A few words of caution on the nature of evidence. To misquote Jane Austen, it is a truth universal that people of lower economic status do not leave as many records as those with greater wealth and power. In medieval England the peasant class are most likely to be recorded by name only when they do something wrong, or owe taxes, or are being traded as a commodity. For example, a plot of land leased between two landowners may contain the name of the unfree tenants who hold plots there. Those that owed feudal obligations to their lordship such as repairing dykes and hedges could find themselves named in the Manor Court, particularly if they were in default, and those who left their manor without the lord’s permission would be named and possibly hunted down. Not surprisingly therefore many peasants would have had little desire to be “named”. The outcome being that medieval records of ordinary working families are sparse. Any that are found may give a very partial representation of their lives. All records must therefore be treated in context, remembering the timeless adage, “we don’t know what we don’t know“.
Surnames were not usually given to the English peasantry before the late thirteenth century. They became more common as townships grew and identifying people by a single personal name was too inexact to provide discrete identification. Surnames gave some legal security, but even then they were usually given to an individual by those who needed to identify them, hence it was not uncommon for individuals to be known by several alternative names;- e.g. as the child of someone (either the mother or the father) or by their occupation, place of residence or even physical characteristic such as physical size or distinctive features. They would use whichever was appropriate to the specifc situation at the time. When we find evidence of a name in a given place at a particular time, that same person may occur elsewhere under a different identity. This was not necessarily subterfuge, just a practical adaptation to their environment. For example it is no use saying “Peter is of Flockton” if everyone Peter around them is also of Flockton. Neither would be it useful to identify Sarah as “daughter of Marjory” in a settlement where Marjory was unknown. The dilemma for researchers is being able to assess the situation and cross identify suspects. We must also recognise that the first reference to a person in a specific location is only the first record of them and not necessarily the same as their first appearance in that place. Similarly when a name disappears from an area there is a possibility the same person stayed put with a different identity. Bearing these words of caution in mind may help to understand some of the frustrations and assumed movements of people in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Having said all that, we can only use the evidence we have gathered.
The evidence in this section comes from a number of sources. Primary evidence is often obscure but we are indebted to the scholarly work of those nineteenth century antiquarians who devotedly transcribed and translated thousands of handwritten poorly preserved medieval documents, battling with the dog-Latin, idiosyncratic styles and anachronistic language. The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Society (now known as YAS) was one such that produced (and continues to produce) hundreds of books and journals carrying transcriptions of all types of records that form our backbone knowledge of medieval society. These include taxation returns, land deeds, church records, manor court rolls and estate rent rolls amongst many others. I have searched every volume of the YAS Record Series and the YAS Journals for casual or formal references to Sykes in all its variants. A sister organisation, the Surtees Society, performed a similar service for County Durham and the Thoresby Society archived Leeds. The data from these has been supplemented by online searches of the National Archives and British History Online. In a smaller number of cases I have had access to primary sources, as referred to in the text. The following table lists every pre-1300 Sykes record I have traced to date.
Earliest Sykes Records in Yorkshire (pre-1301)
| Date | Name | Place | Source | Manor / Lordship |
| 1250-90 | William del Sicke* | Flockton | YASRS YD8 p59; Flockton Deeds (Clay) | Wakefield**, Earl Warren |
| c.1270 | Agnes del Sicke* | “Estecroft” Flockton | Wakefield | |
| 1274 | Richard del Syk | Langfield, Sowerbyshire | CRMW v1 p105; Court Rolls | Wakefield |
| 1280 | Alice del Syke | Lomby, South Milford | YASRS Vol 121 pp32-3; Feet of Fines | Pontefract / De Lacy |
| 1283-1311 | Peter del Syks | Methley | F&M Vol 2 p466 | Pontefract |
| 1295 | Thomas Syket | Driffield | YASRS Vol 94 p37 | Crowland Abbey |
| 1296 | John del Syk | Flockton | CRMW v1 p296; Court Rolls | Wakefield |
| 1296 | Thomas del Sicke | Almondbury | YAJ Vol 2 (1873/1884); 1296 Accounts of Henry De Lacy, | Pontefract |
| 1297 | Adam del Sik | Fishlake | YASRS Vol 16; 1297 Lay Subsidy | Conisbrough Warren |
| 1301 | Roger in le Syk | Thornton-le-Moors (Hambleton) | 1301 Lay Subsidy, YASRS Vol21 | Honour of Eye, Barony of Greystoke, Thos de Ottrington & Fountains Abbey |
| 1301 | Petronella or Parnell Sike*** | Liverton (Easington) | 1301 Lay Subsidy, YASRS Vol21 (1896) | De Brus, then Everingham |
*Dates estimated by the YAS editor (Clay) in reference to known dates of another witness, Sir John of Horbury.
**Flockton was divided between the Honour of Pontefract (De Lacy) and the Manor of Wakefield (Earl Warren). It is not always clear which fee any particular land was associated with, but we know from a later entry that Sykes paid rent to Earl Warren. This is discussed further in a subsequent section.
*** This surname is questioned by the transcriber, suggesting it was an assumed name because she was a known widow, mother of Henry Fitz Conan, heir to the lordship, and involved in a legal with Wm Latimer in respect of the title & her dowry. Her relationship to any “Sike” is not defined.
The table above identifies all known Sykes records pre-1301. Nine locations are listed, all within a thirty year window. Eight different sources have provided the eleven records. This may be an accurate snapshot of the Sykes dispersal pattern at this time, but we have to acknowledge it reflects the random survival of a limited number of sources and other evidence to the contrary may not have survived. Earl Warrene’s Manor of Wakefield Court Rolls provided two records (both Flockton) but only one emanates from De Lacy’s Honour of Pontefract, the other great power in medieval West Riding. Extensive Wakefield records are extant and have been transcribed but few Pontefract records survived the 1644 siege of Pontefract., had they done so our evidence may have shown a quite different profile.
Geographically these nine locations are distributed around the perimeters of Yorkshire (England’s largest county) and include a diverse variety of landscapes, village types and manorial lordships, from the Tees estuary in the north to the Humber marshes in the south and from the Pennine summits of the west to the rolling Wolds of East Yorkshire. The only strong correlation is that two-thirds were located in the West Riding, two in the North Riding and just one in the East Riding. That profile is uncannily similar to the one still evident in the seventeenth century and not dissimilar to that we should draw today. This gives some reassurance the profile is not manifestly distorted. Bearing in mind the caveat that these dates are only the first evidence, not necessarily the first time Sykes individuals occupied these areas, we can still conclude there are nine places, including Flockton, which could have a legitimate claim to be a source of the Sykes surname. To understand this pattern better each location is summarised below. More detailed profiles of each area are given in the “Clusters” section.
Discussion
The two Nort h Yorkshire locations, Liverton and Thornton-le-Moors, are never mentioned again as Sykes residences. The only point of potential significance is Liverton’s association with the Everingham family who will shall see later, may have played a significant role in other Sykes locations.
Methley never again features in Sykes records but its location, between Wakefield and Leeds, is within what was to later be identified as the core area of Sykes settlement. Interestingly Peter del Sykes at Methley was a priest associated with Pontefract Priory. He is the first known Sykes clergyman but we shall meet several more over the coming years.
Driffield is never again mentioned as a Sykes settlement, but Sykes were settled in other East Riding locations before 1500, such as Beverley and Market Weighton. Feasibly Thomas Syket could have been an early progenitor of that line. “Syket” is a diminutive form of the sike.
