The Hissem-Montague Family

The middle and east of Britain was generally settled by the Angles while south Britain was conquered largely by the Saxons. England derives its name from Angle-Land and Anglecynn, or Angle-kin, was the origin of the word English.

To the east of the Celtic kingdom of Rheged lay Bernicia and Deira. Originally Celtic, they were quickly conquered by the Angles who then overwhelmed Ebrauc, where the brother of Rheged's King reigned. These realms were then united by King Ida in 547 creating the new Kingdom of Northumbria, that is, the land north of the river Humber. The area around Hessam became a contested region, overrun by the armies of Northumbria as they pushed west and by the Celtic armies of Rheged and Gwynedd, in northern Wales, as they vainly resisted the onslaught.

The Anglian kingdom of Northumbria finally annexed Rheged, consolidating its control of the north, some 200 years after Roman withdrawl. There was a royal marriage in about 638 between Prince, later King, Oswald [Oswiu] of Northumbria and Rhianmellt, a princess of Rhedged, which may mean this final conquest was a peaceful one.

In the period when the Latin-Celt population was being over-run during the Anglo-Saxon invasion, a tribe of Angles settled along the coast of Morecombe Bay, in the west of Lancashire on the Irish Sea, and established, or took possession of, a village there. Modern archaeology indicates that the site had been inhabited, off and on, for millennia. In time the village became known as Hessam [or today, Heysham].

The language of the Anglo-Saxons was Englisc, or Lingua Saxonica according to the Latin authors, which today we call Old English. It was a branch of the West Germanic language family known as Low German. This was the precursor to not only modern English, but Dutch, Flemish, French and modern Low German. In England it was broken into several dialects. In the north this was an Anglian form called Northumbrian. Old English is generally considered to have been the language of common usage from the 5th to the mid-12th century. During that period it picked up elements from the native Celtic, Danish and Norwegian dialects of Old Norse brought by invading Vikings, and Latin phrases from priests as the pagan Germans were Christianized.

There are at least two theories to the origin of Heysham's name. In Old English "hæs [h€se, hæse, hese," or "hyse"] meant "of woodland country, land with bushes and brushwood . . . The cognate Germ. hees (OHG he(i)si) is applied to similar country." - from "Survey of English Place-Names." Se also "An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary" by Joseph Bosworth and Thomas Northcote Toller. In this sense "hæs" may refer to uncleared land; that not already under cultivation.

"Ham", or -am, was also from the Anglo-Saxon and referred to a home or manor. Hamleas meant homeless. It could describe something as small as the few buildings of a single family homestead [hamstede], or as large as a village. The word hamlet survives, meaning a small village. The suffix was also sometimes rendered as "haym," perhaps reflecting Norwegian or Danish influences. Ham is a very common termination to town names in England, examples including Notting-ham, as well as South-ham-(p)ton, which meant "south-home-town;" "ton", or -tun, being from the Anglo-Saxon for a town, usually one enclosed by a wall or hedge.

So Hæs-ham, or Hees-am, would mean 'homestead in the woods,' and one probably not large enough to be defended by an enclosure. There is indeed a wood on the top of Heysham Head, see below.

More often, however, popular genealogies or town histories claim that Hessam, or Hess-ham, meant the village of the family or clan of Hess. Another source goes as far as to claim that Hessa, a roving Saxon [sic] chieftain, took possession of the village and it was named for him. This is based on the perception that the -ham suffix most often referred to the house or homestead of the head of a family, the -ham being combined with the family patronymic. The Germanic patronymic combined the head of the family's name with the termination ing, thus Beorn-ing-ham was the homestead of the sons of Beorn, today's Birmingham.

So, Hessa may have been an Anglian warrior, a vassal of King Oswald, who, as a reward for his service, was given land west of the Lune river and named the village for himself. This would have occurred circa 650-700.

The village was called Hessam in the Doomesday Book, as Heseym in a document recorded in 1094, as Hesham in 1190, Hessein in 1194, Hessem & Hissein in 1200, Hesaim in 1202, Hesham in 1208, Heshem in 1209, Hesaim in 1212, Heesam in 1246, Heesham in 1291, Hegsham in 1292, Hesam in 1297, Heghsham in 1323, Hyseham in 1557, and variously as magna parva Hesham, Hesaym Superiori, and Nethir-hessam.

