Reviews

( 86 ) Domesday Monachorum of Christ Church, Canterbury. Edited by David C. Douglas, M.A., and published at the offices of the Royal Historical Society, 96 Cheyne Walk, S.W. 10. THIS very large foHo is an important addition to the Hterature of Kent. I t contains the Domesday Monachorum in facsimile together with a very careful transcription and copious although by no means exhaustive notes. There are no translations and practicaUy no subject index, but the index of names is very fuU and useful. The chief interest of the Editor seems to have been in the Hsts of knights, to which he gives a great number of pages, nearly thirty out of a total of 73 devoted to commentary. Another ten are devoted to the genesis of Domesday, and even into these the persons of the knights are apt to intrude. We could wish that more time and space had been devoted to a detaUed study of the manuscript itself and to the commentary on the church Hsts which seems to us somewhat too perfunctory. The attempt to show that Charing, Teynham, Wingham, Mflton Regis, Lympne, etc., were Minister churches, which sent out clerks to minister to the inhabitants of the large areas over which they presided, by citing the fact that these places chance to be mentioned, in quite other connections, in certain Saxon Charters, seems to us UI advised. Nor can we agree that the parishes as we know them to-day were of later origin than the Domesday Monachorum itself, in which the majority of the parish churches of Canterbury diocese are listed and named. These are smaU defects, if they are defects at aU, compared with the great service which the Editor has done to scholarship in making avaUable to aU students this ancient manuscript, and he is to be most heartily congratulated upon the results of his labours. The binding and production, and the paper used; would be regarded as adequate in peacetime and are really handsome for a book produced in 1944. G.W. The Register of Daniel Rough, Common Clerk of Romney, 1353-1380, transcribed and edited with introduction by K. M. Elisabeth Murray. Kent Records, 1945. The Custumal of New Romney, English version, John Forsett, 1564, transcribed and edited by F. W. Jessup. Kent Records, 1945. IT was a happy chance which led to the survival of the fourteenth century register of Daniel Rough, for it disappeared from Romney in the middle of the sixteenth century, and did not find a secure home REVIEWS 87 in the Hbrary of St. Catherine's CoUege, Cambridge until probably in the early years of the nineteenth century. Romney was fortunate in having the service as Common Clerk of such a shrewd and capable man as Daniel Rough. He was a fishmonger who carried on a large business trading to London, Hertford, Dover, Bury, St. Albans, Cambridge, Newmarket, WaUingford, Kirkby and Uxbridge, as was discovered from a fragment of his accounts in the binding of a later Court Book of the town. The Register consists of three parts. Rough began with the custumal in Anglo-French containing the rules by which the town was governed, those for legal procedure, and detaUs concerning the Cinque Ports Court of Shepway. The custumal was drawn up for presentation to the Warden of the Cinque Ports in 1356, and Miss Murray suggests that possibly many of the customs had not previously been put in writing. Next to the custumal, Rough entered the table of Maletolts, a general tax paid on aU goods, bought or sold in the town. This was followed by the general charter of the Cinque Ports of 1278 by which Edward I granted them jointly the Hberties hitherto enjoyed under individual charters. Next to the General Charter, Rough transcribed Edward II's Inspexmus of the charters granted to Lydd and Dengemarsh by Henry II in 1155 and Edward I in 1290. The importance to Romney of these charters was that Lydd was bound to provide one of the five ships due from Romney and therefore enjoyed aU the Hberties of the Cinque Ports. The Lydd charter of 1290 throws Hght on the reason for the excommunication in June 1298 of fifteen leading men of Lydd by their overlord, the Archbishop of Canterbury1. He charged them with procuring the renewal of a charter which deprived the church of Canterbury of rights and privUeges. The men made submission and were absolved, but as they refused to seal a bond to make no use of the charter, the sentence of excommunication was renewed four months later. Nevertheless it faUed of its purpose. The relations of Romney with the Archbishops of Canterbury were uneasy; as overlord the Archbishop appointed the baiUff who was the official head of the town, and Romney was unable to elect a Mayor until late in the sixteenth century. In 1298 Archbishop Winchelsey told his men and tenants of Romney when they quarreUed with each other and with the men of Winchelsea that they were not merely subject to him as their spiritual lord, as they admitted, but as their temporal overlord2. On behalf of the barons of the Cinque Ports, on October 30th, 1298, he wrote to Edward I asking for speedy justice against the men of Yarmouth who had deprived them of their long enjoyed Hberties at the recent Michaelmas fair8. 1 Register of Archbishop Winchelsey, pp. 266, 288 (Canterbury and York Sooiety). * Ibid., p. 277. 8 Ibid., p. 289. 