these early grants, no charter is extant confirming it, information in reference to it is embalmed in a bull of Pope Alexander III. (252 R.), which, enumerating the grants to the monastery, names that of "Adam fitz Peter and of Roger his brother, also of Matthew the son of Saxe and of Philip his brother, in Shitlington and Flockton," and adds "the gift of the same Peter in Ageltunum [a fanciful method of spelling Hathelton (that is, Harden in Bingley), arising from the omission of the aspirate, and the substitution of g for th] and Shipley and Heaton and Chellesley." This is most clear, and valuable as showing a practice; for it is an instance of a gift usually attributed to Adam, being really that of Peter the father, renewed by Adam the son.

And here I must, for a moment, interrupt the thread of the narrative to point out the mutilation the word Hathelton has undergone before it finally became Harden. There can be no reasonable doubt that its original form was Hilda's town, which in the four centuries preceding Domesday had become Hateltun (3286, lxii., col. 1), Heldetone (3286, lxii., col. 2), and Hatelton (379a, lxxxi., col. 1). In all these the derivation from the original is but slightly disguised; but the subsequent Middle Age course of the word till it settled down in the present "Harden" was more capricious. It was Hatheltone in 392 R., Hadeltona in 352 R., Hadeltona, Haddeltona, Haltona, Hardena, Haredene, and Hatheltona, at R. p. 283, Ageltunum in 252 R., and Barden (sic) in 352 R. In the Dissolution documents, R. p. 327, the name was Halton, Arden, Harden, and Halton Graunge, alias Harden Graunge; having been Hardenia in 58 R., and Hereden in the confirmation charter of 20 Henry III. to Kirklees (Monasticon I., 488), which enumerates the various gifts to Kirklees, among them three bovates in Cullingworth, with commonage in "Hereden." The name is now always Harden, with no local trace of the ton of Domesday.1

In what I have said, I have assumed that in each case the charters in the Surtees edition of the Rievaux Chartulary have been correctly copied, for I have not been able to refer to the original (JULIUS D. 1). Thus the clearly distinct Hatelton of Domesday, after a curious attempt to affix and confine that name to the town, has given way entirely to Harden, with a hint of Hartden. And if this latter word had survived, those etymologists who, in entire ignorance of the local conditions, feel themselves equal to the ready derivation of such place-names, would have glibly converted "Hilda's town" into the "Stag's hill." And who should have been able to say them nay? But to resume.

(1) There was another Hathelton near Austwick; and it is noticeable that this also has become Harden.

Peter's wife was an Emma, of whom I can gather no more. Except that as she gave her testing consent (100 R.) to the subsequent alienations of the properties just referred to, she might indeed have been the heiress of the lands in all three manors, which were adjacent. At Harden, Ernegis de Burun had been the Domesday lord of a manor of two carucates, with a third carucate in the soke of Bingley, and it is not known who followed him. But the Rievaux Chartulary (p. 283) shows (Patent Rolls, 6 Edward III.) that very shortly after his time there had been interests there in the hands of John of Castley, William son of William de Cantelupe, and Adam fitz Peter fitz Asolf; so that it is possible that the manor of Ernegis de Burun had been partitioned among three co-heiresses. There is no present hope of seeing our way through the maze; but I do not despair of enlightenment later on, through the appearance of some unexpected charter. Besides her testing consent to 100 R., Emma is mentioned, though not named, in the body of other charters (323 P., 95 R., 96 R., 99 R.) as having given consent to the alienation of properties in Shitlington and Flockton; so that she may be assumed to have had some sort of dower interest in those estates also.

