"Myton-on-Swale, known in Domesday as Mitune, later as Mitona, Miton, or Mitton up to the 15th century, is a small parish which was originally a Saxon settlement in the Wapentake of Bulmer, and is located near the confluence of the rivers Swale and Ure. ...The two rivers from their junction at Nab End become the Ouse, which forms the southern boundary of the village."
Flawith is 2.9 miles from Myton and is also in the wapentake of Bulmer.
"On 12th October 1319, the 'White Battle', the Battle of Myton Meadows, raged between the English and the Scots. A force of 12,000 Scots headed by the Earl of Moray were set to march on York. On the way they wasted all by fire and sword, bringing terrible destruction to many northern towns and villages. In order to stop the Scots, men from all walks of life and mainly civilians - bishops, abbots, monks, butchers, bakers, rich and poor - all joined to swell the defending ranks. They met the Scots on the north bank of the Swale at Myton; the Scots feigned retreat in order to trap the English on the nab of land between the Ure and Swale."
Thus it may be probable that some ancient ancestor was pulled from his farm in Flawith or Alne to fight the Scots... or watched as the Archbishop of York passed by with his men.
'The Scots went over the water of Solway ... and privily they steal away by night, and come into England, and robbed and destroyed all that they might, and spared no manner [of] thing until they come to York. And when the Englishmen at last heard of this thing, all that might travel - as well monks and priests and friars and canons and seculars - come and meet with the Scots at Myton upon Swale, the 12th day of October. Alas! What sorrow for the English husbandmen that knew nothing of war, they were quelled and drenched in the River of Swale. And their holinesses, Sir William of Melton, Archbishop of York, and the Abbot of Selby.'
(from the Chronicles of England: The Brut, compiled during the reign of Edward I,
originally concluded in 1307 but was then extended to 1333 and
translated from the
French later in the fourteenth century. The
Chaucerian English has been modernized.)
Besides being divided into three Ridings, East, North and West (a Riding being derived from the Norse word "thriding," meaning a third part) Yorkshire was further sub-divided into administrative areas called Wapentakes - the Danelaw equivalent of an Anglo-Saxon Hundred in most other counties. The word derived from an assembly or meeting place, usually at a cross-roads or near a river, where literally one's presence or a vote was taken by a show of weapons. You will need to know which Wapentake a place was in if you wish to search such records as the Hearth Tax and Land Tax or Militia and Muster Rolls.
