issued during the process of endowment. The example set at the foundation was largely followed throughout the history of the priory. Most of the endowments were situated in Coupland and were given by local men. Several families in successive generations are conspicuous for their liberality to the institution and it is this feature that makes a collection of their charters so invaluable for the territorial history of the district. The lords of the great fiefs, Egremont, Cockermouth, Allerdale, Millom and Workington, of course, predominate, but within these feudal areas there was a multitude of owners of smaller tenements, lords and tenants of the manors, who figure prominently in the charters as donors and witnesses. As the influence of the priory was confined to so small an area, one charter serves as illustration of another, the donor of one being often found as a witness to the next in order. The whole collection makes a family group in which there is little variety of feature except what is produced by time. For this reason the Register may be regarded for the most part as its own interpreter. The history of manors, churches and families in this portion of Cumberland has been much neglected in the past, but it is hoped that the documents in this collection, when taken with the volumes of the public records now so easily accessible, will contribute something to the enlargement of our knowledge.

The endowments, however, were not altogether given by the feudatories of Coupland: some came from magnates who had only an indirect interest in the district. These perhaps call for a more extended notice than the benefactors at home. It was natural that after the Scottish occupation a close connexion should continue between Cumberland and the northern kingdom. So far as the religious houses are concerned, the intercommunication was more marked with Galloway and Annandale. It must have been while David reigned in Carlisle that

Uctred son of Fergus, lord of Galloway, married Gunnild1 daughter of Waldeve lord of Allerdale. Uctred and his son Roland and Alan son of Roland were benefactors of the monastery of Holmcultram. During the latter part of the twelfth century, while the see of Carlisle was vacant, Bishop Christian of Whithern, a bishopric said to have been revived by Fergus, assisted the local authorities in the administration of the diocese, and when he died in

1 It is stated in No. 498 that Alan son of Waldeve gave Torpenhow with the advowson of the church to Uctred son of Fergus, lord of Galloway, with Gornella or Gurnelda his sister. There is independent evidence that the statement is trustworthy as the following charter shows :

UCTREDUS filius Fergus et Gunnild filia Waldef sponsa ipsius, omnibus sancte matris ecclesie filiis, salutem. Sciant tam posteri quam presentes nos, consensu Lochlan heredis nostri, dedisse et hac karta nostra confirmasse ecclesiam de Torpennoth, cum terra et omnibus rectitudinibus ad eandem ecclesiam iuste pertinentibus, ecclesie Sancte Crucis de castello puellarum et canonicis ibidem deo servientibus in perpetuam elemosinam pro redemptione anime Waldevi et Fergus et omnium antecessorum nostrorum. Quare firmiter uolumus ut idem canonici ecclesiam prenominatam habeant et possideant ita libere et quiete sicut aliqua ecclesia in toto episcopatu Karloliensi liberius tenetur et possidetur. Hiis testibus Galfrido abbate de Dunfermelin, Osberto abbate de Jedduurde, Aluredo abbate de Striuelin, Gillemure mac blancard, Gillemure albanach, Gilleberto mac gillefin, Serlone, Bernardo, Ricardo bertha burgensibus.

This charter (Liber Cartarum S. Crucis, pp. 19-20, Bann. Club) may be dated about 1163. It presupposes the death of Fergus, father of the grantor, which took place on 12 May 1161 (Chron. S. Crucis, p. 33, Bann. Club). As Uctred son of Fergus was murdered by Malcolm his nephew in 1174 and as Osbert the first abbot of Jedburgh, one of the witnesses, died in the same year, the date of the charter must lie between 1161 and 1174. But the exact year is probably 1163 when Uctred the grantor and Isaac de Torpennoc had pleas and agreements before the King's justice in Cumberland (Pipe Rolls, p. 5, ed. Hinde).

Reg. of Holmcultram MS. ff. 99-105.

Pipe Rolls of Cumberland (ed. Hinde), p. 3.

• Chron. de Mailros (Bann. Club.), p. 95.

1186 he was buried in the abbey of Holmcultram, in which house he was afterwards regarded as a saint.1 Roland son of Uctred, the acer atque industrius adolescens who resented his father's murder in 1174 and who died2 in 1200, enfeoffed Thomas son of Gospatric, lord of Workington, with the lordship of Culwen in Galloway. In the light of such incidents, as illustrative of mutual intercourse, it need cause no wonder that Alan son of Roland, lord of Galloway and constable of Scotland, should have given a yearly rent charge of one mark to the monks of St. Bees.1

The priory had a rent issuing from the mill of Kirkandres, of the gift of Bernard de Ryppelay and Margaret his wife, which appears to belong to Galloway. There is no evidence that Bernard or his wife had any interest in either of the places of this name in Cumberland. Three at least of the witnesses, Roesya de Lascy, Patrick son of Thomas, and John de Suthak, had connexions with Galloway, the first-named being the widow of Alan son

In one of his charters to Holmcultram, which is entitled 'confirmacio Sancti Christiani episcopi," Bishop Christian alludes to the House of Holmcultram as the place" vbi et corpori nostro sepulturam elegimus " (Reg. MS. f. 112).