88 REVIEWS In the second part of his manuscript, the actual Register, Rough entered a selection of mandates received, letters issued under the common seal of the town and records of final concords in the town court. Among them are the elections of members of parHament, of the baUiffs for the Michaelmas fair at Yarmouth, processes for the recovery of debt, conveyances of property, plaints against the Archbishops of Canterbury, and questions relatmg to the laws of wreck, prize and salvage. These documents were foUowed by a Formulary of materials which Rough did not fit into the Register; and it includes many documents not taken from the town archives but from other sources. Among these are several ecclesiastical documents of considerable interest. Romney was linked by the Archbishops with the Cistercian monastery of Pontigny in the North of Burgundy, not far from the main road through France to Italy. Thomas Becket, Stephen Langton and Edmund Rich found a refuge in the monastery at times of struggles with the Crown. The stately abbey church of the thirteenth century is now the parish church of a village and the shrine of St. Edmund of Canterbury, canonized in 1248, is stiU the object of a pUgrimage. The Archbishops had the advowson of New Romney, and to mark their gratitude, Langton charged the benefice with a pension of £33 6s. 8d. to be paid by the rector to the proctor of Pontigny, Edmund Rich raised it.to £40, and in 1264 Archbishop Boniface of Savoy who had also received hospitaHty on his travels gave the benefice to Pontigny, reserving the right of ordaining a vicarage. In that ordination Pontigny was entitled to five-sixths of the revenues as assessed for taxation in 1291, and the vicar one-sixth. He was left with the responsibUity of repairing the chancels of St. Laurence's and St. Martin's, the upkeep of Hghts, the salaries of chaplains in those churches and the chapel of St. Martin's, Northene, which stood on the north bank of the old channel of the Rother, and for St. Nicholas, and the rent of a clergy house. His undated petition to the Archbishop of Canterbury for a new ordination of the vicarage probably foUowed the Archbishop's commission of 1323 to investigate the plaint from the parishioners of St. Martin's about repairs to their chancel. Miss Murray attributes the later sad history of the churches of St. Lawrence and St. Martin, the one so out of repair that it was abandoned before 1540, the other deHberately dismantled about ten years later, to the iUiberal poHcy of the abbot and monks of Pontigny as reotors. It must be remembered that from the beginning of the Hundred Years War with France in 1337, the benefice of Romney was taken into the King's hands as the possession of an enemy aHen, and farmed out for a heavy rent to the Exchequer; it passed finaUy from Pontigny in 1413 and eventually to AU Souls CoUege, Oxford. No better provision was made for the vicar until 1403. REVIEWS 89 The leper hospital of St. Stephen and St. Thomas of Canterbury on the outskirts of the town towards Old Romney was no longer used, because no lepers were found who wished to Hve there, and the fine buUdings were in very bad condition. In 1297, Archbishop Winchelsey discovered at his visitation that the hospital was in debt, the property alienated and misappropriated, and he ordered an enquiry1. It is interesting to note that in the endowment of the chantry, which took the place of the leper hospital, by Sir John de Cobham and his sister Agnes as patrons of the hospital, some misappropriations noted in 1298 had been recovered. Agnes as widow of Gervase Alard of Snargate released to John Francis aU her right and claim to the advowson of the hospital and in 1363 he refounded it as a chantry for a Master and a chaplain who were bound to serve the chapel and pray for the souls of the founders. There is nothing in the charter of 1363 to support Miss Murray's statement that it was to be an almshouse for the aged poor ; if the Master faUed to appoint a chaplain within a month, he was liable to a penalty every three months of £1 3. 4. to be distributed among the poor of the town by the jurats. In 1481 the chantry buUdings had faUen into such disrepair that the property was assigned to Magdalen CoUege, Oxford2. The pubUcation of Rough's Register was a wise choice, and it has been admirably edited by Miss Murray who was quahned by her studies for The Constitutional History of the Cinque Ports to throw Hght on the misceUaneous documents transcribed by the common clerk of Romney. It should be noted that oblations which are voluntary offerings are distinct from obventions which are dues or fees. Some identifications of French place names should be added to the Index, RupeUa is La RocheUe, Sanctoinge is Saintonge, Bygors is Bigorre. The Introduction includes a vivid description of the topography of Romney in the fourteenth century and a sketch of the careers of the leading inhabitants who were associated with Daniel Rough. Two of Rough's successors in the office of Common Clerk left EngHsh versions of the Anglo-French Custumal. The first made by John BeU in 1497 remains in the possession of the Corporation of Romney. The second was that of John Forsett in 1564 for Simon Padyam described as late bailiff of New Romney; it passed in private possession to the present owners who have given permission for its pubUcation, and it is issued with Rough's Register. Mr. F. W. Jessup has transcribed Forsett's translation and carefuUy edited it with reference to the earHer version of John BeU. ROSE GRAHAM. 1 Register of Archbishop Winchelsey, p. 220. 2 Literae Oantuarienses III, p. 306 (Rolls Series).