deny it by the oath of two men. In order to add to the solemnity of an oath taken on such an occasion, the charter provides that no man shall require his neighbour to take an oath, unless he has a suit belonging to some claim.' The assize of bread and ale appears to have come under the cognizance of the courts of Manchester, as also the infractions of the customs of the lord's mill and oven. Frays came under the jurisdiction of these courts; and here we cannot but remark the distinction which the charter makes between an assault committed on Sunday, and one that occurs on any other day; for it states that if any burgess in the borough should wound another burgess upon Sunday, or from noon on Saturday to Monday, he should pay a fine of 20s.; and if on Monday, or any of the other days of the week, he should wound any one, he should pay a fine of 12d. to the lord. When a fray occurred in the borough, it seems not to have been noticed by the reeve, unless it occurred outside the house of a burgess, and so became a public breach of the peace. In the latter case the offender was to be attached, and obliged to give security and pledge.

Another portion of the charter relates to the tallages which the burgess were to pay to the lord. At the time when Thomas Greslet granted this charter to Manchester, the whole of England was preparing to rise in arms to defend the northern parts of the kingdom against the inroads of the Scots, and the privileged. boroughs of England kept constant watch and ward. These preparations involved considerable expense, and hence we find provision made in the charter for its liquidation, by the clause which says reasonable tallage shall be paid to the lord and his heirs, whenever the king should tax his free burgesses in other places in the kingdom.

As previously stated, this charter was granted in the 29th year of the reign of Edward I., 1301. Five years later, in the 34th year of the same king's reign, the lord of Manchester received the honour of knighthood at the same time as it was conferred upon Prince Edward, and many others, and in the first four years of the reign of Edward II. was summoned to Parliament. Thomas Greslet does not appear to have ever married. His only sister, Joan, was the wife of John la Warre, baron of Wickwar, in the

county of Gloucester, to which place the lord of Manchester seems to have removed, attended by several gentlemen of Lancashire, four of whose names are on record, viz., Henry de Trafford, Knt., Richard de Hulton, Adam de Rossendale, and Geoffrey de Chaderton. While at Wickwar, and surrounded by his friends, Thomas Greslet appears to have made a formal grant of his manor of Manchester, and the advowsons of the churches of Manchester and Ashton to Sir John la Warre, Knt., and Joan, his wife, subject to an annual payment, during his life, of one hundred marks. Though this grant had taken place, he still seems to have been considered as lord of Manchester, as appears from the summons which he subsequently received to attend Parliaments from 1307 to 1313, as well as to take part in the Scottish wars. In 1313 he and John la Warre are conjointly summoned to meet the king at Berwick-on-Tweed. The last of the male line of the Greslets died in 1313 or 1314, but the precise year is not known, nor is the place of his interment, but it is generally supposed that he was buried at the Abbey of Dore, in Herefordshire.

CHAPTER IX.

John la Warre, ninth Baron of Manchester-The Manor of Manchester given to the Abbey of Dore, in Herefordshire-Survey of the Barony and Manor of Manchester-The Manor of Manchester reverts to John la Warre - Flemish Manufacturers introduced into Manchester-Roger la Warre, tenth Baron of Manchester-The Pestilence or Plague visits Manchester-The Privileges of Manchester as a Free Borough are disputed-Salford Bridge erected-Demise of Roger la Warre.

THE demise of Thomas Greslet was followed by the accession of the La Warres to the Barony of Manchester, in consequence of the marriage of Joan the sister and heir of Thomas with John, son of Roger la Warre. This Roger la Warre was the great grandson of John la Warre, the first of the family on record, who is mentioned in the year 1204, when King John ratified a grant made to him of the lordship of Bristol. The family are said to have dated from the Conquest. The John la Warre who married the heiress of the Greslets occurs in an inquisition taken in or about the year 1311, as holding the manor of Manchester in right of his wife from the King and the honour of Lancaster. To this tenure was attached a service of fifty-two shillings and sixpence to be paid at the feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, for the ward of the Castle of Lancaster, likewise of four pounds four shillings as a sak-fee (fine to the court baron) for five knights' fees and the fraction of another, the payments to be made at the Nativity of our Lord, the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel. In the 4th Edward II. (1310-11) very soon after he became possessed of Manchester, John la Warre granted the manor to the Cistercian Abbey of Dore, in Herefordshire, reserving to himself the right of presentation to the churches of Manchester and Ashton.

In 1322 a survey was made of the barony and manor of Manchester, and from it we derive important information relating to the knights' fees contained within the barony, the laws of the court baron, the regulations of the forests appropriated to the chase, and many other subjects. The survey has been preserved by Kuerden among his MSS. in the Chetham Library, and a translation is given by Baines in the second volume of his 'History of Lancashire,' page 181. It is as follows:

'EXTENT OF THE MANOR OF MANCHESTER, MADE IN 1322.

WOODS, &c.

'Manchester has woods and moors of turbary, which, by reason of their extent and diversity, are not measured, but estimated according to the custom; and they may probably return £6 9s. 2d. per annum. For at Manchester the woods are annually worth £66s., viz.:—the wood of Aldport, which may be inclosed and made a pasture at the will of the lord, a mile in circumference, is worth in pannage with the aery of hawks, herons and eagles, honey, bees, and the like issues, 6s. 8d. And the investure of oak, in the gross, £300, when felled and carried away.

