Research Notes - Medieval

245 RESEARCH NOTES – medieval an important source for kentish histor y: the cart ulary of st mart in’s priory, dover The History of the Priory In the early twelfth century the priory of St Martin at Dover was made dependent on the archbishop and Benedictine community of Christ Church Canterbury. Dover was always overshadowed by Christ Church, but it had some importance in its own right. It was nowhere near so handsomely endowed as the priory at Canterbury, one of the richest in England, but it had lands in some profitable areas in the vicinity as well as the tithes of fish, some profits of the port, and toll of the market. Dover was the gateway to England. The situation of the priory in the major southern port of entry into England gave it prominence. The royal court came frequently to the town and to the great royal fortress on the hill on its way to and from the Continent. The priory and its dependent hospital of St Bartholomew at Buckland, near Dover, were on a route frequented by most travellers entering or leaving England. The Maison Dieu, or hospital, founded in 1220, the year of the translation of Archbishop Thomas Becket, also received numerous travellers and pilgrims. The curious ceremony of the trendyll, when every three years a wax taper whose length was the circumference of the town walls was wound on a great reel and sent by the monks of Dover to St Thomas’s shrine at Canterbury on the eve of the feast of Becket’s translation (6 July),1 perhaps symbolises a small community which, in spite of its loss of independence, showed a remarkable ability to organize itself. It is impossible to estimate the income and status that resulted from its location but it certainly seems that it gained a certain confidence and resilience from its position. Proximity to the Continent, however, was not always beneficial and the priory suffered significantly from French raids on the town in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. An ancient minster was in all probability established in the castle at Dover. Later chronical tradition attributed this foundation to Eadbald, King of Kent (d.640), who had provided for 22 secular canons. In c.696 Wihtred, King of Kent, transferred the canons to the church of St Martin near the market place in the town of Dover. Secular canons remained at St Martin’s until King Henry I gave St Martin’s to the church of Canterbury in 1130. In the following year, Archbishop William of Corbeil with the support and approval of the King replaced the secular canons with canons who lived a communal life observing the rule of St Augustine – he himself was an Augustinian canon and had been prior of St Osyth’s in Essex before becoming archbishop; possibly he intended to include canons rather than monks in his household. He began the construction of a new priory on a site where the road to London divided via Canterbury and via Folkestone. William of Corbeil’s successor RESEARCH NOTES 246 to the see of Canterbury in 1139, was Theobald, a former monk of the famous Benedictine community at Bec in Normandy, and sympathetic to the wishes of the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, who wanted the priory at Dover to follow the Benedictine rule as their dependency. It was said, indeed, that the monks of Canterbury had succeeded in installing Benedictine monks at Dover while William of Corbeil (d.1136) was on his death bed. Future archbishops were to have the problem of curbing the ambitions of Christ Church. Archbishop Theobald established the Benedictine community at Dover with great care. He obtained confirmations of Dover as a priory following the rule of St Benedict and under the authority of the Archbishop and the see of Canterbury from Popes Innocent II, Eugenius III, Anastasius IV and Adrian IV, and from Kings Stephen and Henry II. The prior of Canterbury was to have no jurisdiction over Dover priory, not even when the see of Canterbury was vacant. The monks of Dover were to make their profession at Canterbury and their prior, who was to be appointed by the archbishop, was to be a monk of Christ Church.2 Most of the priors appointed by the archbishops until the suppression of the house in 1535 had held office at Canterbury, notably as sacrist or as cellarer and had administrative experience enabling them to run a small community. Only one monk of Dover ever became prior of the house. Prior Richard of Dover who became archbishop of Canterbury was originally a Canterbury monk; he had been chaplain to Archbishop Theobald and was promoted to the see on the death of Thomas Becket. In spite of the close links, relations between the Benedictine community at Christ Church and that at Dover were rarely good and often hostile. The new Benedictine community at Dover were to have the same possessions and rights as their predecessors. There were some twenty prebends and Theobald encouraged further endowment. Theobald augmented the