The Barony of Wooler And Vill of Hethpool

Hethpool formed one of the constituent vills of the barony of Wooler which was held by the Muschamp lineage until the male line was extinguished with the death of Robert de Muschamp III in 1250. The lordship was established by Henry I (1100-35), like the great majority of Anglo-Norman baronies in Northumberland (Kapelle 1979, 199, 207; Lomas 1996, 22-25).

There was already a complex fragmented pattern of landholding in Hethpool by the time of the feudal survey conducted for Henry III in 1242. One quarter of the vill was held in feudal tenure, along with the vills of Ford, Crookham and Kimmerston, by Odinell de Ford, for a single knight’s fee (i.e. the military service of one knight).

Similarly, Stephen de Coupland held half a carucate (c. 50-60 acres) of ploughland for a thirtieth of a knight’s fee. Odinell’s holding was probably one of the Wooler barony’s original fiefs, established before 1135. Indeed, Lomas has commented that this looks suspiciously like a pre-Conquest thanage (1996, 23), one of the larger and more important type of pre-Conquest estate held by members of the local Anglo-Saxon gentry known as thegns. Typically these seem to have consisted of about three townships. Hence there could be direct institutional continuity from pre-Conquest times here.

The remaining holdings recorded in 1242 were held in socage, a form of freehold tenure, which typically involved the performance of certain limited services, principally attendance at the baron’s court and support for its operations (an obligation known as ‘suit of court’), and sometimes, as in this case, the payment of a fixed cash rent or a pound of spices (Lomas 1996, 19; Bailey 2002, 27-8).

Thus Thomas de Hethpool held two bovates (24-30 acres) in socage for the annual sum of 4s., whilst a moiety of the vill was held jointly by Ralph and Patrick for a sum of 8s. per annum (Liber Feodorum II, 1119–20; see Selected Sources and Surveys no. 1). These socage holdings figure again eight years later in the Inquisition Post Mortem of Robert de Muschamp in 1254, but here they are labelled drengage holdings (CalDocScot, I, 371; cf. NCH XI (1922), 252, 267). Thus two oxgangs, or bovates, were held by the widow (doubtless of Thomas of Hethpool) for a rent of 4s., whilst the other two drengage holdings (Ralph and Patrick’s) paid two marks at Martinmas.

Drengages were also a pre-Conquest form of tenure, like thanages, but were significantly inferior in status to the latter and were normally had only a single township or even part of a township as here, by way of endowment. They were service tenements and were integral elements in the large pre-Conquest administrative districts cum estates known as ‘shires’. In this context, O’Brien (2002, 66) has put forward the intriguing suggestion that the complexity of tenurial arrangements in this vill may reflect the arrangements of a much earlier multiple estate or ‘shire’.

Within such a shire, Hethpool might have served as the point of entry to summer grazing and hunting lands on the high Cheviot Hills, with Ford-Crookham and perhaps other lowland-centred thanage estates establishing manorial outposts in the vill in order to gain secure access to the upland resources.

The extent of Ralph and Patrick’s drengage holdings is not altogether clear. They are described as holding a moiety of Hethpool. This has usually been taken to mean half the entire vill (e.g. NCH XI (1922), 252, by implication; Dixon 1985, II, 331; O’Brien 2002, 66). However, elsewhere in the County History it is argued that their holding cannot obviously have been so extensive as its description suggests (NCH XI (1922), 267).

The totals acreages of land mentioned in connection with the men and their heirs, in other documents, admittedly do seem quite low, if they held such a large proportion of the vill, and moiety can simply mean a share or part of a property. Thus three men, presumably the heirs of Patrick Dreng, were sued by Eva, Patrick’s widow, in respect of land totalling 42 acres of ploughland and 6 acres of meadow. At any rate, the remainder of the vill - whether that constituted somewhat under a quarter the township’s extent or a significantly larger proportion - would have been held by Robert de Muschamp in demesne.