days warnyng' eftir ye Indent'e makes mencion yt yane ye saides Nich' and his felaws sall' pai yame yair wage daly to ye tyme yt yai haue yair couantz fultilde. mor our ye saides Thomas Joh'n And Rob't sall' mak ye pilers of ye forsaid brigge Als substanciell' in lenth and bred' has te was acorded' wyth' ye forsaid Joh'n Garett be a Indent'e trip'tit be twene ye saide Nicholas And hyme made if ye counsell of ye forsaid Nicholas And his felaws acord yaim y'to; To ye wyttnesse of quilk thinge ye p'ties aboven̄ nevend' has sett yair seals Wrytyn̄ atte Catrike in ye fest of seint hillar' ye zere of our lord kyng' Henri' ye fift eftir ye ye[1] conquest ye nyend'.[2]
Endorsed,—Endētura de catik brig'.[3]
It will be found, on comparing this document with the church contract, that the phraseology and peculiar terms are so closely similar, that it may fairly be concluded they were both indited by the same hand, an interval of nine years only having intervened. The contracting parties are here more numerous, the bridge being a matter of general interest to the neighbourhood, since the passage of the Swale at this spot, on the ancient line of Roman way, must at all times have been of importance. At this period it appears that two bridges existed, the old stone bridge and the new wooden bridge ("ye New brigg' of tree ").[4] Sir William Lawson has kindly given us certain particulars relative to the persons here named. Nicholas de Blakburne, the first contracting party, was probably one of the family settled at Blackburne Hall, on the north side of the church-yard at Grinton, previously the property of the Hillarys. The Blackburnes, as Whitaker informs us, were an old family in Swaledale.[5] Christopher Conyers was of Hornby Castle; he married Elena, d. & heiress of . . . . Ryleston. Their monument is in Hornby Church; it records her death in 1444, the date of Christopher's decease is obliterated. William de Burghe, of Burghe or Brough, was son of John de Burghe and Katerine, d. of Roger de Aske. She was the principal party in the contract for building Catterick church, before mentioned. He espoused Matilda, d. of . . . . Lascelles, of Sowerby, and died Nov. 4, 1442; his wife died Nov. 12, 1432, and both were interred in "Our Lady's porch" in Catterick Church. The de Barton family held lands in Hornby, but no particulars of John de Barton have been ascertained.[6] Roger de Aske was the representative at that time of the very ancient family of Aske, of Aske near Richmond, now the seat of the Earl of Zetland. Conan, his son, married Isabella, d. of Christopher Conyers, before named. Of William Frank nothing is known;
- ↑ Sic.
- ↑ January 13, 142122.
- ↑ This contract is here printed literally; the contractions, majuscule letters and punctuation being accurately retained. A stop, written with an upright stroke between two points, is expressed by a colon; a stroke with one point, by a semicolon.
- ↑ Of tree, or treen, adj., an archaism signifying wooden. Thus, Caxton says, in his "Boke for Travellers," speaking of platters, dishes, and trenchers, "these thinges shall ye fynde of tree" (boiz, Fr.) Horman, in his Vulgaria, has a phrase still more pertinent,—"I wolde he that made the tree brydge (sublicio ponte) of the temis, had made it of stone." He speaks also of "dysshes of tree; condyte pypis be made of ledde, tree or erthe," &c. The old wooden bridge over the Thames, in London, had disappeared long before Horman wrote; he lived t. Hen. VIII.
- ↑ Hist. of Richmondshire, under the manor of Grinton. It was granted by Elizabeth to Sir Francis Fitch, in 1599; then it came to Hillary, and next, by what means Whitaker had not learned, to the Blackburnes.
- ↑ Ric. de Barton held a carucate in Hornby, in Kirkby's Inquis. The name occurs repeatedly in Gale's "Registrum."