monks’ income by transferring his right to levy toll. He encouraged the burgesses to give a tithe of all their fish caught in the year, not just a tithe of herring caught during October and November, promising them an indulgence of 15 days remission of their sins. Indulgences were also granted to those contributing towards building and enlarging the new priory and to those supporting St Bartholomew’s hospital which had been founded in 1141 as a dependency of the priory. The Archives of the Priory The French raids on the town occurred sporadically throughout the medieval period; they were particularly severe during the reign of King John and in 1295 when the French carried off some of the deeds of the house. These misfortunes led to the compilation of a remarkable cartulary or register of the deeds in the fourteenth century. Between 1372 and 1373, two monks of St Martin’s Priory, Dover, John Whitefelde and Robert de Welle, with the assistance of the subprior, Thomas of Canterbury, and at the cost of the Prior, John Newnham, set to work to catalogue their archives. The enterprise began with a complete re-organization of the Priory’s documents, many of which had suffered from loss, destruction, and removal, attributed to earlier French raids on the town. After sorting what remained, the monk-archivists produced two complete copies in book-form of all their muniments, one book or RESEARCH NOTES 247 cartulary for the priory (now Lambeth Palace Library MS 241), the other, much smaller, for their hospital of St Bartholomew. The monks thus secured the survival of many texts of their documents for posterity. They crowned their achievement in 1389 with a superb catalogue of the manuscripts in their library.3 Few original documents survived the Dissolution of the monastery in 1535 and of the hospital some time later. Fortunately, however, the two cartularies passed to various local men with interests in the estates. The hospital of St Bartholomew was brought to an end in 1539 and the mayor of Dover, John Bowles, was granted the property for life. The hospital was later granted by King Edward VI to Sir Thomas Palmer in 1553. The whereabouts of its cartulary is then untraced (probably it remained with the Palmers) until 1719 when it was in the possession of Walter Clavell who died in 1740. Some time after that date Bishop Richard Rawlinson (d.1755), the great collector and antiquarian, acquired the cartulary which then passed with his collection of manuscripts into the Bodleian Library in Oxford (MS Rawlinson B 335). After the dissolution of the Priory, King Henry VIII granted its lands to the archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas Cranmer leased the properties to Henry Bingham of Wingham in 1535. The first entry in the priory cartulary by one of its new owners was written by a certain Master Byngham who wished to record the markings of two swans that he ‘put to the ryver’ above Westgate Mill (Canterbury) on 21 November 1559. This is more likely to be George Bingham, esquire, of the city of Canterbury, rather than Henry, from whom the cartulary passed into the possession of Henry Dyneley a lessee in Hougham – this was probably in 1570. Soon after, possibly in the same year, the cartulary was sold to John Parker, son of Archbishop Matthew Parker (1559-75), who held a number of administrative offices during his father’s tenure of the archbishopric and became steward of the household under Archbishop Whitgift (1583-1604). John lent the ‘leiger book’ to Edward D’Arcy to produce in evidence before the Court of Wards. The Lord Treasurer espied the cartulary and ‘supposyng that somewhat in itt might belonge to her Majestie’ ordered it to be kept by the Court. Parker petitioned Whitgift to secure its return explaining that the leiger book would throw light on the dispute over tithes between two lessees of the Priory land in Hougham. The petition was successful; however, the cartulary was not restored to its rightful owner, but to the archbishopric, in whose possession it has remained. John Parker, whose property it was, may have been happy for it to have secured a protected home among the archiepiscopal archive for it was he who had realised its importance to the administrators of the archiepiscopal estates. The late Melanie Barber, deputy archivist and librarian of Lambeth Palace Library, soon after her appointment in 1966, embarked on an edition of the Dover cartulary (Lambeth Palace Library MS 241) which was accepted for publication as a volume in the Series of Kent Records of the Kent Archaeological Society. But demands on her unrivalled knowledge of the holdings of the Library and Archives gained over 36 years and work in other areas precluded her finishing the task. However, her papers, now in Lambeth Palace Library include editions of some of the earlier documents (before 1300), with descriptive headings in English, and calendared entries in English for many of the post