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CHAPTER XIV.
PARISH OF LYTHAM.
LYTHAM.
At the commencement of the Norman dynasty, when
William I. instituted a survey of his newly-conquered
territory, the name of the town and parish which
will occupy our attention throughout the present
chapter was written Lidun, and was estimated to contain two
carucates of arable land. How long this orthography continued
in use is difficult to say, but it could not have been for much more
than a century, as amongst certain legal documents in the reign
of King John, the locality is referred to under the style of Lethum,
an appellation which seems to have adhered to it until comparatively
recent years. The derivation of the latter title is apparently
from the Anglo-Saxon word lethe, signifying a barn, and points
obviously to an agricultural origin, whilst the more antique name
of Lidun is possibly a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon lade,
implying a river discharging itself into the sea, that is, its mouth
or estuary, and tun, a town.
Shortly before the termination of the reign of Richard I. in 1199, Richard Fitz Roger, who is supposed to have belonged to the Banastre family, gave all his lands in Lethum, with the church of the same vill, and all things belonging to the church, to God, and the monks of Durham, that they might establish a Benedictine cell there to the honour of St. Mary and St. Cuthbert.[1] The following is a copy of the document by which the
- ↑ Richmondshire, vol. ii. p. 440.
