CAMPSALL, ST MARY MAGDALENE PARISH RECORDS

Comprising: Registration: Registers of Baptisms 1563-1979, Registers of Marriages 1564-1990, Registers of Burials 1563-1974, Registers of Banns 1981-1995, Registers of Services 1902-1992; Incumbent 1736-1939; churchwardens: terriers (5) 1770-1912, other records 1832-1988 and deeds for various places unrelated to the parish 1682-1795; PCC minutes 1920-1994 and accounts 1937-1947; schools (miscellaneous) 1861-1940; other records 1756-1983 including returns for the 1831 census (statistics only); Tithe approtionment and map for Sutton 1838; altered apportionments, Sutton and Owston 1852;

Parts of this parish were transferred to the parishes of Askern and Fenwick.

From early times the parish of Campsall consisted of six townships or hamlets; Campsall, Askern, Fenwick, Moss, Norton and Sutton. At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, the area was in the possession of Ilbert de Lacy, the founder of Pontefract Castle. The fact that Domesday does not mention a church here is no proof that such did not exist, since cases are to be found where there is similarly no such reference. Yet the existing church contains work of pre-Conquest date; there may have been merely a chapel attached to the manor without parochial rights. The earliest existing work in the church is of twelfth century date.

In the reign of Edward I Henry Lacy obtained a royal charter for a market at Campsall, which would suggest that it was a place of some consequence by that time. By 1288 the benefice was in the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas IV (1291) and had an annual value of £66 13s. 4d. By a curious arrangement, the chapel of St. Clement in Pontefract Castle had a share in tithe. The probable explanation of this anomaly is the fact that Ilbert de Lacy and his successors held both estates and adopted this method of supporting the chapel which was an important foundation in its own right. In 1336 there was a composition under the sanction of the Archbishop of York in the name of Thomas de Bracton, Rector of Campsall, and William de Mudene, Prebendary of the chapel, by which one hundred shillings was to be paid by the Rector in lieu of the tithe.

A great change took place in 1481 when Edward IV granted the rectory of Campsall to the Priory of Wallingwells in Nottinghamshire, a small house of Benedictine nuns. In the following year Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York, appropriated it to this purpose and decreed that henceforth the benefice should be served by a Vicar, and gave the appointment to Cambridge University. After the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII the rectorial tithes passed into lay hands.

The township account book listed at P15/6/1/1 was added to this collection in September 2010. Doncaster Archives purchased this item from an antiquarian bookseller in August 2010.

The collection is divided into eleven series as follows:

P15/1: Registration, Church Services, and Worship

P15/2: Incumbent

P15/3: Churchwardens

P15/4: Vestry and Parochial Church Council

P15/5: Auxiliary Organisations

P15/6: Township

P15/7: Charities and Trusts

P15/8: Schools

P15/9: Statutory Deposits

P15/10: Miscellaneous Records

P15/11: Other Records [Deeds etc]

Open

Access will be granted to any accredited member of Doncaster Libraries

Also available: Index : Bapt 1563-1850 Marr 1563-1837 Bur 1563-1871

The parish library, a collection of 126 volumes from the period 1573 to 1719 now deposited at Doncaster Archives, is the subject of M Gallico, 'A Catalogue of the Library of Campsall Church', (unpublished MA dissertation, University of Sheffield, 1980). A copy is available in the departmental library of Doncaster Archives.