thirteenth-century documents. There are some 700 charters in all. RESEARCH NOTES 248 Melanie Barber has discussed in detail the archival scheme of the four scrinia (groups of documents, possibly indicating separate chests in which they were kept) and their relationship with the cartulary. (This can be consulted in the Lambeth Palace Library). Here it is proposed to clarify the contents of the cartulary in the order found in the list of Titles. The Titles start with the charters under the heading dover: fundacio prioratus foundation of the priory custuma maris (certain rights from wrecks) and the piscacio (the fish tithes) the domus dei (or maison dieu, St Mary’s, a hospital founded by Hubert de Burgh for sick poor and for poor wayfarers and pilgrims) pensions – payments to the vicars of the churches of which the priory took the rectorial income indulgences granted by archbishops, popes and others. Then come: lands and charters near the monastery the wards of Dover (Biggin ward, St Mary ward, Nicholas ward, George ward, Canons ward, Monks ward, Mankyn ward, Halvenden ward, Cliff street, Upmarket ward, Horspole ward) – unassigned wards the almonry the hospital (St Bartholomew’s) Then follow the priory’s properties (all in Kent) in the following order: Charlton (by Dover) Buckland (by Dover) Dudmanscombe (Buckland par.) Guston (by Dover) St Margaret at Cliffe Cricklehole (Crixhall, Staple par.)5 Deal Worth Minnis Sandwich Stonar Canterbury Cockering (Thanington par.) Kingston Sibertswold Coldred and Popeshale Brandred (Acrise par.) Hougham Farthingloe (Hougham par.) Twetton (Twitham, Wingham par.)4 Poulton (by Dover) Stansted (? part of Poulton) Appledore6 Ovenhamm grange [not located] Redynge grange (Reading Street, Tenterden par.)7 Cnocke (Knock, Stone cum Ebony par.)8 ‘Waldis’ [not located] ‘Walderne’ [not located] Isle of Harty9 Wingham Some later charters were added. Many of the charters that concern the foundation and endowment are royal, episcopal and papal, and have been printed. The royal charters of Henry I and RESEARCH NOTES 249 Henry II for Dover are in William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum.10 A new edition of Henry I’s charters is promised and a new edition of Henry II’s charters is forthcoming. The papal confirmations of the twelfth-century popes have been edited in Papsturkunden in England, ii, by W. Holtzmann.11 The charters of the archbishops of Canterbury from 1070 to 1205 are now fully edited. Theobald’s charters 1139-61 were edited and printed by Avrom Saltman in his Theobald archbishop of Canterbury.12 The charters of Thomas Becket, Richard of Dover, Baldwin, and Hubert Walter have appeared in the English Episcopal Acta series: Canterbury vol. 28 1070-1136 (2004), vol. 2 1162-1190 (1986) and vol. 3 1193-1205 (1986). All the charters from these archbishops, wherever they occur in the cartulary, are now in print. C.R. Haines, Dover Priory (Cambridge, 1930; CUP reprint 2013) remains a classic of its kind; however, in the last eighty years, much work has been done on the history of estates, on monasteries (in all aspects) and on localities, as well as the structures of medieval government and administration, both secular and religious. When Melanie Barber set out to edit the cartulary, she numbered each charter. Of the roughly 700 documents she calculated that about 100 are in the Dover division of the cartulary (see above). The majority, the other 600 relating to the properties – the Tituli – have full witness-lists. Many of these she calendared. Very few are likely to have survived in the original. After the cartulary was completed later additions were entered on folios 251-262. In the absence of court and account rolls of the priory, these charters are of significance for Kentish historians. This article is dedicated to the memory of the late Melanie Barber (1943-2012), archivist and ecclesiastical historian. jane sayers 1 Sweetinburgh, S., 2004, ‘Wax, Stone and Iron: Dover’s Town Defences in the late Middle Ages’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxxiv, 187-8. 2 Saltman, A., Theobald archbishop of Canterbury, 1956, University of London Historical Studies, ii (Athlone Press), 75-9. 3 Now Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Bodley 290, edited by William T. Stoneman, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues: Dover Priory, vol. 5 (University of Chicago Press, published by the British Library, 2001). 4 See Wallenberg, J.K., 1934, The Place-Names of Kent, Appelbergs Boktryckeri, Uppsala, p. 539. The author is grateful to Terry Lawson for help in identifying certain place names. 5 Ibid., p. 525. 6 See Adams, M., 1993, ‘History of the Demesne Farm at Appledore from Contemporary Building Records’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxii, 292; Lebon, C., 1988, The North Chapel of Appledore Church, Archaeologia Cantiana, cvi, 83, 86, 89. 