Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/447

 12 s. vm. MA, T, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 365 Fabric Rolls (' Fabric Rolls of York Minster ' ed. by the Rev. Canon Raine, Surtees Soc.) of 1421, 1422, 1432, and 1433, from the fact that the only Rolls extant covering | be buried " within the high choir of "my the life of his brother, John Chamber the parish church of St. Helen in Stanegate '* Shirley was evidently a man of position and property. He made his will (Reg. Test. Ebor., ii. 380d.) Jan 15, 1456, desiring to t 1 * Jl 44 * t it 1*1 1 A younger (free 1414, died 1451), viz., those for the years 1443, 1444, 1446, 1447 and 1450, do not make any mention of a Chamber as doing work for the Dean and Chapter ; the glass -painter mentioned in the next with a funeral upon which a sum of seven marks (4 13s. 4d., equal to about 56 present value) was to be spent, besides one cierge of lib. weight ; two of 31b. weight each, and " two wax torches of the value of extant roll after the date of the elder i 8s. [equal to 4 16s. present value] to burn Chamber's death, viz., that for the year 1443, j likewise around my body ; and after my burial is Thomas Shirley. Wife, Katherin'e ; natural j I will that the said two torches shall serve son, Robert (free 1458); brother, John; workmen, John Newsom (probably the John Newsom free in 1442, son of the John Newsom, free in 1418, who was one of the witnesses to John Chamber the elder's will in 1437, and father of Thomas Newsom, free in 1470 ; and, in 1481, in the employ of Thomas Shirwin, who bequeathed him "two tables of English glass") and Thomas Clark, who is mentioned in the Fabric Roll of 1471, at which time he would })e in the employ of another master (pro- bably Matthew Petty, as Shirley had died thirteen years previously). Neither Clark nor Newsom seems to have risen to have a shop of his own. These two were evidently the " ij serviencium Thomae Schirley vitriatoris " mentioned in the Fabric Roll of 1443. As he tells us in his will, Shirley had several other servants both male and female. One of the men was probably William Cartmell, no doubt the '' Willelmus vitriator " mentioned in the roll of 1443 immediately after the above k ' ij serviencium Thomae Schirley," and under his full name in the rolls of 1444, 1446, 1447 and 1471. By this last date he would be fifty -four or more years of age, as he was free of the city in 1438, and, for the high altar of the church of St. Helen aforesaid to give light there at the elevation of Our Lord's Body." To the fabric of the Cathedral Church of York 2s., and a similar sum to Beverley Minster. Also to the four orders of mendicant friars in York, to the friars of Saint Robert of Knares- borough, every Maisondieu in the city and suburbs, and to every leper of either sex in the four houses for lepers on the outskirts of the city, various sums. " To John Sharley my brother, a gown with a hood and 6s. 8d. in money. Also I bequeath to John Newsom, if he be in my service at the time of my decease, 3s. 4d. Also to Thomas Clerk, my servant, on the same condition, 3s. Also to every one of my other men and women servants being with me in service -on the day of my decease, 2s. 5? To his natural son Robert he left his glass -painting business, a quantity of household necessaries, and a sum of four marks of money ; his wife Katherine he made his residuary legatee. Executors, his wife and William Inglish, the universally respected glass -painter to whom he left " 10s. for his trouble if he shall be willing to take upon himself the burden of this my will." This clause provides not only strong like Newsom and Clark, would have passed i testimony to the uprightness of character tit 1 t* it -n j 1_ __ 1 l T T'T 1 1 t 1 j 1 t into the employ of another master. Either because he had been engaged entirely upon the mechanical side of the business, cutting and glazing, rather than on the artistic, such as designing or painting ; or because he was unlucky enough to have been born outside of that charmed circle of a few select families, who had, and were careful to keep, the whole of the business in their own hands, to be afterwards handed on to sons equally bent on conserving the profits and emoluments to themselves, he had never been able to set up in business for himself, and remained a journeyman to the end of his life. of Inglish but also additional evidence that business rivalry must have been prac- tically non-existent ; for Inglish, who at this time would be about twenty -nine years of age, had, as there is every reason to believe, succeeded to the Chamber business in 1450, so that at the time Shirley died the two must have been ostensibly rivals for eight years or more. Thomas Shirley evidently lived for two years after the date on which he made his will, which was proved Oct. 11, 1458. 2. Robertus Shirlay ('Freemen of York,' Surtees Soc.). Natural son of Thomas Shirley (free 1439, died 1458). He was free