History of Leeds - Norman Period

Norman Period

Leeds parish is thought to have developed from a large British multiple estate which, under subsequent Anglo-Saxon occupation was further sub divided into smaller land holdings. The ancient parish encompassed Leeds, Headingley, Allerton, Gipton, Bramley, Armley, Farnley, Beeston and Ristone (Wortley). Leeds was the most important of these holdings. Leeds was then further sub divided so that when the first dependable historical record about Leeds (as "Ledes") was written in the Domesday book of 1086, it was recorded as having comprised seven small manors in the days of Edward the Confessor. At the time of the Norman conquest, 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 When the Domesday records were made, it had slightly increased in value; the seven thanes had been replaced by twenty-seven villains, four sokemen, and four bordars.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 was made, was worth four shillings. There were 10 acres (40,000 m2) of meadow. The tenant in chief was Ilbert de Lacy to whom William the Conqueror had granted a vast Honour stretching widely across country from Lincolnshire into Lancashire, and whose chief stronghold was at Pontefract Castle, 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 spared 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 1086 had a population of at least two hundred people.

There were two significant foci to the settlement; the area around the parish church and the main manorial landholding half a mile to the west of the church. 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.

In 1147, Cistercian monks settled at Kirkstall, and there from about 1152 began to build Kirkstall Abbey.