7 Reading Street in Tenterden; see Wallenberg, pp. 359-60 and Winnifrith, Sir J., 1984, ‘The Medieval Church of St Mary, Ebony’, Archaeologia Cantiana, c, 157-67. 8 Wallenberg, p. 488. 9 Ibid., p. 250. 10 J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel (eds), London, 1823, vol. iv, 538-9, nos. 7 and 9. 11 Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen Philologisch-Historische Klasse Dritte Folge, nr 15 (Berlin, 1936). 12 Theobald archbishop of Canterbury, 1956, University of London Historical Studies, ii (Athlone Press). RESEARCH NOTES 262 the discovery of a medieval dungeon in middle row, faversham An unexpected discovery was made in late May/early June 2013 by archaeologists working with Kent Archaeological Projects on behalf of South East Water during a watching brief. This took place as part of the installation of a new water main, focused on Middle Row, a narrow lane running parallel to Court Street and flanked on both sides by Late Medieval and, predominantly, seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings (Fig. 1). A test pit cut approximately one metre north of the old Fire Engine House (built in 1810, now a Shelter charity shop) exposed a layer of large and medium-sized flint nodules and fragments within crushed light grey-white mortar, the layer extending in part immediately beneath bedding layers for the present paving blocks. The flint and crushed mortar layer was clearly a demolition layer of some antiquity but was of unknown origin at the time of exposure. Further excavation revealed part of a thick (approximately 0.85m) curved wall built of large and medium-sized flints set in light grey-white mortar and clearly the source of the overlying demolition material (Fig. 2). A plaque on the wall of the adjacent Fire Engine House identified the location as the site of the town’s second Guildhall, said on the plaque to have been use from 1546 to 1603. Figure 1: Trench location plan The Old Fire Station Faversham Fig. 1 Trench location plan. RESEARCH NOTES 263 A preliminary interpretation was therefore that the exposed structure was part of the foundation of the second Guildhall, although it was noted that the appearance of the exposed wall in terms of its curved shape, the mortar used in its construction and its flint contents was more suggestive of earlier medieval building techniques rather than those of the late medieval/early post-medieval periods. Subsequent documentary research revealed that the history of the site was complicated and somewhat confusing in terms of the buildings that occupied it, the modifications to which they were subject and the many and various uses to which the buildings were put (prison, guildhall, town hall, freemen’s room, lodgings for the poor, storehouse, pound and school). However, the buried curved wall, which cut natural brickearth on its outer edge and extended vertically downwards for at least 1.3m on the opposite, inward-curving, flint-lined edge, was eventually identified with a high degree of confidence as part of a medieval dungeon, called ‘Le Gayle’ in a charter of 1546, where it is described as measuring 40 feet by 40 feet and said to have belonged to Faversham Abbey (Tann 2013). The Structure and Form of the Remains Overlaying natural brickearth (Context Recording Number 1, Fig. 3, section 1) was a 45mm-thick band of grey-brown silty clay (CRN 2) with occasional inclusions of charcoal and very small tile or brick fragments, effectively flecks. This was almost certainly an occupation deposit but contained no datable material. However, it can be assumed from the overlying deposits that it was of early medieval date or 16 5 7 6 7 7 14 16 - 0.79 - 0.74 - 0.83 - 0.76 - 0.81 - 0.96 - 0.69 - 0.86 - 0.81 - 0.38 - 0.54 12 12 s.1 s.2 s.3 s.4 s.7 s.5 s.6 - 1.16 6 - Same as 5 but much less inclusions, 0.16m thick, overlaying weathered wall surface 12 - Cobbled surface - pavement 14 - Flint rubble + mortar, demolition layer 16 - Natural brickearth Level 0 on pavement surface (12) at altitude 11 m OD Middle Row Court Street 0 1 2 M e tres N Existing building 5 - Dark brown grey, clay - silt with freq. gravel and ints 17 - Wall construction trench 17 17 7 - Early medieval wall - white chalky mortar, ints, occ. chalk lumps The Old Fire Station Fig. 2 Plan of the pipe trench with exposed northern wall of dungeon. RESEARCH NOTES 264 0 0.5 1 Metres 5 9 12 9 13 8 8 14 6 7 7 Section 2 - N facing Section 3 - N facing Section 4 - NW facing Section 1 - E facing 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 10 9 11 12 1 - Red - orange brickearth. 2 - Dark grey, clay-silt with occ. charcoal, oyster shells, CBM. 4 - Brow grey, clay-silt with freq. gravel and occ. charcoal and CBM. 6 - Same as 5 but fewer inclusions, 0.16m thick, overlaying weathered wall surface. 8 - Same as 7 but less solid, partly loose 9 - Dark grey, clay-silt 10 - Dark gray, clay-silt, mod. to freq. gravel, occ. CBM 11 - Gravel with silt, modern bedding layer 12 - Cobbled surface - pavement 13 - Light grey, loose chalky mortar. 