Yorkshire Almanac Sir John Stapylton of Myton-on-Swale loses a fight with a sheep

24 October 1733: Sir John Stapylton of Myton-on-Swale loses a fight with a sheep

John Hobson. 1877. The Journal of Mr. John Hobson, Late of Dodworth Green. Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Ed. Charles Jackson. Durham: Surtees Society. A (morbid) compendium of everyday England. It is sometimes unclear whether the date given is that of an occurrence or that on which news reached his capacious ears. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

This day, Sr John Stapylton, of Myton, was slain near Abberfirth, by a fall from a horse, frightened by a sheep which lay in a hedge bottom, which rose up suddenly. The horse started sideways; Sr John fell down; he spoke a few words, and died immediately. He had designed to start candidate for a knight of the shire at the next election. He is succeeded by Sr Miles Stapylton, who is about 25 years old, and will stand candidate.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

I haven’t identified Abberfirth.

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Comment

I haven’t identified Abberfirth.

Something to say? Get in touch

9 October 1726: Two horsemen attack the house of Mr Goodwin, rector of Tankersley (Barnsley)

31 October 1674: Riding home to Pontefract from Wakefield fair, a sozzled Silvanus Rich enters the River Calder in flood at Wakefield bridge

18 August 1730: Elizabeth Hawksworth endeavours to mount a horse behind her husband

12 September 1731: Edward Garner of Dodworth dies, perhaps the victim of his runaway horse

5 May 1732: William Lindley of Dodworth recalls how charcoal burners would cheat coal merchants at the time of the Restoration

1 January 1726: Heavy snow stops the post and kills parson William Baines of Dronfield at Froggatt Moss

16 August 1845: The York Herald is conned into posting the American actor Ira Aldridge’s sensational account of his own death

20 March 1848: Showman Pablo Fanque tells an inquest how he overfilled a poorly propped Leeds circus, which collapsed, killing his wife

3 May 1641: On the day of the discovery of the True Cross, Driffield folk start moving their livestock out of town to high summer pasture, endangering crops

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Comment

Did local people comment on the coincidence between this transhumance of sheep (amongst others) and the transport of the Lamb of God to Golgotha (a hill in Christian tradition), or to paradise between his crucifixion and resurrection (Luke 23:42-43)? “Wold” turns up again and again in this connection, here in a late 13th century passion poem, regarding the temptation of Christ:

Þe holy gost hyne ledde. vp in-to þe wolde.
For to beon yuonded. of sathanas þen olde.
Þer he wes fourty dawes. al wiþ-vte mete
(Morris 1872)

More medieval wold magic:

This othur nyght soo cold
Hereby apon a wolde
Scheppardis wachyng there fold,
In the nyght soo far
To them aperid a star.
(Anon 1902)

Transhumance in the Yorkshire Dales

My fleeting impression is that longer-distance transhumance (still short of the great Spanish migrations) was conducted before the Dissolution by the great religious orders. Here (via John McDonnel (McDonnel 1988)) in 1598 the herder Richard Knowles (80) recalls moving flocks between Fountains Abbey and Fountains Fell (Malham) before the Dissolution 60 years previously:

Richard Knowles of Wessitt Houses in the parish of Kirkby Malloughdale, aged 80, confirmed from knowledge ever since he could remember the sheep, cattle [kyne], mares, and nags of Fornah Gill House did pasture in common together with the goods of the Abbey before and at the dissolution thereof of his sight, who served one of the Abbey’s herds seven years before the dissolution and at the very time thereof, and helped to fetch the Abbey’s goods at Fountains Abbey yearly about St. Ellen Day [May 21] to Fornah Gill and helped also to drive them back again to Fountains Abbey about Michaelmas [September 29] yearly (Purvis 1949).

Ra. Buck’s testimony re the lack of security before the Dissolution is remarkable:

Being born very near to the same grounds and dwelling there the same time, and so knew the premises to be true and did know the herders that kept the same grounds and goods therein for the Abbey, and hath seen the herders milk the Abbey’s kyne in the same ground, lying there swords and bucklers besides them whilst they were milking. (op. cit.)

Would someone like to reconstruct Richard Knowles’ route? Pateley Bridge, but then? I can’t locate “Wessitt” Houses, but Fornah Gill barn (at least) is 54.121813,-2.236811.

Also, can someone summarise the plant & animal biology behind the dates?

Did transhumance here and/or in general cease with the Dissolution?

Kyne -> cattle, though elsewhere kyne and other cattle suggests cows.

St Helen/Ellen/Helena’ Mass: transhumance day

St. Ellen is St. Helen, popular in the north (e.g. the holy wells). St Helen’s Mass, the day on which transhumance tended to being, was the commemoration on May 3rd of the Invention of the Holy Cross, the True Cross having been found by St Helena on her travels – see e.g. here and here. I previously wrongly thought her feast was May 21st:

Feeling stupid – St Ellen? (Transhumance in the Pennines between Kirkby Malhamdale & Fountains Abbey) pic.twitter.com/8PQQnkXuL3

— Singing Organ-Grinder (@elorganillero) May 10, 2023