Lancaster: A History

Introduction

Today Lancaster has the dignity of a city. But this rank only dates from 1937, which surprises many people. Lancaster and York are often referred to together as historic cities, largely because of the mistaken view that the two medieval royal houses of Lancaster and York actually stemmed from those places. In truth the two could not be more different in origins. York was a Roman legionary fortress, a colony of Roman citizens and, later on, capital of one of the provinces of Britain. It became the seat of one of the two medieval archbishoprics in England, a walled city with a great minster church, and de facto medieval capital of the north. Lancaster was a Roman auxiliary fort with a cluster of civilian buildings around it which probably felt more like a village than a town. In the Middle Ages it had a single large parish church, not a cathedral, and no walls. It was the county town of a far-from-prosperous and thinly populated county and what power it had was mainly vested in the royal castle which dominated the town. Any resemblances between the two places are of more recent origin and little more than skin-deep.

I have not gone on at such length to do down the merits of Lancaster; it is a city of great charms and much historical interest. But it is as well to start out with a clear idea of what it is not, and why. The north west was until the Industrial Revolution a poor and often backward area. Its archaeological remains from almost every period before the eighteenth century are more exiguous than those of any comparable area on the east coast. In the Middle Ages the region could support only two cities, Chester and Carlisle. It lay close to the Scottish border and for centuries a very real threat hung over the region, breaking out at intervals into outright warfare and invasion. This in turn cast a blight over many material developments, such as architecture and agriculture. Great changes do not tend to occur under an ever-present threat of raid and ruin. Lancaster was for many centuries typical of its region, a modest town in a very modest environment. Only with the rise of overseas trade in the Georgian period did it make much of a mark. Even this was short-lived and eclipsed by the much greater rise of Liverpool, with which it competed as a port, and of Manchester as a great manufacturing town.

It has, however, a remarkable history and one which has been established in considerable detail. The town is of a manageable scale even today, and it has kept to a remarkable degree evidence of its early layout and topography, two factors alone which make it a rewarding place to study. Its position as county town and its possession of a significant royal castle have given it an importance beyond that to be predicted from its size in the medieval period. Its geographical location, so poorly placed for trade and influence when Europe was the main target, suddenly became a great advantage in the late seventeenth century following the opening up of trade with the West Indian and American colonies.

With the coming of the Industrial Revolution Lancashire, too, was suddenly catapulted into prominence. From being a poor and backward area the county rapidly grew to become one of the most densely-populated in western Europe. Unfortunately, institutions such as the law and the parochial systems failed to keep pace. Consequently the county overstretched the available resources. Its county town gained a huge accession of legal business at the Assizes held twice each year. While the failure of the parochial system here is less marked because of its widespread impact in the north, Lancaster still remains a good example of the huge undivided parishes left over from the Middle Ages to more expansive times.

1   The North East Prospect of Lancaster by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, 1728, one of a series illustrating all the major cities and county towns of England and Wales. The view takes in Skerton village, with its mill, to the right, the S-bend of the river Lune, and St Leonardgate, Moor Lane and Penny Street respectively to the left. In the foreground is the main reach of the river around Green Ayre, the open ground to the left of centre. In the centre are the Castle, still partially demilitarised after the Civil War and the Priory church still with its medieval tower. Below is the late medieval bridge and shipping. Despite the somewhat sketchy nature of the view and the conventionalised buildings, it seems quite accurate in its main details and equates well with the Towneley Hall map of 1684.

Because the town was on the main road to the north and was the seat of the Assizes it attracted a disproportionate number of visitors. From the eighteenth century this was enhanced by the growth of the Picturesque movement. Travellers to the Lake District from the south and east habitually used Lancaster as a stepping off point for the Lake District via Lancaster Sands, a route which had the sanction of no less a guide than Wordsworth.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Lancaster was often out of step with the rest of its county, experiencing boom when others experienced bust, and vice versa. Its industrial base was established later, and dependency on textiles only followed the decay of a mercantile empire. Its position as county town led to an accumulation of facilities here, some of which still survive. In the twentieth century its historic nature, different from other Lancashire towns, was a plus when it bid for one of the new universities in the 1960s. The University which was established here in 1963-4 immediately took an interest in its environs, leading to the creation of a Centre for North West Regional Studies, which in turn has fostered many studies of Lancaster and its region. The decay of traditional industry and of Morecambe’s status as a resort, has led to an increasing reliance upon tourism as a source of income. This in turn has bred a policy over the last fifteen years or so of promoting the ‘historic city’, as well as the beautiful countryside of North Lancashire, a policy which has been extremely effective and pursued by some very talented individuals.

