The de Derneford Family of Suffolk County, England

THE De DERNEFORD FAMILY of THE MIDDLE AGES 1100-1500 AD

The Middle Ages or Medieval period of Western Civilization was a time society was structure in a hierarchy of Lords and lieges, Kings and their vassals. Wealth and power was based on land and territory with stone defensive castle fortresses built to keep out invaders. It was a warrior society of brutish strong men subjugated only to the power of the Catholic Church. The provinces of the old Roman Empire had devolved into small kingdoms, principalities, duchies, and counties all under the sway of the Holy Mother Church. The aristocracy or ruling class was propped up by knights who were basically the enforces of their lord’s ambitions. The majority of people were landless peasants and serfs who toiled for their overlords through extortion enforced by knights.

The only literate men were the priests, monks and other clerics who escaped into Monastic life to avoid the brutality of secular life. There were tradesmen and craftsmen who carefully guarded their secrets but the vast majority of people were laborers who led short lives only comforted by the promise of heaven.

Ancient legal records from Suffolk County shows that during the Middle Ages the surname name Danforth was almost always recorded as “de Derneford.” It designated where a person was from, a hidden crossing of a stream, but later became a hereditary family name. From the 11th Century to the 16th Century several individuals with the surname “de Derneford appear in various records throughout England but mainly concentrated in the southwestern counties of Wiltshire and Devon and in Suffok. Those people found in Suffolk County however have a higher probability of being distant relatives and even ancestors to Nicholas Danforth the Puritan emigrant.

Prior to the 16th Century it is difficult or even impossible to know if people were from the same family, without some type of definite hereditary linage which was kept among the royals and nobles for purposes of inheritance of titles. In Britain, hereditary surnames were adopted in the 13th & 14th centuries, initially by the aristocracy but eventually by everyone. By 1400, most English families had acquired a surname. During the reign of King Henry VIII, he ordered that all legitimate births be recorded in parish records under the surname of the father. This required all people to adopt a surname and that their offspring carry that surname.

DERNEFORD of FOXHALL 11th Century

AD 1086 The earliest document concerning the use of “Derneford” as a place name is found in the Domesday Book of 1086. In the parish of Foxhall, a manor was simply called “Dernforde” from which place most like the Danforth name had its origins. Foxhall is about 20 miles south of Framlingham and a few miles north of Ipswich and today is a small village in Suffolk, England. For the purpose of taxing, a manor was equivalent to a single holding, with its own court and probably its own hall, but not necessarily a manor house as is thought of in modern times. The manor was the basic unit of the Domesday survey. And there was one called Derneford in 1086 but as to who owned it, that is unknown.

Foxhall parish was recorded in Domesday as "Foxehola" or fox hole. The survey recorded to parcels of land worth mentioning. One was a 15 acres of land held by the Simeon the Abbot of Ely in Cambridge and the other was the Derneford Manor. Simeon who died 21 November 1093 was a relative of King William I of England and the brother of Walkelin, Bishop of Winchester who built Winchester Cathedral. Simeon died at the age of 100. The 15 acres at Foxhall were valued at was valued there at 2 shillings.

Also at Foxhola, simply under the heading of "Derneford", was a manor of 80 acres and two acres of meadow. Before the conquest in Saxon times it was describes as having 4 plough teams when it was valued at 40 shillings, but at the time of the survey it was listed as only having 3 plough teams only and valued at 15 shillings." In the Domesday survey the word “plough team” implied having eight oxen and the plough itself. The land was measured in the amount of land which such a team could plough in one day. Meadow land was much more valuable because it was land bordering streams and rivers, which was used both to produce hay and for grazing livestock. The manor at the time of the survey may not have been occupied hence the lower value. The Derneford manor presumably was at a crossing of the Mill River a tributary of the Deben River.

