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The Middle Ages
This is a very quick flick through the history of Rotherham in the Middle Ages. As literacy had arrived courtesy of the Church, and Norman Law with its attendant self-propagating
entourage of lawyers, there are a great many more records available. I have not delved deeply but there are likely to be records of court cases, possibly some proceedings of the
Manorial Court Leet. No records of Roche Abbey at Maltby have survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
In 1066 William of Normandy defeated Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings and became King of England. William, not called William the Bastard for nothing, handed out large tracts of lands to his family and followers. Rotherham was part of the estates give to William's legitimate half-brother Roger of Mortain who probably never even visited the place. Other manors were given to other lords who probably never visited either. The manors were sub-infeudated or let to lesser tenants who went about the real business of farming them. There were regular revolts about the severity of Norman rule and the imposition of the feudal system which led to a vicious campaign called 'The Harrying of the North'. Men and boys were killed, women and girls raped and dispossessed. Buildings were burnt, animal taken, crops destroyed and many people died of starvation.
In 1086 the Domesday or Doomsday Book was published. This was a record of all the manors in England and shows how those around here had suffered under twenty years of Norman rule. By the end of the 11th. century the Saxon thane Acun has been dispossessed. Rotherham consisted of a small Saxon Manor, a church and a priest, a mill, pannage for the swine of the manor in the forest and meadows on the margins of the river and the land was let to Nigel Fossard. He in turn let his land to one Eustace de Vesci, which was the start of many years of feuding and fighting. I'll warn you now this is complicated and I'm far from sure I have it right, what with de Vescis, Fitz-Johns and Tillys, not to mention Fossards and de Mauleys, all keeping the lawyers of their day in smoked salmon and champagne.
In the reign of Henry I 1100-1135, the feudal owner of Rotherham was one Eustace Fitz-John who had married twice and had children by both marriages. The Fossards were still around somewhere, for one William Fossard was a later feudal owner, as was William de Vesci, who held one knight's fee in Rotherham of Peter de Mauley.
In the year 9 John (1207) de Vesci was granted a fair at Rotherham to last two days, on the Vigil and Feast of St Edmund, 15th and 16th November. For many years through my childhood and on into my teens there used to be a funfair held every November in the car park where the police station and courts now exist, known to everybody far and wide as "The Stattis Fair" (i.e. Statutes Fair as it was allowed by Statute). Like most other remnants of old Rotherham this too is gone.
In the reign of Henry III 1216 -1272, John de Vesci granted part of the Manor of Rotherham to the Abbots of Rufford. Rufford Abbey was a Cistercian House and gained 8 oxgangs of land and the lordship of the manor. The rest passed to Eustace Fitz-John's heirs by his first wife Beatrice de Vesci. There were about fifty years of argument and court cases between the de Vesci family and the Tillys, Eustace Fitz-John's family by his second wife.
In the year 13 Edward I (c.1285) the privilege of a gallows was allowed by charter (Gallowtree Hill). In 35 Edward I (c.1307) the king granted to Robert de Waddesley a Friday market in his Manor of Rotherham. However another authority states that the Monday and Friday markets were licensed by the Monarchs between 1207 and 1316. So, as in most things historical, you toss your penny and choose heads or tails whom you believe. Certainly when I were a kid, I remember being taught that the market and fair were granted to Rotherham by King John (Good old Johnny Lackland doubtless exacted a good few bob for the privilege).
In 1322 during the the Barons' War against against King Edward II there was a great deal of trouble in this part of South Yorkshire. Laughton village and church were laid waste in this year and never fully recovered. Rotherham, being an indefensible place without castle or walls, doubtless kept its head down as normal in troubled times and thus survived without much wrack and scathe.
Rufford Abbey ended up owning half the church (the other half belonged to the Abbey of Clairvaux), the market and the fair. Clairvaux later relinquished its rights in the advowson for £20.
In the reign of Richard II (1377 - 1399) the Subsidy Roll indicated that the population of Rotherham was about 500.
The Fifteenth Century was a time of great progress in Rotherham. During this time there was major rebuilding of the parish church, and a bridge was erected over the River Don near to where the old ford had been. I've also read somewhere, though I cannot find it in the books I am currently perusing, that before the Fifteenth Century there had been a packhorse bridge built by the monks who charged tollage to cross it. In 1483 the Chapel of Our Lady on Rotherham Bridge (a chantry chapel), was erected.
Thomas Rotherham, later Archbishop of York was born in Rotherham in 1423 and came to be a great benefactor to the town. Click here to link to the page at Rotherham Town & Borough >> Famous People from Rotherham >> Thomas Rotherham. In 1480 he erected the Chapel of Jesus in the parish church and founded the College of Jesus in 1481/82.
The College of Jesus was a school for the education and training of choristers. A boy bishop was elected from amongst the choristers and invested on St Nicholas' day (St Nicholas being the patron saint of boys and scholars). The boy bishop had his own cope, mitre and vestments and the ceremonies continued until the Feast of Childermas or Holy Innocents. Any excuse for a bit of fun!
Under the patronage of Thomas Rotherham, the town of Rotherham came to be a busy and important place; a distinction that seems to have continued even after the Archbishop himself fell from grace under the first Tudor monarch. The market town also became a place of scholarship and learning.
Because of the influence and wealth of Thomas Rotherham the Parish Church had every endowment money could provide. Within the Church there were chantry chapels at the altar of Jesus and Our Lady, the Chantry of the Cross, Carre's Chantry, the Chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Chantry of St Katherine. There were Holy Gilds supported by the Church, the Gild of the Holy Cross (which was exceptional for holy gilds being open to brothers and sisters), the Service or Gild of Our Lady, the Gild of St Katherine and something called the 'Commote' of Rotherham but I am not precisely certain what this was. Associated with the parish of Rotherham was the chapel of St Lawrence in Tinsley.