The King’s Larderer of Meppershall

Summary

The Constitutio Domus Regis, preserved in the Red Book and in the Black Book of the Exchequer, and dating from about the year 1135, shows that the Larder was already an organized department of the Royal Household. It then consisted of a permanent Master Dispenser of the Larder, Dispensers of the Larder who served in rotation, an Usher of the Larder, and Slaughterers. The Dispensers and Usher were provided with customary food and three half pence daily for their man, the Slaughterers were provided with customary food only.

As in the case of other offices in the Royal Household where “servantship” was the essential characteristic, the care of the larder became hereditary, the larderer holding his lands by the service, or serjeanty, of filling this office. The duties originally attached to the larderership will readily suggest themselves, but they probably became honorary at a very early date, and the appearance of the lady of Sculton Burdelys in the fourteenth century with knife and axe to perform the office of larderer at the King’s Coronation may be regarded as purely formal. At the Coronation of James II. the lord of the same manor acted as larderer “ pro hac vice,” serving as caterer, and receiving as fees the provender remaining in the larder after dinner. The larderership of Meppershall has unfortunately no such continuity of descent, for, as will be shown below, it ceased to exist after the middle of the thirteenth century.

In “ The King’s Serjeants “ Dr. Round has traced the descent of the lardererships attached to the two manors of Great Easton [co. Essex] and Scoulton [co. Norfolk] respectively; a third larderership was also attached to the Bedfordshire and Essex properties of the de Meppershalls. The lord of Meppershall is more generally described as King’s larderer, but occasionally as dispenser; indeed, in a grant made by the lord of the manor to Merton Priory in the twelfth century, he is simply called Robert, son of William the Dispenser. Ralph de Meppershall, a century later, is said to be King’s larderer “ singulis diebus.”

As in the case of the above-named serjeanties, the descent of the lands which the de Meppershalls held by the larderer serjeanty may be traced from a single Domesday holder.