Langfield Common is an area of moorland on the Pennine summit ridge at the head of the Calder Valley, above the modern town of Todmorden . The area was part of Earl Warrene’s hunting forest of Sowerbyshire and co-terminus with one of Warrene’s vaccaries (cattle ranch) of Erringden. The hunting forest and vacarry were managed by herdsmen and foresters, sometimes occupying seasonal dwellings on the high tops where only summer grazing was practised. Topographically this landscape and its land management is similar to that at the head of the parallel Colne and Holme valleys, ten miles to the south, where Sykes would subsequently be concentrated. Richard del Syk of Langfield and his heirs featured several times in the Wakefield Court Rolls of the early 1300’s but then disappeared. A subsequent discussion examines the possibility they migrated into the Colne Valley and could be founders of the Slaithwaite line.
Almondbury, Fishlake, Flockton and Lomby are all in south-west Yorkshire but represent four quite different landscape types, as described below. All four still had Sykes residents in the sixteenth century when parish registers began, but we can only demonstrate continuous occupation in Flockton. Logic however suggests continuous occupation may also have occurred in each of these locations albeit not leaving any documentary evidence.
Almondbury township was an administrative centre for the Honour of Pontefract and principal market town of an extensive parish (and sub-manor) stretching the full length of the Colne Valley from the Pennine summit ridge at Wessenden to the foothills east of Almndbury township. This manor included the southern half of Slaithwaite township where Sykes can be shown to have expanded rapidly in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Although documentary evidence is lacking, theoretical models of population growth would suggest Sykes were present here long before their first recorded presence in 1491 when seven Sykes families were already established.
Fishlake is fifty miles east of Almondbury and its landscape diametrically opposite to the Colne and Calder uplands. This is a landscape of marsh and water meadows where the River Don enters the Humber headlands. Prior to Dutch engineering expertise undertaking large scale drainage works in the 1600’s much of it was at or below sea level. Here was an inland port feeding the Humber estuary, the surrounding marshes offered extensive seasonal grazing and the livestock husbandry followed a patter much like the practice of the uplands. Adam del Syke must have been a man of some substance, he was the only Sykes in Yorkshire taxed in the 1297 Lay Subsidy, the entry shows him to be a cattle farmer. A dearth of documentary evidence through the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries does not detract from a profile that argues strongly for continuous occupation into the sixteenth century by which time parish registers depict a strong Sykes community well established here and in adjacent townships of Snaith and Cowick. It should be noted that during the dearth period a large portion of Fishlake had been designated as a separate village called “Sykehouse”.
Flockton, lies in the Pennine foothills, close to Earl Warrene’s castle at Sandal and the market town and administrative centre of Wakefield. We have already seen that Flockton is the only location where chance documentary survival demonstrates a continuous line of Sykes occupants between the thirteenth and sixteenth century. There are tentative links between Flockton and Slaithwaite but no evidence of connections to any other locations identified here.
Lomby is a minor satellite settlement of South Milford, in the ancient Saxon kingdom of Elmet. Following the record of Alice del Syke in 1280 there is no confirmed evidence of a Sykes presence until the sixteenth century when John Sykes, personal servant to Lady Everingham of South Milford, was cited in a church court case for his scandalous actions in enabling his mistresses adultery. By the 1500’s several Sykes families were baptising in the adjacent townships of South Milford, Monk Fryston and Sherburn-in-Elmet. In 1543 John Sike witnessed the will of Wm Browne of Lomby. Circumstantially this sub-area has the appearance of a small but well connected Sykes community. The Everingham’s were middling gentry who appeared frequently in townships across Yorkshire as sub-lords to the earls of both Pontefract and Wakefield,
Summary of Pre-1300 Evidence
Sykes were recorded in nine locations spread throughout Yorkshire but with a dominance in the West Riding. Superficially there is nothing to connect them all, although several demonstrate potential for linkage to each other. There is no definitive candidate amongst these as an original sole source of the Sykes name and the existence of so many unrelated settlements at the very earliest stage of surname formation mitigates against one single source. It is evident that some of these settlements failed but even the smaller number remaining display such different profiles they make a strong case for independent lines. If this is true we should expect DNA analysis to present a number of clusters supporting independent Sykes communities in the west, south and east of the county.