Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/257

 1922 LAW MERCHANT IN LONDON IN 1292 249 et borda a loco amouisse non debuit quousque mercatori plenarie satis- fecerit, idem Thomas noctanter cum mercandisis predictis recessit et abduxit contra voluntatem predict! mercatoris, fugendo [sic] vsque Sanctum Botulphum, de Sancto Botulpho vsque Lincolniam, de Lincolnia vsque Houl, et de Houl vsque Londonias, semper promittendo se satis- fecisse eidem mercatori, qui ipsum sic prosecutus fuit de villa in villam de predictis triginta et una libris quas ei non dum soluit vt dicit, set eas ei hucusque detinuit, vnde dicit quod deterioratus est et dampnum habet ad valenciam xx tl h. Et hoc paratus est etc. Et predictus Thomas venit et defendit vim et iniuriam et quicquid etc. et quod stocfisch' nee bordum [sic] ab eo emit in Nundinis de Lenne, sicut <i inponit, per quod teneatur ei in predictis triginta et vna libris nee in aliquo denario, paratus est verificare per patriam etc. Et Arnaldus similiter per mercatores tune existentes in Nundinis predictis etc. Et loquendum est cum Aldermannis et consulendum super huiusmodi verificacione vsque diem sabbati etc. Et idem dies datus est partibus etc. Ad quern diem idem Thomas recusauit se ponere super mercatores in Nundinis predictis tune existentes etc. Ideo moratur etc. Endorsed. Coram Domino Rege et eius consilio per Radulphum de Sandwyco. The Stamford Schism THE two following poems must be of the years 1330 to 1334. They are found in Royal MS. 12. D. xi, a formulary that was drawn up at Oxford and contains letters written to and from the university during the years 1330-9 ; these letters are printed in the first volume of the Collectanea of the Oxford Historical Society, but with dates which are now known to be incorrect. The first of these poems can be dated closely. It was written from Stamford at a time when the king had not yet decided whether the schism was to be allowed. It is therefore earlier than 2 August 1334, when the king forbade the migration from Oxford. 1 Probably, too, it is earlier than 14 May ; for it is addressed to Fitz-Ralph (Fy-Rauf), who ceased to be chancellor of Oxford on that day. 2 It is probably of the latter half of April, and it enables us to reconstruct the history of the Stamford schism. Anthony Wood thinks that it began in May 1334 ; but this poem, which is certainly earlier than 2 August, says that the seceders had already been half a year at Stamford. It is probable, there- fore, that they began with the Michaelmas Term of 1333, as Francis Peck guessed in his Annals of Stamford. In the Oxford Historical Society's volume 3 is a letter of the university which speaks of the Stamford schism and is dated by the editor 14 February 1334, but is certainly of 14 February 1335, for it 1 Calendar of Close Rdls, p. 330. 2 Register of Bishop Burghersh, Inst., fo. 268. 3 p. 8.