Cleveland Corners

CLEVELAND CONNECTION

The Scottish/English Border became fixed in 1237 but there remained close communication between related families in the 'Scoto-Northumbrian Realm' either side of the Border for centuries afterwards. When he was Constable of Scarborough Castle, Peter III de Brus of Skelton, last of the senior male line, was summoned to gather a force for the relief of King Alexander III of Scotland who was faced with an invasion from Norway in 1269. The deep connection that the Scottish de Brus family had with both Cumbria and Cleveland are highlighted in 1304 when Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of Annandale, father of the future King Robert of Scotland, was buried at Holm Cultram Abbey in Cumbria, founded on land originally granted by David I of Scotland and Prince Henry. Robert's father, Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale, was buried with great ceremony in the family mausoleum containing the remains of his ancestor Robert I de Brus at Guisborough Priory, Cleveland in 1295. Local men John and Thomas Cornay of Eston and Normanby would have probably witnessed the occasion.

The Cleveland Cornays first appear in Yorkshire Lay Subsidy records: Wapentake of Langbaurgh (1301) on land in Normanby and Eston near Guisborough Priory. They were therefore living there when Walter de Fauconberg 1st Baron Fauconberg (died 1304), Lord of Rise, Withernwick and Skelton, inherited Skelton through his marriage with Agnes de Brus after 1272. 'Johanne Cornay' had homes in both Eston and Normanby and 'Thoma Cornay' was at Eston. Eston and Normanby are settlements situated next to each other, both are just six miles from Guisborough Priory. Edward I's 1301 Lay Subsidy tax was based on a fifteenth of the value of a person's movable goods, although many items like armour, riding horses, vessels of gold, silver and brass, clothing and tools were exempt. Items that were taxed included crops and stocks of goods for trade. John and his son only paid a few shillings like most others in the area. Tax paid might not represent the actual value of goods held due to widespread 'playing' of the unpopular system. Yorkshire farmers were, and are, notoriously canny. A Thomas Cornay is still living at Eston in 1327 (Exchequer Lay Subsidy I. Edward III), link. John and Thomas continued to be the first names of many of their descendants in the following centuries. Normanby (meaning Northman's/Norwegian's settlement) in the ancient parish of Ormesby was held by the de Bruses after 1103, later the de Thwengs from the start of the fourteenth century.

Lucia, or Lucy, de Brus, the second sister of Peter de Brus III, had married Marmaduke de Thweng, Lord of Kilton, taking with her the manors of Yarm, Danby and Brotton. According to Beryl Platts the de Thweng family's adoption (along with the Lumleys) of the Espec Lord of Helmsley's popinjay coat of arms after the sole heir Walter died in a horse riding accident, suggests some family link back to the area of Lille nicknamed in France the 'Capital of Flanders'. The Lille area belongs to the historical region of Romance Flanders, and was a former territory in that county, link. The Especs are associated with the Hainaut-via-Cotentin-via-Brittany d'Aubigny /de Albini family of nearby Thirsk Castle. Walter Espec founded the North Yorkshire Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx in 1132 as a daughter house of Clairvaux Abbey. Melrose Abbey in Scotland, founded by David I, was a daughter house of Rievaulx and Robert Avenel was one of the main patrons. The d'Aubignys founded Byland and Fountains Abbey, also large Cistercian establishments. Robert de Ros, with earlier family origins in the parish of Ros in Calvados, near Caen in Normandy, married the third de Brus sister Margaret. The de Ros family inherited Helmsley Castle in North Yorkshire through marriage to Adeline, the youngest of the sisters of Walter Espec, Baron of Helmsley. As mentioned, Robert 'Farfan' de Ros of Helmsley, b. c. 1182, had married Isabel of Scotland, the illegitimate daughter of William I 'The Lion' of Scotland and Robert Avenel's daughter, Isabel. Later, Robert de Ros, b. c. 1235, and his wife Margaret de Brus had land in Cumbria, at Kendal. The forth and youngest of the de Brus heiresses Laderina married John de Bellew whose ancestry traces back to a place known as Bella Aqua in Normandy, also possibly via earlier origins in Flanders. The connections between this region of Yorkshire and Northumberland and Lothian were strong and movement of people between the regions was likely to have been common.

Danby manor, where our earliest paper trail ancestors are found, at Glaisdale in sixteenth century Danby parish records, was once an important part of the de Brus fee. In 1200 Peter de Brus I of Skelton Castle gave up his interest in the lordship of 'Berdesey, Colingham and Ringston' and paid King John £1000 for the lordship and forest of Danby, ‘Rotuli de Oblatis’ 1200, link.

