Report and Transactions Volume 11

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ...and its payment of (50 shillings by weight. Lastly, we have Barnstaple, making the same return, but with 49 burgesses only. What is very noticeable here, however, is that nearly two-thirds of the burgesses of Lydford are extra-mural; and this seems to point to the conclusion that even in these early times Lydford must have possessed something of that wide jurisdiction which clung to it in later days, as the head of the Forest of Dartmoor, then as the prison of the Stannaries, and in virtue of which it still claims to be the moorland "church town," though its ecclesiastical rights have been somewhat curtailed. Be this as it may, ere the forty houses were laid waste Lydford must have been the most populous town in Devon, Exeter alone accepted; for there appears very good reason for concluding, from the increased geld of Totnes, that, unlike its companions, it had become more prosperous since " the day that King Edward was alive and dead." History is silent as to the causes of the devastation of Lydford, but there seems every reason to believe that it wns connected in some way with the Conquest, and probably arose from the resistance which the sturdy little burgh offered to the Norman arms. Exeter resisted, but gave way in time, and was spared. William may have deemed it desirable to make an example of Lydford, though more merciful to it than he was afterwards to the northern counties. The Norman Conquest was not completed at Hastings. There are several entries in the Patent Ilolls and other public records which appear to indicate that Lydford retained some importance as a borough on to the early part of the thirteenth century. The constables of Lydford are mentioned in association with those of Bristol, Sherboim-, Corfe, Exeter, Taunton, ...