Mickleton Manor: the Manor and its residents since 960 AD

Mickleton Manor is one of the most prominent buildings in the village. Although it now sits behind high walls, it can be glimpsed through the gates and the East face and gardens are easily viewed across the ha-ha from the field behind the church. Nothing about the Manor we see today gives any hint of its considerable history which dates back more than 1000 years, or of its distinguished owners and tenants.

Manor House

Earliest Records

The earliest records are from 960 AD more than 100 years before the Norman Conquest, when Saxon kings were ruling England. Mickleton Manor at that time belonged to the Crown, to King Edgar, known as Edgar the Peaceful, who had come to the throne in 959 AD when he was 19 years old. He granted the Manor to one of his retainers, Britnotus (or Brithnof) who in turn gave it to AEthelmare (or Aylmer) Earl of Devonshire (1).

AEthelmare then gave it, along with a number of other Manors and churches in the region, to Eynsham Abbey in Oxfordshire, which he had founded in 1005 AD for monks of the Benedictine order. At that time England was in a precarious situation, repeated attacks by the Vikings had made our rulers nervous and they sought to please God and get his help in resisting invasion by doing good works such as founding religious houses (4). The charter written at the time includes a survey of the bounds of Mickleton Manor which closely follows today’s Parish boundary (7)

As recorded in the Domesday Book

The Abbey was in decline by the Norman Conquest, the monks had deserted it and it seemed for a while that it would not recover. Mickleton (recorded as Mucletude) ,however, is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as belonging to Eynsham Abbey and having 37 households, putting it in the largest 20% of settlements recorded in Domesday. King Henry I in 1109 renewed the Abbey’s charter but of the original endowments only Mickleton and Eynsham remained although a number of other churches and Manors were gradually added. It became the 3rd richest religious house in the country (7) with, for example, in 1390 almost half the income coming from rents and the rest from the sale of wool and livestock (4). For two or three centuries the Abbey, and its lands and properties flourished in spite of being hampered by periods of economic mismanagement. It seems that Mickleton Manor contributed a significant amount to the coffers (4).

The Manorial System

The purpose of the Manorial System was to organize society and to create agricultural goods. The feudal lord of the manor made wealth by collecting taxes and fees from the peasants on his feudal land. It is not evident from records who was in charge of Mickleton Manor over the centuries but sometimes when an Abbot resigned (and there was a significant turnover of Abbots) he was given the profits of the manor to pay for his maintenance. On another occasion the Bishop gave Mickleton Manor to one of his nephews (7). Eynsham was unusual in that the patron was the Bishop, not the King as it was with other Monasteries dating back to Saxon times.

Mickleton Manor remained under the ownership of Eynsham Abbey for almost 500 years until the Dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII as he tried to assert himself as Supreme Head of the Church of England. During the century before this however there was a gradual decline in the fortunes of Abbeys nationwide, monks being often seen as “lazy parasites” and at Eynsham they were reported as ”a raw sort of religious persons and all sorts of offences among them” (3). By this time monasteries, as well as being a reminder of the power of the Roman Catholic Church, owned over a quarter of all the cultivated land in England.

The destruction of the monasteries

By destroying the monastic system Henry VIII who, because of his lifestyle and the wars he engaged in was short of money, could acquire all its wealth and property whilst removing its Papist influence. Consequently, between 1536 and 1540 Henry VIII confiscated the property of all the monasteries including Eynsham Abbey which was dissolved and it was surrendered to Henry on December 4th 1538 (4).

The Manor avoids confiscation

However, before this, in May 1494 Mickleton Manor and rectory were leased by the Abbey to Richard Porter, who we still know in the village from the Richard Porter charity established in 1513 initially to keep the church in good repair. The lease was initially for 60 years at a rent payable to the Abbey of £80 4s a year. When the Monastery was returned to the Crown their lease continued to be honoured and the Porters remained in possession although it is not clear whether Richard ever lived there as he had property in Chipping Campden (8).

Richard’s son, William, was Sergeant-at-Arms to Henry VIII, and in 1515 when he was about to go to war he wrote a will in case he should not return. Instructions regarding Mickleton Manor and rectory being passed to his son are specified in the will. In the event he was killed, not in war but in an altercation the same year in London where he was killed by a man who was apparently acting in self defence.

The Porter family retained the lease of the manor for at least three more generations but at some point during this time it seems to have been given by King Henry to Sir Edward North (3). He became Henry’s Chancellor shortly before Henry’s death in 1547. Sir Edward bequeathed a third of his property to Queen Elizabeth who came to the throne in 1558 but it is not clear whether Mickleton Manor was part of this bequest (9).