Sir HUGH [HUGO] de DERNEFORD 12th Century

By the 12th Century the Derneford Manor was occupied by an English knight named Sir Hugh or Hugo de Derneford. How he acquired it is unknown. Perhaps he received it for services as a knight. As a knight, he would not have farmed the land but would have had laborers do that.

Sir Hugh of Derneford lived during the reign of King Henry II and his Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. The regents mainly ruled England from their castle in France. Sir Hugh was born circa 1130 nearly 50 years after the Domesday survey and died the same year as King Henry II died in Chinon Castle, France 1189.

Sir Hugh left his manor house at Foxhall to the Sibton Abbey near Yoxford which was 23 miles northeast of Foxhall. Yoxford was also about 10 miles from Framlingham the ancestral home of Nicholas Danforth the emigrant. The Sibton abbey was founded about 1150 by William de Chesney, High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. It was the only Cistercian abbey, known as the White Monks in East Anglia. The monastery grew rich, owning lands across southeast England, including estates in Norfolk, Suffolk and on the borders of Cambridgeshire. It received support as well from 10 parishes within the city of Norwich.

The wealth of Sibton Abby was primarily due to proceeds from the wool trade, which built so many English churches. Although Suffolk wool wasn't of the finest quality, according to some historians, often stained with tar or grease, it was nevertheless in great demand, particularly in East Anglia, which had many Flemish [Belgium] weavers convert it into exportable cloth. East Anglia, with much of its earnings based on wool and textiles, was a rich area of England until the effects of the Industrial Revolution moved manufacturing to the Midlands and the North.

That Sir Hugh would leave his estate at Foxhall to a monastic order is understandable as that the Catholic Church taught that one's sins could be absolved by the constant and fervent prayers of the clerics of the church. Certainly as a knight Sir Hugh had plenty of sins he wished forgiven. The leaving money or an estate to an ecclesiastical order was the best way one could insure that prayers needed to be released from purgatory to Heaven would be said constantly said on one's behalf after death.

Part of the manor of Hugh de Dernford was given to a priory and convent of the Holy Trinity at Ipswich in the time of Henry II, where it remained until the Dissolution of Religious orders in the 16th Century on orders of Henry III.

HUGO de DERNEFORD 12th Century

A Hugo de Derneford was listed as a benefactor to St. Margaret, a parish church in Ipswich before 1204 according to a Charter of King John. St. Margaret was the church for the Ipswich Holy Trinity convent and priory that was established in 1177. One of its earliest benefactors was King Henry II and Hugh Bigod Earl of Norfolk. In 1193 Richard I, known as the Lion Hearted, gave patronage of the church to Bishop Lyhart and ten years later three benefactors of the church were listed as Hugo de Derneford, Ada de Derneford and her son Hugh de Derneford. As that Sir Hugh de Derneford died 1189 it appears that these Dernefords were possibly a son, daughter in law, and grandson son. Within their church were interred the bodies of Sir Robert Valence, Dame Ida of Ilketshall, Sir Peter Mellis and Dame Anne his wife, Dame Dunne his mother, John Francans and Margaret his wife, Dame Bertha of Furnival . . . Austin of Cales and Joan his wife, John Falleys and Beatrice his wife, Augustine his son, Sir Hubert Dernford, Katharine wife of William Phellip, Margaret wife of Richard Phellip, Peter Codum, and the heart of Dame Hawise-Ponyngs.

BARTHOLOMEW, ROBERT, and ROGER de DERNEFORD of 12th Century

To the north of Foxhall were the villages Rendham and Sweffling, about 2 miles apart between the Alde River and the Gull River. These villages were 18 miles north of Foxhall and 5 miles due east of Framlingham and lie near the confluence of the River Alde, and the Gull. It was an ancient site nearly a thousand years old when the first records of de Dernefords appear. The first inhabitants of Rendham were believed to have settled in the 1st century, due to the river providing fish and river birds, fertile soils from flooding and transport by boat.