14 - Flint rubble + mortar, demolition layer 17 17 17 - Wall construction trench 3 - Mid brown, clay-silt. 5 - Dark brown grey, clay-silt with freq. gravel and ints. 7 - Early medieval wall - white chalky mortar, ints, occ. chalk lumps. earlier. It underlay a 0.16m-thick band of homogenous mid brown clay-silt (CRN 3), probably a natural alluvial deposit associated with the flooding of the area from Faversham Creek, which was probably un-revetted at the time of deposition. An overlying 0.18m-thick layer of grey-brown clay-silt (CRN 4) with gravel inclusions and occasional charcoal flecks and small orange-red fragments of brick or tile again attested to human settlement activity in or next to a water-dominated area. This was in turn covered by a substantial layer of dark grey-brown clay-silt (CRN 5) containing much gravel and frequent flints, along with two salt-glazed potsherds of early-to-mid thirteenth-century type (Fig. 3, sections 1 and 2). The clay-silt was interpreted provisionally as part of an artificial levelling-up layer laid down following the eventual revetting of the nearby tidal creek (Faversham Creek), which now runs as a canalised channel some 200m to the north-west. The clay-silt was almost certainly abutted by the outer face of the curved wall (CRN 7/8), as was certainly the case with the adjacent natural brickearth (CRN 1), but this could not be proved beyond doubt within the narrow confines of the excavated area. The fabric of the curved wall (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, sections 2-4) consisted of light grey-white chalky mortar (CRN 7) containing well-bonded small, medium-sized and large flint nodules and fragments, occasional tile fragments, including a large piece of Roman-period tile, and a small number of thin green glass sherds, which were of either of Romano-British or medieval manufacture. The wall’s inner face Fig. 3 Sections 1-4. RESEARCH NOTES 265 was irregularly faced with flint nodules and extended downwards for at least 1.3m, while its outer edge was trench-built against natural brickearth and (probably) the thick layer of clay-silt (CRN 5) and the underlying layers as discussed above. The wall’s overall shape and method of construction suggested that it was part of a circular or partly curved enclosing wall for a large subterranean chamber, identified during documentary research as part of a medieval dungeon (see below). The upper part of the structure’s fabric (CRN 8) was of very similar, if not identical build, but was not as securely bonded, presumably having been weakened by the cutting through it of a modern service trench. The upper part of the wall (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, section 3) contained a 0.32m-wide slot-like rectangular indentation, which had clearly formed part of the original structure and was interpreted as the remains of a light hole or ventilation vent serving the subterranean chamber. It was filled with a 0.21m-thick deposit of dark grey-brown clay-silt (CRN 6) containing gravel and small flint fragments, along with a pig’s tooth, some small bone fragments, a piece of clay-pipe stem and a single sherd of late seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century pottery. This deposit was almost certainly street detritus that had accumulated in the slot. The surviving less firmly bonded upper part of the wall described above was covered by a 0.65m-thick layer (CRN 14) of chalky white mortar, small, mediumsized and large flint nodules and fragments, thick roof tile fragments and ragstone blocks, some of very large size. This deposit, along with loose overlying deposit of chalky mortar (CRN 13), was interpreted with confidence as rubble from the final demolition of the upper part of the dungeon wall and associated building, which research revealed was levelled in 1791 (Wilson 1963, 8). The loose chalky mortar was sealed by a band of compact dark grey clay-silt (CRN 9) that was almost certainly a levelling layer laid down after demolition, as was a similar overlying layer (CRN 10). The cutting of a relatively modern water pipe trench had broken out some of the wall fabric and overlying layers, which had then been re-deposited in the trench (CRN 15) and re-sealed by the modern cobble stones and their bedding (CRNs 11 and 12). The structural history and background The initially tentative identification of the partly exposed curved wall as medieval in date was supported, albeit anecdotally, by references to a gaol predating the town’s second Guildhall cited by Crow in the Faversham Institute Monthly Journal, Vol. 13 (1899), and in the account of Queen Elizabeth I’s visit to Faversham in 1572 provided by Smith (1974, 236). These sources state variously that: … hard by stood the grim old Gaol with its rough-hewn planks and club-headed nails, seared brown by time, with a Town Hall over it; in the yard was a dungeon several feet in depth, covered