Mediaeval England, 1066-1350 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ...heavy demand; otherwise the " excrustation " of shrines might be necessitated, and who knew when the jewels would be replaced? An abbot of Bury (who said he would far rather have been a librarian) must be instead a justice, a manager of seven " hundreds," a maker of surveys, of rentals, a president over great feudal courts and councils, where his tenants, his knights and his farmers must meet and find justice. "In tempore gueme" Bury abbey must II54-125O MONASTIC ACCOUNTS 213 be able to house their lay tenants and protect their chattels, for the tenants' loss is the abbey's loss. 4. A few rolls of the sums of the receipts and expenses of the abbot of Ramsey early in the reign of John give some insight into one part of the financial operations of a great monastery. In 1201 the abbot received from manorial rents; 189 odd; from the sale of agricultural produce 113; from judicial fines $S; from fines of knights for exemption from service, 30; from a scutage $ (perhaps a balance kept from the king); in all 395. His balance in his treasury was 200, and his expenses were to meet royal exactions, and corrodies, or the cost of sending horses and dogs to the king, sending monks on messages, keeping up manors, and paying servants and guardians of manors. In 1207 an "aid" or tax imposed on his manors brought in 73; St. Ives' Fair 100; and his income rose to 581. In that year he had to house the legate at the king's order, to support Master Albert the engineer at the king's order, and pay a sum of 97 to the king's treasury. This account does not of course include any of the convent's receipts, or charges for food or clothing and the like. Probably it was upon the abbot's fund that the king, to...