THE EARLY HISTORY OF BARLICK (16)
Posted: 31 Mar 2026, 01:24
THE EARLY HISTORY OF BARLICK (16)
29 December 2001
At the end of the tenth century, the Danes had conquered the whole of England north of a line drawn from London to the Wirral. Barlick came under the Danelaw and there was a lot of Viking settlement in the area. This didn’t mean that things were peaceful, the Saxon kings, led by Edward the Elder, king of Wessex, were campaigning against the invaders and by 924 had re-taken the whole of the Danelaw south of the Humber.
At the same time, Charles the Simple (Charles III of France) was having a bit of a problem. He had a large body of Norsemen squatting on his land at the mouth of the river Seine. They were led by the wonderfully named Gongu Hrolph and had settled, taken Frankish wives and looked like a threat. (Gongu Hrolph meant Hrolph the Walker, he was so big no horse could carry him.) A new idea was abroad in Europe, it was called ‘feudalism’. The idea was that political stability could be achieved by people in authority like kings bribing their underlings to swear allegiance to them, this was usually done by giving control over large tracts of land. Charles offered to make Hrolph a Duke of France and overlord of the lands between the rivers Epte and Bresle in the Seine Valley. Hrolph agreed and converted to Christianity so that he could take the oath of allegiance. The scribes changed his name to Rollo and called the new dukedom Normandia, the home of the Norsemen. His neighbours called him Rollo de Pieton, he built a castle at Rouen and founded a dynasty that was to last for 250 years. These ‘Normans’ were to become quite important to Barlick later and it would be as well if we realise what their origin was.
In 937 the Celts and the Saxons united and fought and defeated the Danes at Brunanburg, we aren’t really sure where this was but Bromborough on the Wirral is seen as a favourite. This wasn’t the end of Norse power in England but was a great consolidation of the kingdom of Wessex. They gave the country a new name, Engla Land and it stuck.
Meanwhile, the Danes were encountering problems in their campaigns across Europe and after a great defeat by Charlemagne at Hamburg they withdrew to the coast and concentrated their attention on Kent and Southern England. By 950, Scandinavian raiders were active again. They sailed down the Irish Sea and established a base on the Wirral with the Mersey Estuary for a harbour, from here they raided far inland. In 978 Ethelred (The Unready or more correctly the 'ill advised'.) became king of Wessex. He couldn’t contain the Danish invaders and had to start paying Danegeld again. In 1002 he tried to organise the massacre of all the Danes in England but failed. The following year Sveyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark, landed on the Humber and inside ten years had re-taken the whole of the country. Ethelred was in exile and this looked like the dawn of a Danish/English empire.
In 1014 Sveyn died and divided his kingdom between his two sons. Knutr (Canute) took England and Harald Denmark. Canute defeated Ethelred’s son Edmund Ironside in 1016, married his mother Emma and divided England into four earldoms: Northumbria. East Anglia. Mercia and Wessex. He died in 1035 and in the same year, Duke Robert of Normandy died as well and William the Bastard succeeded to the Dukedom. He was later to become William the Conqueror.
Right, that’s the history out of the way, we’ll come back to it later. What did all this mean for Barlick? We’ve got our little collection of villages and outlying hamlets. There is a church in Barlick and Danish settlers dotted about the countryside, one village, Earby, is named after a Dane. The Old Barlickers are doing what they know best, keeping their heads down and trying not to get involved in the general unrest all around them.
These must have been dangerous times though, especially when the Norsemen landed on the Wirral and started raiding inland. It’s difficult to see how Barlick could have escaped altogether but I think on balance, the fact that the village was still there 100 years later means that whatever their problems, they were relatively minor. We have to assume also that the Scots raiders would take advantage of the general unrest and there may have been trouble from them as well. One thing is certain, they knew what was going on, news travelled fast and it must have been a very worrying time. Anyone born around 900 was to have a very unsettled and uncertain life.
In 1040, Harald I, Canute’s son dies and his brother Harthcanut becomes king, neither of the brothers had any children. Edmund Ironside’s son, Edward (the Confessor) becomes king, his father was half Norman. In 1066 Edward the Confessor dies and Harold Godwinson takes over which infuriated the Danes. They regarded Harold II as a usurper and as far as they were concerned, England was theirs and was up for grabs. Harald Hardrad (the Ruthless) King of Norway was sure it was his and so was William of Normandy. Harald got his act together first and as soon as he heard that the Confessor was dead he set sail with an invading army and hundreds of ships and landed in Northumbria. He sacked and burned Scarborough, Cleveland and Holderness and marched south where he was met by Harold and the English army at Stamford Bridge near York where Harold defeated them on the 26th September. The carnage was so great that only 24 ships were needed to carry the survivors home.