with strong grating. The exterior of the building was of rude oaken planks; the court at the back contained a dungeon or deep hole covered with strong wooden bars. In 1545-6 two rooms were erected over the Whitehouse Goal and Cage [see below] to create a new guildhall and a Freemen’s room, with large east end window and clerestories. RESEARCH NOTES 266 Crow states that in 1663 the Guildhall’s staircase was pulled down, that a new staircase was installed, three gable heads were added and the Cage was removed. The reported removal of the Cage in 1663 suggests that the building referred to was not the ‘dungeon or deep hole’ and ‘dungeon several feet in depth’ as mentioned above but ‘the gaol in the market-street, built in 1571, and employed as such upon quitting the oldest guildhall’ (Jacob 1774, 60). Jacob also states, quoting from the town chamberlain’s accounts, that the ‘present gaol’ was erected in 1571, and that ‘the rooms over the market have been used, ever since the beginning of the reign of King James II [ruled 1685-88] as a guildhall, being much more convenient than their late one over the gaol in the market-street, built in 1571’ (author’s italics). This gaol, which was also referred in the Town Records as a cage (Ibid. 104), was built by or for Richard Dilnot at a cost of 10s. 10d. as part of the construction of the new (second) Guildhall, which was commissioned by Richard Dryland, who claimed £23 19s. 10d. for his outlay (Harrington and Hyde 2008). Crow reports that, during the use of the two rooms built over the Whitehouse Gaol and Gage as a Guildhall, an outside staircase approached the rooms and that, in 1572, prior to the visit by Elizabeth I, the building was painted and decorated, and that five loads of sand were laid around it. It was used as the Guildhall up to 1603, when the Market House built in 1574 began to be used as a Guildhall. Wilson (1963, 8), also quoting from Crow, states that: Following the transfer of the guildhall to the Market Hall, the building was used to store corn for the poor … poor people were occasionally allowed to lodge in the Freemen’s room and … from 1665, the Freemen’s room was used as a private school on condition that four poor boys nominated by the Mayor and Overseers of the Poor were taught gratis. In 1724 the two rooms were let for £3 a year. In 1791 the building, which by then incorporated a pound, was demolished as part of a street improvement scheme. Dane (1968, 10), discussing the three successive guildhalls of Faversham, states that ‘the first one was in Tanner’s Street, an area which was the town centre in early days. From Tanner’s Street the Administration moved to the ‘White House’ at the north end of Middle Row in Court Street and it continued there until it transferred to the Market Hall’. This statement implies that the ‘White House’, which eventually gave its name to the Whitehouse Goal, was already in existence when the Administration moved into it and that it may have been modified or partly re-built in 1571 to be used as a guildhall. However, the archaeological evidence discussed above indicates that a medieval dungeon already underlay the White House. The social and political background A long-lasting conflict between Faversham Abbey and the townsfolk of Faversham is an important part of the popular history of the town, and the presence of a large, deep and undoubtedly foreboding dungeon built by the Abbey in the centre of the town is of clear significance in that regard. King Stephen founded Faversham Abbey as a Cluniac monastic institution (actually called St Saviour’s) in 1148. During its early jurisdiction the Abbey RESEARCH NOTES 267 imposed various punitive and oppressive measures on the townsfolk of Faversham, principally because the abbots received and exercised rights as Lords of the Manor and also held tenure of barony (Jacob 1774, 9). Examples of such impositions were taxes levied on taking swine to pannage (grazing in woodland), taxes on brewing (gavelcestre) and taxes on displaying goods for sale. In a town in which many townsfolk depended for their livelihoods on swine keeping, brewing and the holding of two yearly fairs (on St. Valentine’s Day and Lammastide) and on weekly markets, these measures created great resentment, leading to many legal challenges, petitions to the king and a constant conflict between the town’s ‘free barons’ (see below), the mayor, the corporation and the chamberlains of the town on one side and bailiffs and stewards acting on behalf of the Lord Abbot on the other. If Henry VIII’s charter of 1546 is correct in claiming that the dungeon (‘Le Gayle’) belonged to the Abbey, the presence of such a large and strongly built structure placed in the middle of the ‘Old Town’ (as opposed to ‘The New Town’ which grew up later around the Abbey some 500m to the north) indicates that the Abbey bailiffs had a ready means of punishing any infractions of the Abbey’s rule. The dungeon may also