The dissolution of the monasteries was a brief, but tumultuous, episode in English history that brought an end to four hundred years of French religious influence and resulted, as Richard Hoyle has said in “the Great Plunder becoming the Great Redistribution”.[1] This “great redistribution” affected tenants in many ways, most obviously for those who held lands from the monasteries there was a new landlord, many lost their jobs as lay brothers or servants of the monasteries but for some tenants, even those of modest means, the dissolution provided opportunities.

Approximately twenty percent of the tenants of Craven in 1522 had a monastic landlord. The two large monasteries of Fountains Abbey and Bolton Priory had held lands in Craven since the twelfth century, of the two, Fountains dominated in the northern and central areas of Craven whereas Bolton was strong to the south, around the flat-lands of the Skipton gap. In terms of the number of tenants neither religious house could compete with either the Percy fee in the north or the Cliffords to the south. The Cliffords added to their dominance by acting as stewards to twenty townships some in religious and some in lay hands.[2] Sawley Abbey to the far west of Craven on the Lancashire border held properties in six townships in the area. The Premonstratensian Abbey of West Dereham in Norfolk had the church of Kirkby (Malham) and had accumulated properties in Kirkby and in other townships in the vicinity. West Dereham provided their own canons as vicars of the church there. Similarly the Premonstratensian Abbey of Coverham, in neighbouring Richmondshire, provided canons to the church of Kettlewell. The little chapel of St Oswalds at Hubberholme in Langstrothdale was founded by William the son of Henry Percy in 1242 and donated to the Abbey of Coverham.[3] The Percy family provided an annuity of ten shillings to pay for a priest to sing there.[4] Of the remaining churches in North Craven: Long Preston had been granted to Bolton Priory, Gargrave to Sawley Abbey and Giggleswick to Finchale Priory a daughter house of Durham. The Percies had gifted Arncliffe Church to Oxford University in 1443 and the remaining two, Burnsall and Linton, were each divided into two moieties and in lay hands.

The value of the rectories has been subsumed within the accounts of the various monasteries but the vicarages appear to have been poor compared to others, their average value in 1535 was £13 17s 2d, which is less than the average value of Lake District vicarages of £14 5s 2d.[5] The two poorest were Kirkby (Malham) and Kettlewell both of which were attached to Premonstratensian abbeys and staffed by their canons. The wealthiest was Giggleswick at £21 3s 2d.[6] The Vicars’ salaries were paid from the vicarage income and there was some discontent from the most senior clergy in the land that these salaries were inadequate to attract the best. Sir Thomas Moor (A Dialogue Concerning Heresies) said

And as for me touchynge the choyce of prestys, I coulde not well devyse better provysyons than are by the lawes of the chyrche provyded all redy, if they wereas well kept as they be well made. But for the nomber, I wold surely se suche away therin, that we sholde not have suche a rabell ..[7]

His complaint centred on the poor education of people entering the priesthood, an observation he made about all England but one that applied equally to North Craven. Between 1500 and 1540 not one of the one hundred and four people who entered the profession and gave northern Craven townships as an address possessed a degree. That is not to say they did not go on to get a degree afterwards. George Ellison of Halton Gill, who entered the church in 1517 obtained an MA from Oxford before returning to Craven as vicar of Arncliffe after the death of his relative Christopher in 1552. No doubt others went on to get a degree but they do not reappear in Craven.

Those who did return include Henry Hill of Gargrave who entered the church in 1517 and became vicar of Kettelwell in 1553, Anthony Holgate of Elslack who returned to Arncliffe church in 1539. Anthony had accepted Protestantism and was married, an act that was to lose him his job during Mary’s reign, although he was re-instated when Elizabeth came to the throne. His temporary replacement was Richard Somerscales of Giggleswick who had entered the priesthood in 1520. Richard Wilson, also from Giggleswick, took to the priesthood in 1515 and may have been the vicar of Bracewell between 1516 and 1542, he was presented to the church there by the Abbey of Kirkstall whose dissolution seemed to have lost him his job.