Shitlington and Flockton formed a compact group of manors in which the lands of the descendants of Saxe and those of the descendants of Asolf met; Blacker, Shitlington, Flockton, and [Little] Midgley, the first and the fourth being each in Asolf's portion of the second. The possessions of Saxe were in the Warren Fee, of which Wakefield was the caput; those of Asolf were to the south, in the Lascy fee, of which Pontefract was the head. And when Adam fitz Peter made grants (95 R., 267 R.) of lands in them to Rievaux, it was again with the consent of his mother, not mentioned by name, but whose rights were duly recognized, though there is no indication of their extent, or of her paternity. That this gift was stated to be for the soul of Adam's father also, and therefore made in or after 1165, when Peter died, shows the interest that, as his widow, Adam's mother had in the Lascy portion of Shitlington and Flockton, which were each waste, that is unproductive, manors at the time of the Survey.

That as Peter de Flockton, he had witnessed 86 P., about 1160, shows that the manor was then reclaimed, or was being reclaimed, from its waste condition, though there is no evidence of the stages through which it had passed. He is said to have been known also as Peter of Leeds (Burton, 170) and Peter de Midgley (heading to 323 P.); while he is very frequently styled Peter de Birkin: but there is no real

authority for either of these three affixes, and each may arise from a misapprehension; for though each of these local names belonged to one or other of his sons, I think that Peter himself is never so described by either in any original document. "Adam fitz Peter," of Birkin, is, for instance, mistakenly transcribed as Adam, fitz "Peter of Birkin" and so with the other cases.

Peter fitz Asolf died at least as early as 1165, and his son Adam, who was in possession that year, was the lord of Birkin for the fortytwo subsequent years, and established the family name there; but there is not a particle of evidence to show that before his time, Birkin had ever been the head of a fee.

(2) Jordan fitz Essolf was an officer of the fee of the Earl of Warren, and was one of the witnesses to the deed of confirmation of the manor of Bolton to the canons there (Monasticon II., 101), which was witnessed by the "Boy of Egremont," and which in the Monasticon copy is incorrectly dated "1151, 1st Henry II.," confessedly taken from a late Patent Roll, the "primo" of the year of our Lord being a substitution for "quinto" in what should have been "1155." As Jordan fitz Essolph he likewise witnessed 93 R. and 100 R. (two charters of his elder brother Adam), and 248 P., one of 1189.

He is also called de Flockton, 86 P.; but it is as Jordanus filius. Assulphi, that on the Pipe Roll of 1166, he is charged with forty marks for having made an unprovable allegation against Hugh fil' Ketelber. As in connection with this fine, he is not described as an official, it is probable that at the time of the occurrence he had not become Constable of Wakefield, as he ultimately was (Monasticon I., 406), when, together with the Constables of Tickhill and Conisbrough, and Otto de Tilli, then described as seneschal of "the Earl of Conisbrough," he witnessed a charter to Santoft from Hamelin, Earl of Warren. This last description enables us to fix the date of the document as being at least after 1164, in which year Hamelin became Earl of Warren, j. ux., as second husband of Isabel the Countess. Jordan, with his brothers John and Thomas, also witnessed 248 P., in which charter the three are collectively described as "sons of Asolf"; and later on, there was a suit (Curia Regis, Morrow of St. Martin, 1194) between Richard son of Essulf de Thwang and Richard son of Jordan, concerning the manors of Thornhill, Haddsworth, and Bierley; and the proceedings were continued, for there was a Fine in the following spring (Conversion of St. Paul, 6 R.) between the same parties. Jordan deceased that year, thirty years after the death of his elder brother, Peter, whom we may therefore consider to have died

when less than sixty years old. I have said that Jordan was also called de Flockton, and under that name he granted to the monks of Byland a right of way through his lands to their forge at Bentleia (Add. Char. 7456), the present Bentley Grange. He married a daughter of Richard fitz Roger, and had at least two sons, Richard, who tested the Monk Bretton deed referred to in S. Y. II. 79, and was defendant in the litigation (pp. 32 and 38) of 1194, and Elias, who tested 101 R. The descendants of the elder, Richard, adopted the name of Thornhill, and were the progenitors of a great mediæval family so called, which according to Flower's Visitation lasted for seven generations from him. On the evidence of the Monk Bretton charter, Mr. Hunter places Richard at the head of this Thornhill pedigree ; though dealing with that charter only, he named but Jordan, John, and Thomas, the surviving sons of Asolf, who all witnessed 248 P., and he made no attempt to connect these three brothers with any of Asolf's other five sons.

