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In his note on The Honour of Lancaster in Stephen's Reign in the October number of this Review, Mr. H. A. Cronne suggests that I was in error in Mediaeval Manchester (p. 169) in distinguishing ‘the whole Honour of Lancaster’, to the officers of which David I of Scotland addressed two precepts on a dispute between the abbeys of Shrewsbury and Séez, from the district ‘Between Kibble and Mersey’, which there is evidence for holding to have been in other hands and not at that date part of the Honour. Mr. Cronne contends that, quite apart from the address, these precepts afford proof that David was then in possession of the district. His main argument is that Bispham which was the subject of both lay south of the Ribble. But there are two Bisphams in Lancashire and there is no doubt whatever that the Bispham of these documents was the one which lies north of the Ribble. Its church (the other had none) was awarded to Seez (for Lancaster Priory) in the final compromise with Shrewsbury (Mr. Cronne's no. V, p. 672; cf. Viet. Co. Hist. Lanes, vii, 244). The supporting suggestion that the Culchet from which David dispatched his precepts was Culcheth near Warrington in ‘Between Ribble and Mersey’ is more plausible than convincing. Professor Ekwall tells us that Culgaith in Cumberland probably contains the same elements. It may well have had the same form in the twelfth century. Moreover, the ‘New Castle of Culchet’ of the second precept could not have been at Culcheth which had none, nor could it, as suggested, have been a castle at Newton in Makerfield, which is separated from Culcheth by other townships. |
