Walter Boynton 1140 to 1210

Walter de Boynton lived in Yorkshire between 1140 and 1210. The dates are not exact because dates were not recorded very often in the 12th century. He served as a justiciar of the court in 1208, he witnessed a document in 1209, and he was dead before 1215. So we take 1210 as an ending point. His birth is more complicated. He was old enough to have two daughters join a priory sometime between 1168 and 1175. Assume he was fifteen when he had daughters and they were fifteen when they went to the priory. That speculation gives 1140 as a rough approximation of date of birth.

Family

Father: Stephen de Bouington was the father of Walter.

This document belonged to the Boyntons of Burton Agnes. In the twentieth century they deposited about 1,600 documents with the University of Hull; hence, Hull Document. There is one other point to note about the document. Spelling was flexible; Boynton was spelled many different ways across the centuries.

Daughters: There is no record of the name of Walter's wife. We do know that he had two daughters.

Watton Priory had been established about 1150, and it was located within fifteen miles of Boynton. Walter gave land to the priory when his daughters entered as nuns; making a contribution in this circumstance was a fairly standard act. [A Boynton Story: You Want to Go Where?] We do not know anything more about his daughters, but we do know that on several occasions he participated as a witness when others made contributions to the priory. [A Boynton Place: Watton Priory]

The line -- Stephen to Walter to William to Ingram began a family lineage that continued until the middle of the twentieth century.

Rabod was a younger son of Walter about whom we know very little. Collier suggested he may be the father of the line of Boyntons at Boynton (Collier, chapter 3). We will follow his suggestion even though there is very little evidence to sustain it.

We have found 12 documents that mention Walter and his family -- Walter and Family.

Walter was almost certainly a knight. There are no lists so it is difficult to be completely certain. But he held offices, such as deputy sheriff [A Boynton Story: Deputy Sheriff], that were generally occupied by knights. In the long history of England, knighthood eventually became primarily an honor -- something one hopes existed in one's family (Coss, 1993, pp. 1-4). In the 12th and 13th centuries, however, knighthood was more responsibility than honor. It was, Baildon suggested, where economy and military met.

Because you held a knight's fee you were responsible. You were responsible for military duty. You were also responsible for the work of governing. Walter appears to have held the requisite land. As far as we know, he never had to exercise his responsibilities in battle, but in other areas of community life Walter was a highly responsible person.

Walter must have been what we would call a self made man. Wealth was land, and there is nothing in either the Domesday Book or the Victoria County History of the East Riding about the village of Boynton to suggest that he inherited significant land. He did acquire land and an importance in the community that suggests considerable wealth. It seems he must have done it without as much assistance from his parents as others had.

The deeds we have show that Walter held land in Boynton and Bridlington, which was only a few miles from Boynton. He also held land in Snainton and Pothowe, which were the only holdings in the North Riding we know about. He held land in Arnold, Burnby-Bruneby, Rotsea, Wighill, Bainton, and Bilton in the south and east of Yorkshire. He also held land in Willerby, but we do not know if it was the North Riding or the East Riding Willerby. We placed it on the map in the East Riding since that land is closer to other land he held. We can place all of these villages on the map below, but there were holdings we cannot identify: Bruntona, Bentona. And, since he worked as business manager of St. Mary's, York for several decades it seems likely that he had land in York. [Economic Transactions]

The map of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire spots the location of the land. It is almost all in the East Riding, but it is spread across the East Riding rather than being concentrated around a single location. This spread was the usual pattern; it was not until about the 17th century that land holdings became more concentrated geographically.

Walter was a religious man. Two daughters became nuns at Watton Priory [A Boynton Story: You Want to Go Where?]. He had a continuing interest in the financial health of Bridlington Priory. Bridlington was only about five miles from Boynton, and Walter and William de Percy, who held land about equidistant from Bridlington, were involved in many financial transactions for the priory [A Boynton Story: The Boyntons and the Percys-00]. Because of his relationship with Peter de Brus he also was involved with the Guisborough Priory. He traveled all over the county witnessing transactions between families and religious institutions [A Boynton Story: Witnessing for God]. And, of course, he was the chief financial officer for St. Mary's Abbey, York for more than two decades [A Boynton Story: Walter de Boynton, CFO].

We know about his actions. We do not know about his faith. Serving the church was his route to becoming an established member of the Yorkshire community. For the church he was in the real estate business, and along the way he acquired quite a lot of land for his family. He was a leader of one of the most important religious institutions in the county, and he became a public figure who would be asked to sit on the king's bench when it arrived at Yorkshire. Life was one in the twelfth century. To be a religious leader was to be an economic leader and a government leader -- for Walter and for later generations of Boyntons [A Boynton Story: Everybody Who Was Anybody and the Guild of Corpus Christi]. Faith and action were one.

Suddenly, Walter was hot. In rapid succession he was deputy sheriff, 1200-1202 [A Boynton Story: Deputy Sheriff]. He served on the king's court when it came to York in 1206 [A Boynton Story: The King's Court Comes to Town]. He was asked to supervise a trial by combat in 1208 when combatants had begun going beyond the proper bounds of a trial [A Boynton Story: Justiciary Duty]. And in 1209 Peter de Brus asked Walter to be one of the witnesses of a document articulating principles of governing that were precursors of the Magna Carta [A Boynton Story: Magna Carta -- Father and Sons]

What happened? We do not know. Perhaps it was the gravitas of age; Walter was sixty years old or so. Not many men lived to that age. Perhaps it was his peers -- de Stuteville, Percy, Harpham and others -- taking on additional public responsibilities and calling on Walter for assistance. Whatever the reason -- in the last decade of his life Walter was more involved in the affairs of governing than he had been before. Governing in his day was governing by the rich. When the king needed help he called on his nobles. Walter was not rich; hence, he was not in the standard "line" to be called to service. His life work as chief financial officer of the Abbey and the tasks he was asked to take on suggest three qualities of character that were surely involved in his becoming an active public figure -- judiciousness, competence, and concern for the good of the realm.

In an age when death came early and often, Walter lived a long and full life. He lived to see his sons and daughters prosper. He lived to make important contributions to the religious life of the county: at St. Mary's Abbey, where he was chief financial officer, but also at Bridlington, which was just down the road from Boynton, and Watton, where his daughters were nuns, and throughout the county where he was involved in negotiating exchanges of property.

Luck and genetics brought him health. Competence and judiciousness brought him wealth. And concern for the good of the realm capped off his life with a decade of service to the king and the realm.

W. Paley Baildon, Compositions for Not Taking Knighthood at the Coronation of Charles I, Miscellanea, Vol. 1, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, 1920, pp. 84-85.