 In AD 60 Queen Boudicca ruled this area of Suffolk as leader of the Eceni [Iceni] Tribe 20 years into the Roman invasion of Britain. There is evidence that residents of Rendham joined her army and were present at the destruction of the Temple of Claudius in Colchester. In 1907 two Rendham schoolboys found in the river what turned out to be the stolen bronze head of the statue of Emperor Claudius plundered by the Iceni.

Circa 1178 A Norman lord, Theobald de Valoines, Lord of Parham, Suffolk, granted to Robert de Derneford all the land his brother Roger de Derneford held in Renham and Sweffling. This was at the same time Sir Hugh de Derneford was receiving the manor of Foxhall 18 miles to the south. What relationship there may have been between the two men, if any, is unknown. Although he was of a class that he was able to receive a grant but Roger probably had died.

Circa 1180 Bartholomew de Derneford quit claimed to his brother Robert the land that his brother Roger de Derneford held in Rendham and Swffling.

 Circa 1189 Robert de Derneford granted 3s [shillings] and 2d [pennies] rent due from Hervey, son of Hunteman in Rendham and Swefling to Henry de Bosco of which 2 shillings and 2 pennies which 12 pennies is to Leiston Abbey, 12 pennies to Blythburgh priory and 2 pennies to the hospital of Dunwich leaving 12 pennies for Henry himself.to be distributed Blythburgh is near the town of Halesworth

JOHN de DERNEFORD 13th Century

In 1213 Ralph de Cookley gave a grant to Leiston Abbey of 10 pennies annual rent from John of Derneford . Leiston Abbey, in Suffolk, England, was formerly known as St Mary's Abbey. It was founded in 1182 at Minsmere by Ranulf de Glanville, Lord Chief Justice to Henry II. The only remains of the old site are the ruins of the Abbey chapel,10 miles east of Framlingham

THOMAS de DERNEFORD 13th Century

Grant by Agnes daughter of Thomas de Derneford of land in Suffolk, 1 Jan 1283 in the reign of King Edward I.

SIR WILLIAM de DERNEFORD 13th Century

Sir William de Derneford [Willem de Dernesford] was a knight who also served in the Scottish campaigns with Edward I. His Coat of Arms was completely different from the Sir William de Derneford of Wales showing they were two different men. Their coats of arms were registered circa 1285.

AMICE de DERNEFORD 13th Century Of Brome, Suffolk

1267 Amice was the nurse [nanny] of prince Henry the son of King Edward I and his Queen Eleanor of Castile. Edward and Eleanor had at least fourteen children, perhaps as many as sixteen. Of these, five daughters survived into adulthood, but only one boy outlived the king, his son King Edward II. Amice would have been a mature woman when she became a nurse to Prince Henry in 1267.

In 1274 After the prince passed away at the age of 7, the king and queen granted Amice a pension in the form of rents from land in Brome, located in northern Suffolk County. Brome is 18 miles north of Framlingham.

7 November 1288. “To Master Henry de Bray, escheator this side Trent. Order to cause Westminster. 10 pounds yearly of land from the custody of the land that belonged to John de Auvelers, tenant in chief, in Brome, co. Suffolk, to be assigned to Amice de Derneford, formerly the nurse of Henry, the king's deceased son , to have for her maintenance until the heir of the said John come of age, as John de Londonia, when he had the office of the escheatry this side Trent, committed to Amice by the king's order the hamlet of La Musardere, which belonged to Ralph Musard, deceased, tenant in chief, to have for her maintenance as of the value of 10 pounds yearly, wherewith the king ordered her to be provided by the said escheator from Ralph's lands, and the king afterwards granted to her that she should have and hold the hamlet for her maintenance for the aforesaid 10 pounds yearly of land until Ralph's heir came of age, in the same way as the king had the hamlet in his hands on the day when the escheator delivered it to her, saving to the king the wardships, reliefs, escheats, dowers, knights' fees, advowsons of churches, etc., and the king also granted to Amice, at the instance of Queen Eleanor, his mother, that when Ralph's heirs came of age and obtained seisin of the hamlet with the other lands pertaining to them, the king and his heirs should provide her with 10 pounds yearly of land in custodies pertaining to him for her life.

