[From Annals of Kirk Christ Lezayre]

CHAPTER III - THE ORGANIZATION OF THE LAND IN NORWEGIAN TIMES

THE Isle of Man was divided into six Sheadings, each containing three parishes, with the exception of Glenfaba, which contained two only. The parishes were divided into Treens, whose number varied from parish to parish, and the Treens were subdivided into Quarterlands. The Parish of Lezayre, which along with Andreas and Bride forms the Sheading of Ayre, contains eight Treens in addition to Church Lands (Abbey Lands, Bishop's Barony and Particles) equivalent to four more.

The formation of the Sheading goes back to the Viking age. Each Sheading had its court, or thing, which met once a year, and the cases were heard by a jury of ten members. After concluding lawsuits, the thing constituted itself as a Registry Court, settling all disputes regarding land and tenants. The Bull of Pope Gregory IX, 1231, which mentions the " Ecclesia Sanctae Trinitatis in Le ayre," proves that the Sheading divisions date back at any rate to the beginning of the thirteenth century. But it is no doubt much older. It probably goes back to the organization of the Norwegian dominion quite 300 years earlier. At the present time the Sheading is an electoral unit. The Sheading of Ayre returns three members to the House of Keys. The organization of the parishes as ecclesiastical units probably took place about the second half of the twelfth century, but it seems to be based, as so often elsewhere, on an older, secular, one may almost say, pagan, district division, which the Church utilised for its own organization. This view is supported by the following considerations.

(a) The finds of the 5th to the 7th century preferably group themselves around the Keeills (chapels) which in the thirteenth century appear as parochial churches. This does not take us back to pagan times, but it is reasonable to assume that these keeills were built in places of secular importance.

(b) All the parishes except Marown touch the sea, a feature more easily explained by the requirements of naval defence than of the ecclesiastical administration. The peculiar shape of the parishes of Braddan and Lezayre is best explained by assuming that they were old secular districts, which were given access to the sea during the Norwegian domination.

(c) The composition of the House of Keys points to the existence of old administrative units agreeing with the later parishes. From the declaration made to Sir John Stanley in 1422 ² it is clear that during the Norwegian period the Hebrides and Man possessed in common a thing or Court of Law in which Man was represented by sixteen members and " the Out Isles " by eight. This Court may date back to Godred Crovan who took possession of the Isle after the battle of Scacafell in 1079, or it may go back to Earl Sigurd 989-1014. The sixteen Manx representatives were certainl chosen from the proceres, principes, or optimates, so often mentioned in the Chronicle o f Man, and not referring to the ordinary treen owners whom Godred Crovan had deprived of their udal, but to men of trust administering certain districts ; and these districts cannot have differed from those which in the late13th century emerge as parishes. As in the Orkneys the parishes in the Isle of Man were represented at the thing by one deputy each, and the parish was the unit on which was based the provision of ships for the defence of the Isle.

If this be the case, one of the seventeen parishes must have been formed through the division of a large parish. The fact that Marown is the only parish that does not reach the sea, points to its once having formed one parish with Santan. They are two of the smallest parishes, being together about the same area as Braddan, Patrick and German and considerably less than Lezayre.

(d) In entire agreement with this conception of the parish as the skibreide - the unit responsible for the provision of a ship - the " Watch and Ward " was from olden times organized from parish to parish. The night watch stations, in all probability, originated from the landing places where the ship was beached, so as to protect it from surprise attacks like that at Peel in 1228, when King Ragnvald (Reginald) burnt the whole Manx fleet. The night watch station in Lezayre was at Hangman's Hill. The exact site is not known, but it was probably on the high land on the north side of the mouth of the Sulby river.

The Norwegian term for skibreide was in the Isle of Man skiri (cf. English " shire "). With the establishment of the parochial system this word came to denote the parish. The Manx for parish is skeerey.

The Treen was a district or domain bounded by natural borders, such as glens, marshes, rivers and streamlets, but varying in size from less than zoo acres to more than 6oo. It formed a fiscal unit and paid a fixed annual tax distri- buted among the four farms or Quarterlands of which it consisted.

A majority of the Treens bear Norwegian names and it is probable that all the original Treens once did. As a fiscal unit the Treen dates from Norwegian times, but as a unit of land it belonged to a Celtic social order which was much older than the Viking age. That order, only to a limited extent, admitted of private ownership of land all land belonged to the tribe or family, the cultivated area being distributed anew at periodical intervals.

The term Treen like tirung in the west of Scotland, is a translation of the Norwegian eyrisland. The name is preserved as urisland in the Orkneys. Tax and rent of a urisland amount to C4, of a tirung in the Hebrides to ~:3 8s. od. This agrees with the Manx Treen which, on an average, paid £3 10s. 0d. Possibly the term, in its Norwegian form, was introduced by Earl Sigurd ; it may even go further back.

That the Treens were in Norwegian hands in the last quarter of the ninth century can be concluded from the fact that Godred Crovan deprived the owners of their udal, but in Norway no udal could be acquired before the lapse of six generations.

As the Norwegians utilised the Treen for fiscal purposes, so the Celtic Church, centuries before, used it as an ecclesiastical unit, with a chapel (keeill) in the centre. It is quite possible that the Irish missionaries found them- selves faced with an ancestor worship deeply rooted in the life of the tribe. The Treen chapels served as a counterpoise to the local places of worship, and in many cases were built on their sites. No less than twenty-four keeills are known to have been built on such sites, and many are near wells which, in pagan times, were an object of worship. The sites of 174 keeills, including parish churches, are known.