2 William of Newburgh (Eng. Hist. Soc.), i. 182: Hoveden (R.S.), iv. 145.

As the name of Alan's second wife is not generally known, a few facts about her may be given. In 1217 Walter de Lascy received in ward his niece, Roseia, daughter of Hugh de Lascy his brother (Pat. Rolls, 1216-25, P. 49) in 1229 Alan went to Ireland and married the daughter of Hugh de Lascy (Chron. de Lanercost, p. 40): in 1236, two years after Alan's death, Hugh de Lascy, whose daughter was Alan's widow, as M. Paris relates (Chron. Majora, iii. 364-6), created an insurrection in Galloway about the succession to Alan's estates: and in 1237 a protection without term was granted to Roesia, late the wife of Alan de Galweya (Cal. of Pat., 1232-47, P. 194). Alan's first wife, to whom he was married in 1209, was a daughter of Earl David, brother of King William (Chron. de Mailros, p. 108).

of Roland lord of the district who died in 1234. Bernard of Ripley was a Yorkshire squire,1 whose floruit extended from 1200 to 1250, the latter part of his life being spent in Scotland. He was at the court of King Alexander at Forfar in 1246 and at Stirling2 in 1249. The compiler of the Register was in doubt about the geography of the place, but it is almost certain that it was the Kirkandrews on Wigtown Bay, now merged in the parish of Borgue, to the south-west of Kirkcudbright, near to which there is a Netherhall mentioned in the marginal note to Bernard's charter in the Register. Other deeds in the collection, some of which are traceable to the influence of the house of Workington, show that the priory had at one time considerable property on the south coast of Scotland.

The Irish charters preserved on the Cotton Roll introduce to the history of Cumberland a famous soldier of fortune, John de Curci, the conqueror of Ulster, whose exploits fill a prominent page in the Anglo-Norman subjugation of Ireland. Gerald, the Welsh archdeacon,6 in a curious picture of his character, describes him as of fair complexion, tall with muscular limbs, powerfully made and of great daring, a brave soldier from his youth: in times of peace he was upright and modest, paying due reverence to the church and exemplary in his devotions and attendance at holy worship. Though he accuses him of parsimony, it cannot be said that such a quality was observable in his dealings with the church. The four monasteries that he founded in Ulster were affiliated to religious houses in the present diocese of Carlisle. The

1 Rot. Litt. Claus. (Rec. Com.), i. 66a: Rot. de Oblat., pp. 332, 363: Abbrev. Placit., p. 97a.

Hist. MSS. Com., Rep. vij. (MSS. of Lord Southesk), App. p. 718a: Reg. de Dunfermelyn (Bann. Club), p. 144.

* See the notes in Register, pp. 98, 448.

Nos. 60-64, 353.

Illustrative Documents, No. II.

6 Giraldus Cambrensis (R.S.), v. 344.

priory of St. Thomas the martyr at Tiberglorie in the suburb of Downpatrick was founded by him and made a cell of St. Mary's, Carlisle, out of respect to the canons there1: Grey Abbey (de Jugo Dei) on Strangford Lough, where his wife was buried, was affiliated to the abbey of Holmcultram2: the abbey of Ines or Inch in the same vicinity was made a dependent of Furness in Lancashire3:

1 The grant of John de Curceio to the canons of Carlisle was recited and confirmed by Edward II. on 2 November 1318 (Pat. R., 12 Edw. II. pt. 1, m. 19: Dugdale, Mon., vi. 1146-7). On the redistribution of the conventual possessions between the priory and the bishopric in 1249, the prioratus Hibernensis was awarded to the canons (V. C. H. Cumberland, ii. 126). In 1319 a safe conduct was granted to Gilbert de Morlund, canon of the priory of Carlisle, going to the cell of St. Thomas the martyr in Dune on the business of the house there, at which date Alan was prior of Carlisle (Cal. of Pat., 1317-21, p. 270). Dr. Reeves says that nothing more is known of its site than what the founder stated in his charter, but it was probably at the north-east end of Downpatrick (Antiq. of Down, p. 231).

2 It is stated in the Chronicle of Man, under date 1204, that John de Cursi had in marriage a daughter of Godred, King of Man, named Affreca, who founded the abbey of St. Mary de Jugo Dei where she was buried. In 1222 Ralf, abbot of the daughter house, succeeded to Holmcultram on the cession of Abbot Adam, and in 1237 Abbot John succeeded on the death of Abbot Gilbert at Canterbury on his way home from attendance at a general chapter of his order (Chron. de Mailros, pp. 140, 148, Bann. Club). About 1840 a leaden seal of Bishop Ralf de Ireton of Carlisle (1280-92) was found among the rubbish in the ruins of this abbey.

On 30 May 1180 John de Curci founded the abbey of Ynes in the island of Ynescuscre, for so was it then called, as a daughter house of Furness, and land was given to the monks whereon to erect their buildings (Coucher of Furness, pp. 12-13, Cheetham Soc.). Bishop Malachy of Down confirmed to Abbot Adam and the monks of St. Mary the insulam Uenseri for the purpose of building an abbey there according to the terms of the charter of John de Curci (D. of L. Charters, Box A, No. 310). Dr. Reeves suggests that Jocelyn, the monk of Furness, went over to Inch on the affiliation of that cell to his abbey and there wrote the life of