JOHN de DERNEFORD 13th and 14th Centuries

 1285 "Feets of Fines" records were filed between John de Byskelee of Forstenden and his wife Clementia and John de Derneford and his wife Anastasia of Rysshemere [Rushmere], Henstead, Kessinglond, and Gysleham. This suit was filed during the reign of King Edward I concerning land located in northern Suffolk County near the sea port town of Dunwich.

20 November 1289 John de Derneford withnessed a grant between the Prior Guy and Hamo son of Elfric de Thoristone.

1290-1297 Thomas son of Sir Ralph de Melles to John son of Thomas de Derneford in marriage to Alma his sister 12d pennies annual rent gift

14 August 1310 during the reign King Edward II, John de Derneford was listed among knights who invaded Scotland. Edward planned a campaign because he believed Bruce of Scotland had broken the truce between the two countries. In October the English army raided southern Scotland, but fails to reach the north due to his poor relations with his nobility.

Sir HUBERT de DERNEFORD 13th and 14th Century

1291 Hubert was a benefactor of the White Monks at Sibton Abbey of Yoxford.

16 March 1316 For a certain sum of money, Geoffrey, son and heir of John, son of Geoffrey Banyard of Spectishale [Spexhall] to Hubert de Derneford and his Agnes his sister, messuage [manor] with houses and piece of arable land adjoining on West, extending lengthways towards way called Walpprenges on East, to hold of chief lord of fee for service of 6d. [pennies] annual rent payable at feasts of Easter [spring equinox] and St Michael [fall equinox] for all services and demands; being the messuage and land which Elizabeth Payn held of by name of service in Halesworthe [Halesworth]. Warranty clause. Given at Halesworthe, Tuesday before feast of St Benedict the Confessor [March 21 ], 9 Edw.II. Witnesses: Nicholas de Sibbetone, Richard Blaunchard, John Vnfrey, James de Chedestane, Thomas Bomund, Peter del Brok, Nicholas Burghard, Henry Banyard, John Banyard and others.

7 April 1320 Hubert de Derneford received a small grant of land near the village of Sibeton in Suffolk County

Sir Hubert de Derneford was a benefactor for the Dunwich Convent and Church in Blithing Hundred and deanery of Dunwich. Other prominent benefactors were King Henry III, Sir Robert Valance, and Lady Hawise Poynings among others. He was buried at the Dunwich Convert and Church

LADY JOHANNA de DERNEFORD 14th Century

AD 1335 A document regarding with the probate records of a woman named Lady Johanna de Derneford is listed in Suffolk County. The title "Lady" indicates that she was the wife of either a knight or a minor nobleman. She died during the Reign of King Edward III.

MATILDA de DERNEFORD 14th Century

AD 1336 Feets of Fines of Suffolk County, England show that there was a lawsuit between John Goldyng [Golding], Chaplain and Matilda de Derneford over lands found in the villages of Walpole, Mellis, Cokeleye [Cookley], Halisworth [Halesworth] and Broumfeld [Bramfield]. The village of Walpole is on the River Blyth and the nearby settlements including Halesworth, Cookley and Bramfield are about 10 miles west of Dunwich. They are all located in the hundred of Blything. The out come of the dispute is unknown but again it was dealing with property which may have been given to the church. She may have been a relative of Sir Hubert de Derneford

Sir HUGH de DERNEFORD of the 14th Century

Under English feudal law any land owner who held more than forty English pounds in land rents was obliged to bear arms for his liege Lord as a knight. Certainly then the Danforths descended from that class of people known as the Gentry, a rank lower then nobility but above peasant. The ranks of the gentry were filled with gentlemen farmers, wealthy merchants, Guild members, Knights, ship captains, and land lords all who were many from the younger sons of the British Peerage, who by law were barred from inheriting family titles and estates.

