The County Palatine of Durham was a jurisdiction in the
North of England, within which the
bishop of Durham had rights usually exclusive to
the monarch. It developed from the Liberty of Durham, which emerged in the
Anglo-Saxon period. The gradual acquisition of powers by the bishops led to Durham being recognised as a
palatinate by the late thirteenth century, one of several such counties in England during the Middle Ages. The county palatine had its own government and institutions, which broadly mirrored those of the monarch and included several judicial courts. From the sixteenth century the palatine rights of the bishops were gradually reduced, and were finally abolished in 1836. The last palatine institution to survive was the
court of chancery, which was abolished in 1972.
The County Palatine of Durham emerged from the
liberty known variously as the "Liberty of
Durham", "Liberty of
St Cuthbert's Land", "The lands of St. Cuthbert between
Tyne and
Tees" or "The Liberty of Haliwerfolc", the latter translates to "district of the holy saint's folk".[2] St. Cuthbert gained a reputation as being fiercely protective of his domain.[3] The origins of the Liberty trace back to the year 684, when King Ecgfrith of Northumbria bestowed a significant territory upon St. Cuthbert, following the latter's election as the Bishop of Lindisfarne.
The Viking Invasions led to the shattering of the Kingdom of Northumbria into a series of successor polities.[4] The Community of St. Cuthbert emerged as a prominent force, gaining control over expansive estates situated between the rivers Tyne and Tees, known as the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert. This territorial expansion began under the leadership of Bishop Ecgred, who acquired two substantial blocks in the south-east and south-west regions of the designated area between 830 and 845.[5]
In a strategic move in approximately 883, the diocese of Lindisfarne was translated to Chester-le-Street. This relocation was facilitated by Guthred, the Viking King of Northumbria, who granted the Community of St. Cuthbert the region between the Tyne and Wear. To this end, the Patrimony of St Cuthbert between the Tyne and Tees had emerged as buffer zone between the territories north of the Tyne, governed by the Anglian House of Bamburgh, and the Viking Kings based in York.[6][7] The Liberty underwent another significant relocation in 995, when the diocese moved to Durham, a move that was accompanied by additional land grants.
Establishment and consolidation
Both the Liberty of St. Cuthbert's Land and the Earldom of Bamburgh remained virtually independent of the Kingdom of England.[8] With the possible exception of the Wapentake of Sadberge, the area north of the Tees lay outside of the West Saxon administrative system of shires and hundreds/wapentakes.[9][10] Moreover, the lands north of the Tees and remained unrecorded by the
Domesday book and were not subject to geld or taxation.[6][11]
When William the Conqueror became the king of England in 1066, he quickly realized the need to control Northumbria to protect his kingdom from Scottish invasion. In 1075, shortly after the
Norman conquest,
William the Conqueror allowed Bishop
Walcher to purchase the earldom of Northumbria after its previous holder,
Waltheof, rebelled against the king. This may have marked the beginning of the bishops' temporal authority, with the
Bishop of Durham essentially inheriting the powers of the earl.[12][13] Alternatively,
David D. Hall notes that the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert between the Tyne and Tees was likely immune from comital and regal action by the tenth century, with comital lands between the Tyne and Tees administered as the separate
wapentake of Sadberge. Instead, Hall posits that the Bishop's temporal powers developed by the early 12th century due to the emerging supremacy of the Bishop within the context of the Liberty's internal politics.[11]
Following the
Norman invasion, the shire system was extended north of the Tees and the county of Northumberland was formed, encompassing the lands of the Earldom of Bamburgh, the Liberty of Durham and Wapentake of Sadberge. Northumberland's first recorded
Sheriff was Gilebert from 1076 until 1080 and a 12th-century record records Durham regarded as within the shire.[14] However the bishops disputed the authority of the sheriff of Northumberland and his officials, despite the second sheriff for example being the reputed slayer of
Malcolm Canmore, King of Scots. The crown regarded Durham as falling within Northumberland until the late thirteenth century.
