with a number a basic elements of landscape studies and because the case study focuses on two spring-line settlements on Yorkshire Wolds (and onto a northern section of the River Hull valley). The article is entitled ‘Landscape, territory and common rights in medieval East Yorkshire’ and was researched and written by Briony McDonagh of the University of Hull (B.McDonagh@hull.ac.uk).
This, and a couple of subsequent blogs, summarises Briony’s research and conclusions along with some comments of my own. The two modern parishes in question are Harpham and Burton Agnes.
My very old edition of the English Place Name Society, Vol. XIV states that ‘burton’ may be derived from the Anglo-Saxon for ‘fortified farmstead’, the word being a derivative of ‘Burtona’ as recorded in the ‘Domesday Survey’ of 1086. The ‘Agnes’ word does not occur in surviving records until the 13th century. Vol. XIV states that ‘Agnes (was) from Agnes de Percy, who was associated with the place in the middle of the 12th century’. The article suggests another Agnes however.
The meaning of Harpham, despite being also Anglo-Saxon and recorded in the ‘Survey’, seems to be more problematic although it seems to have involved a harp, ‘harper’s homestead’ or possibly ‘the homestead where the harp was played’ (VOL. XIV, p. 90).
Bryony tells the reader that originally the unit of Burton incorporated the whole area and was probably a pre-Conquest ‘territorial unit’ which survived as one estate until the late 12th century when it was divided between two heiresses, a division which led to later disputes.
As to her sources of information Bryony cites; surviving documents and manorial records plus surviving buildings, especially churches, and landscape evidence ‘to articulate territorial claims’.
(To be continued).