The acquisition of lands and possessions

1. G. D. Barnes, Kirkstall Abbey 1147-1539: an Historical Study, Publications of the Thoresby Society 58 (Leeds, 1984), p. 20
2. Barnes, Kirkstall Abbey, p. 11.
3. These were at Barnoldswick, Micklethwaite, maybe also Allerton, Bessacar and Oldfield; two ‘neighbouring granges’ that should perhaps be identified with New Grange and Bar Grange, Barnes, Kirkstall Abbey, pp. 10- 11.
4. Barnes, Kirkstall Abbey, p. 17.
5. For Robert’s grant of the vill of Riston / Rushton in Bowland, see The Coucher Book of the Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, ed. W. T. Lancaster and W. P. Baildon, Thoresby Society VIII (Leeds, 1904), no. cclxxxi (p. 199); for confirmation of this land – and the right to retain two bovates – see Coucher Book lxix (p. 53). For his confirmation of the monks’ holdings in Snydale and his expansion of this grant, see Coucher Book ccvi (pp. 146-7).
6. Early Yorkshire Charters II, no. 823; Coucher Book p. 66.
7. For the Estburn examples, see Coucher Book, no. cclxvi (pp. 187-8). This is undated, but the editor notes that it is in an early, though not the original, hand. For the sale of Birstell, see D. Matthews, The Norman Monasteries and their English Possessions (London, 1962), p. 118.
8. Foundation of Kirkstall, pp. 184-5.
9. J. Fletcher, The Cistercians in Yorkshire (London, 1919), pp. 124-6.
10. Fletcher, The Cistercians in Yorkshire, p. 126.
11. Coucher Book, no. ccccvii (pp. 221-339). The proceedings are recorded in Latin, but the queen’s case is made in French. For the queen’s mandate to her stewards in 1335 to restore to the abbot his common pasture in the disputed Barnoldswick lands, see Coucher Book no. ccccviii (p. 339).
12. Coucher Book, no. cccl (pp. 252-3).
13. See D. Matthews, The Norman Monasteries and their English Possessions (London, 1962), p. 118. For the sum of £10000 Aumale transferred all its manors, lordships, lands, and possessions in Birstall, Skeffling, Wythornsea, Holmeton, Thorn, Rymswell, Waxam, Frothingham, Holme, Aldeburgh, Thorp, Estnewton, Ringeburgh, Bewyke, Carleton, Linton, Edderwyke, Golden, Fosham, Pawle, Merfiete, Thorngumbald, Camerington, Skeckling, Ryhill, Newton Spital and Newton Constable, Newsam, Ravenser, Risom, and Brystwyke, as well as the advowsons and patronage of the churches of Byrstall, Paule, Skeckling, Withernsea, Outhorne, and Aldburgh, and of the chapels of Merflete, Thorngumbald, Holme, Rymswell, Frothingham, Newsom, Colden, and Waxham.
14. Barnes, Kirkstall Abbey, p. 41.
15. J. Burton, The Monastic Order in Yorkshire 1069-1215 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 255.
16. For the granges at Kirkstall, see Barnes, Kirkstall Abbey, pp. 33 ff.
17. R. A. Donkin, The Cistercians: Studies in the Geography of Medieval England and Wales (Toronto, 1978), p. 58.
18. These are all mentioned in the Coucher Book; see Barnes, Kirkstall Abbey, p. 37, for details.
19. J. Bond, Monastic Landscapes (Stroud, 2004).
20. R. Donkin, The Cistercians: Studies in the Geography of Medieval England and Wales (Toronto, 1978), p. 96.
21. Donkin, The Cistercians, pp. 97-8.
22. See, for example, Coucher Book, no. lxix, p. 53.
23. Coucher Book no clxiii (p. 119); Donkin, The Cistercians, p. 99.
24. Coucher Book, p. 162, fn. 2.
25. For the first two grants, see Coucher Book, nos. ccxxvii (pp. 161-2) and ccxxvix (p. 162); for the exchange, see no. ccxxx (pp. 162-3).
26. D. Williams, The Cistercians in the Early Middle Ages (Leominster, 1998), p. 371; Coucher Book, no. ccxxv (pp. 159-60, at p. 160).
27. EYC III, no. 1556; Coucher Book, pp. xv-xvi. Samson of Allerton’s grant of land and rights to the community included a mill in Allerton (near Leeds), see Coucher Book, no. cxxxii (pp. 100-1) for Adam of Allerton’s confirmation of his grandfather’s grant.
28. C. J. Bond, Monastic Landscapes, p. 318.
29. Donkin, The Cistercians, p. 172 fn. 5
30. Barnes, Kirkstall Abbey, p. 36.
31. Coucher Book, no, clxxv (pp. 127-8). William also gave the monks land here.
32. Coucher Book, no, p. 127, fn. 2.
33. R. A. Mott, ‘Kirkstall forge and monkish iron-making’ in Publications of the Thoresby Society Miscellany 15 (Leeds, 1972), pp. 154-66. Mott argues that the present Kirkstall forge was not worked by the monks and dates from the seventeenth century.
34. Barnes, Kirkstall Abbey, p. 36. The monks retained, however, the right to take charcoal and wood from here.
35. A. J. Moyes, ‘Kirkstall Abbey’s bloomery at Hazelwell’, Medieval Yorkshire 22 (1993), pp. 22-29. Moyes discusses how the bloomery here may have looked and functioned, and where the community would have obtained the raw materials required.
36. Bond, Monastic Landscapes, p. 349; for further details see H. B. Duncan and S. Wrathmell, ‘Bell moulds from Kirkstall Abbey, W. Yorkshire’, Journal of the Historical Metallurgical Society (1986), pp. 33-35; H. B. Collinson, ‘More about the Kirkstall Abbey bells’, Kirkstall Matters 69 (1998, pp. 30-31.
37. See A. Jones, Kirkstall: A miscellany of Local Tales and Local History (Kirkstall, 1984).
38. EYC III, no. 1859; Coucher Book nos. 204, 308.
39. Williams, Cistercians in the Early Middle Ages, p. 390.
40. Early Yorkshire Charters no. 1512 (1177-88).