"Heysham (ancient parish) PNLancs p. 178
Hessam 1086, Hesseim, Heseym 1094, Hesheim 1190-99, Hissein 1200+, Esham 1208+, Heysom 1701+
OE haes 'brushwood, swine pastures', with ham. Forms with -(h)eim,
-eym, show Scand influence. ..." - from "Journal" by English Place Names Society

The site of this village was a small promontory on the sea, now called Heysham Head, shown below. At the time it was probably the only habitable part of the parish, being mostly over 50 feet above sea level and rising at several points to 100 ft. The place must have been almost isolated. To the north, east and south the land falls away to a low-lying moss, or 'spongy flat,' dangerous to cross at high-tide.

". . . Heysham, an outlying parish on the River Lune, quite hard to reach from Lancaster because of the mosses in between . . . " - from "John Marsden's Will: The Hornby Castle Dispute, 1780-1840" by Emmeline Garnett

As the fortunes of the many Celtic and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms waxed and waned, their borders, and their wars, lapped over the village of Hessam. The affect of this constant state of war on the populace can easily be imagined.

During the early years of the invasion the native population attempted to maintain the vestiges of Roman life, but this was only marginally successful, and then only in the larger cathedral towns. The legend of King Arthur, and his attempts to recreate a mythic period, dates from this time. In northern England the Roman gloss had always been thin and Roman ways quickly disappeared. For the peasant, it probably mattered little whether his lord was Roman, Celt or Saxon, as long as he was left alone.

The Germanic tribes that invaded Britain had, in the beginning, been relatively egalitarian. In the pre-Norman period class structure was broken down into two basic groups, the upper class eorls, or thanes, and the lower class ceorls (churls). The division between the two was strictly in terms of land owned. A man could only be a thane if he owned at least five "hides" of land. Aside from the ownership of land, a ceorl might actually be a richer man than a thane.

Below the thanes and ceorls were the slaves. Slavery was one of the biggest commercial enterprises of the Dark Ages, as it had been during the Roman period, and much depended on this involuntary labor force. War was the most frequent source of slaves. Note that slavery was not ethnically based. A Saxon could as easily be a slave as a Celt, and a Celt might have Celtish slaves.

In the countryside the vast majority of the people lived by farming. The ceorls worked co-operatively, sharing the expense of a team of oxen to plough the large common fields in narrow strips that were shared out alternately so that each farmer had an equal share of good and bad land. Later in history this land became consolidated into large estates by the wealthier eorls. During this later period ceorls worked the land in return for services or produce, or they might work the lord's land a given number of days per year.

This was non-cash economy. Everything that a man could not produce himself was procured through barter, either of the products he produced or of his labor. Some money was minted, and ancient and foreign coins were long used, some from as far away as Byzantium, but their circulation was very limited.

The lifestyle was basic. Even the great lords lived only in wooden halls surrounded by palisades. The peasants lived in one-room huts and subsisted on broth with chopped meat, oat and barley potages, porridge, ale, mead and bread. Communal living was accepted as the norm and no one, except perhaps a King, had much privacy.

The villages were extremely isolated. A cluster of rude houses would be surrounded by a fence, and its land by another outer fence. Beyond that were miles and miles of thick forest and heath, empty and wild, where men would venture by day to herd their pigs or gather logs for winter, but would not willingly spend the night for fear of wolves and things unnamable. Tracks for ponies led through the dense wilderness to other villages, winding among the thickets and marshy places and fording the streams. Men had no conception of maps, no mental image of the shape of their country, or of the relative positions of any of the places within it. If a man was swept away in a war he might never find his way home again.

Religion The early Anglo-Saxon settlers had been pagans, worshipping the Germanic gods, including Wotan, Thor and Loki. However, by around 600 AD they were being rapidly Christianized, first by Saint Columba, a Celtic monk of the Irish Church, and later by Saint Augustine, a Prior of the Church of Rome. The promise of a golden afterlife to men whose current condition was so precarious was compelling.

After the unification of England under the Wessex dynasty, the country entered a period of considerable population growth and corresponding economic expansion. More land was put under cultivation, while heavier farming and improved techniques produced a surplus of foodstuffs for trade. Market centers were able to benefit from this and from expanded international trade in luxury goods.

