II.—Some Fourteenth-Century Accounts of Ironworks at Tudeley, Kent

M. S. Giuseppi

doi:10.1017/S0261340900010705

II.—Some Fourteenth-Century Accounts of Ironworks at Tudeley, Kent

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 November 2011

M. S. Giuseppi

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Extract

I have ventured to bring the documents which form the subject-matter of this paper to the notice of the Society because they seem to suggest a possible source of material to any one who may have a mind to be the future historian of the iron industry of the Weald. Due attention has already been paid to the later and more distinguished period of the history of that industry, and we are now able to form a fair idea of its extent and the processes in use, after the discovery of the art of casting and the subsequent employment of the works, in the production of the iron ordnance of the kingdom, had made it something more than of mere local importance. For the earlier period, when casting was not, our knowledge of the industry must probably remain imperfect, but that it may possibly be a little less vague than it is at present will, I hope, appear from the evidence which I now produce.

Type: Research Article
Information: Archaeologia , Volume 64 , 1913 , pp. 145 - 164

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261340900010705 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1913

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

^{page 145 note 1} Public Record Office Lists and Indexes, no. xxxv. The Tudeley accounts are best compared with those just over half a century later (1408–9) of the ironmaster of the forge at ‘Byrkeknott’ near Bedburn, in Weardale, Durham, printed by MrLapsley, G. T. in the English Historical Review for July, 1899 (xiv. 509–29). The Byrkeknott accounts give the working expenses week by week, and are thereby more detailed. On the other hand, they give no account of the iron sales.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 146 note 1} Hasted, History of Kent (1798), v. 230Google Scholar.

^{page 146 note 2} Public Record Office Lists and Indexes, no. v, p. 177Google Scholar

^{page 147 note 1} She was the foundress of Clare Hall, Cambridge. Her will, dated Sept. 25, 1355, was proved before Archbishop Islip in the church of the Minoresses of the order of St. Clare, outside Aldgate, London, on Dec. 3, 1360. It is printed at length in Nichols, Royal Wills (1780), pp. 23–43.

^{page 147 note 2} P.R.O. Ministers' Accounts, Bdle. 890, no. 22.

^{page 147 note 3} Ibid., Bdle. 890, no. 24.

^{page 147 note 4} Ibid., Bdle. 890, no. 26.

^{page 147 note 5} Ibid, Bdle. 890, no. 25.

^{page 147 note 6} Bournemill is now a farm to the south-west of Somerhill Park.

^{page 148 note 1} Ministers' Accounts, Bdle. 891, no. 5.

^{page 148 note 2} Mr. Leland L. Duncan, M.V.O., F.S.A., informs me that the Springates still exist as an old Kentish family.

^{page 148 note 3} Ministers' Accounts, Bdle. 891, no. 7.

^{page 148 note 4} Ibid., Bdle. 891, no.8.

^{page 148 note 5} Ibid., Bdle. 891, no. 9.

^{page 149 note 1} Exchequer Various Accounts, Bdle. 485, no. 11.

^{page 149 note 2} Ministers' Accounts, Bdle. 891, no. 12.

^{page 150 note 1} Mr. Duncan thinks there can be very little doubt that the lessee is to be identified with the Richard Colepeper, living in 1365, in the pedigree of Colepeper of Bayhall printed by Colonel F. W. T. Attree, F.S.A., and the Rev. J. H. L. Booker in Sussex Arch. Coll., xlvii. 56. The Colepepers were an important family in Pembury, which adjoins Tudeley, and Sir John Colepeper, brother of Richard, largely repaired Pembury Church, put on the present roof, and placed the arms of himself and his wife on the buttresses.

^{page 150 note 2} This list of the tools at the works may be compared with the similar list at the end of Springet's account for 1354, printed in the Appendix to this paper. The ‘angire’ above appears as an ‘aundire’ (andiron) in the latter, whilst the ‘unum par de loves’ (tongs) must be the ‘j par lanost’ in the account. This last word is evidently an error for the ‘banostis’ in the earlier account for 1350–1. The implement must be the ‘bannasters’ mentioned twice in the Byrkeknott account roll in 1409, a word for which Mr. Lapsley confessed himself unable to find a satisfactory explanation (Eng. Hist. Rev., xiv. 527). They were used for lifting the ore: ‘in j pari banastres de novo facto pro petra inportanda, xij d.’ (Ibid. 528.)

^{page 150 note 3} Ministers' Accounts, Bdle. 891, no. 13.

^{page 151 note 1} Ministers' Accounts, Bdle. 891, no. 12.

^{page 151 note 2} Ibid., Bdle. 891, nos. 13, 14.

^{page 151 note 3} Stat. 28 Edw. III, c. 5.

^{page 151 note 4} Ministers' Accounts, Bdle. 891, no. 15.

^{page 151 note 5} Ibid., Bdle. 891, no. 16.

^{page 151 note 6} Ibid., Bdle. 891, no. 18.

^{page 152 note 1} We are given no indication of the probable size or weight of the bloom. Apparently at Tudeley very rough-and-ready methods were the rule, as the accounts contain no mention of such appliances as the ‘mensure pro petris minere mensurandis qualibet continente ij bussellas’ and the ‘unum par balances pro ferro cum ejusdem ponderibus’, which appear in the account of the Byrkeknott works, where the bloom is definitely stated to have contained 15 stones, each stone consisting of 13 pounds (Eng. Hist. Rev., xiv. 518, 529).

^{page 152 note 2} The ‘duodena’ was the measure for charcoal at Byrkeknott. Here its component part was the ‘seme’, which Mr. Lapsley describes as ‘a measure of wood or charcoal, probably so much as one horse would draw. It was the twelfth part of the duodena’ (Eng. Hist. Rev., xiv. 519, note).

^{page 153 note 1} Ministers'; Accounts, Bdle. 891, no. 2.

^{page 153 note 2} At Byrkeknott the mine was more precisely measured by the ‘duodena’, which in this case contained three fothers (Eng. Hist. Rev., xiv. 518). The fother is a weight still used for lead, and usually represents about 2,400 pounds.

^{page 153 note 3} Ministers' Accounts, Bdle. 891, no. 2.

^{page 154 note 1} Professor Gowland informs me that the process is more correctly termed ‘calcining’; ‘arsura ferri minere’ is the expression found in the Byrkeknott accounts (Eng. Hist. Rev., xiv. 519).

^{page 154 note 2} A pennyworth of ale per week amongst the workmen was the amount usually allowed at Byrkeknott half a century later (Eng. Hist. Rev., xiv. 512).

^{page 155 note 1} At Byrkeknott a good deal of what manual labour was required at the bellows could be done by a woman. Women also were employed in breaking up and sifting the ore previous to smelting it (Eng. Hist. Rev., xiv. 511, 512).

^{page 155 note 2} Esperduta, a word which I have not met in connexion with the Wealden industry.

^{page 155 note 3} See Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 87, 8.

^{page 161 note 1} xxxix has been altered to xxxiiij, and the whole afterwards struck through.

^{page 162 note 1} Written over an erasure.

Article contents

II.—Some Fourteenth-Century Accounts of Ironworks at Tudeley, Kent

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests