eyond levying this money tribute,
however, the Dean and Rector of Wolverhampton no longer held any control
over the internal affairs of the church of St. Giles', in Willenhall.
The specified duties of the incumbent of Willenhall (as set forth in a
Trust deed of 1603, to which Sir John Leveson is a party) were to conduct
Divine service there, and to have his residence within a mile and a half
of the church.

[Picture: Decorative flower]

VIII.--Willenhall in the Middle Ages.

Having brought the ecclesiastical history of Willenhall up to the
enlightened days of Queen Elizabeth, to preserve some sort of
chronological arrangement, we leave that section awhile in order to deal
with the social life of the place, so far as this may be gleaned from a
number of fragmentary sources and isolated references.

The result of these gleanings is naturally very scrappy an
disconnected--like the modern periodicals afflicted with the prevalent
"snippetitis." Such as they are, however, the local reader may be
willing to accept them as being of some little interest.

In the year 1172 the Pipe Rolls, which come next to the Domesday Book
among our most ancient national records, and contain a full account of
the Crown revenues, return Willenhall, among five other Staffordshire
estates, bringing in the sum of 19 pounds 7s. 8d. per annum to Henry II.
This would represent nowadays a sum twenty times that amount. These
estates were Bilston and Rowley Regis, being ancient demesnes of the
Crown, and the manors of Leek, Wolstanton, and Penkhull (in the north of
the county), which had escheated at the Conquest from the Earl of Mercia.
Rowley probably brought in but a few pence at that time, when it formed a
part of Clent.

In the same reign (Henry II.) the Canons of Wolverhampton are recorded as
holding two hides of land in "Winenhale"--certainly not more than 400
acres in a fertile locality like this.

During the reign of Edward III., his son and heir, the renowned Black
Prince, hero of Crecy and Poictiers, claimed (after the manner of those
times) the custody and guardianship of Matilda, daughter and heiress of
his old comrade in arms, John de Willenhale. The heiress of Willenhall
was therefore at this time a royal ward. The earliest holder of this
manor who is known by his territorial title seems to be Roger de Wylnale,
who (according to Lawley's "History of Bilston," p. 132) was flourishing
about the year