Cumbrian Superior Lordship

Manorial records in Cumbria often relate to more than one manor. Records of this type are generally found in two circumstances:

• Superior lordship. The structure of medieval lordship in Cumbria created a number of units of overlordship, great baronies and honours covering extensive blocks of land.The legacy of these baronial estates survived into manorial administration in the post-medieval period, sometimes as ‘super-manors’, single manors covering several settlements; and sometimes as a higher level of court, having superior jurisdiction over estates which were manors in their own rights.
• Estate groups. Where one landowner held several manors, some classes of manorial documents (such as surveys, records of entry fines, etc) may contain information about all of them.The archives of two of the largest landed estates in Cumbria, the Leconfield archive, covering the Percy estates in western Cumbria, and the Lonsdale archive, covering manors across Cumbria which came into the hands of the Lowther family, are cases in point.

In order to help researchers navigate their way through the manorial administration of Cumbria, these pages provide background information on superior lordships and groups of manors, and advice on how to relate them to the MDR:

The Moot Hall at Cockermouth (demolished 1829), where courts for the honour of Cockermouth, including head courts for Five Towns and Derwentfells, were held.

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