Norman Rule in Cumbria 1092–1136 (review)

The genesis of this tract lies in a presidential address delivered by the author to the Surtees Society at Carlisle in 2005. The text as published, however, has been augmented by very detailed footnotes, three figures, and an appendix. The author has examined the relatively few surviving royal writs and charters issued by William Rufus and Henry I for the north-west from the perspective of royal administration, to see how far what became the later counties of Cumberland and Westmorland were dealt with like other English counties. It was in 1092 that William Rufus marched to Carlisle, displaced the local lord, Dolfin, established a castle, and settled English peasants there. Henry I visited Carlisle in 1122 shortly after Ranulf Meschin, his commander at Carlisle, had given it up after being created earl of Chester. The castle was strengthened, and an Augustinian priory came into being. In 1133 this became the basis of a new bishopric, the last English see to be created before the Reformation. In 1136 King David of Scots took over Carlisle, only surrendering control in 1149 and died there in 1153.

The great virtue of this tract lies in its meticulous discussion of texts, reinforced by detailed referencing. With a solitary exception (Hugh Doherty’s recent discovery of a royal confirmation to the northern lord Forne Sigulfson), the texts are all already available in print, but Sharpe demonstrates by close attention to detail how much may yet to be teased out. One topic is the formulation of address clauses, which give an indication of those regarded as key personnel in the region. Medieval copyists in some cases made assumptions that justices and sheriffs were being addressed, by expanding the abbreviated words iustic’ or uic’ in the plural rather than the singular, which obviously affects our understanding of royal authority in the region.

Assumptions by antiquarians and historians of more recent times are also questioned. Sharpe points out, for instance, that there is no contemporary authority for the view that Ranulf Meschin was placed in command at Carlisle after the battle of Tinchebray in 1106 when he distinguished himself in Henry’s army, and it is more likely that it dates from the time of his marriage to (‘Countess’) Lucy. Considerable attention is given to the invaluable evidence of the 1130 pipe roll, which provides the ‘first clearly dated evidence that Cumberland and Westmorland [were] governed like counties as part of the Anglo-Norman realm’ (p. 5) and the status of the various individuals who were held to account at the exchequer for ‘Carlisle’ and ‘Westmarieland’. These were not coterminous with the later counties, and it is not easy to be sure whether Appleby alone was being accounted for in 1130. The Westmorland lordship of Burton in Kendal was in the hands of the guardians of the young Roger de Mowbray, whilst there is no mention of the position of Penrith.

Sharpe compares the documentation for the north-west with that for Northumberland which, he suggests, was more like an ‘ordinary’ county, though it has to be questioned whether there were ‘ordinary counties’ in twelfth-century England. A further comparison which could have been made is between Cumbria, notionally directly administered by the crown in 1130, and what became the county of Lancashire, then composed of two ‘private’ lordships, both in the hands of the king’s nephew, Stephen of Blois. Royal documents, of course, illumine only one perspective of the history of the north-west in this period. This was a region of differing geographical zones, of units of lordship whose boundaries in some cases were venerable, in others of more recent date, and of evolving units of ecclesiastical governance. Personal appearances by Rufus and Henry I were rare, and local society must have been largely self-regulating. Nor can the wider political context be ignored. Cumbria south of Solway was after all only part of an older political entity, the kingdom of Strathclyde...