The law of Primogeniture stated that only the eldest son could inherit his father's title and estates. All other sons were obliged to find their fortunes either in the Catholic Church or as knights in military campaigns.

Geoffrey Chaucer, the famous English writer who died the in 1400 A.D. the same year as Sir Hugh de Derneforde. Hugh was buried in the All Saints Church in the town of Dunwich. Dunwich Town was the same vicinity where a hundred years earlier John and Anastasia de Derneford were large landowners.

THE BLACK PLAGUE 1348-1349

In 1348-49 pestilence came to Suffolk County which history recorded as the Black Plague which appears to have been the bubonic plague. The epidemic swept through Europe first wiping away whole villages and the epidemic was at its height in the East of England in the summer months of 1349. A third to one half the people of East Anglia fell victim to the disease and the Danforth’s descend from the lucky few that survived. The exact number of deaths can be never known but a study of the deaths in the ranks of the clergy were very alarming and mostly likely mirrored the generally population.

In this single year 1349, 800 parishes lost their priests and laity, 83 of them twice, and ten three times. When in a few months and by the close of the year two-thirds of the Abbeys, covents, priories, almshouses, and hospitals in the diocese had become vacant. From April to end of July 1349 455 people from the religious orders had died. Of the seven convents of women in this district, five lost their superiors, and in at least twelve of the religious houses of men, including the abbey of St Benet's Hulme, the head died. How many of the subjects in these 19 monastic establishments were carried off by the sickness can never be known; but hardly did the disease ever entered a house without claiming many victims. From what is known of other places of which there is definite information, the roll of the dead in the religious houses and there the population of East Anglia was very large. Its been calculates that some 2,000 clergy in the diocese of Norfolk and Suffolk must have been carried off by the disease in a few months.

A typical manor there could contain up to nearly 50 tenants families tending the land. On a manor called Cornard Parva there were about 50 tenants on 31st March but within two months three men and six women had died. During the next month in June, 15 men and women, seven without heirs, were carried off, and by 3rd November there are 36 more deaths recorded, and of these 13 had left no relations. Thus during the incidence of the plague some 21 families on this one manor had disappeared. The priest of the place had died in September.

In the parish of Hunstanton it was recorded on the 16th of October, 1349, that within in two months 63 men and 15 women had been carried off. In 31 instances only women and children had been left to succeed fathers, and in nine there were no known heirs. In this small parish, and in only eight months, 172 persons who were tenants of the manor had died. Of these, 74 had left no heirs male, and 19 had no blood relations at all.

A court of the manor Snetterton was held in Norfolk 25 July 1349, where and it was recorded 39 tenants of the manor had died and in many cases no heir is forthcoming. One tenant is specially named as holding his house and ten acres on condition of keeping three lamps ever burning before the Blessed Sacrament in the parish church. He had died leaving no other relation but a son 16 years of age.

The larger cities of East Anglia, such as Norwich in Norfolk and Yarmouth in Suffolk, suffered no less than the country districts from the all-pervading plague. The city of Norwich had an estimated population before the catastrophe at 70,000. It was one of the most flourishing cities of England, possessing some 60 parish churches. The exact number death is thought to be half or more. By 1368 twenty years later, ten parishes of Norwich had disappeared and fourteen more were subsequently found to be useless.

Yarmouth in the middle of the fourteenth century was a most flourishing port. When King Edward III planned an attack on Calais, France, two years before the plague, London furnished 25 ships and 662 mariners but Yarmouth sent 43 ships and 1,950 sailors. William of Worcester’s account on the plague stated, "In the great pestilence there died 7,000 people." But this statement is probably based upon the number of persons buried in just one churchyard.