Thus a possible six of one hundred and four people returned to Craven to practice their calling. The fate of the rest can only be guessed at, some will not have completed their training, some will have entered monasteries but the majority probably sought their livings elsewhere. A second route to the priesthood lay through the monasteries themselves. Furness Abbey, which held lands in Flasby and Winterburn, Giggleswick, Hetton and Bordley, Airton and Long Preston sent six lay brothers to York with local names which included Brothers Richard Carr, John Clapham, James Langcliffe, Edmond Stainforth, Hugh Marton and Michael Hammerton. Of those who remained in the monasteries Christopher Stainforth has been identified as Christopher Carr the son of James Carr of Giggleswick, Christopher was a monk at Sawley at the dissolution. The monks of Bolton at the dissolution include William Mallome[8].

The families of fifteen of those entering the priesthood from North Craven cannot be traced to the area through any of the late fifteenth century rentals or the 1522 loan book. The family names of the rest appear in both the rentals and the loan book, some are well known to the area, for example the Carrs of Giggleswick and Ellisons of Arncliffe each sent four sons, the Tennant family of Upper Wharfedale sent three, as did the Stackhouse, Knowles and Taylor families of Giggleswick, the Ratcliffes of Linton and the Hall family of Long Preston and Gargrave. Two sons of ten families, including the Proctors, Wilkinsons and Atkinsons went to train as priests at York. Forty-three other families sent just one son to the priesthood during the first four decades of the sixteenth century.

What is significant is that each of these families had reached a point where they could afford to do without the labour their sons would provide, employing labourers if necessary and, significantly, perceived their social standing to warrant having a priest amongst their numbers. It could be argued that encouraging children to leave the family home would save money but the mortality rate was high and the head of a family would keep labour in reserve to balance the risks, risks that were heightened during epidemics and famine. A family with a priest amongst its ranks was proud of the fact and there is plenty of testamentary evidence to prove this. For example when William Iveson wrote his will in 1544 he left a horse to his son Sir John Iveson, a filly to Sir James Iveson his son and asked that both be executors. If they left the country then two Sir Thomas Ivesons, presumably more distant relatives one of whom taught at Giggleswick school, were to look after his wife. Thomas Foster, 1553, mentions his brother Sir James Foster. John Howson, 1550, bequeathed 13s 4d to his son Sir Thomas, although he did not expect him to accept it and to give the money to the poor instead. There are many more examples, the priests within a family were trusted and respected.

Each man entering the priesthood gave his home town, from which it appears that the parish of Giggleswick produced more candidates than any other and Kettlewell the least. However, eight of the fifteen whose families cannot be identified in other records (not included in this data) gave Giggleswick as their parish, which leads to the suspicion that there may have been some advantage to be obtained by doing this. One of these names (Henry Wigan) appears as a chantry priest at Kirkby in Richard Preston’s will of 1527 and the family re-occur later in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[9]

Numbers Entering the Priesthood
by North Craven Parish
Parish / Number
Giggleswick / 24
Arncliffe / 16
Gargrave / 16
Burnsall / 10
Linton in Craven / 9
Kirkby (Malham) / 6
Long Preston / 5
Kettlewell / 3
Total / 89

Between 1500 and the mid-1520s about five men every year left North Craven to train as priests, with a peak of twelve in 1517, after the mid 1520s numbers dropped dramatically to less than one a year. The reasons for the drop in numbers lie in a number of areas. Firstly the church itself was seeking better qualified candidates. The church was also implementing the statutory changes designed to stop pluralism (receiving income from a second living), absenteeism without good reason and to remove the clergy from all commercial activities. The opportunities for wealth were thus diminished. Secondly, the local population was beginning to diversify. Two new fulling mills were being built in Giggleswick in 1499, tripling the existing capacity. Thirdly, a growing number of wealthier peasants found they had enough disposable income to pay for their sons to be educated in the professions, such as in law, as scriveners and so forth. Two of Adam Somerscales children were in London when he died in 1569, one training as a scrivener the other, Robert, a lawyer.