Disputes with the officials of Northumberland were not resolved until 1293, when Bishop
Antony Bek and his
steward failed to attend a summons by the
justices of Northumberland, and the case eventually reached
Parliament. There, Bek argued that "from time immemorial it had been widely known that the sheriff of Northumberland was not sheriff of Durham nor entered within that liberty as
sheriff", and that Durham was independent of any other county.[15] These arguments appear to have been accepted, as by the 14th century Durham was considered a County Palatine which received royal mandates direct.[12] The jusisdiction of the bishops was also expanded during this period when the
wapentake of Sadberge was purchased by bishop
Hugh de Puiset in 1189. It was gradually incorporated into Durham, but retained separate
assizes until 1586.[16]
Decline and abolition
The later history of the palatinate is characterised by the Crown and parliament slowly diminishing the powers of the bishops and incorporating the county into the regular system of local government in England. This process began in 1536, when the Act of Resumption deprived the bishop of the power to pardon offences or to appoint judicial officers and mandated that the county's legal system would in future be run in the name of the king, rather than the bishop.[12] In March 1553 the diocese was briefly abolished; the bishop,
Cuthbert Tunstall, had been removed from office and imprisoned in 1552 because he did not support the religious policies of
Edward VI's de facto regent,
John Dudley.
Mary I had restored both the diocese and Tunstall to office by April 1554, and in practice the abolition seems to have been ignored.[17][18] In 1596, under
Elizabeth I, restrictions were placed on the palatinate's court of chancery.[12]
In 1646 the parliament of the
Commonwealth of England again abolished the palatinate, but after the
Stuart Restoration it was once again revived.[12] In 1654 the palatinate sent its first members to the Parliament of England, two each for the city of Durham and the wider county; the bishops had previously put up strong opposition to a 1614 bill which would have given the city of Durham and
Barnard Castle representation.[citation needed] By 1831 the county covered an area of 679,530 acres (2,750.0 km2) and had a population of 253,910.[citation needed] These boundaries were used for parliamentary purposes until 1832, and for judicial and local government purposes until the coming into force of the
Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844, which merged most remaining exclaves with their surrounding county.[19]
During the nineteenth century several other Acts of Parliament were passed which affected the governance of Durham. The
Durham (County Palatine) Act 1836 effectively abolished the palatine by transferring the bishop's remaining palatine rights to the Crown.[12][20] Doubts about the construction of this Act led to the enactment of the
Durham County Palatine Act 1858.[21] Durham was included in the standardisation of English and Welsh local government enacted by the
Local Government Act 1888, which created Durham County Council.[22] Durham maintained its own judicial identity until the
Courts Act 1971 abolished its separate court of chancery.[23]
Administration
St Cuthbert's Church, Bedlington. Although considerably rebuilt, it retains a Norman chancel arch and other elements.[24]
Norham Castle, in
Norhamshire, was founded by Bishop Flambard in 1121, captured by the Scotland in 1136 and 1138, and rebuilt by Bishop le Puiset in 1157. It was the bishops' main fortress on the Scottish border.[25]
Lindisfarne Priory, in
Islandshire. The island was the site of the diocese's original cathedral and was the original burial place of
St Cuthbert. The present ruins are the remains of the monastery re-founded here in 1083 by Bishop St-Calais as a subordinate monastery to Durham.[26]
St Cuthbert's Church,
Crayke. The bishops of Durham had a residence in the village, which was the centre of
Craikshire.[27]
At its greatest extent, the county palatine consisted of a large, contiguous territory around Durham and several exclaves to the north and south. The contiguous territory was bounded the rivers
Tyne and
Derwent in the north, the
North Sea to the east, the
River Tees to the south, and the
Pennines in the west.[28] The
exclaves were
Bedlingtonshire,
Islandshire and
Norhamshire within Northumberland, and
Craikshire within the North Riding of Yorkshire.[29][30] Durham itself was divided by the 13th century into four "
wards" (equivalent to
hundreds) named after their chief towns:
Chester-le-Street,
Darlington,
Easington and
