Derbyshire (England) -- Antiquities; Derbyshire (England) -- History
Sir Thomas Foljambe was succeeded by his eldest son, another Sir Thomas
Foljambe, of Tideswell, who was a knight of the shire for the county
of Derby in 1297, and died in the following year. He was succeeded by
his son, yet another Sir Thomas Foljambe, of Tideswell; he represented
his county in Parliament in 1302, 1304–5, 1309, and from 1311 to 1314.
He was one of those Derbyshire knights who in 1301 were summoned to the
muster at Berwick-on-Tweed to do military service against the Scots.
He died in 1323, and was succeeded by a fourth Sir Thomas Foljambe,
who married the heiress of the family of Darley in the Dale, and so
acquired considerable estates in that neighbourhood, which passed to
his younger son, Sir Godfrey.
There is interesting information with regard to the Foljambes in the
rolls of the Forest Pleas of 1285, from which it appears that the
family at that date held two of the hereditary foresterships of the
Peak.
The Campana foresters of fee of that period were John Daniel; Thomas
le Archer; Thomas, son of Thomas Foljambe, a minor in the custody of
Thomas de Gretton; Nicholas Foljambe, who had been a minor in the
custody of Henry de Medue, but was then of full age; and Adam Gomfrey.
Of these foresters, Adam Gomfrey and Thomas Foljambe held jointly the
same bovate, which had formerly been divided between two brothers.
Also Thomas Foljambe and John le Wolfhunte held another bovate in the
same way, John holding his half by hereditary descent, whilst Thomas
Foljambe, senr., had acquired his half by marriage with Katherine,
daughter of Hugh de Mirhand. This sub-division of serjeanties became
burdensome to the district, as each forester of fee endeavoured to
have a servant maintained at the expense of the tenants; but the
jurors confirmed a decision of the Hundred Court of 1275 to the effect
that there could be only four such servants or officers, according to
ancient custom, for the Campana bailiwick.
The bovate of land held by Wolfhunte and Foljambe was a serjeanty
assigned for taking of wolves in the forest. On the jurors being asked
what were the duties pertaining to that service, the following was the
highly interesting reply:—
“Each year, in March and September, they ought to go through the midst
of the forest to set traps to take the wolves in the places where they
had been found by the hounds: and if the scent was not good because
of the upturned earth, then they should go at other times in the
summer (as on S^t. Barnabas Day, 11 June,) when the wolves had whelps
(catulos), to take and destroy them, but at no other times; and they
might take with them a sworn servant to carry the traps (_ingenia_);
they were to carry a bill-hook and spear, and hunting-knife at their
belt, but neither bows nor arrows: and they were to have with them an
unlawed mastiff trained to the work. All this they were to do at their
own charges, but they had no other duties to discharge in the forest.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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