Boyntons and Percys--00
Walter de Boynton and William de Percy--it
was as though they were joined at the hip. They prayed together; they played
together; they did the work of the realm together.
Walter
de Boynton was the chief financial officer for St. Mary's Abbey in York
for several decades. The only record of his forebears is the name of his father,
Stephen. He must have started life in Boynton, but there is no record of Walter
inheriting property in Boynton or anywhere. He did, however, accumulate a
considerable amount of property during his life. He was a self-made man who
took family, religion and the good of the realm seriously.
William de Percy lived in Carnaby, Bolton
Percy, and Sutton upon Derwent (see appendix: The Percys, or what's in a name?).
He was a distant cousin of the Percys who were lineal descendents of the original
William de Percy and he held land from them (Allison, p. 126). Carnaby is
a village less than five miles from Boynton and Bolton Percy is less than
10 miles from York -- making it easy for Walter and William to get together.
They were contemporaries, though it is
difficult to know about age because there were almost no records of birth.
However, Walter and William worked together over an extended period of time;
the first known charter they jointly witnessed is dated between 1170 and 1180.
Most of what we know about their joint activities comes from the 1190s and
1200s. And they died at about the same time; Walter died between 1210 and
1215, and William was dead by 1219 (Loyd and Stenton, p. 75).
Prayed Together
Walter and William jointly witnessed eleven charters [documents
linking]. All eleven were documents transferring property to a religious
house. Two factors help explain this. They lived toward the end of the century
of founding and establishing religious houses in Yorkshire [Religious
Practice]. About 70 religious houses had been established in Yorkshire
in the preceding century. In general, lords gave the land that established
the religious houses and knights contributed land that helped them survive
-- even prosper. Walter and William participated together in this establishing
as witnesses. Second, there was no county office for recording land transfers,
and the church did a better job of preserving its charters than did individuals.
Transfers of land to religious institutions are better recorded than other
economic transactions.
Both Walter and William were involved in land transactions,
witnessed charters, that did not involve the church. But their economic relations
were with others. When they acted together it was worship; they prayed together.
Played Together
Play is more than a bit difficult to see in the documents that
have come to us from 1200, but there are ways to get hints about the play.
Six of the charters witnessed by Walter and William were also witnessed by
their sons -- William and Robert. Five of the six witnessed by all four were
for transfers of land to the Bridlington Priory. Bridlington is just down
the road from Boynton and Carnaby. These look like family get togethers. When
they all got to town together [n.b. Walter must have spent much time in York
and William would have moved between his three manors to supervise the work
at each] they could witness charters. But it would also be a time for parents
and children and grandchildren to get together. People trooped in from all
over the county to witness transactions, and they had to have places to stay
-- which made land transactions party time [A Boynton Story: It's
Party Time].
There is also one instance of Yorkshire high society in the
charters. Sybil de Percy was the second wife of William, the fourth lord Percy.
She outlived William by more than three decades. Between 1204 and 1209 she
gave land to St. John of Apelton. The witness list was unusally impressive.
There was an earl, two justices of the king's bench, Peter de
Brus another lord with extensive land holdings in Yorkshire, Walter de Fauconberg
was a substantial land holder who had married the daughter of Peter de Brus,
Eustace de Fauconberg was a justice of the king's court for several decades,
and the two illegitimate sons of William, lord Percy -- and Walter and William.
The wife of William, lord Percy could command distinguished witnesses even
twenty-five years after his death.
The Good of the Realm
In 1206 the king's court traveled to Yorkshire and found themselves
shorthanded. So they recruited two locals -- Walter and William -- to serve
as justices for that term. Two years later the court needed supervision of
a trial by combat and they again looked to Walter and William for assistance
[A Boynton Story: Justiciary Duty].
Both Walter and William also served as undersheriff -- though not simultaneously
(Thomas, p. 69, n. 45). Since they were involved in public life in these ways
it seems very likely that they were involved in public life in ways that left
no records; the county courts, for example, for which all knights were required
to serve on juries.
Both were willing to take their share of responsibility for
the good of the realm.
Wherein Lies Responsibility
Managing the church and managing the state -- Walter and William
worked together. They were responsible members of their community. What makes
their stories, told together, particularly interesting is the question about
responsibility.
William exemplifies one conception of responsibility -- as we
try to understand their social relations. He held land from a lord and, thus,
was his vassal. That lord held land from the king and, thus, was his vassal.
'Vassal' converts responsibility into an interpersonal relationship, which
is surely one conception of feudalism. Responsibility is to the person from
whom you 'hold.'