During the later fifteenth century John Caterall of Rathmell had been involved in the murder of the Duke of York at Wakefield and in 1461 was hanged with many others including John Clapham of Skipton. John Caterall’s son Alan was restored to the estates by Henry VII in November 1485.[10] John Clifford, lord of Skipton was also killed in 1461 and his son Henry was hidden until 1485 when, following the battle of Bosworth and the defeat of the Yorkists, he was restored to his estates as the 10th Baron. Henry Percy had died at the battle of Towton in 1461 and his heir was slain during tax riots at York in 1489. His son and heir, Henry Algernon came of age in 1499 and lived until 1527. Henry Algernon’s daughter Margaret married Henry Clifford (the first earl) who succeeded to the Percy estates in Craven when Margaret’s brother died in 1537.

Crop failure and famine had plagued the middle years of the fifteenth century and further crop failure is suspected during the 1490s. Thus the early Tudor years could be described as a relatively settled period in Craven giving the local population some respite from war, famine and the uncertainty and costs of changing landlords[11].

The one major event was the decisive battle of Flodden Field in 1513 (known locally at the time as Scotch field) which involved tenants of the Percy fee led by William Percy the second son of Henry Algernon and the tenants of Skipton led, despite his now great age, by Lord Clifford. Some tenants were rewarded for their bravery in the battle, Henry Taylor was given a valuable lodge in Giggleswick as a reward “and in recompense for his ransom as he had been taken prisoner” by the Scots.[12] A tenant of Long Preston in 1579 was the son of “John Kendall of the Flodden” but no further information is known about this individual.[13]

In common with churches throughout England some church income had been privatised. The tithes of Giggleswick Church, for example, had been sold to Robert of Stainforth (who paid an entry fine of £6 13s 4d in 1383/84) and they remained with him and his heirs the Tempests until the dissolution, by which time they amounted to £44 per annum.[14] Bolton Priory had used the church of Long Preston as part of a usurious deal with the Chancellor of York around 1320.[15] Stephen Tempest paid the priory £10 annually for the tithes of Long Preston, Henry Clifford paid £10 for the tithes of Hellifield and Wigglesworth. The tithes of wool of Halton (Long Preston) had been sold for 26s 8d. Generally, though Craven appears to have been relatively free from the rampant commercialisation of parishes evident elsewhere in the country, probably on account of its poverty and the consequent lack of opportunity for profit.

There is no doubt that Craven was impoverished, Roger Schofield used the 1334 and 1515 Lay Subsidies to assess the relative wealth of thirty-seven counties, the West Riding came 37th and 36th (to the North Riding) respectively.[16] More detailed township studies have shown that, while the whole of the North was poor, Craven, Wensleydale and Swaledale were the poorest areas of all. Furthermore, whereas Cumberland, Westmoreland and Northumberland were traditionally excused taxation on account of their poverty Yorkshire was not. That this concession applied to the three most northern counties and not to Yorkshire suggests a misreading of the situation by those who believed the sole causes of poverty were due to the deprivations of the Scots. However, the favourable customary tenancy of ‘tenant right’ which prevailed in the North from at least the mid-fifteenth century, and is associated with its defence, did extend to many of the tenants of the Percy fee and to some Furness Abbey lands including Stackhouse. The tenants of Fountains had agreed, or been forced to agree, to short-term leases.[17] The majority of Bolton Priory’s unfree tenants held their property at will on an annual basis, Christopher Clapham was the exception, in 1539 he held by copyhold a tenement, toft, croft and a bovate of land in Gargrave.[18] The plethora of landlords in north Craven worked to the advantage of the tenants and rents did not appear excessive. Where customary tenancies were in operation rents were unchanging but tenants paid a gressum when the tenant or lord died, the sums demanded from the Percy tenants in 1499 amounted to fractions of the annual rent and could not be considered excessive, later in the sixteenth century, under the Cliffords, gressums rose to as much as twenty or thirty years rent.