Folios: 295-296. County of Yorkshire. Pleas of claims of liberties and quittances...

Folios: 295-296. County of Yorkshire. Pleas of claims of liberties and quittances at Pikeryng [Pickering] before Richard de Wylughby [Willoughby], Robert de Hungerford and John de Hambury, justices itinerant assigned for pleas of the forest in the forest of Henry, earl of Lancaster, of Pikeryng [Pickering]:

The abbot of Rievall' [Rievaulx]: The abbot claims in his manors of Kykemarreys [Kekmarish], Lound [Lund], Nouestede [Newstead] and Loftmarreys [Loftmarish] with their appurtenances [the right] to build houses and sheepfolds and to reduce the land into cultivation at his will, and that no minister of the forest or other forester should intervene in the same manors, except only where it concerns the hunt and except for abbot and his ministers, and similarly that he is to agist according to his will in the said lands. And he says that Henry fitz Empress, late king of England [Henry II], gave and by his charter confirmed to God and St Mary and his church of Rievall' [Rievaulx] and the monks serving God there, for the soul of King Henry, his grandfather, and for the souls of his father and mother and his brothers, in free, pure and perpetual alms, the whole of his waste and pasture below Pikeryng [Pickering] with their appurtenances, in which waste the manors are now situated, in meadows, pastures, waters, fisheries, mills and all other things by certain metes contained in the same charter. He also granted to them that they can build within the same boundaries houses and sheepfolds and cultivate land as they pleased, and prohibited anyone from presuming in any way to enter within the metes with beasts or dig turf or interfere in any matter, without their will and licence, upon their forfeiture. Whereupon he says that by virtue of the said charter, he and all abbots, his predecesssors, from the time of the said gift and confirmation were seised to build houses and sheepfolds there and to cultivate their lands there at their will. And by virtue of that charter, he and all abbots of the said place, always up to this point used the said liberty that no minister of the forest of Pickering or other forester have interfered in the said manors, except the same abbot and his ministers and except as concerns the hunt, namely when it happens that any stag, red deer, male roe deer, female roe deer or roe-buck is found dead or taken in the said waste, that then the forester and ministers of the said forest are to come there to do what should be done according to the assize of the forest, etc. And that no one should presume to enter within the said metes with his beasts or to dig lands or to interfere in anything without the will, etc. King Henry the grandfather, at the time when the said waste was in his metes, as if the chief lord, could agist in the same marsh at his will without any challenge, whose estate he has, as he says, and he and all abbots of the said place, his predecessors, etc, always from the time of the said grant, etc, without any interruption, have agisted any beasts in the said manors within the said waste at their will up to this point, just as by ways and means, by which the court will consider, he is prepared to verify. He seeks, according to the said gift and grant and similarly according to how he and his predecessors have used [to do] in this matter, that his claim be allowed to him in this matter. And because it seems to the justices to be expedient and necessary to be inquired into by the ministers of this forest, as to whether the abbot and his predecessors always from the time of the completion of the said charter used the said liberties, or not, therefore the truth is to be inquired into by the said ministers.

Robert Lambsone: Robert claims to be quit of pannage of his pigs in Foulwode [Fullwood], Haibourn [Hayburn], Dernclif and Little Clif within the limits of the forest at the time of pannage per annum, and he says that he and all his ancestors, from time out of mind, by reason of their lands and tenements which he has in Brunston, which are of frank fee, were quit of pannage, as pertaining to their said lands and tenements, and this he is prepared to verify, etc. Therefore the truth is to be inquired into by the ministers of the same forest.

Held on: Monday next after Michaelmas 8 Edw III.