There is one interesting point with regard to the arms of some members of this family, which I have never seen discussed, but which may be fitly mentioned at this stage. The family was in the early days purely one of landowners of the second rank, making no attempt to range themselves as warriors with the more lordly class; and their arms have one remarkable point in common. A fess, a chief, or some other combination of two or more horizontal lines, was the predominant feature of their bearing, to which a later generation generally added a label, a fleur de lis, or some further distinguishing mark. But the addition was not always present in the earlier stages, in which the simple combination of horizontal lines was the predominant feature. This was subsequently altered and varied by different branches of the family; those at Birkin adding a label, those at Leeds three eagles displayed, and some of those at Thornhill nine martlets. The later version of the Birkin arms, a fess with a label in chief, is still to be seen on the tower of Birkin Church. These arms, a fess (i.e. two lines), were borne by the descendants of Peter the first son (Adam de Birkin, Thomas de Leeds). As two bars (four lines), two gemelles and a chief (five lines), and a fess between two gemelles (six lines), those arms were borne by different Thornhills, each being an increase in number and a rearrangement of the two horizontal lines which formed the Birkin fess; they were in fact a practical claim to descent from Asolf, or one of his sons, and therefore of cousinly kindred to Adam fitz Peter. So the Baildons, the Rawdons, the

D

Thwengs, the Jacksons, and the Bartons, who each bore a fess (two lines) as the groundwork and foundation of their arms; the Ellands, the Kirkbys, the Heatons, and the Quarmbys, who each bore two bars (two lines); the Leptons, who bore three bars (three lines); the Flemings, who bore barry of six; and the Meynells, who bore three bars gemelles (six lines): I should have great hope of tracing up to one of the other branches of Peter's family. Nor in this enumeration should I forget the Stovins, who with no pretence at obtaining enrolment at any County Visitation, bore the simple six bars with a fess through so many generations (S.Y. I. 83). And thus to this family of Peter fitz Asolf, I venture to attribute the probable progenitorship of the most important Middle Age gentilitian families of almost every wapentake of West Yorkshire. For to that descent I consider that most of those families laid practical claim by their use of an adaptation or modification of the fess of the eldest branch, the Birkins.

(3) John fitz Essolf does not appear on the 1166 Pipe Roll, unless (which is probable) he is the John de Huurum who is charged a mark; but his name occurs on the Roll of 1169 (15 H. 2) as assessed at another mark, which he paid, and also as suffering a fine of forty shillings for an unjust disseisin. Half of this latter amount he paid at once, and half in the following year. He had property at Wentworth and at Stansfield; for he granted a tenement in the former place to the monks of Monk Bretton, and gave five bovates of land in Stansfield in dowry at the marriage of Amabel his daughter to Roger son of Warren. Each of these deeds was witnessed by Jordan fitz Essolf and Thomas his brother, and the second names also Eustace "my son.” John fitz Essolf appears at least twice subsequently on the Pipe Rolls. In 29 Henry II. he made a Fine of 13s. 8d., and claimed land in Baildon against Hugh de Lelay, and two years afterwards he paid a mark for permission to compound a dispute with Richard de Wath. Finally, his name appears in the testing clause to three charters in the Pontefract Chartulary, 248 P., 263 P, and 264 P. In the first, a dated charter, he is coupled with those two of his brothers who test the Bretton deed, "Jordan, John, and Thomas, sons of Asolf," the datal clause being of that curiously circumlocutory character which was frequent in the last half of the twelfth century. In this instance of 248 P., it reads: "This charter was made in the second Lent next after King Henry II. took the Cross." It follows that as the King "took the Cross" in January, 1187-8, the charter was made in the Lent of 1189, that is to say, only three months before the sudden demise of the monarch. Nos. 263 and 264 are a generation later, and