Stockton. Each had its own
coroner and a three-weekly court.[12]
The
Prior of Durham ranked first among the bishop's barons. He had his own court, and almost exclusive jurisdiction over his men. There were ten palatinate barons in the 12th century, the most important being the
Hyltons of
Hylton Castle, the Bulmers of
Brancepeth, the Conyers of Sockburne, the Hansards of Evenwood, and the
Lumleys of
Lumley Castle. The Neville family also owned large estates in the county, including
Raby Castle.[12]
Taxation
The principle that the King would not tax Durham may have been established as early as 685, when St. Cuthbert was made bishop of Lindisfarne, and successive bishops of the diocese acquired extensive estates with exemptions from tax. They also maintained a
seignorial court, which implied exemption from interference by the king's officers.[31] There is no evidence that the bishops paid
danegeld, which was first collected in 991; after the Norman Conquest it became a regular tax based on the Domesday survey, which Durham was also omitted from.[32][33][34]
Several documents survive which prove Durham's exemption from taxes, including two
precepts from the reign of
William II and charters from the reign of
Henry II which exempt the palatine from a wide range of taxes and reaffirm similar privileges granted in the reigns of
Henry I and William II.[35][36][37] When the bishopric was vacant it was in included in the
pipe rolls maintained by the English
Exchequer, which show that it did not pay taxes such as
carucage.[38] When Henry II enforced the
Assize of Clarendon in the palatinate he also stated that his actions should not be used as a precedent, implying that the exclusion of the king's justices was a privilege of the palatinate.[39] It is not known whether palatinate would have been subject to the
Saladin tithe, as bishop de Puiset pledged to go on crusade and was therefore exempt from paying it.[40][41][42] During the vacancy which followed the death of bishop
Philip of Poitou in 1208
King John appears to have raised money in the palatinate, but this was regarded as an infringement of local privilege.[43][44][45]
During the medieval period,
St Cuthbert became politically important in defining the identity of the people living in the semi-autonomous region. Within this area the saint became a powerful symbol of the autonomy the region enjoyed. The inhabitants of the Palatinate became known as the "haliwerfolc", an Old English phrase which roughly translates as "people of the saint", and Cuthbert gained a reputation as being fiercely protective of his domain.[47]
An example of Cuthbert's importance is the
Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346, when the prior of Durham Cathedral received a vision of Cuthbert ordering him to take the
corporax cloth of the saint and raise it on a spear point near the battlefield as a banner. Doing this, the prior and his monks found themselves protected "by the mediation of holy St Cuthbert and the presence of the said holy Relic."[48]
Symeon of Durham related a tale of a tax gatherer named Ranulf, who was sent by William the Conqueror to force the people of the saint to contribute to the national revenue. St. Cuthbert, angry at this infringement of his liberties, "horribly visited" Ranulf, who was glad to escape alive from the bishopric.[49] The tale, despite the fact it likely postdates the events described, is still of value as it shows the local notion of the bishop's privilege in the matter of taxation.[50][51]
The County Palatine has been used by the tourism industry to promote Durham, often using the tagline 'land of the prince bishops'.[56] The phrase can also be seen on road signs when entering the County Durham unitary authority.[57]
^
abAird, William M. (1998). St Cuthbert and the Normans: the Church of Durham, 1071 - 1153 (1. publ ed.). Woodbridge: Boydell Press.
ISBN9780851156156.
^Adams, Max (2017). Ælfred's Britain: war and peace in the Viking age. London: Head of Zeus.
ISBN1784080306.
^Liddy, Christian Drummond; Britnell, R. H. (2005). North-east England in the later Middle Ages (1. publ ed.). Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. p. 108.
ISBN9781843831273.
^Warren, W. L. (1984). "The Myth of Norman Administrative Efficiency: The Prothero Lecture". Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 34: 113–132.
doi:
10.2307/3679128.
JSTOR3679128.
S2CID162793914.
^C. M. Fraser, Edward I of England and the Regalian Franchise of Durham in Speculum, Vol. 31, No. 2. (Apr. 1956), pp. 329–342
^Anderson, Olof Sigfrid (1934). "Sadberge". The English hundred-names (Thesis). Lund: Håkan Ohlsson. p. 1.;
Page, William (ed.).