It would have been difficult in 2002 to predict the changes which have impacted the city. Particularly we could not have foreseen the huge growth in overseas students at the University and the corresponding increase in accommodation for them in the city. Undoubtedly this helps the University financially, but a sudden shift in international tensions could change it all. In other guise the former Centre for North West Regional Studies has been reborne. The diminution in the role of local government, both city and county, has been reflected in the city’s public services and, in a degree, to its pride. Although availability of work has not notably increased, the attractions of the area have meant that there has been a huge increase in housing, especially in the urban area and immediate villages, such as Caton and Halton, while the growth southwards continues to form a ribbon along the A6.

It is difficult to predict the future of the city, but it is clear that many people find it a very attractive place to live and undoubtedly its rich history, its setting and its natural advantages will continue to be factors in its favour for many years to come.

One

Where do you come from?

There is a tendency among local historians to assume that until very recent times the population of most provincial towns and cities was homogenous and largely homegrown. This is manifestly untrue, as even a quick glance at our history will show. There seem to have been periods when local society was very varied in origin, and times when it was more uniform. In recent centuries prosperity has encouraged inward migration from less affluent parts of the countryside, from European persecution (Flemings, Huguenots and Jews) and latterly from countries of the former British Empire, while slump has led to emigration to other towns and cities, or to other countries where opportunity seemed to present itself, especially America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In all this Lancaster is a microcosm of national behaviour, although it has experienced neither the range nor the quantity of inward and outward migration that some of its larger neighbours, such as Manchester and Liverpool or the cotton towns of East Lancashire, have experienced.

Many different peoples have lived on the banks of the river Lune, including those whose Neolithic pottery was found under a Roman building in Church Street. We have no evidence, direct or indirect, for their cultural affiliations or language until we meet the Celtic Iron-Age tribesmen of the Brigantes or, more probably, one of its more localised sub-tribes, who occupied the area on the eve of the Roman conquest. Whether they were native to the land or incomers we cannot tell. Celtic was not the first language in Britain, for traces of earlier language appear in place-names, perhaps even in the name ‘Lune’, but language and race are not synonymous. The Celtic language spread across Europe with an aristocratic warrior-culture and the use of iron, but the people who used it may not have been genetically uniform.

We know from Roman sources that the Brigantes were a very large and loosely organised tribe occupying most of northern England and southern Scotland. The Romans exploited their fatal weakness, disunity, to split them and ultimately to force them into direct conflict and inevitable defeat. The lower Lune valley may have been a distinct area known as ‘Contrebis’, if inscriptions at Burrow and at Folly Farm just north of Lancaster record an area name. North Lancashire may have been on the fringes of two tribes, but throughout the Roman occupation, from about AD 70 to AD c.450, and beyond, the majority of inhabitants of this region were Celtic-speakers.

From about AD 70 the dominant, as opposed to majority, language would have been Latin. The Roman invaders themselves, represented first by the army and administrators and then later by merchants and adventurers, were far from uniform. Some administrators and army officers may have been of Italian origin, but the ordinary soldiers were probably mainly Gaulish in origin, from modern France and Germany.

One of the most momentous discoveries of recent years has been that of the tombstone of a Roman cavalryman near the canal in Aldcliffe Road in 2005. This commemorates Insus, son of Vodullus, from Trier in Germany, a minor officer (curator) of the Ala Augusta, like Apollinaris. Mounted on a ridiculously small horse, Insus faces the viewer, holding in his right hand a short broad sword and the severed head of an enemy, over whose headless and kneeling body he rides. This is a characteristic pose for the depiction of cavalrymen on gravestones, although the beheading is not, and this type of monument is known as a ‘Reiter’, from the German for rider.

