Page:History and characteristics of Bishop Auckland.djvu/22

 HISTOEY OP BISHOP AUCKLAND. 5 time, became the copyholder of latter daya The quantity of land they held varied from sixteen to thirty-five acres, with a house attached. Their services were onerous, about half the year being given to working for the Bishop on his demesne land adjoining, the houses being in this way separated from each other. Attached to the village, with its enclosed parcels of ground, was the conmion field, where each tenant held his own portion of acres of arable land under the name of oxgangs, and beyond that was the pasture where the cattle fed in common, under the charge of the village herd ; in some cases there was also the Lord's waste or forest, in which his tenants had various rights of pasturage, swine-feeding, and of cutting turf and firewood In the midst of moorland, or extensive woods, there was every here and there the open pasture, and cultivated field of each village, without hedge or any division save a strip of grass, which bordered each tenant's holding ; and by the side of the stream, or where the best land lay, snugly ensconced each in their little fields with their hedge-row trees, rose the cottages of the humble tiUers of the soil, clustering round, and sheltered by the haU of their Lord." But the Bqldon Buke (says Raine) afibrds information of a more interesting kind in illustration of the manners and amusements of those ancient times. The early Bishops of Durham were mighty hunters ; and in it we have a minute specification of the machinery (if it may be so termed), by which their sports were maintained and conducted from year to year. At home there was the Park at Auckland, of a much greater extent than at present, as it then included Old Park and, in addition, there were the more distant Parks of Wolsingham and Bedbum, and (up to the end of the thirteenth century) the Park of Evenwood. In each of these there were, for home amusement, deer in abundance, with more ignoble game ; there were also keepers in each place, with their duties defined. The great field, however, where the more extensive sports took place was the forest of Weardale, extending westward from Eastgate, (its name indicating a boundary mark) to the source of the river, in what is still called the Forest Quarter of the parish; where, in addition to the deer, there were apiaries with their overseers, and aviaries of hawks. Persons are mentioned who held lands by the service of protecting the deer yearly for forty days in the fawning season, and for the same length of time during the rut. Some, instead of rent, furnished greyhounds, of which thirty are enumerated, besides other dogs, not more minutely described. Other tenants are named who were liable to be called upon for horses ; others for ropes to surround the deer, after the fashion of Scotland. At Wolsingham three turners in wood contributed three thousand one hundred trenchers, or wooden platters yearly for the use of the Bishop and his Green-wood men. But the most curious entry is one which immediately connects the Bishop with this animated scene, and which proves that the duties of religion were not forgotten amid the pleasures of the chase.* Raine gives the following translation of it : — All the villani of Alcletshire, to wit, of North Aclet, Escumbe, and Newton (66 in number), find for the great hunt of the Bishop, for every bovate of land in their tenure, one cord, and they make a hall for the Bishop in the Forest of the length of 60 feet, and the breadth of 16 feet from post to post, with a butlery and buttery hatch, a chamber and other conveniences. They construct also a chapel of the length of 40 feet, and the breadth of 15 feet ; and they have of charity 2s. They make their part of the hedge around the lodges, and they have upon the Bishop's departure a tun of ale, or half a tun, if so much shall remain. Moreover, all the villani and farmers go to the Roe-hunt at the summons of the Bishop. Moreover, all the villanis construct for the great hunt a kitchen and a larder, and a dog-kennel ; they find bedding in the hall, the chapel, and the chamber ; and they carry the whole of the Bishop's provisions from Wolsingham to the lodges. There was, doubtless (says the same author), much of pleasurable excitement in this great gravel bed of the Wear, about a quarter of a mile west of the town, each horn measuring above four feet from the root to the tip ; and they were about 40 inches apart at the widest point of the curve. This was, no doubt, the remains of some denizen of the Forests of Weardale, whidi had come to an untimely end either by the chase or some other means, near the river side, and had been washed down by a flood, and found a grave in this place;, Digitized by Google
 * ' The house of each villan, cottar, or farmer, was situated in a toft, with one or more crofts
 * On March 8th, 1831, a large pair of horns attached to a part of a sknll, and Bupposed to belong to a red deer, were found in a