"Stockton ward: Introduction and map". A History of the County of Durham. Victoria County History. Vol. 3. London: British History Online. pp. 191–194. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
^Loades, David (2016). "The Marian Episcopate". In Duffy, Eamon; Loades, David (eds.). The Church of Mary Tudor. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
ISBN978-0-7546-3070-8.
^Lapsley, section 16. See also Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, pp 258 to 292. Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, p 295, footnote 1.
^Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p 323. Stubbs, i, 118, 148. Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, p 295, footnote 2.
^Stubbs, i, 431. Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, p 295, footnote 5.
^Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, pp 25 to 27, and p 295, footnote 6.
^Davis and Whitwell. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066-1154. 1913. vol 1.
p 103.
^Davis and Whitwell. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066-1154. 1913. vol 1. p 116.
^Scriptores Tres App No xxxv. Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, p 296, footnotes 3, 4, and 5.
^Boldon Book, App, i to xiii. Although the Sheriff compounded for Danegeld, it was accounted for by that name, and could not, therefore, in the case of Durham, have been included in the
farm of the county. See Madox, Exchequer, i, 685. Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, p 296, footnote 1.
^Scriptores Tres App No xxxi. Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, p 296, footnote 6.
^See the Ordinance of the Saladin Tithe, section 3, in Stubbs, Select Charters, 160. Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, p 297, footnote 1.
^Stubbs, William, ed. (1913). "Henry II, King of England: The Saladin Tithe, 1188". Select Charters of English Constitutional History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 189. Reprinted in Roy C. Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, A Source Book for Medieval Economic History, (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; reprint ed., New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965), pp. 387–388. Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Arkenberg.
[1]
^"Homines qouque monachorum Dunhelmiae [qui] hic hactenus in quodam sinu patris latuerant, add communes tallias et vexationes et onera compellebantur; nec eos beati Patris Cuthberti tuebatur reverentia; nec aliquod hiis remedium consuetudo antiqua neque ecclesiae conferre poterant privilegia": Coldingham, cap xix, in Scriptores Tres, 27. Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, p 297, footnote 5.
^As to the saladin tithe, see Tyerman, 1996,
p 80; Petit-Dutaillis, 1936,
p 190; Keen and Slemrod, 2021,
p 411; Hanson,
1965, p 217. As to the vacancy after 1208, see The Great Roll of the Pipe for . . . Michaelmas 1204
(Pipe Roll 50), p xxii; (1915)
Archaeologia Aeliana 105.
^For further on the geld, see G V Scammell, 1956,
p 185; Aird, St Cuthbert and the Normans,
p 185, footnote 5; and Thornton, "Fifteenth Century Durham",
p 89, footnote 34.
^Symeon, i, 107 & 108. Cf. Metrical Life of St. Cuthbert (Surtees Society), lines 6235 to 6295. Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, p 296, footnote 2.
^Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, pp 295 & 296.
^For Cuthbert and taxes, see Thorton, Cheshire and the Tudor State 1480-1560, 2000,
p 61.
^Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, pp 53 & 356
^Lapsley, The County Palatine of Durham, 1900, p 91 & 360.
^Tschen-Emmons. "Durham Exchequer Building". Buildings and Landmarks of Medieval Europe. Greenwood. 2017.
p 9. Adrian Green, "Law and Architecture in Early Modern Durham" in Lobban, Beggetio, and Green (eds). Law, Lawyers and Litigants in Early Modern England. CUP. 2019.
p 280.
The Durham (County Palatine) Act 1836 (6 & 7 Will 4 c 19). The Statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1836) London: His Majesty's Printers. Accessed 22 December 2023
Loades, David (2016). "The Marian Episcopate". In Duffy, Eamon; Loades, David (eds.). The Church of Mary Tudor. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
ISBN978-0-7546-3070-8.
Page, William, ed. (1928).
"Stockton ward: Introduction and map". A History of the County of Durham. British History Online. Vol. 3. London: Victoria County History. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
Pevsner, Nikolaus; Richmond, Ian; et al. (2002). Northumberland. The Buildings of England. New Haven and London: Yale.
Pollard, A. J. (1996). "The Crown and the County Palatine of Durham, 1437–94". In Pollard, A. J. (ed.). The North of England in the Age of Richard III. The Fifteenth Century, 3. Stroud.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
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