Medieval Craven

Historic region in Yorkshire From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Medieval Craven was a medieval polity in the north of England. While the name of Craven is Brythonic in origin, its usage continued following the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and the Norman conquest of England. As such, the name was used in the Domesday Book of 1086 with a number of places being described as in Craven that are now found within the modern counties of North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria.

Quick facts Craven, Geography ...

Craven

Geography
Location	North of England North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria

The former local government district of Craven (a much smaller area entirely within North Yorkshire) was defined in 1974 and abolished in 2023 to be replaced by the unitary authority of North Yorkshire.

Etymology

Craven derives from the Middle Welsh "crav", which commonly refers to wild garlic but may also have been used for various related plants such as other members of the onions and garlic families. The Crav element is shared with both the Craf river and the town of Abercraf in South Wales.^[1]

History

Medieval Craven extended much further than modern Yorkshire, even today the Church of England's Deanery of South Craven, extends far beyond the borders of the historic county. Although the boundaries of Medieval Craven are the subject of much speculation, it seems that its south-eastern boundary was another British realm, the Kingdom of Elmet.

With the conquest of Scandinavian York, the area that is today's Yorkshire was divided into three Ridings (from Old Norse þriðjungr meaning "a third part"), each administered by its own thing (governing assembly). It has been suggested that the West Riding comprised the upland areas still occupied by Celtic Britons but under Viking control. This unified the Kingdom of Elmet with the areas of Craven that fell within modern Yorkshire.^[2] Although the West Riding was created during the Scandinavian period, it continued as an effective unit of administration until 1974, when it was abolished following the Local Government Act 1972.^[3]^[2]

Alternatively, it has also been suggested that numerous areas of Northern England were attached to Yorkshire as an administrative convenience by the compilers of the Domesday Book. This would suggest that the original boundaries of Viking Yorkshire were much smaller, and that Craven could have been a separate polity until the Norman Invasion of England.^[4]^[5]^[6]

Craven in the Domesday Book

In the Domesday Book of 1086, which lists the lands ascribed to various lords, some pages have a sub-heading of *In Craven*, suggesting that many places in north-central England had previously belonged to an extinct geopolitical entity.

The Domesday Book (1086) was essentially an economic census of England, completed during the reign of William the Conqueror, to find out how much each landholder had in arable land and what that land was worth in terms of the taxes they used to pay under Edward the Confessor.

The areas of ploughland were counted in carucates: the land a farmer could manage throughout the year with a team of eight oxen. That area varied with the local soil but on average it was 120 acres, (50 hectares). Some carucates are designated Waste, many of these were devastated and depopulated by the Norman army during the Harrying of the North 1069–70, ca.17 years prior to this survey.