The Treens were divided into Quarterlands, usually four. In contrast to the Treens the great majority have Celtic names. They vary in size, the largest Quarterland in each Treen being the portion retained by the Norwegian to whom the Treen was granted, while the remaining portions were cultivated by the former owners as his tenants. Probably the quarterland supplied one man towards the crew of the ship supplied by the parish.

In later times the quarterland was the unit on which an assessment was made for the upkeep of parish churches and church- yards and each quarterland was usually allotted one pew.

The treen system has been long obsolete. The names of the treens on the Lord's land are preserved in the Manorial Roll of 1515 (for the Northern parishes). Unfortunately the names of those on the ecclesiastical lands are lost. The treens in Lezayre with the suggested derivations of the names are as follow:-

(1) Sulby. Marstrander.³ Sulu-bor " The estate (or farm) by the river Sulu. Kneen ⁴Solabyr " Soli's estate." Moore.⁴ Solvabyr " Solvi's farm."

(2) Alia Sulby. A portion cut off from the forliser. Both these treens are on the banks of the Sulby river before it enters the Curragh.

(3) Breryk or Brerick. Marstrander, Brar-vik or Bruar-vik " The bay of the bridge." Kneen: Breidvik, " Broad bay " ; Moore: bruar-hryggr, " Bridge ridge." On the coast north of the Sulby river with a portion high up in Glen Auldyn.⁵

(4) A1tadale. Marstrander : Alpttadalr, " The Valley of the river Alpt," Alpt=" swan," a common name for a river. Kneen and Moore : Swan's glen," in Glen Auldyn, which Kneen states is a worn down form of the name.

(5) Grest. Marstrander : Greips-or Gregors-stadir, " Greips' or Gregor's farm." Kneen and Moore : Grettis-stadr, " Grettir's farm." It lies to the north of Breryk, and like it has a portion high up in the mountains.

(6) Alkest or Alchest. Marstrander : Hallkels-stadir," Hallkell's farm." Kneen : Alfgeirstadr, " Alfgeir's farm." Moore : Alfa-stadr, "Elves stead." It lies to the west of Breryk.

(7) Aust. Marstrander : out of several possible derivations prefers that of Hof-stadir, " The King's farm." Kneen: Ottars stadr, " Ottar's farm." One quarterland still bears the name of Ballacottier, " McOtter's farm." Moore connects it with " East," or a man's name, cf. Ostmen or Eastmen in Ireland. It adjoins Grest on the west.

(8) Corrark. Marstrander considers this name as of doubtful origin. He is inclined to take it as a Norwegian name in kuern. Kneen and Moore take as Manx, carrick (rock). It is situated high up in Sulby Glen. All these treen names, with the exception of the last, are definitely Norwegian. A number of treens throughout the Island have been divided, cf. Sulby. It is not known when or why this was done. It is suggested that it took place owing to the grant of lands to Rushen Abbey, etc., in order that the treens in the King's possession might remain at their former number-a matter of great importance for the levy.

The ⁸ main centre of the Norwegian kingdom of Man was the level district in the north of the Island-north of the Curragh or Myres as the Northmen called the swampy lands at the foot of the northern mountain range. The parishes of Jurby, Andreas, Lezayre and Bride, along with the east coast as far as Langness played a very prominent role. The North is the stable element in Manx history to a much greater extent than the South. The king's residence must be looked for near Ramsey bay. All the great events in the Island's history happen here. Here was the fight between Godred Crovan and Fingal in 1079. Here Olaf Godredson in 1153 met his three nephews from Dublin to arrange about a division of the kingdom and Olaf was murdered by the second nephew, Ragnvald or Reginald. Here, in 1158, Somerlad began his attempt to conquer the Island. Here, in 1164, battles were fought between Olaf II and his half-brother, Reginald.

It is clear that Ramsey was the king's port. The " Royal Road " Regia via) which comes down from the north side of Skyhill and certainly continued into the treen of Bruarvik (Breryk) near which Ramsey lies, points in the same direction. We can almost believe that the king's residence was Aust, and that his domain originally also included Breryk and possibly Grest and Alkest. In the second half of the twelfth century his residence was changed to St. Patrick's Isle, Peel, owing to the frequent attacks from Scotland.

Footnotes

1 The substance of this chapter is taken from an article by Professor Carl J. S. Marstrander, entitled " Treen og Keeill," in the " Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap," vol. VIII, pp. 287-442, Oslo, 1937.
2 Statutes, Vol. I, p. 11.
3 C. J. S. Marstrander, " Det Norske Landnam pa Man " in Norsk Tids- skrift for Spragvidenskap, vol. VI, Oslo, 1332.
4 J. J. Kneen, " Place Names of the Isle of Man," Pt. VI, Sheading of Ayre.
5 A. W. Moore, " Manx Names," 2nd ed.
6 Marstrander, Det Norsk Landnam pa Man, calls it a "seterland," p. 246.
7 Marstrander, Det Norek Landnam pa Man, calls it a " seterland," p. 246.
8 Marstrander, Det Norske Landnam pa Man, p. 332 (a free translation).