Rimington vs Barnoldswick

Our chapel is in the township of Rimington but a number of our members, the writer included, travel from neighbouring Barnoldswick. We all get on rather well. There was previously trouble between the two manors. Henry Pudsay (1451 – 1521), ‘lord of Rymyngton’ fell out with the Barlickers. A petition to Henry VII complained that:

 ’15 servauntes of Henry with jakes and salletes [a type of helmet] bowes and arrows came into the towne of Berlewicke [Barnoldswick] and took John Diconson to Bolton [by Bowland] and keped hym in prison and yet keeps notwithstanding ye said supplicauntes labored to the sheriff and to the kynge’s justice of peas. Came on St Peter’s eveyn to Berlewick and made a sault upon one John Edmundson one of the Kynge’s tanauntes and bett and wounded hym so much that he is yett in Perdie of his life. Also he breketh down dayly the hegges and dikes of their corne feyldes so that by the means and cautill wise of the said Henry their corn is destroyed and they cannot pay their rents’

Some of the original spelling is retained. Most of the word are understandable, though perdie may mean certainty or indeed. Either way, it’s clear there’s a major breakdown of law and order when people are assaulted and kidnapped, crops spoiled and farms vandalised. The two areas get on much better today.