On the 28th September William the Bastard landed at Pevensey with a large army, 6000 horses and all his trusted knights in 400 ships. Harold’s army marched south, 250 miles in 12 days. On 14 October, Harold and his men waited for the Norman onslaught on the crest of Senlac Hill near Hastings. They were defeated, William, now no longer the Bastard but the Conqueror was crowned in Westminster Abbey on December 25th 1066. Yet another conquest of England, but this time it was serious, we know now that this was to be permanent.
William had become king but he still had to subdue the country, his method was direct and brutal. In 1067 he ravaged the West Country. What this means is that his troops went in and slaughtered almost all the Anglo/Saxon lords. They looted and burned every place they arrived at and in short terrorised the land. In 1068 they did the same in Wales and in the following year turned their attention to the North. Even though the men who held Northumbria were his Norse cousins, William marched against them and sacked Viking York. (Jorvick) Northumbria was devastated, on his deathbed William is supposed to have confessed that by ‘Harrowing the North, he had consigned many more to death by starvation because his troops had burned all the crops as well as the buildings. In three years William wiped out between 4000 and 5000 Anglo Saxon Thegns and their families. Almost the whole of the existing ruling class was destroyed and replaced by Normans. I can’t say how Barlick fared in the Harrowing, it may have been relatively unscathed because of its out of the way position, I hope so. However, the Old Barlickers would certainly know what was going on in the rest of the country and must have been terrified.
At the same time William purged the church and installed his own clerics who spoke French and Latin. He divided the country up amongst his nobles and started castle-building. The idea of the castles was simple, they provided a secure, impregnable base for the local lord and his troops from where they could police and if necessary, terrorise the district. In Barlick’s case, this was Clitheroe and the lord was a Norman, Roger de Poictou. (I later found out that I had been led astray by a respected historian, the castle at Clitheroe wasn't built until 1186 and I later correct this. The principle still stands though wherever Roger de Poictou administered it from.)
The Old Barlickers now had a new Norman lord sat in his castle who ruled them with a rod of iron. The way the lords made money out of their lands was by tax and rent. The Saxon lords had started this system, the free men of Barlick were told that the land didn’t belong to them, it was their lord's and they had to pay rent. In addition all the land around and the wild game in it was his and if they took any without permission they would be punished. They had a new landlord who wasn’t likely to be easy on them. Everything had changed and there was nothing they could do about it. Things must have looked very bleak.
Say what you like about the Normans but they were thorough. In 1085/86 William sent officials out into England to survey and register every land holding. Its size and value at the death of Edward the Confessor was noted down. This was the Domesday Book, the most complete historical document we could possibly have for this period.
The entries in the Domesday Book for our area were as follows:
( A carucate is a measure of land, also known as a hide in certain parts of the country. It is of uncertain size, supposedly the amount of land that could be farmed with eight oxen or the amount needed to support a family. Usually reckoned at about 120 acres but this could be changed by assessment. The values in the DB are those that were assessed at the end of Edward the Confessors time.)
Manor. In Bernulfesuuic (Barnoldswick) Gamel had twelve carucates to be taxed. Berenger de Todeni held it but now it is in the castellate of Roger de Poictou.
Manor. In Braisuelle (Bracewell) Ulchil and Archil had six carucates to be taxed.
Manor. In Stoche, (Stock) Archil had four carucates to be taxed.
Manor. In Torentune, (Thornton in Craven) Alcolm had three carucates to be taxed.
Manor. In Eurebi (Earby) Alcolm had three carucates to be taxed.
Manor Alia Eurebi (another Earby, could have been Sough or Kelbrook or Salterforth) Alcolm had two carucates and six oxgangs to be taxed.
(Oxgang is another uncertain measure, many hold it to be the acreage that a pair of oxen can plough in a year, various measurements of land identified as one oxgang have resulted in acreages varying from 4 to 50 so take your pick!)
So we’re beginning to get a clearer picture of Barlick. Around 1100 it was the biggest village in the area. Stock is interesting, the lost village was a third the size of Barlick and two thirds the size of Bracewell. We can’t tell from DB whether there was a church at Bracewell but I should say there was, the present building looks, if anything, older than Gill Church and is certainly better placed for the village, but then, they didn’t have the monks to deal with as was the case in Barlick. Next week I’ll tell you the full story of what happened when the lord in his Castle was taken ill and what it meant for Barlick.