In the north Northumbria was now an earldom ruled by a powerful Saxon family who owed their allegiance to the house of Wessex, but central control from the capital at Winchester was weak and the Earls most often acted as independent lords.

Pre-Conquest Lancashire was a frontier zone with uncertain borders and ever-present instability and insecurity. Until the late 11th century much of Cumberland and north Westmorland was under Scottish overlordship.

The village of Hessam remained on the margins of these great events. The people had a meager existence, living in homes of wood and turf, and eking out a bare subsistence from the sea.

The Saxons brought tribal customs with them to England, including their system of policing, the keeping of order, and abiding by laws. The members of each settlement were held responsible for their own conduct and that of their families and neighbors. If someone broke the law, he had to reckon with the members of his local community. Each householder was therefore a police officer.

A group of ten families, called a tything, elected a tythingman. He, and nine other tythingmen, reported to the hundredman. This hundredman was responsible for both 100 families and the geographical area occupied by them, which was called a Hundred. A number of Hundreds was organized into a Shire, though the precise number of Hundreds in a Shire varied across the country.

In this early society it was the responsibility of the tythingman to get the villagers to behave properly towards each other, to detect any crimes committed and to bring those responsible, through him and the hundredman, to the Shire Reeve or Sheriff. If a community failed to do this, a fine was imposed on it, and each member was responsible for paying it.

The Anglo-Saxons also brought the jury system to England. This mirrored the administrative system with the villagers being ultimately responsible for justice, even if they met under the guidance of a judge. On the continent a different system developed, based on the Roman model, in which a judge, or a panel of judges, as the representative of the state, was the arbiter of justice and the law.

When the land became settled under one king, he promised them, in return for their conduct, a state of peaceful security throughout the kingdom. This was called, and still is, the King's Peace, or simply, the Peace. So today a person may be taken to court for "causing a breach of the Peace." Linked to this social responsibility was the obligation on all men over 12 years of age to join in and pursue someone who had committed a felony. This was called "the hue and cry," and to raise it, was to stir the community to action.

The hundredman was the local Reeve, from the Old English gerefa or chief. He was an elected official who was both policeman and judge.

When groupings of Hundreds banded together they formed a Shire, from the Old English scir, an administrative unit, like a county. The Reeve of the county, or shire, was the Shire Reeve, or Sheriff, an official appointed by the King. This Sheriff was originally an entire local government unto himself, exercising judicial authority and collecting taxes. To be appointed Sheriff was considered a significant, if not costly honor. If the people of the county did not pay the full amount of their taxes and fines, the Sheriff had to make up the difference out of his own pocket. In time, the Sheriff was relieved of some of these responsibilities and only had to be concerned with the maintenance of law and order.

When the hue and cry was raised, the Shire-reeve would accord the group with the position of "posse comitatus", the power of the county, and with the help of the tythingmen the posse would bring the felon to justice.

Geographic size varied, but the basis for drawing up the Hundreds of a county was pretty much the same everywhere. It was an area that comprised 10 tythings, or one hundred families (or one hundred hides). They were judicial, military, and taxation units that emerged in the Anglo-Saxon period.

This ancient division is not found in every county. The four extreme northern counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham, and Northumberland were broken up into wards. On the eastern side of England, the equivalent of a hundred is the wapentake, a term which the Danes brought with them. Wapentakes are found in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, and Yorkshire.

By the way, Yorkshire also has its 'ridings', North, East, and West. Riding is derived from an Old English word meaning third part, which explains why there never has been a 'south' riding.

Lancashire had six hundreds: Lonsdale, Amounderness, Leyland, Blackburn, West Derby and Salford. For comparison, Cornwall had nine hundreds, Essex had twenty, and Norfolk had thirty-three. The larger number of hundreds reflect the larger number of people per square mile and the greater fertility of the land.

Area of the Lancashire hundreds:

Amounderness: roughly North of Preston to South of Lancaster, including the parishes of Preston, part of Lancaster, and Garstang.
Blackburn: east of Preston to Yorkshire West Riding
Leyland: south of Preston to Standish, including the parish of Eccleston.
Lonsdale North: Barrow-in-Furness, Cartmel, part of Lancaster, Heysham, Halton, Bolton-le-Sands, and Ulverston.
Lonsdale South: Lancaster, North Lancashire
Salford: roughly Greater Manchester
West Derby: all of west Lancashire to the Mersey, including the parishes of Sefton, Halsall, Ormskirk, Aughton, Warrington, Prescott, Liverpool, and Wigan.

