Barony of Kendal - Origins

Origins

Unlike many parts of Cumbria, the "Kentdale" area was noted already in the Domesday book. Much of Kendal parish was in the hands of a person called Gillemichael. Much the Lonsdale area had been under control of a person called Torfin, but had then came into the king's hands. Other parts, including Beetham, were held by Earl Tostig, whose possessions later passed in some cases to the king, and in others to Roger of Poitou. The whole area was only later united as one unit under Kendal when it eventually came into the hands of Ivo de Taillebois. William Farrer has made suggestions about how to interpret the names of the lands around Kendal mentioned there under Gillemichael.

• "Strickland": Staveley, Kentmere, Longsleddale, Bannisdale, Strickland Roger, Strickland Kettle, Crook and Winster.
• "Kirkby Kendal": Kirkland, Nethergraveship, Underbarrow with Bradleyfield (anciently Greenrigg), New Hutton and Scalthwaiterigg.
• "Mint": Farrer thought possibly Mintsfeet and Spittal.
• "Patton": Skelsmergh, possibly Bretherdale and Fawcett Forest, Selside with Whitwell, Whinfell, Docker, Lambrigg, Grayrigg and Dillicar.
• "Helsington" included Sizergh.
• "Bodelford" is now called Natland.
• "Hutton": Old Hutton and Holmescales. But, says Farrer, "Killington and Firbank being in the parish of Kirkby Lonsdale are not likely to have been included in Hutton".

Farrer also wrote that:

The parishes of Windermere and Grasmere were "forest." Down to a comparatively recent period there were no freeholds in these parishes except the Fleming estate in Rydal and Loughrigg, monastic land such as the Conishead Priory estate at Baisbrown, a small freehold estate in Little Langdale, and a freehold at Lickbarrow. Windermere water was a several fishery of the lords of Kentdale, and so it has always lain in Kentdale and the county of Westmorland.

There is some doubt about who should be named as the first true Baron of Kendal. It is generally associated with the family of William de Lancaster I, and before him, with his apparent relatives, the Norman, Ivo de Taillebois, and William's uncle, the Anglo-Saxon Ketel (or Chetell) son of Eldred of Workington. William de Lancaster I was in any case the first administrator of the region after England recovered the area from King David I of Scotland.

William is thought to be related to Ivo de Taillebois, who helped administer the Cumbrian region and form Kendal into what would become the barony, under the first two Norman kings, William the Conqueror and William Rufus. Ketel fitz Eldred is known to have been lord over similar areas after the death of Ivo, and before the time when William took over. But between Ivo and William, a period which included Scottish occupation, the history of the Barony of Kendal is very unclear.

Two much later, and doubted, references claim a direct line of father-son descent from Ivo to Eldred to Ketel to Gilbert (William's father) to William de Lancaster. These were records made much later in Cockersand Abbey and St Mary's Abbey in Yorkshire. But modern commentators believe this to be an impossible, which was made by placing a sequence of lords into the simplest possible family tree. Furthermore, records have been found which describe Ketel not as William's grandfather, but as his uncle (Latin avunculus, so probably a maternal uncle).

More contemporary is a record in the Coucher Book of Furness Abbey, Helewise, granddaughter and heir of William is a party, and it was asserted there that William de Lancaster I had first been known as William de Tailboys, before receiving the right to be called "Willelmum de Lancastre, Baronem de Kendale". This is the only relatively contemporary evidence that William had a Taillebois connection, probably through his father Gilbert, and it also suggests that during the 12th century, Kendal was associated somehow with the honour of Lancaster, because William was described as becoming Baron of one, and taking up the title from the other. William Farrer argued that such links go back before 1066. He argued that Kendal and the neighbouring parts of Lancashire, Furness to the west, and northern Lancashire to the south, formed a single administrative district in the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria.

Furness, Kendal, and North Lancashire, bounded on the north by the river Duddon, Dunmail Raise, Kirkstone Pass, and Borrow Beck, and on the south by the river Ribble, formed a complete fiscal area of five hundred teamlands for the levying of Danegeld".

So during the lifetime of William de Lancastre, the link between Kendal and Lancashire was by this account an older link, which was only broken later as the honour of Lancaster came under more direct royal control, and Furness came under the control of the powerful Abbey of Furness. Documents show that disputes concerning control of Furness continued between the Barons of Kendal and the Abbey of Furness for several generations.

Despite the evidence, Farrer and Curwen thought that William was probably not a true "Baron" of Kendal, in the sense of being a direct tenant of the monarch, because he appears to have had lords above him apart from the king. Farrer wrote in the Introduction to Records of Kendal:

After a careful review of the evidence which has been sketched above, the author is of opinion that no barony or reputed barony of Kentdale existed prior to the grants of 1189–90; and that neither William de Lancaster, son of Gilbert, nor William de Lancaster II, his son and successor, can be rightly described as "baron" of Kentdale.

Instead, Farrer and Curwen believed, William I and II were actually tenants of the lord controlling northern Westmorland. Therefore the eventual county of Westmorland was not originally a merger, but a takeover, which was then re-structure in the time of King Richard I of England. On 15 April 1190 Richard acquitted the then Baron of Kendal, Gilbert fitz Reinfrid, of his dues to northern Westmorland. It was only 13 years later, on 28 October 1203, that year King John granted to Robert de Veteriponte in fee "Appleby and Brough with all their appendages with the bailiwick and the rent of the county with the services of all tenants (not holding of the king by military service) to hold by the service of four knights." The service to the crown for Kendal was by comparison the service of two knights.

After the second William de Lancaster, son of the first, the next baron (or according to Farrer the first definite Baron of Kendal), was Gilbert son of Roger fitz Reinfrid, the husband of the heiress William II mentioned above, Helewise. Gilbert was one of the barons whose seal is found on the Magna Carta, and he participated in the so-called First Baron's War.