The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. II.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Grammori : "Rannulf, a vassal of Ilbert de Laci, who held Knottingley of him in 1086, is afterwards mentioned as 'Ranulfus Grammaticus,' and as having held lands there, given by Ilbert de Laci towards the endowment of St. Clement's chapel in Pontefract Castle. (Old Mon. i. 659.)

"The name of 'the Grammarian' had no doubt been given to him from the more than usual amount of learning he had acquired, not then considered an honourable distinction in a layman. The name was continued to his descendants, and was probably in their case meaningless enough, except as pointing to their descent from him. Next after Rannulf occurs Richard Grammaticus, who held a knight's fee of Henry de Laci in 1166 (Liber Niger). The name afterwards assumed, in common parlance, the form of Grammary."—A. S. Ellis. Ralph Grammaticus is mentioned in Henry I.'s confirmation charter to Nostel Priory; and William Grammaticus witnesses the same King's charter to Tywardreth Priory, Cornwall. (Mon. Angl.) John and William Grammaticus of Middleton, Yorkshire, appear on the Pipe Roll of 1189. The latter was probably the William Grammaticus or Grammary who, about 1202, had a fierce dispute with his neighbour Adam de Beeston concerning the boundary of their adjacent manors. "In the same year, William Grammary, Lord of Middleton, gives to the King one hundred marks and a palfrey for having an inquisition concerning the appeal which Adam de Beeston made against him. The matter in dispute was the ownership of the wood between Beeston and Middleton. It had been adjudged to Beeston, but one day Grammary caught one of the Beeston foresters in this wood, seized him, and carried him to his house at Middleton, where he put him in the stocks as a trespasser. Irritated by the tediousness of the suit, this last act resolved both the disputants to bring matters to a crisis. They determined to settle their difference by an appeal to arms. A duel was fought in 1209, but what were its consequences we do not know, other than that the wood seems to have been ceded to Beeston."—History of Sherburn and Cawood. W. Wheater. Another of the name, Sir William Grammary, "Lord of Bickerton, near Wetherby, of Becca, and of Middleton near Leeds," was one of the Commissioners of Array in the wapentake of the Ainsty in 1318, and in the county of Cambridge, when he had considerable estates, in 1325. He had been summoned to the great Council at Westminster in the previous year. He conducted the West Riding men from Sherburn to Newcastle-on-Tyne, where they were to meet their leaders, in 1334; and five years afterwards "led his own service from Bickerton, five men-at-arms and twenty archers, into Scotland."

The family has long since passed away. Sir Henry Grammary occurs in 1362: and was followed by a Sir William, whose son Richard—clearly the last of his race—in 1439 released to Robert Stokes, the son and heir of his sister Alice, Bickerton, Beckhaugh, and other lands in Salley and Ripon.—Wheater. Their principal estate in Yorkshire lay about Aberford and Becca: and their arms, carved in stone, are still to be seen in the wall of Aberford Church.

Herbert Grammaticus, "the Wise Clerk," was Archdeacon of Salop about 1083-86. "He is mentioned by Ordericus as one of three learned clerks whose society Earl Roger much affected, and by whose counsels he was advantageously guided."—Eyton's Shropshire.