Appendix 1: Notes on Medieval Thelbridge

by Kathryn J. Summerwill

According to Source 11 (below), in 1428 John Somerwill held a portion of land in the parish of Thelbridge in the Hundred of Witheridge which was previously held by Margery Bynelegh. He was responsible with two other tenants for paying a tax assessment of half a knight's fee. These notes are concerned with the documentary evidence for land ownership in medieval Thelbridge and the meaning of 'half a knight's fee'.

However, there are only two and half ploughlands, i.e. two and a half farms, so unless Thelbridge is incredibly rich (!) I think we have to assume here that ploughlands means something else. In other parts of the country it does seem to be used as another kind of assessment figure, with no real relation to ploughs. Unless it really does mean plough, which would also make sense as there are 3 cattle, 5 pigs, 27 sheep and 29 goats in Thelbridge according to the Exon Domesday (which is an earlier return, more detailed), and I think arable cultivation is not what Thelbridge would be most famous for. Anyway, Domesday Book was never meant to be easy! On to some other evidence.

Source 2: Calendar of Inquisitions, Vol VI, Edward II

Writ served 14 April 19 Edward II [1326]
Inquisition into the lands of William, son of William Martyn. Heirs:

1. his sister Eleanor, wife of Philip de Columbariis, aged 40 and more;
2. James, aged 14, son of Nicholas Daudele (alias de Audelegh) and of Joan his wife, another of William’s sisters.

Includes…
T[helbrugge and Chatemere], 1 fee held by the heir of John de Benelighe [my underlining]
This led me to look into the history of the Martin family.

Source 3: Victoria County History for Devon

History of the Honour of Barnstaple
This honour was granted after the Conquest to the Bishop of Coutances (see Domesday Book above). In the next hundred years it was broken up, and brought back together under different owners until King John bestowed almost the whole of the honour on Henry Tracy in 1213.

Henry’s son Henry married Maud, daughter of Reginald de Braose. His grand-daughter Maud was the heiress in 1273. Maud married:

1. Nicholas Martin, younger son of Nicholas, Lord of Dartington;
2. Geoffrey de Camvil.

Geoffrey held the honour in 1285 and was succeeded by Maud’s son William Martin.
William’s grandson William, Lord Martin, had three children:

1. William, 2nd Lord Martin (the one in the Inquisition);
2. Eleanor, wife of Philip de Columbers;
3. Joan, wife of Nicholas de Audelegh, to whom the honour came. On the death of Nicholas, Lord Audelegh, in 1392, the Honour reverted to the Crown.

The Victoria County History states that William, 2nd Lord Martin, died in 1325 and his son Nicholas died in 1327— slightly different from the version in the Inquisitions which does not mention a son, but it is clearly the same family.

Source 4: The Chorographical Description or Survey of the County of Devon, by Tristram Risdon, London 1811 (reprinted by Porcupines, Pilton Street, Barnstaple, 1970)

Mr Risdon died in 1640. The Survey was first printed in 1714, and reprinted from a MS in 1811.
He lists the landowners in Thelbridge and Witheridge (quite different).

Thelbridge
Simon de Chartery held one knight's fee there in the time of Henry III.
Sir John Chartery in the time of King Edward I.
Margery Binleigh in the time of Edward III.
‘Since, the name of Stukley hath been Lord of this Manor.’

Witheridge
Reginald held lands at the Conquest.
Sir Robert Fitz-Payne held the Manor and the honour of the hundred in 30 Henry III.
William Paleine held half a knight’s fee in 8 Edward II.
Roger Marchand held the hundred in 19 Edward III.
Lord William Botereaux held the manor and hundred in the reign of Richard II, and his son Lord William succeeded him

Other miscellaneous evidence:

Source 5: The Book of Fees, Part II (HMSO 1923)

AD 1242-1243
Inquisicio feodorum at tenementorum in hundredo de Wyrig…

“Et quod Simon’ de Chartray tenet in Thelebrig et in Chatemere prioris Barnestaplie j. [unum] feodum de Henrico de Tracy de honore Barnestapolie”
[Verifies the statement above that Simon de Chartray held the knight’s fee before the Bineleghs]

“Et quod Rogerus Fromund et Robertus de Benelegh’ tenent in Shytelsbere et in Worthy iiij partes dimidii feodi de eisdem manerio et honore per medium”
[Shows that the Bineleghs came from elsewhere in the hundred to take over the fee in Thelbridge sometime in the 13th century]

Other sources consulted:

Source 6: Calendar of Charter Rolls, vols I-VI
(Only thing was the grant of the market in Witheridge to Robert Fitz Payn in 1258)

Source 7: Calendar of Fine Rolls, all volumes.
No entries for Thelbridge. Did not check Witheridge.