It is difficult to do the same with Walter; he was vassal of
many lords. It is difficult to figure out which of them might have thought
it important for him to be deputy to a lord, de Stuteville, who was sheriff
but from whom Walter did not [as far as we know] hold land. We probably need
"for the good of the realm" to capture what we know of Walter's
responsible actions. "For the good of the realm" does not take the
lords and the king out of the responsibility "equation." It is the
king's bench on which Walter and William served -- not theirs -- after all.
But it does put the king and the lords into the equation in a somewhat different
way.
What Walter and William do is make us think that these two conceptions
of responsibility were both operating and mutually reinforcing. At the beginning
of the 13th century a knight holding land from a single lord, as William did,
was not unusual. Walter is the oddity -- though certainly not unique. But
that becomes less and less true in the 14th and 15th centuries. "For
the good of the realm" must have become more important through the centuries.
....
The Percys, or what's in a name?
William Percy arrived in England with
William the Conqueror. They conquered together and the Conqueror gave William
extensive land holdings in Yorkshire (Brenan, 1902). During the fourteenth
century the Percys extended their holding to Northumberland, and in 1377 Henry
de Percy became earl of Northumberland (A Boynton Story: Henry
Percy Makes His Move). In addition to this Percy family several other
Percy families came into existence and lasted for centuries as independent
families. Two are worth noting here: the Percys of Carnaby and Bolton Percy,
and the Percys of Kildale. Keeping the various Percys straight at the end
of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries is made difficult by the popularity
of the name William. William was generally a popular name -- for fairly obvious
reasons. But it was doubly popular for families who could trace their roots
to the original William de Percy.
William de Percy, the third lord Percy,
died in 1133. He was succeeded by his son, William, who became the fourth
lord Percy. The fourth lord Percy was old enough to fight with king Stephen
against Scottish invaders in 1138. He died between 1170 and 1175 (Clay, p.
4), and he was succeeded by his two daughters Maud and Agnes. Maud died in
1203 without male heir. However, she [violating all the rules of inheritance]
left half her fortune and the family name to a nephew, Richard. Agnes died
in 1205. Her son, Henry, died before she did. When Agnes, who was the older
sister, died the family fortune should have gone to her grandson, William,
who was 15 years old in 1205. There was something of a tussle between Richard
and William for the next 35 years over the family name and fortune (Brenan,
pp. 9-15).
For this piece, the important lord Percys
are William, fourth lord, who died between 1170 and 1175 and William, sixth
lord, who was 15 in 1205. Between 1175 and 1205 (and probably 1210 or 1215)
there were no William, lord Percys, active in public affairs in Yorkshire.
There were other William Percys active
in public affairs in the window between 1168 and 1205: William of Carnaby
and Bolton Percy and William of Kildale.
There are several reasons for concluding
that the William who appears frequently with Walter is the William de Percy
of Carnaby. First, in a number of the documents that Walter and William witnessed
their sons are also listed. William's son is listed as Robert, which is the
name of the son of William de Percy of Carnaby, as noted in the Loyd and Stenton
work (Loyd and Stenton, 1950). Second, Thomas records that William de Stuteville
appointed both Walter Boynton and William Percy as undersheriff when he was
sheriff (Thomas, p. 69, n. 45.) While we cannot be certain it was William
of Carnaby who was appointed undersheriff it is very plausible since William
de Stuteville lived at Burton Agnes, which is less than 5 miles from both
Boynton and Carnaby. They seem much like friends and neighbors appointments.
Another indication of friends and neighbors, Walter and the William of Carnaby
witnessed a document for Alice de Stuteville, and it seems clear that this
is William of Carnaby because his son Robert was also a witness.
....
Loyd and Stenton: . . . the witness William
de Percy of Carnaby was dead in 1219 and had been succeeded by his son Robert
(Percy Chartulary, Surtees Soc. p. 56), p. 75
....
Allison, K. J., ed. (1974) A History
of the County of York, East Riding, vol. ii, Oxford University Press.
Brenan, Gerald (1902) A History
of the House of Percy From the Earliest times Down to the Present Century,
vol. i, Freemantle & Co.
Clay, Charles Travis (1963) Early
Yorkshire Charters, vol. xi, The Percy Fee, Yorkshire Archaeological
Society Record Series, extra series vol. ix.
Loyd, Lewis C. And Doris Mary Stenton
(1950) Sir Christopher Hatton's Book of Seals, Oxford.
Thomas, Hugh M. (1993) Vassals,
Heiresses, Crusaders, and Thugs; the Gentry of Angevin Yorkshire, 1154-1216,
University of Pennsylvania Press.