29 December 2001
29 December 2001
At the end of the tenth century, the Danes had conquered the whole of England north of a line drawn from London to the Wirral. Barlick came under the Danelaw and there was a lot of Viking settlement in the area. This didn’t mean that things were peaceful, the Saxon kings, led by Edward the Elder, king of Wessex, were campaigning against the invaders and by 924 had re-taken the whole of the Danelaw south of the Humber.
At the same time, Charles the Simple (Charles III of France) was having a bit of a problem. He had a large body of Norsemen squatting on his land at the mouth of the river Seine. They were led by the wonderfully named Gongu Hrolph and had settled, taken Frankish wives and looked like a threat. (Gongu Hrolph meant Hrolph the Walker, he was so big no horse could carry him.) A new idea was abroad in Europe, it was called ‘feudalism’. The idea was that political stability could be achieved by people in authority like kings bribing their underlings to swear allegiance to them, this was usually done by giving control over large tracts of land. Charles offered to make Hrolph a Duke of France and overlord of the lands between the rivers Epte and Bresle in the Seine Valley. Hrolph agreed and converted to Christianity so that he could take the oath of allegiance. The scribes changed his name to Rollo and called the new dukedom Normandia, the home of the Norsemen. His neighbours called him Rollo de Pieton, he built a castle at Rouen and founded a dynasty that was to last for 250 years. These ‘Normans’ were to become quite important to Barlick later and it would be as well if we realise what their origin was.
In 937 the Celts and the Saxons united and fought and defeated the Danes at Brunanburg, we aren’t really sure where this was but Bromborough on the Wirral is seen as a favourite. This wasn’t the end of Norse power in England but was a great consolidation of the kingdom of Wessex. They gave the country a new name, Engla Land and it stuck.
Meanwhile, the Danes were encountering problems in their campaigns across Europe and after a great defeat by Charlemagne at Hamburg they withdrew to the coast and concentrated their attention on Kent and Southern England. By 950, Scandinavian raiders were active again. They sailed down the Irish Sea and established a base on the Wirral with the Mersey Estuary for a harbour, from here they raided far inland. In 978 Ethelred (The Unready or more correctly the 'ill advised'.) became king of Wessex. He couldn’t contain the Danish invaders and had to start paying Danegeld again. In 1002 he tried to organise the massacre of all the Danes in England but failed. The following year Sveyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark, landed on the Humber and inside ten years had re-taken the whole of the country. Ethelred was in exile and this looked like the dawn of a Danish/English empire.
In 1014 Sveyn died and divided his kingdom between his two sons. Knutr (Canute) took England and Harald Denmark. Canute defeated Ethelred’s son Edmund Ironside in 1016, married his mother Emma and divided England into four earldoms: Northumbria. East Anglia. Mercia and Wessex. He died in 1035 and in the same year, Duke Robert of Normandy died as well and William the Bastard succeeded to the Dukedom. He was later to become William the Conqueror.
Right, that’s the history out of the way, we’ll come back to it later. What did all this mean for Barlick? We’ve got our little collection of villages and outlying hamlets. There is a church in Barlick and Danish settlers dotted about the countryside, one village, Earby, is named after a Dane. The Old Barlickers are doing what they know best, keeping their heads down and trying not to get involved in the general unrest all around them.
These must have been dangerous times though, especially when the Norsemen landed on the Wirral and started raiding inland. It’s difficult to see how Barlick could have escaped altogether but I think on balance, the fact that the village was still there 100 years later means that whatever their problems, they were relatively minor. We have to assume also that the Scots raiders would take advantage of the general unrest and there may have been trouble from them as well. One thing is certain, they knew what was going on, news travelled fast and it must have been a very worrying time. Anyone born around 900 was to have a very unsettled and uncertain life.
In 1040, Harald I, Canute’s son dies and his brother Harthcanut becomes king, neither of the brothers had any children. Edmund Ironside’s son, Edward (the Confessor) becomes king, his father was half Norman. In 1066 Edward the Confessor dies and Harold Godwinson takes over which infuriated the Danes. They regarded Harold II as a usurper and as far as they were concerned, England was theirs and was up for grabs. Harald Hardrad (the Ruthless) King of Norway was sure it was his and so was William of Normandy. Harald got his act together first and as soon as he heard that the Confessor was dead he set sail with an invading army and hundreds of ships and landed in Northumbria. He sacked and burned Scarborough, Cleveland and Holderness and marched south where he was met by Harold and the English army at Stamford Bridge near York where Harold defeated them on the 26th September. The carnage was so great that only 24 ships were needed to carry the survivors home.