It was standard practice to raise auxiliary troops on the fringes of the empire, and the principal regiment in garrison at the fort was the Ala Sebosiana, raised in Gaul. Its soldiers were not even Roman citizens until they retired from the army, usually after 25 years’ service. Another soldier, whose tombstone was discovered in Cheapside in the eighteenth century, was Lucius Julius Apollinaris, a trooper of the Ala Augusta, who died aged 30 and whose place of birth was also Trier, now in Germany.

2   Roman altars from Burrow-in-Lonsdale and Folly Farm near Lancaster. Both of these record the name of ‘Contrebis’, which may be the epithet of a local god or even the name for the lower part of the Lune valley.

2a   Tombstone of Insus, son of Vodullus, a native of Trier in Germany. A junior officer in the Ala Augusta (the Augustan Cavalry Wing) he formed part of the early garrison of Lancaster. The pose is characteristic of Roman cavalrymen, although the severed head of his enemy is a less common touch. Found in the southern cemetery, off Aldcliffe Lane, in 2005 and now in Lancaster City Museum.

While few military tombstones have been found here, depriving us of a useful source of knowledge for ethnic origin, we can make several assumptions based on more general evidence. All Roman forts had a hospital, and these were often staffed by Greeks. The island of Kos was particularly famous for supplying doctors. Greek doctors are recorded at Chester and elsewhere, while Burrow-in-Lonsdale has an inscription to the gods of healing in their Greek form, suggesting that Julius Saturninus, the dedicator, was a Greek. The only evidence of a hospital at Lancaster is a pair of bronze forceps from Vicarage Field, but it is a fair assumption that Greeks may have been here too. The merchants who thronged the streets and markets of the civil settlements outside the forts included many of more distant origin, including the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa. In fact Italian Romans would have been in a minority.

Many of these men, whatever their origin, will have arrived without dependents and a high proportion will have married local women. Within a few generations the racial mix is likely to have been complex, but all will have felt themselves in some way ‘Romans’. It was one of the secrets of Roman success that their culture, while apparently dominant, was also inclusive and allowed them to incorporate many other cultures into their own.

This area was settled late by Anglo-Saxon people. From the fourth century AD they had been colonising eastern England and gradually becoming the dominant culture, but their movement into the north-west via the Pennine passes was delayed by nearly two centuries. Lancaster must have been a mixture of resurgent Celtic and residual Roman influences at this time, lying at a crossroads between the vibrant Christian churches of Rome and of the Irish Celtic world, which were widely divergent in practice. The Celtic church brought missionaries and monks. The church of Rome maintained economic links with the Mediterranean world, and sites of this period in Wales and the south-west often have a distinctive archaeology, with imported Mediterranean pottery. Lancaster has not produced archaeological evidence for this period, but may yet do so.

The first Germanic Anglo-Saxon settlers started to arrive just before AD 600. This area of North Lancashire, perhaps a petty kingdom in its own right, was gradually absorbed into the great kingdoms of Northumbria and of Mercia. These two powers were mortal enemies in the seventh century, Northumbria having been converted to Christianity under King Edwin while Mercia under King Penda was pagan. What is now Lancashire was thinly populated and a border region of little importance, the prize of battles fought elsewhere. It is likely that the colonisation process here was slow, more one of intermarriage than of conquest and replacement. However, by degrees the dominant culture and language became Anglo-Saxon.

3   Drawing of the tombstone of Lucius Julius Apollinaris, a Roman soldier from Trier in Germany. Apollinaris died aged 30, presumably while on active service. The tombstone was found in Cheapside in 1772. From its position it may already have been moved from the Roman cemetery for re-use as a building stone. The only cemetery so far known was at the southern end of Penny Street and adjacent areas.

People with Anglo-Saxon names are recorded on the few inscriptions of the next three centuries or so. Stone memorial crosses found at Lancaster ask us in Latin to pray for the souls of Cynibad and Hardwine, while one in Anglian runes asks us to pray for Cynibald, son of Cuthberect. In this period many of our towns and villages were named. Unlike Celtic place-names, which tend to be purely descriptive, many of the Anglo-Saxon place-names incorporate personal names, presumably those of leaders and landowners. Names such as Melling, Gressingham, Heysham, Heaton or Caton are typical, the latter meaning the ‘tun’ (village) of a man called ‘Kati’. Some place-names, however, despite their modern form, are descriptive. Among these are Wray [‘village in the corner’] or Arkholme [‘at the shielings’, an Old English dative plural form].