Source 8: A New Survey of England—Devon, by W.G. Hoskins (Collins, 1954).
(States that Thelbridge means ‘plank bridge’ and that it was there in 1086, as was the bridge at Swimbridge, ‘which throws some light on trade routes in their respective districts’.)

Source 9: Calendar of Inquisitions, all volumes.
The following are two interesting findings:

(Vol. VIII)
Land of William de Ferers. Inquisition Friday before the Conversion of St Paul, 10 Edward III:
Seven fees of Mortain and half a knight’s fee of Mortain in Thelbrigg, held of the King as of the Barony of Tremyngton.

(Vol XIX)
Land of Thomas Aston. Inquisition at South Molton on 4 Nov. 1407:
Thelbridge, Manor and Advowson, held of John Holand, Earl of Huntingdon, of his castle of Barnstaple. Annual values: manor 100s, advowson nil.

Source 10: Register of Edmund Lacy, Bishop of Exeter

Iohannes Somerwill de parochia de Thelbrygg loco viciniori in parte australi et occidentali dicte parochie de Wytherygg, libere condicionis, etatis quadraginta annorum et amplius ut dicit, in qua parochie de Thelbrygg sibi assumpsit originem, ibidem ducens vitam suam usque in diem presentis examinacionis admissus (etc.), concordat cum Iohannes Knyghston in omnibus. Non est subnornatus (etc).

John Somerwill of the parish of Thelbridge, a neighbouring place to the south-west of the said parish ofWitheridge, of free condition, forty years of age and more according to him, in which parish of Thelbridge he was born, spending his life in the same place up to the day of this present inquiry, having been admitted (etc), agrees with John Knyghston in all these matters. He is not (a hired man?) (etc).

Source 11: Feudal Aids 1284-1431 (West Country Studies Library)

Hundredum de Wytherige 1428
Johannes Thilbrige, Thomas Wodhouse et Johannes Somerwill tenent di. f. m. in THYLBRIGGE et CHADMORE, quod tenent separatum inter se, et nullus eorum tenet integram quartam partem, et quam ab antiquo Margeria Dynelegh (rectius Bynelegh) quondam tenuit.

John Thilbrige, Thomas Wodhouse and John Somerwill hold half a knight’s fee in Thylbrigge and Chadmore, which they hold separated amongst themselves, and none of them holds the whole four parts, and which was previously held, from a long time ago, by Margery Dynelegh (correctly Bynelegh).

I don’t know what happened to the other half a fee. It does not appear elsewhere in the feudal aids. Perhaps the land lost some value and was reassessed. Perhaps it was reassessed after the lands in the Honour of Barnstaple were regranted.

A Note on Knight’s Fees

In feudal theory, the tenant in chief (who held directly from the King) was granted land by the King which was given a knight’s fee assessment. The tenant in chief was thereby responsible for a certain number of knights to be called up for the King’s service (a quota). The tenant in chief granted out part of his estate in order to rid himself of some of this responsibility, and by doing so gained personal and political influence because the land was granted in return for service. The process was known as sub-infeudation and created a hierarchy of dependent tenures.

It can be seen in the 1166 Cartae Baronum, a listing of tenants in chief with the number of knight’s fees they were responsible for (often a multiple of 5 or 10). By this stage it was normal for the fees to be commuted to scutage—shield tax—in place of the quota. Much Angevin taxation took the form of commutation of feudal obligations due to the Crown, such as relief (the sum paid for succession to the fief on the death of a tenant) and wardship (the right of the Crown to custody and profits of the fief during the minority of the heir). During the course of the 12th century taxes on hides (the land assessment used in Domesday Book) was replaced by taxes on knight’s fees. Most land was not granted out for military purposes.This becomes obvious when you count up the amount of land granted out versus the amount needed to support a real knight with a horse. Some fees can be seen to have been granted to family or friends and others would have been granted out like a tenancy.

