The consolidation and administration of Kirkstall’s estates

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Stone coffin at Kirkstall Abbey with hole in the bottom
© Abbey House Museum
<click to enlarge>

The Kirkstall community was not solely reliant on the benefactions of the de Lacy family and its connections. Other notable donors included the Paynell family and its tenants, whose main lands were in Adel (Cookridge, Brearey and Burdon), and the Bramhope family, whose lands were in the Percy fee. In addition, those who joined the abbey as recruits generally brought with them gifts, which often included gifts of land, and their family might subsequently become benefactors of the abbey. Many of Kirkstall’s recruits came from neighbouring places such as York, Leeds, Bracewell and Otley, which meant that the abbey extended its holdings in these areas. The community might also secure donations from those who had no direct links with the monastery, but were impressed by the sanctity of the monks and sought spiritual benefits in return for their generosity. These might include prayers, masses or burial rights. For example, Ralph of Adwick, granted the community land within the court of the grange of Bessacar in return for burial in the house; Nigel of Horsforth granted the monks his body and land in Horsforth. (6)

Land for spurs
An interesting grant made to the community was of four bovates of land at Horton, near Bradford. This came with spur service, which meant that whoever held the land of the abbey was to deliver a pair of ‘white spurs’ each year; these were probably coated with tin.
[Coucher Book, p. xviii, and fn. 3; see too no. cclxx, p. 191].

Whilst the monks received many of their lands and possessions as gifts, they also acquired holdings through exchange, purchase or coercion. For example, the monks swapped two bovates of land in Estburn that they had received from Adam of Milburn, for land in Riddlesden belonging to Elias of Steeton. In the late fourteenth century Kirkstall’s patron, John of Gaunt, helped negotiate the community’s purchase of the cell of Birstell from the Benedictine abbey of Aumale in Normandy (NE Rouen), along with many of its possessions.(7) There could thus be considerable wheeling and dealing between the monks and their neighbours, to consolidate their holdings, concentrate their interests in specific areas and therefore create a more efficient system of estate management. Indeed, many of Kirkstall’s former estates are now civil parishes.