page_title: Wem
section_title: Norman and medieval periods
hierarchical_section_title: Wem / History / Norman and medieval periods
caption_attribution_description: English: Site of Wem Castle Mound
context_page_description: Wem is a small market town in Shropshire, England, 9 miles north of Shrewsbury on the rail line between that town and Crewe in Cheshire.
  The name of the town is derived from the Old English wamm, meaning a marsh, as marshy land exists in the area of the town. Over time, this was corrupted to form "Wem".
  As a caput of a barony and the centre of a large manor and parish Wem was a centre for justice and local government for centuries, and was the headquarters of the North Shropshire District Council until Shropshire became a unitary authority. From the 12th century revisions to the hundreds of Shropshire, Wem was within the North Division of Bradford Hundred until the end of the 19th century.
  According to Professor Richard Hoyle, Chairman of Victoria County History Shropshire, "Wem is an archetypal medieval-planned castle town and as such, can take its place alongside the best examples in England"
context_section_description: Weme was an Anglo-Saxon estate, which transitioned into a planned Norman castle-town established after the conquest, with motte-and-bailey castle, parish church and burgage plots. The town is recorded in the Domesday Book as consisting of four manors in the hundred of Hodnet. The Domesday Book records that Wem was held by William Pantulf and comprised:
  Households: 4 villagers. 8 smallholders. 2 slaves.
  Land and resources: ploughland: 8 ploughlands. 1 lord's plough teams. 1 men's plough teams.
  Other resources: woodland 100 pigs.
  with an annual value to lord: 2 pounds in 1086; up to 1 pound 7 shillings in 1066. 
  Plantulf fought at the Battle of Hastings under his superior lord Earl Rodger  Stafford Castle and Wem was granted to him with a further 28 manors in the area bounded by Clive, Ellesmere, Tilley and Cresswell, with some of the manors within this area belonging to other lords (Prees to the Bishop of Lichfield, and Soulton to the King's Chapel in Shrewsbury Castle, for example).  Plantulf refused to participate in an 1102 rebellion against King Henry 1 led by Robert de Belesme and assisted the crown defeating it, by marching with the king on Shrewsbury., during which the roads in the area were found to be bad, thickly wooded, providing cover for archers: 6000 foot soldiers cut down the woods and opened up the roads.  Hugo Plantulf, a descendant of William, was Barron of Wem in the mid 1100s: he attended the court of Richard the Lion Heart, was Sheriff of Shropshire, and likely attended the Crusades with the king, certainly paying scutage to towards his ransom.
  
  The Norman town was probably enclosed by an earthwork: there is a record from the lord's steward of repairs to the town's enclosure in 1410, in which year the town had been "totally burnt and wasted by the Welsh rebels".  There is some speculation that the town had walls by the 1400s, as Samuel Garbet recorded an annotation to Fabyan's Chronicle that Wem "was totally burnt to the ground, with its walls and castle" in the reign of Henry VI.
  The supposed route of the walls or earthworks follows Noble Street, Wem Brook, the Roden and crossing the High Street between Leek Street and Chaple Street.
  There were bars at the three entrances to the town, and a 1514 record exists of four men being employed to keep the bars on market days.
  There is some thought that a market was held from the days of Plantuf, but King John certainly granted a charter in 1202. Initially, the permission was for a Sunday market.  This was subsequently revised, in 1351, to a Thursday: this followed a decree of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Islip in the reign of Edward III that Sunday markets were banned.  Wem's market day remains Thursday to this day.
  The manor was held by some of the great baronial families: including the Earls of Arundel, and the Lords Dacre, Bradford and Barnard and, after the 14th century the lord of the manor was not resident.
  Large common fields farmed in strips lay outside the town walls: Pool Meadows (waste ground by the river within the lord's demesne); Cross Field (lying toward Soulton, and thought to have been named for a wayside cross); Middle Field (part of which was later known as Leper Middle Field, giving an insight into medieval life); and Chapel Field (named after a chapel of ease on the Horton Road dedicated to St John which was suppressed in 1548).  There was a Manorial Court House at Wem in which a twice yearly Court leet with grim the privilege of a gallows, hearing pleas including hue-and-cry, bloodshed.
caption: Site of Wem Castle Mound, seen from the church yard
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