By 1300 the pattern of landholding seen in Domesday Book was breaking up. Honours were broken up and re-granted, but also smaller men were buying and selling small pieces of land in a proto-capitalist way. Some went to the wall while others prospered. The feudal order was breaking up and people were breaking free from its restrictions. Fees were dismembered and granted in fractions (I have seen land being held by the service of one-tenth of a knight’s fee in 1540). The Feudal Aids tax of 1428 (the one in which Mr Summerwill was mentioned) was only levied on landholdings held for more than one-quarter of a knight’s fee. Also a tenant could be a tenant to a number of different lords. Military service was increasingly secured by personal ties rather than tenure of land, and soldiers were indentured to a particular knight and became his retainer for a monetary fee. Clearly the man holding the fee or fraction thereof was not a knight in shining armour, and the vestiges of the feudal system became ever more meaningless as money rents replaced tenure by service.

Source 12 Chancery Records: Six Clerks' Office: Early Proceedings, Richard II to Philip and Mary, Public Record Office reference C 1/16/262

Joan, late the wife of John Affeton, esq. v. Hugh Stucle and Katherine his wife, petitioner's daughter.:
Messuages, lands, &c. in Thelbridge, East and West Worlington (Wolrington), Stodelegh, Affeton, Bradford, Tracay, Drayford, Briggernell, Mewshathe, etc…..

These proceedings in Chancery, undated but from the middle of the 15th century, mention lands in Thelbridge and connect them with the Stucley family, later stated to have been Lords of the Manor of Thelbridge after Margery Binelegh in the time of Edward III (1327-1377). It would appear that Thelbridge came to the Stucley family through the marriage of Katherine, only daughter and heiress of John Affeton, with Hugh Stucley. According to Burke's Peerage, the Stucley family had previously been based in Huntingdonshire and Somerset but from this time onwards and for the next four hundred years centred their interests around their seats at Affeton Castle in Crediton and Hartland Abbey near Bideford. The last direct male descendent, Dennis Stucley, died unmarried in 1755, and the estates passed to his cousin George Buck. George's grandson George Stucley Buck assumed the surname Stucley and in 1859 was created a baronet. Sir H.G.C. Stucley, baronet, still lives at Hartland Abbey.

A note on the Manor of Thelbridge

A mid-20th century catalogue of papers held privately by Sir Dennis Stucley, baronet, at Hartland Abbey is held by the Royal Commission on Historic Manuscripts (HMC) in London, although no early manorial records appear to have survived there. Manor court rolls commonly survived in the estate papers used by the great landowners. If they were not to be found in the archives of the family associated with Thelbridge for at least two hundred years, they may have been passed to the later Lords (the Shortridges, the Pearses and the Partridges), but the HMC have no knowledge of the whereabouts of series of manor court rolls or other official documents from the Manor of Thelbridge.

This may not be entirely surprising. The great strength of the manorial system of landholding was to be found in the midland counties of England, where the practice of farming in communal fields, with each farmer holding a number of strips of land dispersed through the fields, necessitated a high degree of co-operation between the villagers. The pattern of landholding in Devon has always been different. In contrast to the midland ideal of a nucleated village centre comprised of farmhouses and other buildings, with fields spreading out to the boundaries of the parish, Thelbridge is a scattered parish of isolated farmsteads, and has probably been so since time immemorial. Consequently, the manor may never have been the centre of village life in the same way as it still is in the strip-farmed Laxton in Nottinghamshire, where the inhabitants meet regularly to decide on matters of communal farming interest.

Land held under the manorial system (called "copyhold tenure" in English common law) could be enfranchised, or made freehold, by the Lord of the Manor, and this may have happened earlier in Devon than in other parts of the country. By the time of the commutation of Thelbridge's tithes in 1844 the Lord of the Manor, John Partridge, is only in direct possession of Thelbridge Barton, and the major house in the parish, Thelbridge Hall, has been sold to the Church and is being used as the Rectory. However, it is not made clear from the tithe plan and apportionment whether the "owners" are freehold landowners or copyhold tenants. Copyholders could be major personages within their area, and could sell their landholdings in the same way as freeholders. The differences were that the conveyance was recorded on the manor court roll rather than in a conventional legal document, and that the new owners had to be "admitted" to the manor and to pay a nominal fine to the steward. However, the fact that no manor court rolls are recorded in the Manorial Documents Register held at the HMC for any point in Thelbridge's history suggests that the manor was a manor in name only by the 19th century and that in fact all the landholdings were freehold. Copyhold tenure was abolished by the Law of Property Act of 1925.

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