On the 28th September William the Bastard landed at Pevensey with a large army, 6000 horses and all his trusted knights in 400 ships. Harold’s army marched south, 250 miles in 12 days. On 14 October, Harold and his men waited for the Norman onslaught on the crest of Senlac Hill near Hastings. They were defeated, William, now no longer the Bastard but the Conqueror was crowned in Westminster Abbey on December 25th 1066. Yet another conquest of England, but this time it was serious, we know now that this was to be permanent.
William had become king but he still had to subdue the country, his method was direct and brutal. In 1067 he ravaged the West Country. What this means is that his troops went in and slaughtered almost all the Anglo/Saxon lords. They looted and burned every place they arrived at and in short terrorised the land. In 1068 they did the same in Wales and in the following year turned their attention to the North. Even though the men who held Northumbria were his Norse cousins, William marched against them and sacked Viking York. (Jorvick) Northumbria was devastated, on his deathbed William is supposed to have confessed that by ‘Harrowing the North, he had consigned many more to death by starvation because his troops had burned all the crops as well as the buildings. In three years William wiped out between 4000 and 5000 Anglo Saxon Thegns and their families. Almost the whole of the existing ruling class was destroyed and replaced by Normans. I can’t say how Barlick fared in the Harrowing, it may have been relatively unscathed because of its out of the way position, I hope so. However, the Old Barlickers would certainly know what was going on in the rest of the country and must have been terrified.
At the same time William purged the church and installed his own clerics who spoke French and Latin. He divided the country up amongst his nobles and started castle-building. The idea of the castles was simple, they provided a secure, impregnable base for the local lord and his troops from where they could police and if necessary, terrorise the district. In Barlick’s case, this was Clitheroe and the lord was a Norman, Roger de Poictou. (I later found out that I had been led astray by a respected historian, the castle at Clitheroe wasn't built until 1186 and I later correct this. The principle still stands though wherever Roger de Poictou administered it from.)
The Old Barlickers now had a new Norman lord sat in his castle who ruled them with a rod of iron. The way the lords made money out of their lands was by tax and rent. The Saxon lords had started this system, the free men of Barlick were told that the land didn’t belong to them, it was their lord's and they had to pay rent. In addition all the land around and the wild game in it was his and if they took any without permission they would be punished. They had a new landlord who wasn’t likely to be easy on them. Everything had changed and there was nothing they could do about it. Things must have looked very bleak.
Say what you like about the Normans but they were thorough. In 1085/86 William sent officials out into England to survey and register every land holding. Its size and value at the death of Edward the Confessor was noted down. This was the Domesday Book, the most complete historical document we could possibly have for this period.
The entries in the Domesday Book for our area were as follows:
( A carucate is a measure of land, also known as a hide in certain parts of the country. It is of uncertain size, supposedly the amount of land that could be farmed with eight oxen or the amount needed to support a family. Usually reckoned at about 120 acres but this could be changed by assessment. The values in the DB are those that were assessed at the end of Edward the Confessors time.)
Manor. In Bernulfesuuic (Barnoldswick) Gamel had twelve carucates to be taxed. Berenger de Todeni held it but now it is in the castellate of Roger de Poictou.
Manor. In Braisuelle (Bracewell) Ulchil and Archil had six carucates to be taxed.
Manor. In Stoche, (Stock) Archil had four carucates to be taxed.
Manor. In Torentune, (Thornton in Craven) Alcolm had three carucates to be taxed.
Manor. In Eurebi (Earby) Alcolm had three carucates to be taxed.
Manor Alia Eurebi (another Earby, could have been Sough or Kelbrook or Salterforth) Alcolm had two carucates and six oxgangs to be taxed.
(Oxgang is another uncertain measure, many hold it to be the acreage that a pair of oxen can plough in a year, various measurements of land identified as one oxgang have resulted in acreages varying from 4 to 50 so take your pick!)
So we’re beginning to get a clearer picture of Barlick. Around 1100 it was the biggest village in the area. Stock is interesting, the lost village was a third the size of Barlick and two thirds the size of Bracewell. We can’t tell from DB whether there was a church at Bracewell but I should say there was, the present building looks, if anything, older than Gill Church and is certainly better placed for the village, but then, they didn’t have the monks to deal with as was the case in Barlick. Next week I’ll tell you the full story of what happened when the lord in his Castle was taken ill and what it meant for Barlick.
29 December 2001