As usual, various things have cropped up which whilst they don't demand a full article may nevertheless be of interest. Last week I was banging on at you about why we should read books and it's no coincidence that some of my research reading has been throwing up interesting items. I've been reading Diarmid MacCulloch's biography of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. It's very well researched using original documents and some of them have a bearing on our local history.
You may remember that the Manor of Barnoldswick was granted to the Cistercians of Fountains Abbey by Henry de Lacy of Pontefract Castle on 18th May 1147. His intention was that they should found a sister house of Fountains at Barnoldswick but by 1152 the monks had found a better option at Kirkstall and abandoned Barlick. However, the new abbey at Kirkstall still retained the manor and even though the land holdings were nibbled away over the years, at the time of the Dissolution of Kirkstall on 22nd of November 1539 they still had control of the parish church they had built at Gill and this may be why it became a 'peculiar'. A peculiar is a parish or church exempt from the jurisdiction of the arch-deacon or bishop in whose diocese it lay. Originally this was because the abbey owned the land but it could also be because it had been gifted to a church dignitary.
In 1539 all the abbey's lands reverted to the Crown and were largely redistributed by lease to anyone who could afford to pay. This plundering of religious assets was one of the main reasons why Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries but it seems that he retained some of the assets. We know this because when he died in 1547, in his will, he granted some of the Kirkstall assets to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer as a personal gift because it seems that he knew that Cranmer had been secretly married and had a family and the gift was intended to make sure that Thomas could provide for them as, even though he held the post of Primate of All England, he had never sought to profit personally from his position.
This is where it may be that Barlick has a connection because it is almost certain that the Peculiar Benefice of Gill church still existed in the Kirkstall assets. We know that on January 30th 1553, Henry's son Edward VI granted Coates to Sir Arthur Darcey so the crown had retained some lands but in that grant there is no mention of the patronage of Gill. The Reverend Warner in his History of Barnoldswick (page 28) is of the opinion that until the Dissolution, Kirkstall, though losing much of the manor, still retained the rights to some tenements, the Tithes and the Advowson of Gill (This was the control of the church and the right to appoint the vicar).
So, on the evidence we have we know that under Henry's will of 1547 Thomas Cranmer didn't get all of Kirkstall's assets because Edward VI was granting lands in the manor six years later during Cranmer's ownership of whatever was granted by Henry VIII. However, it seems almost certain that he controlled the advowson of Gill. At this point the logical course would be to look at the church records to see what they can tell us but unfortunately the early documents are lost and all Warner could say for certain was that from 1595 to 1612 the incumbent was Robert Coldecke.
As for Thomas Cranmer's ownership of the Kirkstall grant, we know that it reverted to the Crown when he was martyred by being burned at the stake in Oxford in 1556 under the Papist Queen Mary. My best information is that control then passed to a Reyner Wolfe but I can find no further mention of him. My trail ends there at the moment but I am reasonably certain in my own mind that for nine years, from 1547 to 1556 Barlick had a connection with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England in that he controlled our parish church.
Another little snippet came up in the story of Cranmer. In October 1536 Yorkshire was in rebellion against the Reformation, the religious changes under Henry VIII which rejected the authority of the Pope in Rome. One centre of unrest was around Sawley Abbey and it was there that the famous rebel song 'Crim, cram and rich' was first reported. This was a scurrilous attack on Cranmer as archbishop for colluding in the changes. That would make a good question for a pub quiz! Another fact I learned was that during the 16th century it was accepted practice for monks and clergy to be clean-shaven. Later in the century as the Reformers gained power under Edward VI it became the fashion for them to wear full beards.
There is one more personal connection that pleased me. In my wagon driving days I always admired a lovely house on the side of the road just beyond Otley at Arthington. I later learned it was originally a nunnery and in 'Cranmer' I found that it had been gifted to Cranmer under the same legacy that gave him Kirkstall. It was a very old foundation and one of only two Cluniac nunneries in England.
I can hear some of you saying “So what?” and wondering why I waste my time digging out these bits of old history. I do it because we have so little firm evidence for this period and whatever we do find is important to someone. The more we know about where we come from, the better we can plot the path into the future. We all know that Barlick is a unique town and tiny glimpses into the past like this help us to understand why it is so special. My reading has given me a new understanding of the history of Gill and I never expected to find a possible connection with Cranmer. If nothing else, perhaps my research is holding dementia at bay. If you want to keep it, use it!
Gill church built around 1160, tower added in 1524.