Around 800 AD St. Patrick's church in Hessam was destroyed by the Vikings, most probably Norwegians coming out of their settlements in Ireland. In general, the Norwegians raided from the west and the Danes from the east. The Church was possibly Celtic in origin, and in local lore was dedicated by St. Patrick himself, though this seems unlikely. Only a single wall and a finely carved door remain.

In the early 900's the Irish succeeded in ejecting the Vikings from their colony in Dublin. These Irish-Norwegians then took to their boats and invaded the western shores of Lancashire, settling in Cumbria, the Ribble valley where there was already a substantial colony of Danes and Norwegians, and in the Mersey estuary. In order to concentrate their resources in the war against the Danish invaders to the northeast, English rulers came to an accommodation with these Norwegian invaders allowing a peaceful settlement to go forward. Viking remains and implements have been found in Hessam indicating active settlement occurred in the village during this period.

The shattered church of St. Patrick's was replaced circa 1000 AD by the present St. Peter's church, below.

In 1013, as the Danish armies of Sven overwhelmed the north, Uhtred, the Earl of Northumbria, son of Earl Waltheof of Bernicia, foreswore his allegiance to King Ethelred and submitted to the conquering Danes. Sven died soon after the conquest in 1014 and was succeeded by his son, Canute, as King of both England and, later, Denmark. Canute did not trust the new Earl of Northumbria, Eadwulf II, the son of Uhtred, and had him murdered in an ambush in 1041.

Canute is most famous today as the ruler that, told by his courtiers that he was all-powerful, showed his limitations by trying, and failing, to hold back the tide.

The earldom was then given to Siward, a Danish warrior who had come to England with Canute. Siward was a good ruler who brought stability to the region, if only for a little while, and was kindly remembered by the ceorls. To seal his rule, he married Aefled, the daughter of the old Saxon Earl of Northumbria. After the restoration of the house of Wessex Siward supported King Edward in his quarrels with the powerful Saxon Earl Godwine. In 1054 Siward invaded Scotland and routed King Macbeth in battle. Shakespeare introduced Siward in his famous play. Earl Siward then died in 1055. Because his son, Waltheof, was too young for such an important post in the northern marches, he was only eleven, the earldom was given to Tostig Godwinson, son of Earl Godwine who was gathering all power to himself and his many sons.

During the final years of Saxon rule, in the last ten years of King Edward "the Confessor," and in the short reign of Harold, the district around the village of Hessam was owned by Tostig who ruled the Lancashire portion of his domain from his castle at Halton. Halton is just up the Lune river from present day Lancaster. Tostig was the third son of Earl Godwine of Wessex, the most powerful of the Saxon lords, and brother to Harold, later to be King. In 1065 the Northumbrians revolted against Tostig's severe rule and chose Morcar, brother of Earl Edwin of Mercia, to be their Earl. When Morcar and Edwin then turned their armies south in a bid to seize the throne, Harold, advising the king, negotiated a settlement giving Northumbria to Morcar and dispossessing his brother, who fled to Flanders. Tostig never forgave Harold. The next year Tostig raided the English coast, then joined forces with the Norwegian King Harold III "Hardrada," invading the north and defeating Morcar. Earl Tostig was subsequently killed at the battle of Stamford Bridge in which the Norwegian invaders were defeated by the new king, Harold, on the eve of the Battle of Hastings.

To get a feel for the mix of nationalities and cultures existant in the region around Hessam at this time, as recorded soon after in the Domesday book, the names of the men included Alflaed, Alfred, Alwine, Arnketil, Biarni, Claman, Dolgfinnr, Egbrand, Everard, Flotmann, Gamal, Gamal Barn, Gluniairnn, Gospatric, Gunnar, Hrafnsvartr, Ketil, Leysingr, Orm, Ramkel, Rawn, Suneman, Thor, Thorbiorn, Thorbrandr, Thorfinnr, Thorgrim, Thorkil, Toli, Ulf, Ulfkil, William, William de Percy, Wulfric.

Steve Hissem
San Diego, California