The earliest surviving feature, the N door of a late Anglo-Saxon porticus, now on the N wall of the nave aisle (vestry), probably formed the entrance into the N porticus of a large eleventh-century church (perhaps built for Earl Edwin). For a plan and elevation see Taylor and Taylor, I, p. 374.
The soke and the large parish of Laughton contained several townships and hamlets on the fertile soils of the magnesian limestone belt.
The church was given to York Minster as the basis for a prebend by Queen Matilda and King Henry I probably in 1104-1105, and the prebendary became rector of Laughton (C.T. Clay, York Minster Fasti II, YAS. Rec. Ser. Wakefield 1959, pp 49-51; Regesta Hen. I nos 675,720). Before this, the tithes at least had been granted to Blyth priory by Roger de Busli, lord of the Honour of Tickhill; the king overruled this, but Blyth retained a pension from Laughton in 1534-4 (Fasti II loc. cit.). Laughton was appropriated to the chancellorship of York in 1484 (Fasti II loc. cit.) The chapel of Thorpe Salvin was confirmed to the church of Laughton in 1230, and the prebend also had some rights over the church of Handsworth (Fasti II, p.50). The prebendaries named by Clay, starting in 1224, appear to be papal or royal nominees rather than residents. The great church builder, William of Wykeham, became prebend of Laughton about 1377.