SADDLEWORTH HISTORICAL Society is hosting a lecture by Dr Sarah Rose on ‘Power, Privilege and Politics in the Medieval Honour of Pontefract’ on Wednesday, March 8.
Long before the days Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council held sway over Saddleworth, the focus of political authority lay some forty miles east, at Pontefract Castle.
Saddleworth’s lords, the Stapleton family, were knights of the Lacy dynasty who controlled the honour of Pontefract, a large, compact lordship, the core of which lay within the old West Riding of Yorkshire.
Created in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest, the honour was atypical of many English honours in that it survived throughout the medieval period, not only as a physical entity, but also as a meaningful focus for authority and community, loyalty and reward.
Dr Rose’s lecture will examine the behavior of the honour’s lords and the significance of its institutions to show how this political unit survived for hundreds of years in the high middle ages.
Dr Sarah Rose completed her PhD, at Lancaster University in 2010. Since then, she has worked within the Regional Heritage Centre at Lancaster on the Victoria County History of Cumbria project as Assistant Editor
The lecture takes place at 7:30 p.m, on Wednesday, March 8 at Saddleworth Museum, Uppermill, OL3 6AP. Entry £3.