have represented a powerful statement of the Abbey’s power, probably during the period of its dominance, up to about 1270, beyond which time the Abbey had fallen into ‘an abject state of poverty’ and was ‘greatly indebted’ (Hasted 1798, 326). However, it is important to note that, from about 1250, the town of Faversham lay ‘within the limits and liberties of the Cinque ports, and a member of the town of Dover’ (Hasted 1798, 318). From then onward it did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Abbey, which applied only to the Hundred of Faversham (see below). The Abbey would therefore have had no right to build a dungeon there after that approximate date, despite the claim that it belonged to the Abbey made in the Henrician charter of 1546. In this regard, and given that the Cinque Ports only received Royal Charters ‘giving them wide and valuable privileges’ some 100 years after the abbey’s foundation (Wilson 1963, 4), it seems probable that the dungeon was built sometime between 1150 and 1250, when the Abbey held sway over the town and before the town was ‘made a separate jurisdiction from this hundred’ (Hasted 1798, 318). The poverty of the Abbey during the mid thirteenth century appears only to have increased the avidity with which it sought to profit from the town, which was neither poor nor compliant. The Abbey successfully sued Faversham Corporation for five hundred marks, a huge sum at the time, ‘for contemptuously exercising certain regal liberties’ (Jacob 1774, 9) during the reign of Edward I (1272-1307); the sum valued as about £1,000 in 1774, with one mark equalling 13s. 4d. (Dane 1968, 5). It was stated that this sum ‘affords … a considerable evidence of the wealth of the place at the time’ (Jacob 1774, 9). Jacob goes on to say: In the succeeding reigns, the same imperious and litigious disposition of these religious men seized every opportunity of depressing the town, as by obliging them to compound [pay tax] for exposing their wares at market and for gavelcestre [a fine paid for every brewing] and such like: these claims were spiritedly opposed by the townsmen, but never with impunity. In fact, as previously discussed, the wealthier townsfolk of Faversham were in a RESEARCH NOTES 268 relatively strong position to withstand the impositions of the Abbey, as they were ‘free barons’ of the Cinque Ports: the town and part of the parish of Faversham has long since been made a separate jurisdiction from this hundred [the Hundred of Faversham being in the Lordship of the Abbey] … and having its own constables and officers, under the jurisdiction of its own justices (Hasted 1798, 318). As Wilson (1963, 7) writes: In about 100 years from the founding of the Abbey the [Cinque] Ports had received Royal Charters and valuable privileges. Faversham, which had at least from the time of Edward the Confessor, made contribution to coastal defence, made haste to … get a weapon for use in their conflict with the Abbot, whose jurisdiction in secular matters the free Barons resented ... A similar factor in encouraging defiance of the Abbey’s authority may well have been the Company or Fraternity of Free Fishermen, the members of which were tenants of the Abbey but who worked the oyster fishery from about 1205 as freemen, not as feudal vassals (Wilson 1963, 7). It should be noted here that many royal and Parliamentary statutes and ordinances were framed against beggars, vagrants, peasants out of bond and other outlaws (those without the protection of the law) during the thirteenth and fourteenth century, when ‘feiters (idlers) and vagrants’ overran the country ‘more abundantly than they were formally accustomed’ (Jusserand 1912, 265, quoting from Statute 7, Richard II, cap. 5). It is therefore entirely possible that the dungeon at Faversham was built by the Abbey but with the agreement of the townsfolk and/or Corporation as a means of dealing with the threat by runaway serfs, vagabonds and ‘sturdy beggars’ to medieval law and order. Conclusions The discovery of part of a substantial, deep and possibly circular subterranean structure in the centre of Faversham is an important and fascinating addition to the already rich history of the town, especially as it can be identified with a high degree of confidence with ‘Le Gayle’ mentioned in Henry VIII’s charter of 1546, and the ‘dungeon several feet in depth’ and the ‘dungeon or deep hole covered with strong wooden bars’ mentioned in the Town Books of Faversham (see Harrington and Hyde 2008). The fabric of the structure investigated during the groundworks, along with its curved shape in plan, strongly suggest a medieval date of construction for the dungeon, with the results of the documentary research presented above suggesting it was built some time between 1147 and about 1250. However, it is proposed here that the identity of the building(s) on the site has been somewhat confused by the indiscriminate use of the terms ‘gaol’ and ‘cage’ in the Town Books of Faversham and Jacob’s History of the Town and Port of Faversham (1774). Early statements in the Town Books refer to two rooms erected in 1545-6 ‘over the Whitehouse Gaol and Cage, to create a new Guildhall and Freeman’s rooms’, indicating that two structures, a gaol and a cage, already occupied the site, with both being used RESEARCH NOTES 269 for incarceration and one presumably being the dungeon. It should be noted that the term ‘cage’ was probably more suggestive of a subterranean prison in medieval English parlance, being derived via Italian and French from the Latin for a dungeon, cell or similar: ‘F[rench]. cage (= It. Gaggia) :- late L. *cavja:- L. cavea hollow, cavity, dungeon, cell, cage …’ (reference from the Oxford English Dictionary supplied by Duncan Harrington via the late Dr Arthur Percival). The use of the word with this meaning may have been clearer during the Middle Ages given the common use of Latin in powerful medieval religious institutions such as Faversham Abbey. Crow’s description (1855) of the second Faversham Town Hall contains the following: ‘hard by stood the grim old Gaol with its rough-hewn planks and clubheaded nails with a Town Hall over it; in the yard was a dungeon several feet in depth, covered with strong grating’ and ‘the exterior of the building was of rude oaken planks; the court at the back contained a dungeon or deep hole covered with strong wooden bars’. Again, the presence of two buildings, one a dungeon, the other an adjacent above-ground gaol, is indicated, with the dungeon referred to almost certainly being represented by the section of curved wall discovered during the present archaeological work. The Faversham Institute Monthly Journal (January 1899, Vol. 13, 132), quoting from a Town Book, states that ‘the Cage’ was removed in 1663, suggesting that the dungeon’s roof and/or superstructure may have been destroyed and the dungeon backfilled at that time. The adjacent aboveground building, originally used as a gaol but subsequently put to many other uses, is reliably reported to have been demolished in 1791 (Wilson 1963, 8). It is tempting to interpret the presence of a substantial medieval dungeon built by the Abbey in the centre of Faversham ‘Old Town’ as part of an attempt to intimidate the townsfolk, given the history of animosity that characterised the relationship of the Abbey with the town. Indeed, on becoming members of the Cinque port of Dover, and therefore no longer subject to the rule of the Abbey, the wealthier townsfolk received rights and liberties as ‘free barons’ and were quick to designate one of their number (Robert Dod) as mayor, much to the anger of the Abbot, who, in 1256, petitioned the king, complaining that ‘All the town except five persons, conspiring against their Abbot, their Lord, had made them an alderman, whom they now call Mayor’ (Dane 1968, 4). However, as discussed above, the town only fell within the jurisdiction of the Abbey before about 1250 and, assuming that the Henrician charter is correct in attributing the dungeon to the Abbey, it was probably built some time between 1148 (the founding date of the Abbey) and 1250, its function being either to intimidate and punish unruly townsfolk or to incarcerate beggars, vagabonds and peasants out of bond or, most likely, both. The documentary evidence also clearly indicates the continued use of a building on the site by the town’s secular authorities as a gaol until 1663, when ‘the Cage’ was removed. Acknowledgements The writer would like to acknowledge the valuable advice and much information provided by the late Arthur Percival of the Faversham Society; and to thank Peter Tann for his astute observations on the relationship of the town with the Abbey and RESEARCH NOTES 270 his important identification of the reference to ‘Le Gayle’ in the 1546 charter of Henry VIII (discussed in detail in his recently published book The Royal Charters of Faversham). Thanks are also extended to South East Water for their support and consistently responsible attitude to the historic heritage, and also to the operatives of Clancy Docra, the Contractors on this scheme, for their unfailing co-operation and assistance. tim allen Crow, J., ‘Historical Gleanings’, published in instalments in the Faversham Institute Journal, Vols XII-XV, written between 1855 and 1861. Dane, H., 1968, A Thousand Years of Faversham’s History (About Faversham No. 5). Giraud and Donne, 1876, Faversham Guide. Harrington, D. and Hyde, P., 2008, The Early Town Books of Faversham c. 1251 to 1581. Hasted, E., 1798, Historical and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, V. Jacob, E., 1774, History of the Town and Port of Faversham, in the County of Kent. Jusserand, J.J., 1912, English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages. Smith, L., 1974, Stories of Faversham. Tann, P., 2013, The Royal Charters of Faversham. Wilson, S., 1963, Faversham, the King’s Port.