4   Drawing of Roman bronze forceps. These forceps were found during excavations in the Vicarage Field in 1927 and indicate the presence of a hospital and doctor in the fort. Burrow-in-Lonsdale has produced an inscription (now in Tunstall church) to the gods of healing, Asclepius and Hygeia. Many Roman doctors were of Greek origin.

The Anglo-Saxons, a great deal naturalised after four hundred years of stability and intermarriage, were now to be the target for Viking raiders and settlers. The Vikings, of Danish origin, were genetically not unlike the Angles and Jutes, who came from the same area several centuries earlier. Some of these Danish-Vikings found their way across to the west coast. Place-names ending in ‘-by’, indicating ‘farm’, are their hall-mark, and the Lune valley has ‘Hornby’ right at its heart, perhaps indicating that the settlers’ route was via the river valleys. Most of the other Viking names are given by Norse settlers who came by way of Shetland, Orkney, the Isle of Man and Ireland. They arrived quite a long time later, in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Some of their place-names include Irish elements which they had picked up on the way. Among these are particles such as ‘argh’ or ‘ergh’, which form the endings of farm names and possibly indicate some form of transhumance, although this is still a matter of disagreement among place-name scholars. ‘Holme’, ‘Thwaite’ and ‘Dale’ for ‘meadow’, ‘clearing’ and ‘valley’ are typical, the latter giving rise to ‘Lunesdale’.

5   Anglo-Saxon Cross with a Latin inscription found in 1903 built into the medieval walls of the Priory church. This invites the onlooker to pray for the soul of Hardwine (‘Orate pro anima Hardwini’). It dates from the ninth century AD Another fragment found more recently names a man called Cynibad. Both are Old English names.

While Danish Vikings in eastern England seem to have renamed large tracts of countryside and the majority of village names, the Norse do not seem to have had such an easy task in the west. The landscape may have been more settled when they came, or they may have been content with what the natives regarded as more marginal land. At all events, they named the higher farms on the felledge, and those on the low clay islands in the coastal marshes such as Cockersand Moss, like Norbreck, Kendal Hill and Thursland Hill. Many villages with Anglo-Saxon names have fields with pure Norse names, so their impact may have been greater than we think. Fields are likely to have been named by their users, rather than their owners. Impact was greatest in the Lake District and across Morecambe Bay, in Furness, where the place-names of this period are dense and where Old Norse may have been spoken into the thirteenth century. Norse names can be found in a number of Lancaster’s fields, such as ‘Edenbreck’ or ‘Haverbreaks’, and even in the town centre, where ‘Calkeld’ Lane refers to the cold spring which until recently emerged in a cellar.

6   Anglo-Saxon Cross with an inscription in Anglian runes. The inscription reads ‘pray for the soul of Cynibald, son of Cuthberect’. It was found in the Priory churchyard in 1807 and is now in the British Museum.

Within a couple of centuries these settlers were overtaken by another group, the Normans, probably smaller in number but even more dominant in spite of this. Conquering the royal army and killing the king in 1066 had given them sway over the whole country, ironically because of the very centralised nature of the English administration. But they still had to earn their prize, and hold it. The Normans were another branch of the Viking raiders, who had settled in Normandy and absorbed some French culture, including the language. Their hold on English lands was fierce and based upon military might. Lords like Roger de Poitou, who took Lancaster as his portion some time before Domesday, probably felt little affinity with his new lands, preferring to give its ecclesiastical wealth to the abbey of his home-town, Seez. The Normans ultimately provided our legal system, part of our complex language, and many of our institutions, but in terms of influence on the landscape they had little effect. In the area around Lancaster only ‘Beaumont’, now part of Skerton, can be identified as a new place-name. Essentially, the small Norman ruling class left others to farm the land. On the other hand, their passion for order and information led to the first catalogue of land and its owners, Domesday Book, and hence the first record