devolution
04-13-2009, 08:18 PM
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The name "Leeds" derives from "Loidis", the name given to a forest covering most of the kingdom of Elmet (or an alternative name for Elmet), which existed during the 5th century into the early 7th century. (Bede states in the fourteenth chapter of his Historia ecclesiastica, in a discussion of an altar surviving from a church erected by Edwin of Northumbria, that it is located in "...regione quae vocatur Loidis", the region known as Loidis.
The first dependable historical record of Leeds (as "Ledes") is in the Domesday book of 1086. Thanks to the surveyors' custom of setting down what a place had been in the days of Edward the Confessor we know what Leeds was before the Norman Conquest as well as what it was when Domesday Book was compiled. About 1068 Leeds was evidently a purely agricultural domain, of about 1,000 acres (4 km2) in extent; it was divided into seven manors, held by as many thanes; they possessed six ploughs; there was a priest, and a church, and a mill: its taxable value was six pounds. When the Domesday records were made, it had slightly increased in value; the seven thanes had been replaced by twenty-seven villains, four sokemen, and four bordars. The villains were what we should now call day-labourers: the soke or soc men were persons of various degrees, from small owners under a greater lord, to mere husbandmen: the bordars are considered by most specialists in Domesday terminology to have been mere drudges, hewers of wood, drawers of water. The mill, when this survey of 1085 was made, was worth four shillings. There were 10 acres (40,000 m2) of meadow. And the great lord of the place was Ilbert de Lacy to whom William the Conqueror had given vast possessions stretching widely across country from Lincolnshire into Lancashire, and whose chief stronghold was then building at Pontefract, a few miles to the south-east.
That Leeds was owned by one of the chief favourites of William was fortunate; the probability is that the lands of the de Lacy ownership were all specially protected when the harrying of the North took place. While the greater part of the county was absolutely destitute of human life, and all the land northward lay blackened, Leeds in 1085 had a population of at least two hundred people.
The Leeds Guide of 1837 states that Ilbert de Lacy built a castle on Mill Hill--roughly City Square in contemporary times--which was besieged by Stephen in his march towards Scotland in 1139. In 1399, according to the Hardynge Chronicle, the captive Richard II was briefly imprisoned at Leeds, before being transported to another de Lacy property at Pontefract, where he was later executed.
The kyng then sent kyng Richard to Ledis,
there to be kepte durely in previtee;
fro thens after to Pykering went he needis,
and to Knaresbro' after led was he
but to pontefrete last where he did dee.
The name "Leeds" derives from "Loidis", the name given to a forest covering most of the kingdom of Elmet (or an alternative name for Elmet), which existed during the 5th century into the early 7th century. (Bede states in the fourteenth chapter of his Historia ecclesiastica, in a discussion of an altar surviving from a church erected by Edwin of Northumbria, that it is located in "...regione quae vocatur Loidis", the region known as Loidis.
The first dependable historical record of Leeds (as "Ledes") is in the Domesday book of 1086. Thanks to the surveyors' custom of setting down what a place had been in the days of Edward the Confessor we know what Leeds was before the Norman Conquest as well as what it was when Domesday Book was compiled. About 1068 Leeds was evidently a purely agricultural domain, of about 1,000 acres (4 km2) in extent; it was divided into seven manors, held by as many thanes; they possessed six ploughs; there was a priest, and a church, and a mill: its taxable value was six pounds. When the Domesday records were made, it had slightly increased in value; the seven thanes had been replaced by twenty-seven villains, four sokemen, and four bordars. The villains were what we should now call day-labourers: the soke or soc men were persons of various degrees, from small owners under a greater lord, to mere husbandmen: the bordars are considered by most specialists in Domesday terminology to have been mere drudges, hewers of wood, drawers of water. The mill, when this survey of 1085 was made, was worth four shillings. There were 10 acres (40,000 m2) of meadow. And the great lord of the place was Ilbert de Lacy to whom William the Conqueror had given vast possessions stretching widely across country from Lincolnshire into Lancashire, and whose chief stronghold was then building at Pontefract, a few miles to the south-east.
That Leeds was owned by one of the chief favourites of William was fortunate; the probability is that the lands of the de Lacy ownership were all specially protected when the harrying of the North took place. While the greater part of the county was absolutely destitute of human life, and all the land northward lay blackened, Leeds in 1085 had a population of at least two hundred people.
The Leeds Guide of 1837 states that Ilbert de Lacy built a castle on Mill Hill--roughly City Square in contemporary times--which was besieged by Stephen in his march towards Scotland in 1139. In 1399, according to the Hardynge Chronicle, the captive Richard II was briefly imprisoned at Leeds, before being transported to another de Lacy property at Pontefract, where he was later executed.
The kyng then sent kyng Richard to Ledis,
there to be kepte durely in previtee;
fro thens after to Pykering went he needis,
and to Knaresbro' after led was he
but to pontefrete last where he did dee.