Peter gave moorland and woodland between Guisborough and Danby to Guisborough Priory, retaining the right of common pasture and hunting. He also donated Glaisdale moor and ‘Swineheved’, Rosedale head, for pasture for cattle and timber supplies. At a later date he gave his smithy at Glaisdale with the right of taking iron ore anywhere within the Glaisdale area., link

In the thirteenth century Danby was where the locally-occurring iron ore was converted into iron articles by Rievaulx Abbey, founded by Walter Espec in 1132. The de Brus family had a forge (fabrica) at Glaisdale and took iron there. It was the beginnings of an industry that would later turn nearby Middlesbrough, then a hamlet with a monastic settlement, into a world famous iron producer in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Cleveland iron made up the fabric of the Tyne Bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge and many others. The medieval Augustinian canons of Guisborough Priory had a house at Danby on the site of present day Church House Farm where they lodged and walked a short distance to preach at the nearby church of St Hilda. The church was the nucleus of a rural landscape dotted with productive farms. In about 1120 Robert de Brus gave this Canons' Hall to the 'preaching canons' of his priory soon after its foundation, as well as granting to them the advowson of Danby church. The Canons' Hall sat on a raised plateau that to this day has a defensive appearance with steep slopes on two sides. In an undated thirteenth century Latin deed it is referred to as 'the prior's dwelling house'. The medieval structure was demolished in the late-seventeenth century and the current Church House Farm is of largely nineteenth century construction. Many farms in the neighbourhood of Danby were owner-occupied from at least as early as an Inquisition and Survey of Danby manor 1272-1273. It is noted that there were a number of semi-independent farmholdings, possibly ancient freeholds, within the manor at that time. Then, in 1656, plots of land that had been cultivated on the edge of the moors, then-owned by the Danvers Lords of the Manor, were sold off first to five freeholders and subsequently to local farmers. Several early generations of Corneys/Cornays/Corners had farms in the vicinity from at least the sixteenth century up to around the late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth century.

Normanby in Cleveland was then a large area of woods and grange farms with agricultural land that led north across a flat plain with access to the North Sea via the Tees Estuary. It seems likely that in the early 1300s the above Thomas Cornay of Eston had a son named Thomas, for in a plea of covenant dated 'One week from St Michael, 27 Edward III [6 October 1353]. And afterwards one week from St Hilary in the same year [20 January 1354]', a Thomas Cornay is mentioned in a list of other tenement holders, including 'de Eston', 'de Laisyngby and 'de Lofthouse' families in the 'moiety of the priory of Giseburgh'. 'Thoma Cornay' is also mentioned in the Guisborough Cartulary (Cartularium Prioratus de Gyseburne) as a witness along with Ada de Levynthorp, William de York, Thomas de Brun and John d'Laysingby to a claim relating to land at Bernaldby (Barnaby near Hutton, Guisborough) once belonging to Roger de Eston (1345?). The Cornays were not always on good terms with the clergy even though some of them took up the vocation. William Cornay of Normanby was in debt to his neighbour, the Prior of Gisburn (CP40/541: Easter Term 1396, link). William Cornay of Eston and Thomas Cornay assaulted the vicar of Ormesby John Wath in the late-1300s: court cases Henry IV, 1399, link. In 1419 a William Cornay was a juror at an Inquisition Post Mortem at Gisburn/Guisborough, 'Jurors: Thomas Laysyngby; Thomas Lounsdale; John Lofthous; John Laysyngby; Thomas Lambert; John Tweng; John Beweland; William Cornay; John Tomson; Robert Sabeller; John Marshall; and William Toppyng.', link.

