About 1163AD Robert de Lisours married into the Lacy family and in 1211AD his great grandson Roger, the constable of Chester adopted the name of Lacy. The Lacy family held the honour of Pontefract which remarkably included all the royal estates within its territorial limits except for those in the Calder Valley which were part of the huge royal manor of Wakefield. The military importance of this stretch of territory was enormous. It included the whole of the Air Valley, Watling Street, and the ancient trade route which is still in use through the Aire Gap. This was the easiest crossing of the Pennines and it was controlled by the Lacys as were all the main routes from London to the north-east. The honour of Pontefract dominated all the land routes lying between the southern Pennines and the marshes round the head of the Humber and all the passes through the Pennines in the first fifty miles of the chain from the Derbyshire Royal Forest of the Peak northwards. Perhaps this explains Will Scarlet’s comment to Robin Hood who when he said he was going to Kirklees Will Scarlet said, “I won’t let you go, for bad Red Roger lives close to the route, he loves so to fight he won’t let you pass, without a good guard a challenge he’ll make. To gain my consent, fifty bowmen take, for you my good friend my love knows no end. “Said Robin to Will, “And thou be off home, young Scarlett I say, I wish thee be off.” Roger-de-Lacy controlled all the routes in the area.

KIRKSTALL ABBEY
When Henry Lacy the grandson of Ilbert de Lacy was taken seriously ill he vowed that if he recovered he would found an abbey of the Cistercian order. He did recover and true to his word he granted the village of Barnoldswick to the Abbot of Fountains.

However there was already an ancient church established in Barnoldswick which served four villages and two hamlets. As was the custom, on feast days the villagers along with their priest and clerks attended the church thereby disturbing the quiet of the newly arrived monks, so taking the law into his own hands the abbot pulled down the church despite the protests of the parishioners, who somewhat indignantly took their case to the papal court and placed it before the Pope himself.

However the monks at Barnoldswick suffered from the forays of robbers who were probably Scots and they also suffered from the weather as Barnoldswick was a cold and bleak place with a heavy rainfall which most years spoilt the monastic crops. For more than six years the monks existed in great poverty and Abbot Alexander began to look about for another place to which the monastery could be transferred. Eventually he found an admirable site and went immediately to Henry Lacy pointing out the poverty of the monks. He informed him that a more suitable place had been found and that the lord there was a certain knight called William of Poictou.

William of Poictou, at the instance of Lacy, granted the monks the place which had belonged previously to hermits and on 20 May 1152 the monks moved from Barnoldswick to the new site on the south side of a hill where they cut down the wood, cultivated the soil, and made it fruitful. Henry de Lacy greatly helped them with provisions and money, he laid the foundation of the abbey with his own hand and he completed the building at his own cost. Then, when the monks transferred to Kirkstall Abbey, Barnoldswick was reduced to the status of a grange.

However there was a problem. The land at Barnoldswick had belonged to Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk for which Henry Lacy was supposed to make an annual payment of 5 marks and a hawk. Unfortunately, unbeknown to the Abbot of Fountains the annual rent had not been paid for many years.

Eventually Hugh Bigod, as the overlord of Henry de Lacy substantiated his claim to Barnoldswick in the king's court and dispossessed the monks. Later, however, Henry II prevailed on the earl to give the grange (for the redemption of his sins) in pure and perpetual alms.

Over the years Kirkstall became impoverished and adding to their troubles hostility developed between themselves and the monks at the important grange of Micklethwaite which became lost to the monks of Kirkstall. At this time also Richard of Eland claimed the grange of Cliviger from the monks of Kirkstall, and the abbot who regarding the claim as a just one, resigned Cliviger to Robert Lacy who was the son of the founder and patron of the abbey. Rather than giving Cliviger to Richard of Elland, instead Robert Lacy gave him to a place called 'Akarinton.'

This resulted in the villagers of Akarinton being turned out of their homes so the village could become a farm, or a grange. However some of the ejected inhabitants burnt the grange with all its belongings and killed the three conversi (Lay brothers) who had been put in charge of it. Robert Lacy dealt very severely with the wrongdoers. First he made them rebuild the grange, then he fined them above and beyond the cost of repairing the damage, then he banished them, causing them to loose any rights they may have had to the grange.

By this time the abbey of Kirkstall was enormously in debt and owed £5,248 15s. 7d. besides 59 sacks of wool. However things began to improve with the appointment of Hugh Grimston in 1284. The new abbot must have set vigorously to work to reduce this debt, for by July 1301 the house owed £160 only, while its farm stock had increased to 216 draught oxen, 160 cows, 152 yearlings and bullocks, 90 calves, and 4,000 sheep and lambs.

In 1380/1 besides the abbot there were sixteen monks and six conversi. Then in 1394-5 the alien cell of Burstall in Holderness was sold to the Abbot and the convent of Kirkstall thus became possessed of several churches and considerable property in the east of Yorkshire which they retained till the Dissolution.