Saturday, February 17, 2024

Back to Blake and the Pipe Rolls of 1301-2 in the Bishopric of Winchester

 Good accomplishment on my Latin lessons yesterday and a good first start on the Inquisition Postmortem. It will take a while. This document is very old but readable although the difference between the parchment colouring and the lettering is not huge. But I have made a start. Amazing how much difference a couple of hundred years makes in a document's look as the last Inquisition Postmortem I did was from the mid 1500s. 

Late today writing my blog as my day changes with the shifting of the running to the first thing in the morning which is working very well. When I was young I used to run first thing in the morning about 1.3 kilometres. It was a great way to start the day. One's life does change as one ages but generally it is said that we return to the ways of our childhood perhaps because it was fun and in our old age we are simply looking for ways to benefit our ego I suppose. Doing the things that we can do as well as we can do them. It is likely good for the old. 

Today is a Blake day and I continue with the story I was building on Nicholas Blake and just why he was mentioned so much at a time when both my grandfather and father were influenced enough by this memory that they recalled it and passed it on. Perhaps through the years they often spoke of this mistake in Blake American genealogies just because they were British. No ideas on that. It also could be a number of Americans came to find Old Hall which by the time my great grandfather was a child (he was born in 1845) was pretty much a pile of rocks so to speak (my grandfather said that he heard that from his grandmother as his grandfather had died before he was born). I have no idea what that would look like beyond a pile of rocks as I see them here. It perhaps had more meaning than that - no idea as we did not visit that area when we were there. Ivan too had heard of Nicholas and Old Hall so perhaps that discussion passed on there as well as he actually lived in England and spent the war years as a young child in Upper Clatford away from the coast. He spent them with his Great Aunt Sarah (sister to his grandfather and mine). It was Sarah who carried on many of the letters back and forth between my grandfather and herself. Her first husband was killed in the First World War leaving her with her only child actually a son. Sarah returned to Upper Clatford with her young son and taught school. I am still learning about all of that. I have not yet discovered when Maria Jane (Knight) Blake (my great grandmother) died for sure. I have at least eleven certificates for deaths of a Maria Blake/Mary Blake and there are more but I finally decided to wait on that for a bit. I may now look into it more deeply. This book I am writing on the Blake family is primarily for the consumption of my own birth family. But I may prepare one for more general circulation just to continue with the aim of correcting the mistakes of Horatio Gates Somerby. Not all the Blakes in the British Isles are related that is for sure. Just one look at the yDNA Blake study tells you that.  There are five or six distinct groups actually including the Hunter Gatherer group that my brothers are in which includes a couple of lines in Hampshire. Having located several different family lines (different surnames) that shares a similar path on Y-700 close by, relatively speaking, to Andover at Basingstoke one can see that the Hunter Gatherer population of the British Isles survived the coming of agriculturalists to these islands remaining virtually, perhaps, in the exact same area they had lived in for a long time. This discussion that the Hunter Gatherers were wiped out by the agriculturalists in Scandinavia is rather interesting actually - why they survive in one place and not in another! Luck perhaps; no ideas on that.

My focus at the moment is Blake in Andover in the early 1300s as early in my career in family studies (or genealogy if you must) I did see an entry in Latin (which I did not read at that time) that included the surname Blake and I believe I photographed it so will need to locate that. Too much of a newbie then to realize what I had in my sights! I need to refind that entry and look again at the Pipe Rolls of Berkshire where the le Blak family is found and the Blake families in Berkshire who left their wills in the 1500s mentioning the Blake family at Andover. I do not think there is any mystery in the le Blake family as I rather think they descend from Richard le Blake who was granted a Patent to set up a market in England whilst he was still living in his native Rouen, Normandy (1272). Why would he choose Berkshire? Protected from the Vikings perhaps? beautiful farming country there? He was told he could go there perhaps? I have not yet discovered why he was at  Waltham, Berkshire. But I do think they gradually moved south to the Hungerford area and then into Wiltshire and eventually are the ancestors of the Blake Family at Calne. For one thing the yDNA results for individuals who believe they are descendant of the Blake family at Calne tend to be I1 which is anticipated for a group that came from Rouen, Normandy and that northern coastal area of France. I have no idea if they came with William, Duke of Normandy aka William the Conqueror and William I of England. But definitely the Patent Roll which granted Richard le Blak the right to set up a market was granted in 1272. Coincidence or logical the Richard le Blak at Wargrave is a good candidate for this Richard who received the Patent to set up a market. In that I have given myself two years to work on some of these puzzles I think I may find some good proofs for this line. They were well educated as they served in Parliament in these early years after this time and they had all sorts of advantages in knowledge that let them set up industries like the fulling mill of Robert Blake at Quemberford. But I do not have a strong interest in this line although it is highly possible that the Blake line at Andover followed the marriage of a John (no surname I suspect) marrying a daughter of Richard le Blak and his taking her surname because she had one! Anyway interesting thought but is it provable?

The Pipe Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester 1301 - 2 (Hampshire Record Series Volume 14) (ISBN: 1859751083 / 1-85975-108-3)

The Pipe Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester 1409-10
Mark Page (editor)
Published by Hampshire County Council, Winchester, first edition, "Hampshire Record" series, volume XVI, 1999
ISBN 10: 1859752845 / ISBN 13: 9781859752845 Place                                Surname    Forename       

Date
Wargrave                        Blak          John              1301-2
Havant                             Blak         Laurence       1301-2
Wargrave                         Blak, la    Alice              1301-2  (daughter of Richard le Blak)
Wargrave                         Blak, le    Richard          1301-2
Merdon                            Blak, le    Thomas          1301-2
Waltham St Lawrence     Blak          Hamo             1301-2
Waltham St Lawrence     Blak          Walter            1301-2 (son of Hamo Blak)
Staplegrove                     Blake, le    William         1301-2


Bishops Sutton               Blake          Emma            1409-10
Holway                          Blake           John               1409-10
Soke                               Blake          William          1409-10

Wargrave is a hundred in Berkshire at this time period and includes the parishes of Waltham St Lawrence, Warfield and Wargrave. It is 35 miles NE of Andover just to place it into the context of the Blake family at Andover.

Havant is near Portsmouth and so 33 miles SE of Andover.

Merdon included the present parish of Hursley. Hursley is slightly south west of Winchester and 14 miles SSE of Andover.

Staplegrove remains somewhat of a mystery as one tends to think of Somersetshire with this village name.

Bishops Sutton is to the east of Winchester and 18 miles ESE of Andover.

Holway is again a Somersetshire name.

Soke is a mystery.

Nevertheless, exciting finding so many different Blak/le Blak/Blake names in 1301-2 in Hampshire and areas around Hampshire. This is the point where I am at as I work backwards in time towards the furtherest back that one finds Blake mentioned in English records. It is really quite fascinating and my grandfather was right that the story of Blake is very interesting.

Tea finished and on to work as it is nearly time to lift weights. The morning passes quickly.

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