William Camden, in his antiquarian history Britannica, published in the late 16th century, tells us “Upon Creden is the primitive Church of the Saxons, there flourished an Episcopall Sea in a towne of the same name, anciently called Cridiantun, now by contraction Kirton, where that Winifride or Boniface was borne who converted the Haessians, Thuringers, and Frisians of Germany unto Christ, and for that was accounted the Apostle of Germanie and canonized a Saint“. In 909AD, when the diocese was established, Crediton was one of the most populous towns of the West. Close by, the hamlet of Knowle is an ancient one with records going back before the Norman Conquest. In 930AD land there was granted to one of the 12 clergy of Crediton Church as part of the ecclesiastical living or prebend.
Knowle was still an important tithe in the 14th century, but court records show it as a place of lawless violence; turbulence far removed from the today’s tranquil rural scene. In the Westcountry Studies Library, Venn’s ‘Crediton’, transcribing from the Court Rolls, tells us:-
“In Kirton parochial affairs the Ash family were weighty people. Their seat was Esse or Ash Bolleyn in Knowle tithing. It was then a fair mansion with a chapel and a deer park, the outline of the latter shown on some old maps. In 1327 Thomas of Esse was a canon of our collegiate church and the bishop’s bailiff. Yet withall Esse Bolleyn in the xivth century was a place of strife and debate. One commission was issued to the archdeacons of Totnes and Barnstaple to hear the complaint of Thomas Clayssh against Joan de Esse: another to investigate that of Giles de Esse who declared that a band of ‘malefactors’ led by the aforesaid Thomas ‘Classe’, aided by William Hody (from nearby Spencecombe) with two priests and several others, had lain in wait for him at Credyton to kill him. They had assaulted him at Knowle, shooting arrows at him and his wife and servant there, and had put his head on a tree trunk to cut it off. His daughter Joan had been ravished and he was besieged in his own house. He durst not go out unless attended by a great number of men, so that his lands lay untilled, his business undone and he was unable to go to market to buy vittals ” (Cal: Pat:Rolls 22 Rich:11 (1398))
There are gaps in the story, but a sequel follows:-
“Pardon to Thomas Clayssh indicted that he and others, on Monday night after the feast of the Invention of the Cross in the twentieth year of the reign of Richard II , at Ash Bolleyn did enter and ravish Joan daughter of Giles de Esse, whose marriage belongs to the said Giles and also that he and others on Friday after the translation of St Thomas the Martyr in the 22nd year in the same place entered the same house and ravished the said Joan, assaulted the said Giles and Alice his wife, wounded them so their lives were despaired of, and took away two pendants of silver and two girdles, value ten marks, one silver mounted dagger value 100, two bows value 40 pence and six arrows value ten pence”.
Clayssh was again outlawed for another display of violence and yet again pardoned on surrendering to the Marshalsea.
I’ve been told Ash Bolleyn was sited at Knowle Farm but I doubt this. I feel that Knowle Farm, although historically a substantial & affluent farm, would not have been described as a mansion (even then?), although Spence Combe is the neighbouring farm to the east. More likely it was a couple of miles north west of us, where there’s still a farm named Ash Bullayne.
This tale of rape, attempted murder and robbery was perhaps just a run-of-the-mill neighbour dispute 600 years ago out in the rural shires. Today, miles from ASBO-land, it’s hard to believe such vicious mayhem once happened here.