'The several wood of Bradford, in pannage, honey, bees, and the like, is worth 6s. per annum. The investure of the same, is worth £10 when carried away. This contains a mile in circumference.

"The park of Blakelegh is worth in pannage, aery of eagles, herons, and hawks, honey, bees, mineral earths, and other issues 53s. 4d. The vesture of oak, with the whole coverture, is worth 200 marks in the gross. It contains seven miles in circumference, together with two deer leaps, of the king's grant.

'The wood of Horewich contains sixteen miles in circumference, and is yearly worth in pannage, aeries of eagles, herons, and hawks, honey, millstones, iron ores, ashes, and the like issues, sixty shillings. The vesture of oaks, elms, and other trees, in the gross, 160 marks. And the same wood is so several that none may enter it without the license of the lord. And if any beast be found in it without license, the owner of the beast shall give 6d. for the tresspass, by fixed custom. And if 100 beasts, more or less, of one owner, be found in this forest without license, he shall not pay more for that tresspass than 6d. as aforesaid. And whereas this custom, and some others of the watching of the said wood, produces profits which are not computed here, because the moor does not rise from the wood or the pasture, but from both; they are therefore fully named and described among the profits and perquisites of the

same.

'The manor of Openshagh contains 100 acres of turbary of the lord's soil, which cannot be computed at annual profits, because its goodness is continually decreasing, and is now almost annihilated. In this the tenants of the lord of Gorton, Openshagh, and Ardewyke, and the lord of Ancoats, have common of turbary. And whereof Sir John de Biron hath appropriated to himself forty acres of moor, of the said lord's seisin.

"The waste of Curmeshal containing forty acres of pasture land, is not computed at its value by itself, because all the tenants of Curmeshal have common of pasture there, for which the tenants are rented so much higher, and yet it is not worth more than the common.

The waste of Denton contains 200 acres or more. The lord of Manchester, Andrew de Choreworth, Alexander de Denton, John de la Hyde, Hugh (son of Richard de Moston), and Elias de Betham of Denton, have 100 by reason of two bovates of land which Robert de Ashton holds of the lord for the term of his life, in Denton, and which Robert Grelle acquired from John le Lord, who held the same with his part of the waste, which is not several from the lordship of Whithington, and of which wastes each partaker aforesaid may appropriate to himself twenty-five acres of waste aforesaid. The profit in pasture and turbary is rated with the bovates aforesaid, on which it depends.

'Keuerdley has two woods, of which the pannage, honey, bees, and the like issues, are worth £4 6s. 8d. per annum. The covert in oaks has a third part of the wood of of Boysnape, and the wood of Lostock, in which oaks, hazle trees, thorns, &c., grow, are worth 100-for destruction. But their pannage, and the aeries of eagles, herons and hawks, honey and bees, are worth 2s. per annum; that is 12d. each wood.

'In Harmoss are twenty acres of moor; and in Whitmoss ten acres.

'In Bromihurst are 120 acres, more or less, 100 in Halmoss; twelve acres of turbary, which are the lords' soil, and in which the tenants of the lord of Barton have common turbary, whence no profit can accrue to the lord, except in this, that the arable lands are let higher on account of the turbary.

'Chatmoss is the soil of the lords of Barton, Worselegh, Astley, Workedley, and Bedford. The wood of each person is not measured, because there is so little goodness in so vast an extent. In this all the tenants of the said lands have common of turbary; but it is not computed at the annual profit, for the reason premised; and the inferior quality of the aforesaid moors gradually diminishes the commons aforesaid. 'Heton Norres has a wood called Heton Wood, and is supplied with oaks, and hayes, in which the tenants of Heton who hold in fee, by charter, shall have housbote and haybote out of the lord's liberties. By this means many things are totally destroyed, and, therefore, the annual value in wood, pannage, or other issues, is not computed, and if a valuation were made, it might, in a short time, become erroneous.

There is a moor called Heton Moss, which contains seventy acres of turbary, and in which the fee-holders of Heton have housbote, while it affords a sufficiency; besides which, the lord may sell yearly, as he does at present, to the value of 6s. 8d. But as this will soon cease to exist, it cannot be reckoned among the annual profits.'

This is followed by the 'Bounds and Limits of the Manor and Town of Manchester,' which are given as follow:

'At Manchester, toward the peace and liberty of the lord of the manor, which, besides the hamlets and exterior places, begins at the Brendorchard, which is called Wallegrenes, between Aldport and the Rectory of Manchester, and so descended by the river Irwell to Bosselclou, near Strangeways, along the Irwell, at the middle is the boundary between Manchester and Salford; and following the said Bosselclou between Chetham and Manchester up to le Musies, and thus going between the Musies and Blacklách up to the end of the Causeway-and so beyond the Causeway, going between le Glerruding and into the Marsterfeld by a hedge up to the middle of the Irke, and then following the Irke, by the same middle, up to le Cordirodes, and following that up to Coldwallerclou, and following that according to the guiding of an ancient hedge, up to le Redbroke, and following that into the ditch or pit at Curmeshale, called le Mossditch, and following that to the head or top of Oxewall between Manchester and Chetham, and from that head following the royal road (or