Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/124

 118

NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vm. AUG. 9, 1913.

RUGHCOMBE CASTLE (11 S. vii. 327). This was a crenellated house in the parish of Tisbury, Wiltshire, and all that is known about it will be found in Hoare's ' History of Wiltshire,' vol. v., Dunworth Hundred, p. 130 et seq. Licence to crenellate it was granted by patent 1 Edward III.

E. A. FRY.

0tt

Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. Edivard III. : Vol. XIV. 1367- 1370. (Stationery Office.)

THE text of this volume was prepared, under the immediate supervision of Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyte, by Mr. R. F. Isaacson and Mr. M. C. B. Dawes. A comparison of the Patent Rolls of the fourteenth century with those of the thirteenth might prove one of the most effective illustrations of the change which had crept, was still creeping, over the life and spirit of the country. It is not so easy to define as to perceive, but perhaps its most obvious character is the loss evident even in these formal documents of colour, vitality, and gentleness. We are, of course, here in the England which had scarcely begun to recover from the Black Death. To the year 1367 belongs an interesting document the "-certain articles and observances for its good discipline and rule," sent to the hospital of St. Bartholomew by Oxford, which had been granted by charter to the provost and scholars of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, and, in the persons of the chaplain and eight brethren, two whole and six infirm, had proved of bearing so " wilful and disreputable as to cause great scandal." To the same year belongs a " pardon " of the common type, yet suggesting a curiously aggravated series of offences, in that it is to a certain Joan de Coupeland for all " larcenies, robberies, homi- cides, treasons, adhesions to the King's enemies, trespasses, oppressions, conspiracies, deceptions, extortions, excesses, passages and shipments of wools, uncustomed and uncoketted, and of corn and victuals without the realm, and all other felonies committed by her." Dated twelve days later is the pardon granted to one Walter Auncel, chaplain, who at" Egebaston," as he went out with others of " Berrnyngham " to sport at archery, was challenged by a man, who placed his cap on the ground and said, " Shoot at my cap," and, accept- ing the challenge, had the misfortune to miss the cap and hit a stone, when the arrow, glancing aside, struck and killed another man who stood by. A scene of violence, in which Walter de Derfeld, chaplain, took part, is depicted in the commission of oyer and terminer upon the complaint of Margaret, lady of the town of Doncaster, who roused the wrath of her neighbours by attempting to punish a baker guilty of a breach of the assize of bread. Two or three times occurs mention of groups of forgers who forge " the great, privy and secret seals of the pope, the king, the arch- bishops, bishops and other prelates " ; and wo have about the same number of prohibitions with regard to the conveying of letters patent, bulls, and other instruments to and from the Roman Court. The affairs of religious houses

show the same rather gloomy and unedifying* aspect as secular affairs : we have an interesting inquiry into the case of Alesia de Everyngham, alleged by the master of the order of " Sempyng- ham " to be a nun who was apostate, and who, by the report of the members of the house she was said to belong to, was no such thing ; we have the priory of St. Frideswide's committed to John de Nowers and John de Baldyngdon, because the prior has bound that house in such intolerable sums beyond the seas that there is danger that divine worship there will cease and the canons be dispersed ; we have the King,, out of devotion to God and St. Etheldreda, making grants from his treasury to the bishopric of Ely because the " implements " thereof i.e., the oxen, stots, and cart-horses have been scattered by neglect and the long absence of the bishop. In 1369 the King granted a pardon to the abbot and convent of St. Edmund for having buried secretly and without inquest a monk who was slain in a night brawl in the abbey dor mi tor y, they pleading that they were ignorant such action was felony. It must, one supposes, have been desperation which induced Thomas and John de Sothern to come armed and in array of war to the church of Mitton and expel the religious who held it, and carry away and consume the " tithes, fruits and profits of the same " ; and desperation which prompted the outrageous ferocity shown again and again by Thomas Breton of Wraweby, who is pardoned at the request of Walter Huwet " for good service to be rendered. . . .in the company of Walter in the parts of Aquitaine and elsewhere in foreign parts." One of the most important of the documents included here is an instance of trial by battle between John Mawer, who turned " King's approver," and certain other felons, all of whom he overcame. Another is the inspeximus and ratification to the dean and chapter of the King's free chapel of St. Martin-le-Grand of certain tenements (enumerated) in London parishes, bequeathed to them in emulation of William de Wikeham's munificence to the chapel on its re-erection, after it had been blown down and totally ruined by a tempest. It is tempting to quote yet other interesting documents which we have noted, but our space will hardly allow of it.

British Borough Charters, 1043-1216. By Adolphus Ballard. (Cambridge University Press.)

WE recognize in Mr. Ballard one of those laborious researchers who are content to play the compara- tively thankless part of "the Giblites," the useful tribe who hew and quarry the rough material which others, perhaps less industrious, but more ambitious, may utilize for their own loftier erec- tions. His previous book on the Domesday Boroughs finds in this its natural complement. It is no dero- gation from its importance, considering how vital a part was played by the charter in municipal his- tory, to say that it is a work essentially technical in character, which only the serious student of his- torical antiquities will be able to value at its true worth. It is a book of " sources," an abiblion to be consulted rather than a readable biblion. In the words of the author, " it professes to be an analy- tical digest of the charters granted to the burgesses of the boroughs of the British Isles before the 19th of October, 1216, the day of the death of King John." He has extracted and codified some 330 of