Why was Beverley a haven for people accused of crimes, and who were the beasts that stole the settlers of ancient Holderness?
The ‘s Hidden East Yorkshire podcast has been seeking the answers to these questions and many more.
The series takes in a wide range of topics, from unmasking Jack the Ripper, to the day The Beatles came to Hull.
Here are two of the most intriguing tales covered by the programme over the past year. You can enjoy more by visiting the podcast on Sounds.
In search of sanctuary
Imagine you are on the run, being chased by people who think you are guilty of a crime that you say you did not commit.
Your last hope of escaping rough justice is to make it to the town of Beverley.
On the outskirts, with the minster in sight, you reach a tall stone cross.
It marks the beginning of “sanctuary”, where you are safe from capture – in theory at least.
During the medieval era, prisons were a rarity, certainly outside London.
“Justice was pretty fierce,” says Barbara English, a professor of history. “You just pulled them out and hanged them, or cut their hands off.”
Hangings took place at the end of Gallows Lane, near what is now Beverley Racecourse.
But those who claimed sanctuary and took an oath were safe from the noose, for the time being.
They had 40 days to decide whether to hand themselves in for trial or leave the country and go into exile.
So how did Beverley become a sanctuary town?
According to the Rev Canon Jonathan Baker, the vicar of Beverley Minster, the concept goes back to the Old Testament.
“The idea was that anybody who was guilty of manslaughter, rather than murder, could find refuge in a society where the relatives of the victim might well get a posse together and go in pursuit of the perpetrators – so there’d be a kind of rough justice and the risk of blood feuds,” he said.
“The idea of the cities of refuge was to stop that from happening.”
According to tradition, King Athelstan granted sanctuary status to the town after a victory over the Scots in 934. Before the battle, he prayed to St John of Beverley, a holy man whose tomb became popular with pilgrims.
Today, the remains of three “sanctuary stones” – there were originally four – can still be seen near the main roads into Beverley, though the crosses are long gone.
When felons passed one of the stones, their pursuers would have to give up the chase – or pay a hefty fine to the Church.
The fines got bigger the closer a person got to the minster. If they made it to the altar or the fridstool (freedom stool) – a small stone chair – the pursuers were in danger of losing their own lives.
The town kept a record of fugitives, known as the Sanctuary Book. Of the 500 names recorded, only three are those of women.
One was Elizabeth Nelson, from Pollington, near Goole, who claimed sanctuary in the second year of the reign of Henry VIII.
“She’s described in the record as a spinster,” said Prof English. “She came into the sanctuary for the murder of a child at Hull.”
Dr English believes she may have been a nanny, though it is not clear whether the alleged offence stemmed from an abortion or the death of a child.
Sanctuary died out later in the reign of Henry VIII because he saw it as a symbol of the power of the Church. However, the Rev Baker says its legacy continues.
“These places were designed to be a little bit of heaven on earth. They were deliberately otherworldly.
“In that sense we still see ourselves as a place of sanctuary, a place where you can get things in perspective, get a piece of the bigger picture.”
Haunted by beasts
They lurked in the misty, pitch-black marshes of the River Hull valley.
Hobgoblins and mysterious beasts once were said to haunt the land that is now East Yorkshire.
Tiddy Mun was a bog spirit who dwelt in the waterholes and came out in the evenings when the mists rose, dressed in grey, with white hair and a long tangled beard.
Awd Goggie was a giant caterpillar in charge of the orchards. And the Barghest was a spectre who took the form of a bear or a black dog with large, flaming eyes as big as saucers.
Old beliefs die hard, but science can help to explain the origins of these myths and legends, and provide us with a link the the past, according to Richard Myerscough, a geologist and member of the Tophill Low Archaeological and Historical Survey Team (Toast).
“Thirty-thousand years ago, you could have walked from the Wolds to the Continent, across a wet, boggy landscape of trees, open water, rivers, springs, bogs,” he says. “Across there, our early ancestors came.”
The tools of these settlers from ancient Doggerland, as the land now covered by the North Sea is known, have been found at Tophill Low.
“What we’re left with here is a remnant of Doggerland in Holderness – this wet, boggy area,” says Mr Myerscough.
“The people who lived here, fished here, hunted here and eventually farmed here would be surrounded by this water, and in winter the floods would come.
“And so they would think about what’s out there. Funny noises in the night, like the booming of the bittern, to them sounded eerie and mystical.
“Members of their family would probably go out hunting and never come back again, and so they would have to invent something to say a mystical beast had got them.”
More myths would have surrounded the eerie blue glow of will-o’-the-wisp – methane from peat beds burning over the top of the marshes.
That these tales survive today is evidence of their enduring power as they were passed down from generation to generation.
So next time you hear a bump in the night, or spot a blue glow in the distance, keep your eyes peeled for the Barghest or Awd Goggie.
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