Holyworkfolk

English Etymology See en halywercfolk. Noun p en medieval English _ law Tenants who held land by the service of repairing or defending a church or monument and were therefore exempt from feudal and military duties; specifically, the caretakers of the body of St Cuthbert. en More curious still is the position of certain tenants of the bishopric who called themselves Holyworkfolk, who claimed that their only duty was to pray The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, Art, and Finance 525 44 1877 en This they naturally considered an indignity, and made a party against on the ground that were Holyworkfolk and held their lands for the defence of the body of St. Cuthbert, and not at the bishop's pleasure Thomas Duffus Hardy Preface 1878 viii Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense: The Register of Richard de Kellawe, Lord Palatine and Bishop of Durham en 1991 Record made before justices in eyre by elder men of the Holyworkfolk (Durham) and Northumberland of a sworn inquest held in the time of King Henry I concerning fishery rights in the Tyne English Lawsuits from William I to Richard I: Henry II and Richard I R. C. van Caenegem 437