East Anglia, which had frequent contact with ships from the Continent, was severely affected more than other parts of England. One of the results of the toil that the Black Plague exacted was that labor shortages occurred all over the kingdom and incomes of the Nobles plummeted as peasants were demanding higher wages. In 1349, King Edward III passed the Ordinance of Labourers to fixing wages at pre-plague levels. The ordinance was reinforced by parliament's passing of the Statute of Labourers in 1351 to force with ruthless determination to keep peasants from demanding higher wages.

THE PEASANTS REVOLT 1381

After the Black Plague Suffolk was still one of the most densely settled counties. It had an estimated 120,000 population in 1377 down from perhaps 200,000 before the plague. The majority of the people in Suffolk lived in strings of houses by their little 10 to 20 acre lots in hamlets, or located on manors that rarely coincided with villages. Three fourths of all manor were owned by commoners mainly the gentry and not by clergy or noblemen. Only about 1/8 of free tenants owned more than 20 acres and only 1 in 30 were landlords due to hereditary rights.

The Peasant Revolt came at a time when things were economical becoming more beneficial to working people but a poll tax imposed on people infuriated people to the breaking point. The poll tax of 1380, which sparked the revolt, was much tougher on married women as they were taxed separately from their husbands, regardless of their income or employment status. Because of this, women were at the heart of the rebellion as much as men. At least 70 reference to women rebels can be found in Suffolk and while certainly in the minority, nevertheless they played a significant role, in the execution of two most hated men in the country who were Suffolk men. The king’s Chancellor Simon Sudbury and Sir John Cavendish, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench and Treasure were both executed by the result of actions spurred on by the women some who say they were at the heart of the violence. Rarely do women credit in the role they played in the revolt.

The Peasant revolt started in Kent and Essex counties but spread to Suffolk in late May, and once the rebels reached London they burnt down Prince John of Gaunt's Savoy Palace, and killed both John Sudbury Chancellor and eventually John Cavendish, the King’s Treasurer. A historian claimed "two of the men most hated by the general population of England - Sudbury and Cavendish - were both brought to 'natural justice' by women". The peasant army then demanded the complete abolition of serfdom, and threatened to burn London down until the ten year old King Richard II personally intervened.

The rebellion was eventually suppressed, leaders captured and beheaded and most promises broken, but the social changes it promoted were already irreversible. By around 1400 serfdom was virtually extinct in England, replaced by the form of tenure called copyhold or in the American South known as share cropping.

WILLIAM DERNEFORD of the 14th and 15th Century

In 1405 William Derneford was known as "of Covehithe", a village about 10 miles north of the town of Dunwich. He may have been a relative of Sir Hugh de Derneford. William is mentioned in a report to the king of English along with numerous of other men from Suffolk as being part of a group who capture of a German ship named Kampen from Lubeck. The ship was laden with a cargo of copper, tar, and beer.

William would have been a young man probably in his early twenties and therefore born circa 1380 and about the time of the Peasant Revolt. His parents would have been among the lucky ones who survived the Black Plague from his grandparent’s time.

His share of the profits of selling the cargo of the ship was 8 shillings a considerable amount of money. As that annual rent of a cottage was 6 shillings and a Squires per annum income was 1£ 13 shillings and 4 pence. Values in the royal treasury in 1400 were calculated in pounds, shillings and pence (12 pence = a shilling; and 20 shillings = a pound), although there were no coins equal to pounds and shillings and would not be until Henry VII's reign.

The account of this enterprise is unclear whether the taking of the ship was approved or an act of piracy. The record of it was on the business rolls of king Henry V. “Diver of the kings lieges of Gisford Bawdsey and other towns if county Suffolk whose names are given in the annex schedule captured the said ship by force and arms att sea 17 May. On 26 May the captors of the ship Kampen, sold it laden with ber [beer] at Bawdsey for 70 £ to Nicholas James of London attorney of Richard Merlowe, citizen of London.”

Nothing more is known of this man.