Wilton Castle, principle home of the Bulmer family from the late-eleventh century onward, is only three miles away from Eston and Normanby and three and a half miles from Guisborough. The Bulmers trace their origins back before the Normans arrived - they were one of the few English families to retain their earlier status. Some members of the Bulmer family took the name 'de Wilton'. In 'Parishes: Kirkleatham', in A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2, ed. William Page (London, 1923), pp. 371-383. British History Online, 'Alan de Wilton [d. abt. 1219] early in the 13th century granted to the canons of Ellerton 5 skeps of salt from his salt-pits of West Coatham; the Brus lords of Skelton had the right of taking a skep of salt from every salt-pan in Coatham Marsh, and salt-pits in Coatham belonged to their descendants in the 14th century and later.', link. 'Alan [de Wilton] died without issue, as did his brother and heir Thomas de Wilton. They were succeeded by their kinsman John de Bulmer, Lord of Bulmer and Wilton.', link. A William Cornay had a saltpan (then called a 'saltcote') at nearby Coatham in 1405–9. Coincidentally, a Corney family was living at Wilton. The England's Immigrants website has a record of a Richard Corney of Wilton employing a French male servant called Jenyn Frenchman in 1440. In 1406 Manor Court rolls for Eston 9th December:- 'Nicholas Cornay convicted of affray and blood was drawn on Walter'. This does not seem to have affected Nicholas' career prospects for later that year, 'Nicholas Cornay elected reeve; William Wilardby King's Constable; John Carter & John Wylkynson assessors. Etc.', link. Much later a Richard Corner married Anne Bulmer at nearby Kirkleatham in October 1633.

Site of Handale Priory: Mick Garratt 'Site of a Cistercian Nunnery and Home to a Dragon'

Guisborough Priory followed the Rule of St Augustine.

Unlike monks, Augustinians were generally ordained priests and carried out duties beyond the walls of their priories. They could serve as parish priests or chaplains in rich households and run hospitals. This freedom was reflected in the design of their priory precincts, which were often less heavily enclosed than those of Benedictine orders.' link

Members of the Langbaurgh Cornay family were clerics (acolytes, subdeacons, deacons and priests) serving in several of the medieval churches, monastic houses and nunneries in the vicinity in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In York's Archbishops' Registers, Register 11 (1352-1373), the earliest Cornay I can find with connections to Guisborough, chaplain John Cornay, was a beneficiary of the patronage of the prior and convent of Guisborough (Gisburn). He was made vicar of Sherburn (Shirburn in Hertforthlith) in the East Riding in June 1365. In 1368 John exchanged Sherburn to be priest at the church of St Helen-on-the-Walls, Aldwark, York (pdf). A William Cornay, born in 1391, was Dean of Cleveland and rector of nearby Kildale. A John Cornay was vicar of Marton (St Cuthbert's Church), near Eston and Normanby in Ormesby Parish, in 1461 and died in 1486. A John Cornay of Wilton, probably a relative of Richard Corney of Wilton, above, was ordained as a deacon to serve at Handale Priory, a house of Cistercian nuns founded in 1133 near Loftus, in December 1446. He was later ordained as priest there in March 1447 (pdf). Another John Cornay was ordained a priest at Egglestone Abbey, a small monastery of Premonstratensian 'white canons' situated on a bend in the River Tees near Barnard castle, in 1469. A John Cornay of Ormesby was ordained as an acolyte in the conventual church of the Dominicans, York, on 16 June 1470, pdf. A William Cornay of Eston was ordained as a subdeacon at Guisborough Priory in 1472 and then as a priest at nearby Baysdale Abbey, a house of Cistercian nuns, in 1473. A John Cornay was vicar of St Michael's at Bishop Middleham, north of the River Tees, in 1474.

At Stranton, a village and parish just north of the Tees in what is now Hartlepool, George Corney was vicar in 1509. Land in Stranton and the church of St Thomas was given to Guisborough Priory c. 1120 by Robert de Brus and the prior was its patron until the Dissolution. Seaton Carew, named after the Seton and Carew families, is nearby on the North Sea coast of Stranton parish. In the 1552 Will of Sir John Brotton, curate of Westerdale (not far from Danby) from at least 1527, bequeaths Sir Thomas Cornay 'a bonet' and asks him to distribute money to the poorest people of Whitby and Guisborough, link. Thomas was one of those who recorded the Will and helped the executors. Thomas Cornay appears to be a local clerk, or priest, and is found witnessing or distributing money bequeathed in some of the other Wills of Westerdale's wealthy inhabitants (including Thomas Yoward, 1556) - to the poor in Danby and the surrounding area. An Xpofer Corner of Guisborough is mentioned in the Inventory of William Lukes, husbandman of Westerdale, in 1570, link. Westerdale was the site of a preceptory of the Knights Templar, built on land that was donated by Guido de Bovingcourt in 1203. Guido was also associated with the founding of the nearby Cistercian nunnery at Basedale where William Cornay of Eston was a priest in 1473. The Templars were suppressed for heresy in 1307-8 but the land continued to be farmed by the Knights Hospitaller from 1312 - 1538.

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